Paul Graham on Remote Work
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Paul Graham on Remote Work
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Re: Paul Graham on Remote Work
#2Why can’t “employees like it” ever count for anything?
Re: Paul Graham on Remote Work
#3No one wants to point out the super obvious elephant in the room: remote work works worse and worse over time because more and more people realise they can scam their employers. Too many people work for 3-4 full time employers at once (and many solved all their money issues and even saved for retirement in these short 3 years, this way, without changing the nature of work they do).
There are only two reasons why employees may like remote work. "You can slack off easier because the boss isn't looking", and "you can make 3-4x more money". These go hand in hand because as productivity falls so do the expectations and one who doesn't want to make more by scamming, can simply slack off more and get away with it easily.
Re: Paul Graham on Remote Work
#4No one wants to point out the super obvious elephant in the room: remote work works worse and worse over time because more and more people realise they can scam their employers. Too many people work for 3-4 full time employers at once (and many solved all their money issues and even saved for retirement in these short 3 years, this way, without changing the nature of work they do). There are only two reasons why empl…
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Re: Paul Graham on Remote Work
#5No one wants to point out the super obvious elephant in the room: remote work works worse and worse over time because more and more people realise they can scam their employers. Too many people work for 3-4 full time employers at once (and many solved all their money issues and even saved for retirement in these short 3 years, this way, without changing the nature of work they do). There are only two reasons why empl…
at scale, all endevours between people invite this kind of risk. Shops routinely have to deal with 1-5% lossage of stock for reasons that might be customers or staff, or both. Some employers wind up doing a-social things like videoing staff and intrusive body searches (Amazon, South African gold mines) and others reward their staff so the motivation to petty fraud is less than the benefits of being well paid.
You write as if this "elephant" is "it" for all time, for all remote workers. It's not, because there has been (and will continue to be) a cohort of remote workers from before Covid, who realise there is a cost/benefit here, and who do not commit fraud, they just work from home at the intensity they work and their employer is just fine with that
Sure, sending everyone home, and then wanting them to come back highlighted that people who aren't self selected up front to WFH include a cohort who cheat. So what? They probably cheat in other ways at their desk.
SOME remote work works worse and worse over time because SOME people realise they can scam their employers. But, what % it is, against overall work-life rebalancing, value for money, increased work time because of not spending time commuting, reduction in other costs (ok, dealing with sunk cost in the office is an issue) .. It's nothing like as elephant-in-the-room as you think it is.
No, one of the elephants in the room is that a fucktonne of Management KPI are built around offices, and the people who demand return to office want to return to achieving those KPI. And, a fucktonne of corporate future profit and tax offset is predicated on property retaining its value and those office blocks are dropping like stones in a deep pond: Thats why Google and Salesforce both unloaded huge property investments (rental or lease) recently.
Managers and CEOs and Boards want return to office because they have "REI-ified" beliefs around the nature of work and the value of office work, and they have set deliverables which will make them personally wealthy by achieving this.
Its not dissimmilar to the mass firings: there was no across the board need to shed 10% of staff. It was a KPI which benefited a cohort of managers and CEOs. Thats all (in my opinion)
Workers and Bosses are always in tension. The factory model was designed to increase production at the expense of craft work done in the home by weavers and spinners. Was the "product" better? For some things yes, but for others no: it was about profit extraction, Taylorism, and hourly rates.
Re: Paul Graham on Remote Work
#6No one wants to point out the super obvious elephant in the room: remote work works worse and worse over time because more and more people realise they can scam their employers. Too many people work for 3-4 full time employers at once (and many solved all their money issues and even saved for retirement in these short 3 years, this way, without changing the nature of work they do). There are only two reasons why empl…
This is simply assigning remote work an outcome that happens all the time in office, and I think more often because in person there are fewer discussions about explicit deliverables or milestones.
Re: Paul Graham on Remote Work
#7No one wants to point out the super obvious elephant in the room: remote work works worse and worse over time because more and more people realise they can scam their employers. Too many people work for 3-4 full time employers at once (and many solved all their money issues and even saved for retirement in these short 3 years, this way, without changing the nature of work they do). There are only two reasons why empl…
Having worked over 25 years in offices, I can assure you: being in an office was never a means to prevent people slacking off to extreme degrees. We had plenty of dead weight that contributed nothing even when we were all sitting in our silly little cubes or open office plan dystopia.
I also think you vastly over estimate the number of people who are willing to commit fraud to make more money.
Re: Paul Graham on Remote Work
#8Paul,
Do you commute to an office every day, sit at a desk in a 4 person shared cubicle, have monthly "performance reviews" by someone unqualified to manage your subject area, have to deal with 3 children's weekly scheduled school-caused sickness, own an old car and only 1 so it is out of service when it needs repair?
I worked from home for years ... scratch that, I "lived at work" while at home for years. If you believe that getting your work done on time only during 9-5 then you've never had to deal with after-hours emails demanding results by the next morning.
Take a job that requires a 1-hour "10 minute standup" every morning at 8:30am so it "doesn't impact the work day". Take a job that needs at least a week to complete with no external progress (e.g. programming) and listen to the constant requirement for "progress updates". Note how there is a built-in assumption that because you're home you're slacking.
Fight through heavy snow or rain, struggle to find a parking space, find out there is no coffee in the break room, that only 1 of 3 toilets are working, that the internet connection is down, and your other 3 cube-mates are all loudly sick of something "going around in the office".
Sure. Go ahead. Assume the worst of your employees. Like children, make sure you can see them at all times.
Re: Paul Graham on Remote Work
#9Paul, Do you commute to an office every day, sit at a desk in a 4 person shared cubicle, have monthly "performance reviews" by someone unqualified to manage your subject area, have to deal with 3 children's weekly scheduled school-caused sickness, own an old car and only 1 so it is out of service when it needs repair? I worked from home for years ... scratch that, I "lived at work" while at home for years. If you bel…
We have to face realities. It's obvious that companies have found that working from home negatively affects productivity. Companies are all about saving money and maximizing productivity. If working from home had been at an even level, or even a bit less, to working from the office then they would had chosen it over having people go into the office since maintaining an office, and all that goes with it, is very expensive.
Yes, some of us tried hard to make it work but like always there was a minority that probably did not and now we all have to pay for it.
At this point, the best we can hope for is a hybrid work schedule. It's not what we want or wish for but, if we are lucky, it's what we can get.
Re: Paul Graham on Remote Work
#10The biggest loss from homeworking is the learning element for newer or more junior staff. Many of the learn the job by watching, listening or being shown in person. You can still do it remotely but it's way more difficult. The benefits of bouncing ideas off one another is also gone, that can affect creativity. Talking to each other, arguin, breaking down ideas or processes, drawing quick diagrams or knocking up a prototype. Most of that spontaneity is gone and for a company that tells on innovation it's a huge loss. The other important thing lost is the personal development of the employee. The social interaction with others. Having to deal with people and learning, changing adapting any really be done online. If you're an introvert, WFH is perfect for you and you'll never change.
Clearly there are benefits, especially for people with families,or a long commute. Hiring is also made easier.
I don't think a blanket return to work is what's needed, a more targeted appropriate one might be though, identify who's presence is required and pay them commensurately to be in the office. Working from home gets you less but you get the flexibility.