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Nearly 40% of software engineers will only work remotely

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Re: Nearly 40% of software engineers will only work remotely

#101

Post by mschuster91 »

Hackbraten wrote: post #72
prmoustache wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is more for the commuting in and out of school that it helps. My kids could walk back from school but primary school do not allows them to get out without me. This is kind of stupid as I would sign a waiver if they wanted it but they won't. So until they both reach what you call high school in the USA I have to go to the primary school and back every day. The most funny thing is sometimes I go there by bicycle, le…

> primary school do not allows them to get out without me Please tell me you’re joking.

The inevitable result of three things:

1. an absurdly car-friendly society that prioritizes cars well above everyone else - basically, parents have to pick up their children in cars because there is no reasonable pedestrian infrastructure to allow them a safe walking home.

2. a truckload of busybodies ("Karens") that call CPS on children wandering alone - Utah had to pass a law in 2018 [1] to cut down on that crap and other US states are following suit. Unfortunately, in states without that explicit carve-out, schools can be cited for neglect as well.

3. US healthcare being absolutely rotten to the core, which means that should a child get injured on the way from the school home, their health insurance will try to pass the bucket down to somewhere else, and the first obvious thing is to attempt to sue the school because they were the last ones in custody of the child. As a result, schools introduce such policies because the second the child is in custody of the parent, the school is no longer liable for anything and the insurance can go and stuff its claims.

[1] https://www.npr.org/2018/04/01/598630200/utah-passes-free-ra...

Re: Nearly 40% of software engineers will only work remotely

#102

Post by levidos »

I have the best of both worlds as an introvert - moved to a low COL city as my job is fully remote and rented a 15 m2 private office in a local office building for £230/month, that's 10 minutes away. This way I shield myself from family distractions during work hours. My productivity has never been this high.

Re: Nearly 40% of software engineers will only work remotely

#103

Post by TheGigaChad »

dustedcodes wrote: post #94
nextlevelwizard wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Being able to look after your offspring is great! This is a big no and main reason why I am against WFH. Here in Finland we have ample maternity leave and pretty good paternity leave as well, so why in the fuck are we allowing these new fathers to "work" from home while looking after the kid? The mother has maternity leave precisely so she can take care of the kid(s), she should be doing it for the 8 hours you are w…

> cheap & healthy food prepared by someone else For me it's the opposite. Food outside of home means it's low quality food in comparison to the fresh organic produce which we buy locally and my wife and myself have had freshly cooked food all our lives so we really value fresh home made delicious food rather than having a burger or some other rubbish outside. - good coffee prepared by someone else / machine Again, th…

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Re: Nearly 40% of software engineers will only work remotely

#104

Post by silisili »

kagaw wrote: post #89

While in poorer country, here in the Philippines, we don't have an option to WFH if our company is under PEZA https://business.inquirer.net/378811/hundreds-of-bpos-with-w... The government reason to return to office is to boost the economy.

This one I just don't get. Never seen traffic like Manila traffic, it's not like people WFH would even put a dent in it.

I guess BongBong doesn't have all the gold he pretended to have after all. Sorry mate.

Re: Nearly 40% of software engineers will only work remotely

#105

Post by denvrede »

thejackgoode wrote: post #5
dt3ft wrote: post #2

Why would I commute (and in doing so lose 2 hours of my time per day)? Focusing in the office is next to impossible, the equipment is sub-par (I have a 3-monitor setup at home)? What is it about software engineering that requires physical presence? Currently we meet once a week in the office and I get almost no work done that day, and I’m not the only one.

I do mostly remote work, but there’s advantages to physical presence. First, offline is a more rich channel for communication. Blunt analogy is an audio vs video meeting. It’s easier to explain and understand people. If you have a lot of uncertainty and things changing fast, you want this. Secondly, it brings people together. I myself found this argument BS, but I found out it really depends on the team. I am looking…

It depends not only on the own team but also the other teams you collaborate with or provide service for.

We're a small "DevOps" team that provides all kind of services but we figured out that people in our company (it's a small startup) just don't come to us virtually if they need something or want a second opinion.

So we said we'll come into office once a week on a specific day and that day they can approach us with everything. Of course it hasn't changed behavior of everyone but that day we have more interactions with all kind of colleagues than the rest of the remote days combined.

Re: Nearly 40% of software engineers will only work remotely

#107

Post by TheGigaChad »

whateveracct wrote: post #100

My wife and cats and soon to be children are more important than any coworker at a whiteboard ever could be. I'll be scrapping remotely sooner than I take a rich office job. My time is more valuable than your business ever could be.

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Re: Nearly 40% of software engineers will only work remotely

#108

Post by prmoustache »

vjk800 wrote: post #65
prmoustache wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can walk to a train station in 5 minutes, then socialized with your train friends for half an hour to 45 minutes or read a book. Or if you commute by walking, cycling and running and it is considered your daily physical activity, it is fine. If you spend your time running to a bus stop, not being able to do anything in the bus because it is crowded and bouncy, then have to catch a train, that is also full then…

Who the hell has train friends?

I made friends when I was commuting by train in Switzerland.

The first weeks you ignore people. Sometimes you start talking because of a special event, an unexpected halt, whatever. First friend I did was a cyclist like me so we were bumping into each other when hanging our bicycles to the hook when entering the train and one day he complimented me on my bicycle and then we started talking. Second one is a girl I was seeing most of the time because we were kind of looking for the less busy cars at the end of the lane every morning where most people are too lazy to walk to. She was sitting so straight and elegant one day I simply asked her if she was dancing ballet as most people who sit so well are dancers. It happened she wasn't but we started chatting and now we are friends. Another one I really started talking to because of another girl who was sitting at my side and who had intellectual developmental disability. That girl kept talking and talking, she was very funny, aware of her disability yet made fun of it saying it made her more entertaining and it was true and she was constantly making jokes about life, her and ourselves. I never met that person again but she made me and the woman sitting in front of me chatting about how good time we had talking to her afterwards that we ended up chatting for an hour and also became friends. These are the three I kept as friends and met outside of the commute context even years after we all stopped taking those trains and am still in touch with while living in another country. But I met other people I would bump into once in a while, whom I exchanged numbers and we would chat a bit every time we met.

It takes a bit of time usually and you don't get to be friend with a complete car but if you take the very same commute daily for months you eventually find out that you can bound with one or two people that share part of the journey.

Re: Nearly 40% of software engineers will only work remotely

#109

Post by saiya-jin »

nextlevelwizard wrote: post #83
dijit wrote: post #11

While everyone has their preferences I find myself hating the office a lot less than I used to these days. (and I was very vocal about hating the office pre-covid[0]) However, some things of note: 1) My "Office" (not home) is not an "Open Office", it's a place where I can reasonably sit in peace and have control of my surroundings (this is something not afforded to most people in offices, and something that work from…

>Being able to look after your offspring is great! This is a big no and main reason why I am against WFH. Here in Finland we have ample maternity leave and pretty good paternity leave as well, so why in the fuck are we allowing these new fathers to "work" from home while looking after the kid? The mother has maternity leave precisely so she can take care of the kid(s), she should be doing it for the 8 hours you are w…

Nope. You realize that kids need and beg for endless amount of attention from parents long after maternity/paternity leave ends, even in Finland. Its clear from your post you don't have much experience with being around small kids for longer time. Unless you plan to subsidize everybody's maternity leave till kids are teens, then leave is just bare minimum, even at 1 year, heck even at 3 as its back home.

In fact, first half year/year are by far the easiest months in incoming years when you look back, just tons of sleeping, no teething. If parents complain during this phase its usually due to this being first child so they are still learning, or child is non-standard.

Its great if you like being in the office, a lot of lonely or career-oriented people I talked to feel the same, and there are some nice perks to be had. Most of what you describe is just matter of a bit of discipline, which is a skill most people these days are rather lacking, not bad to train that a bit. Ie if you like that somebody cooks for you and does your coffee, for sure work is not the only place to get it, not even in Finland, heck get it delivered home if you are so lazy that you don't want to clear snow to go to gym (which is TBH ridiculous if you think about it).

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