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Early Remote Work Impacts on Family Formation

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Re: Early Remote Work Impacts on Family Formation

#61

Post by lotsofpulp »

omnibrain wrote: post #37

I switched our whole company switched to remote back in march 2020; I became a father in 2022 and have no intention to ever switch back to the daily commute. I was there for everything so far. But it's not only what I would have missed out on, but also there are so many situations with a baby where it is useful to have a second set of hands. I don't want to imagine what my wife would have had to endure, if I left her…

>but also there are so many situations with a baby where it is useful to have a second set of hands. I don't want to imagine what my wife would have had to endure, if I left her alone the whole day.

The idea of even just two adults raising a baby/toddler all by themselves is a very modern phenomena, in only certain parts of the world. The norm was probably a village like setting where many families are raising many kids all at the same time, and the 1:1 intense mother/child coverage was only during the first year. Otherwise, there would be grandparents, aunts, uncles, neighbors, and a chain of children from young to old who could help with raising the child.

Re: Early Remote Work Impacts on Family Formation

#62

Post by tyoma »

iso1631 wrote: post #7
noelwelsh wrote: post #2

My kids were born well before the pandemic, but, as remote worker, being able to hang out at home with them has been great[^1] I'm much more involved in their life than I would be if I was getting home at 6pm+ every evening. [^1]: Once they were old enough they didn't need constant supervision. Trying to work from home with a toddler was a nightmare.

> Once they were old enough they didn't need constant supervision. Trying to work from home with a toddler was a nightmare. That's odd, I had no problem with working from home with toddlers, but I wasn't trying to do two full time jobs, on any given day either I was dedicated to looking after the kids or my partner was. Looking after a toddler is a full time job.

Every child and office setup is different. Like the OP I find it incredibly difficult to work from home with kids around. It is actually more difficult when they are more independent, as they can show up at your office area and demand to be entertained and find new and innovative ways to get your attention.

Re: Early Remote Work Impacts on Family Formation

#63

Post by lynx23 »

the_gipsy wrote: post #46
lynx23 wrote: post #33

If the pandemic has demonstrated one thing, it is that I don't want to work in an environment where almost everyone is remote. It has become very clear that WFH workers take extra time off at random intervals during a day, and are typically hard to reach if you need to talk to them. Also, the smaller the children, the more likely it is they are subtly unavailable during work time. This is not acceptable, even though…

First off, there is a huge difference in being 100% available and not outputting work. They are not exclusive. I WFH with people with babies and kids and they absolutely exceed expectations. Second, people in office can be just as unavailable or unproductive as from home. There are a million ways to slack off or be intermittently absent. Third, it's a matter of gender equality too. If the childcare is split 50% then…

I expected just as much. So, gender "equality" of the spouse of my coworker is reason enough for my coworker to slack off, and me being coerced into keeping my mouth shut? No. People can demand things like that, but I am not playing that sort of game for them.

Your first two points are both ireelevant to me, because "can be" doesn't help in my daily work. All that counts, in this subjective report of mine, is my experience. And I tell you, WFH is less productive when it comes to working in a team, period.

Re: Early Remote Work Impacts on Family Formation

#64

Post by nextlevelwizard »

rob74 wrote: post #49
nextlevelwizard wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just like with everything else nothing is universal. My team and I are again dipping our toes to office and our office day is by far most productive day of the week for us. Only problem is that we transitioned to "open smart office" over the pandemic, so we no longer have personal desks. However that too should be resolved by Q4 as renovations come to and end and hopefully we can carve out our own space again.

That's all good, as long as you are free to choose the way of working that is best for you and your team. What I am talking about is companies mandating e.g. 3 office days per week for everyone , even if for some it makes no sense at all (neither business-wise nor personally).

I personally do not see an issue with 3 office day mandate. Your job probably isn't so solitary that you don't need other people at all and at the office you get a lot of micro interactions that you wouldn't get otherwise. Just think when was the last time you randomly ran into a guy from the next department while getting coffee and you were just chit-chatting and one of you brought up a topic that helped the other?

Yes, that doesn't happen daily to every one, but it happens quite often when you have 100+ people under same roof. You still have 2 days a week you can spend at home.

EDIT: As a bit tangential question: would you be willing to take a pay cut to keep 100% remote? If not would you be fine with people receiving a "office worker bonus" based on days worked at the office?

Re: Early Remote Work Impacts on Family Formation

#65

Post by XorNot »

drekipus wrote: post #5

I had my firstborn from my new fully WFH job, in the middle/tailend of the pandemic. It has totally been a blast having the little one around. I work in my living area which is open plan into my kitchen, so I get to see her learning how to eat out of the corner of my eyes when I'm in work meetings, etc. My personal suggestion: if you're working from home with children, don't try and seperate and go into the study; do…

Yep this is what I ended up doing too (and am still doing). I have a separate study room I was going to move into, but until it's completely necessary I'm not going to.

Re: Early Remote Work Impacts on Family Formation

#66

Post by falcor84 »

drekipus wrote: post #5

I had my firstborn from my new fully WFH job, in the middle/tailend of the pandemic. It has totally been a blast having the little one around. I work in my living area which is open plan into my kitchen, so I get to see her learning how to eat out of the corner of my eyes when I'm in work meetings, etc. My personal suggestion: if you're working from home with children, don't try and seperate and go into the study; do…

My mileage varies a lot. I suppose it has to do with how each person's executive functions are wired, but personally, I absolutely cannot get into deep work while family stuff is going around in the same physical space.

Re: Early Remote Work Impacts on Family Formation

#67

Post by lynx23 »

dreadnip wrote: post #43
lynx23 wrote: post #33

If the pandemic has demonstrated one thing, it is that I don't want to work in an environment where almost everyone is remote. It has become very clear that WFH workers take extra time off at random intervals during a day, and are typically hard to reach if you need to talk to them. Also, the smaller the children, the more likely it is they are subtly unavailable during work time. This is not acceptable, even though…

> This is not acceptable Why? I'm a software engineer working in an agency and I work exactly like you're describing. If I feel like going on a run, I'll mark myself as AFK and go on a run. If I feel like closing my laptop at 3 and go shopping, I'll work later in the day when I'm not busy. I still deliver on my deadlines and contribute more to the company than most colleagues. If you ping me on my phone I'll probably…

I am not a dev. I need to coordinate with my coworkers during the day. And since we dont have documentation for every miniscule step a team mate performs, we need to actually talk to each other from time to time.

I am sure as a dev, with sufficiently large work packages, WFH is just a breeze. But not in my job.

Re: Early Remote Work Impacts on Family Formation

#68

Post by brabel »

VBprogrammer wrote: post #41
Simon_O_Rourke wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well said! Did you ever in that time get any pushback from an overzealous boss about going back to the office?

I've been remote since our youngest turned 1 year old due to the pandemic. I honestly can't imagine what life would have been like otherwise. The year I spent before that I was lucky to see her at all during a day. She wasn't awake before I left (except for the inevitable screaming during the night) and we kept her up late so I could feed her a bottle before she went to bed. I think it's a huge win for equality and f…

> I think it's a huge win for equality and family life

Hm, where I live, both parents take roughly the same amount of parent leave (around 240 working days each in total - minimum 90 days for each) from work regardless of whether they work at home or anything else. That's what I would call equality.

Re: Early Remote Work Impacts on Family Formation

#69

Post by falcor84 »

sokoloff wrote: post #10
Lolaccount wrote: post #4

Elon Musk: "Get back to the office, we're going to prove we're badass by going through productivity hell!" Elon Musk: "Population rates are collapsing and it's a crisis we need to address!" EIG: https://eig.org/remote-work-family-formation/ Billionaires should be banned from speaking on anything other than their areas of expertise. They get an outsized platform to spout absolute nonsense on topics outside their core…

I will defend the freedom of speech for literal Nazis, even though I don’t want to hear Nazi speech. I think it’s fair to estimate that policy is extraordinarily unlikely to be enacted in the US.

Well, I would argue that a good balance is to hear people out regardless of whether they are "literal Nazis", but reject "Nazi speech" (such as advocating for racial violence) regardless of who is spouting it.

Re: Early Remote Work Impacts on Family Formation

#70

Post by tyoma »

jossclimb wrote: post #12

I have been remote for 11 years now and have two children 9 and 12. I can't imagine what it would have been like if I had spent the week out commuting between the hours of 7am to 7pm, we would have lost out on so much bonding time with their daddy being an integral part of their life. I managed to be highly productive, build a career, yet be there for bath times, tucking into bed, school plays / sports days, nursing…

I’ve also been working from home and very glad to have been there for my kids when they are young, but highly productive are not two words I’d use to describe the experience.

I guess my time management and prioritization skill have improved by necessity, but the lack of uninterrupted quiet time is real.

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