Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Early Remote Work Impacts on Family Formation

eig.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 267 posts

Re: Early Remote Work Impacts on Family Formation

#171

Post by tra3 »

Robotbeat wrote: post #138

I’m a big remote work skeptic, but this is persuasive to me. Part of the reason I don’t remote work is because I’m unable to focus very well on remote work in a crowded household with small children… I would inevitably be doing more parenting when I should be working. But while that might be bad for work, it’s good for family… (my commute is only 15 minutes, so a lot of the other arguments here don’t really apply. It…

That's a fair criticism. I have the same problem when my kids are home and not at school. Are you able to focus in the office? I feel like most offices are very similar to being at home with small kids in terms of noise levels and interruptions.

Re: Early Remote Work Impacts on Family Formation

#172

Post by bt4u »

fnordpiglet wrote: post #168
fatnoah wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 I can, because I lived that life. My wife and I moved from 1 bedroom apartment in the city to a house in a suburb ("only" 10 miles away) and the only time during the week I was able to spend much time with my child was 7am-8:30am before school. By the time I got home, he was going to bed. Generally, on…

Now imagine if you had been able to have it all, the only cost being management not being able to see your bag of mostly carbon water physically respirate. I love having a house and yard, and never having to pollute the environment to shift my bag of carbon water to do the same work worse somewhere less adapted to my being. There will come a time when passions die about RTO and companies stop paying for real estate s…

[dead]

Re: Early Remote Work Impacts on Family Formation

#173

Post by ghaff »

teekert wrote: post #36

Damn I love wfh. At some point my manager told me to not express my positive emotions so much because many people hated it, but man I loved it. My wife was studying so she was also at home, with the kids (then 4 and 8). Suddenly I could have breakfast with them, lunch, dinner, go for a walk with the kids and the dog in the middle of the day for an hour. And now I still mostly wfh. Still loving it. Going to office 1-2…

At one point, I had about a 1.5 hr. commute each way on maybe 50% of days on average. Even though I could generally take the train for most of the commute, that just wasn't sustainable long-term. Too much time out of the day.

Re: Early Remote Work Impacts on Family Formation

#174

Post by swsieber »

dahfizz wrote: post #160
WWLink wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes it is and you're sounding like a condescending asshole by denying it.

The majority of Americans commute less than 30 minutes. How is something the majority of people have "extreme privilege"? The idea of a 2 hour commute each way to be gone from 7am to 7pm is a complete fantasy.

You got me curious about the stats. For one way commute time the mean is 27.6 minutes, and only 22% spend more than 30 minutes.

I'd be more interested in median commute time though.

https://www.zippia.com/advice/average-commute-time-statistic...

Edit: this has an interactive map of bad commute hotspots! https://www.ridester.com/average-us-commute/

Re: Early Remote Work Impacts on Family Formation

#175

Post by okeuro49 »

fatnoah wrote: post #162
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 can't imagine what it would have been like if I had spent the week out commuting between the hours of 7am to 7pm I can, because I lived that life. My wife and I moved from 1 bedroom apartment in the city to a house in a suburb ("only" 10 miles away) and the only time during the week I was able to spend much time with my child was 7am-8:30am before school. By the time I got home, he was going to bed. Generally, on…

> suburb ("only" 10 miles away)

This is odd to me. This is not a long distance. Is there zero transport infrastructure where you live?

Re: Early Remote Work Impacts on Family Formation

#176

Post by plussed_reader »

okeuro49 wrote: post #175
fatnoah wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 I can, because I lived that life. My wife and I moved from 1 bedroom apartment in the city to a house in a suburb ("only" 10 miles away) and the only time during the week I was able to spend much time with my child was 7am-8:30am before school. By the time I got home, he was going to bed. Generally, on…

> suburb ("only" 10 miles away) This is odd to me. This is not a long distance. Is there zero transport infrastructure where you live?

Public transport vs single unit transport usually incurs a 80-200% time penalty in most US scenarios.

Some of the more dense urban areas(US Northeast and west coast population hubs) have somewhat effective transport in the locality but due to living where it's affordable most workers who would want to leverage this have problematic commutes crossing multiple travel systems. Things change from county to county and city to city.

Look at the cluster that is determining where the California High Speed train corridor will stop along the way and the complications from interests and that. Same story, different protagonist and perspective.

Re: Early Remote Work Impacts on Family Formation

#177

Post by Der_Einzige »

passwordoops wrote: post #47

This is all true, and I do feel very lucky to have a WFH arrangement, but I always think of the people who have jobs that cannot be remote - hospital, care takers, teachers (right now). Most are carried out by women, earning low wages, doing what's been termed "essential" work. There is a definite bifurcation between the (generally upper) laptop class and the (generally lower) caretaker class. I'm not sure what the s…

Don't worry, AI is gonna kill that biforcation in about 2 years. It'll be the other way around.

Re: Early Remote Work Impacts on Family Formation

#178

Post by sharadov »

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…

6 years remote now and similar experience as yours - I get to spend time with my kids - play with them, take them to classes, help with homework, at the same time able to eat healthy, work out and have a more focussed and disciplined life. Never going back to the office full time - would like a hybrid role since I feel that is the best of both worlds.

Re: Early Remote Work Impacts on Family Formation

#179

Post by yamtaddle »

tyoma wrote: post #136
Draiken wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure maybe having kids around might sometimes affect your productivity, but how is that any different than being in an open office? Phone calls, people talking around you, movement everywhere, unwanted taps on your shoulder and a lot more. Unless your job provides you with a closed office where you can actually focus on, it's pretty much the same as having kids around. When I worked in an office I remember the most p…

I’ve worked at an open office and its nothing alike, at least with young kids. There’s screaming and crying, if your help is needed, it needs to be right now , kids wont take no for an answer, etc. When I was in an open office, people generally kept a reasonable background volume my brain could tune out. As adults, they respected my answers the first time, and certainly no one screamed at me.

I've definitely worked in small open offices or team rooms that were a lot more productive than being at home with a kid.

But the one most-of-a-floor-of-a-highrise open office I worked in, for a "more mature" company than the little startups I usually work for... that was a whole lot worse then even at-home-with-kids (and, not coincidentally, was the least "mature"/professional place I've ever worked, despite on-paper looking far more serious than other places I've worked).

I don't know how anyone got any work done there. I suspect their handful of fully-remote senior devs were doing most of the actual work. WFH with small kids would have been a big improvement.

Re: Early Remote Work Impacts on Family Formation

#180

Post by Der_Einzige »

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…

[flagged]
Post reply on HN