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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

#351

Post by 0xGod »

giancarlostoro wrote: post #265
akudha wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work for a non profit. After two years or letting everyone at home, this month they're forcing people to come to office at least twice a week. Not only that, anyone going to work has to book a desk in advance, otherwise they'll be sitting on the floor with their computer on their laps. This makes no difference to me personally, as I am a thousand miles away in another state, so I lucked out. I am still working from…

> otherwise they'll be sitting on the floor with their computer on their laps. Why bother showing up at that point.

Because they have no power and need the income to eat, and their despotic bosses know this.

What is happening right now with remote work is that we are seeing very clearly who actually does any work and who doesn’t. The people who don’t do any work are the ones who demand you be in an office hybrid setting or full return to office.

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

#352

Post by aledalgrande »

somewhat_drunk wrote: post #348
aledalgrande wrote: post #35

I do 100% remote work and will never go back. I'm lucky that the company I work at is remote first, so all processes are optimized for it. I get 90 days a year to work from other countries too, this year I stayed in Barbados for 4 weeks (it was an amazing experience) while I championed a project with a public release date (work still gets done). I have a routine with walks at lunch, exercise after work etc. I can shi…

This sounds great. Would you mind sharing the company name? Perhaps in a DM if not here?

https://www.fastcompany.com/90729862/shopify-exec-the-4-secr...

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

#353

Post by Hermitian909 »

okamiueru wrote: post #341
bradleyjg wrote: post #233

I think the debate here has grown pretty stale. There’s a lot of arguing about what’s right or wrong, when this isn’t really about right or wrong. There’s a factual question here about whether remote first companies are more, less, or equally competitive with office first companies. Anecdotes aren’t going to answer that question. Logical arguments aren’t going to answer that question. Passionate rants about pointy ha…

Anecdotal evidence does suggest this to be determined on a combination of the individual, and the task. If individuals are more productive, then the company as a whole must be more competitive? In my own case, if we say an ideal productivity output per day is 1 unit, that is 100% productive. Commuting to the office, office distractions, and general tiredness, I would put the hard limit at 50%. I've measured it, and t…

> If individuals are more productive, then the company as a whole must be more competitive?

This is only obviously true for rote work.

For more ambiguous knowledge work increasing task completion rate may make the company less competitive if the tasks are less aligned with the company strategy (ever seen a product became a tangled mess of half-broken features?). If you're mathemtically inclined, it's useful to model tasks as vectors adding to the company's vector of progress; the net result can be a reduction in progress if the task vector and company vector are misaligned.

Anecdotally, this misalignment is the what everyone at the middle management layer and above is worried about. You get to the end of the quarter and you realize that the work team A did was misaligned with the work from team B and now their shared business goal is shot. Many people's reaction to this line of thinking is "well that's management's fault" but, as the parent correctly calls out, that's beside the point. "Just hire more competent managers" is not something you can do en masse.

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

#354

Post by aaomidi »

precompute wrote: post #218
mattbgates wrote: post #114

I refuse to ever go back into an office again with my current job. A new job may convince me, but to be honest, I work better when I'm working from home. I'll just say that when you pay for a mortgage, and then you go somewhere for 8 or 9 hours a day, you're wasting your money. When you work from home, you're getting to experience the mortgage you're paying for and every dollar you spend matters. It changes your pers…

> https://confessionsoftheprofessions.com/lorem-ipsum-almost-g... Wow, it sounds like your bosses were really stupid.

This is what happens when MBAs become managers.

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

#355

Post by lotsoweiners »

seanp2k2 wrote: post #122
HPsquared wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it comes down to incentives. Traditionally the economic benefit of children was that they would basically work for you, including supporting you into old age. This made the enormous investment a lot more worthwhile. Also the childcare obligations were much less (a 12 year old could be pretty much self sufficient by working). With pensions, no child labour, etc, the trade-off is not like that any more in econo…

Who’s getting pensions these days? I doubt anyone under 50 right now will have much of a retirement to look forward to.

I’m under 50 and have one. Just about every government job does.

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

#356

Post by zainhoda »

mgaunard wrote: post #270

Working from home is a sham. It doesn't work. It's just a way to enable lazy people to keep on coasting. If you're dedicated to the job and want to be a team player, go to the office.

I think the fundamental issue is that there is a distribution: 1. “the coaster”: won’t do anything on their own initiative and needs to have a manager to get anything done 2. “the clock in, clock out”: they do the job for a full workday and don’t need supervision but they don’t go above and beyond 3. “the always on”: loves what they do and is always working and contributing. They may work weird hours like really early in the morning or really late at night. They use the saved commute time as an opportunity to get started earlier or work later

If your firm’s hiring process has inadvertently optimized for #1 then WFH will not work. If the firm has managed to find enough #3, then RTO will damage company productivity.

Ironically, the fact that Apple was able to make the migration from PowerPC to Intel back in the day was because they gave a #3 type employee a special exemption to WFH.

One of the things remote-first companies are going to need to do is to migrate from interviews that are centered around “what you know” to “show me you can get stuff done”

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

#357

Post by lotsoweiners »

ZiiS wrote: post #190

It is called an "Office" if you want to provide one I am happy to talk. If you want me to work in a noisy communal room I am happy to walk.

Agreed. I mostly work from home but on occasion if I go in (for some forces reason) i do absolutely no work. I chit chat, go on long walks, chit chat more, go on a long lunch, look at the internet a little and then leave early enough so that i am still home at the time I normally home when I WFH. Your tax dollars hard at work.

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

#358

Post by throwwwaway69 »

mattbgates wrote: post #114

I refuse to ever go back into an office again with my current job. A new job may convince me, but to be honest, I work better when I'm working from home. I'll just say that when you pay for a mortgage, and then you go somewhere for 8 or 9 hours a day, you're wasting your money. When you work from home, you're getting to experience the mortgage you're paying for and every dollar you spend matters. It changes your pers…

Re: Lorem

Your project manager sounds dumb, but Lorem Ipsum is a bad idea for development in general. It just confuses people, including clients, as you saw and wrote. Apps in staging should be seeded with real-looking information and text, and there are plenty of seeding libraries out there that do this. If you need to generate paragraphs of text, there is non-lorem text seeders that create real English paragraphs.

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

#359

Post by throwwwaway69 »

chatmasta wrote: post #238
SCdF wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. So I've been working for about fifteen years, had it from the start, but it just keep on getting worse. So now have migrated to a no keyboard solution, and am working on a no mouse solution. My setup, software: - talon ( https://talonvoice.com/ ), basing my configuration on the standard repo ( https://github.com/knausj85/knausj_talon/ ), with some minor modifications. This is how I navigate my whole computer, an…

Got any tips for a 30 year old who wants to prevent needing all this in the future? Wrist strength is something I never think about, but I'm sure it could sneak up on me one day.

The issue isn't a lack of strength if your wrists, it's over-use of of your wrist.

All you can really do is read up on ergonomics and make sure your setup follows best practices - ones backed by actual research. As SCdF said, take frequent breaks. Pay attention to your wrist and hands when they feel sore.

A couple of things that have worked for me:

1. Switch using your mouse to your non-dominant hand throughout the day. It sucks at first but you will get good pretty quick

2. Use the mouse as little as possible. For web browsing specifically there are good browser plugins that make keyboard nav pretty easy

3. I had a lot of success using an Xbox controller plugged into a computer as a mouse. One joystick to move the cursor, one for scrolling, buttons to emulate mouse clicks. This was good for something like web browsing where I wasn't typing a lot. Or reading documents. It felt a lot more ergonomic than a mouse, kept my wrists at a better angle, and for the most part only used my thumbs and not my wrist.

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

#360

Post by shswkna »

LastNevadan wrote: post #90
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…

Wow, the world has changed! I remember walking home from school by myself when I was in kindergarten.

I’ve often asked myself, what has changed that this is now a thing of the past?
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