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Paul Graham on Remote Work

finance.yahoo.com

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Re: Paul Graham on Remote Work

#41

Post by kramerger »

throwawaysleep wrote: post #34
WheelsAtLarge wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 expen…

> Companies are all about saving money and maximizing productivity. I have yet to hear any company even robustly define productivity for tech workers.

Characters per minute (CPM) according to the guy that tried to convert me to VI.

I kid you not.

Re: Paul Graham on Remote Work

#42

Post by anovikov »

dv_dt wrote: post #6
anovikov wrote: post #3

No 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.

Well, in the office most people can slack off, but can't work for two employers at once, or more - that will surface way too quickly. So an additional incentive is added.

Re: Paul Graham on Remote Work

#43

Post by KnobbleMcKnees »

MortimerDukePhD wrote: post #15
daly wrote: post #8

Paul, 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…

Your list of first-world grievances also describes: healthcare workers, literally anyone in the trades, grocery store employees, retail, etc. At some point tech employees have convinced themselves that they are likewise "essential" employees and deserving of special exceptions. But the fact of the matter is most tech jobs, apps, etc. could go away tomorrow and life would continue unabated (in contrast to the list abo…

My old offices had two espresso machines and a drip machine, all cleaned on a bi weekly cadence by professionals. Fresh coffee arrived from a local roasters every Monday morning. Seven different varieties of milk are provided for the frother. Much better than my home setup... And yet here I am, still working from home.

I hope this serves as an example of why tethering your understanding of working needs to your extremely limited experience - as it is for all of us - makes your argument a bunch of weak anecdotes that add little to the debate.

Talking of limited experience - you think that the tech industry can disappear overnight and life will just "continue unabated"? Yikes.

"We can always go back to the stone ages", sure, sure we can.

Re: Paul Graham on Remote Work

#44

Post by KnobbleMcKnees »

WheelsAtLarge wrote: post #9
daly wrote: post #8

Paul, 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 expen…

By realities, do you mean middle management neuroses driven anecdotes, or actually statistics and study? Because the latter shows that it's more productive to wfh

Re: Paul Graham on Remote Work

#45

Post by myshpa »

javcasas wrote: post #32

It is not about productivity, it has never been about productivity. It is about power and control. Remote workers can have a life, can see their children and friends, and may even have energy to go chasing other job offers. HR and CxO hate all of that with a passion that would outshine a thousand suns.

They may even have time for thinking. And we all know that would be a catastrophe for the system!

Re: Paul Graham on Remote Work

#46

Post by haspok »

MichaelRo wrote: post #38
40yearoldman wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is not that work like micro services can be done remote. The problem is remote workers end up doing other things than working. It makes a mess for meeting scheduling and collaboration. Effectively slowing the progression of the project down. I work at a company who his hybrid and has remote. Every remote engineer is damn near impossible to work with, a forget anything happening on Mondays or Fridays. “Oh…

Some people are and will always be assholes, dishonest, crooks, borderline criminals. We shouldn't all be imprisoned in the office because management is incapable of at least dealing with these offenders. After COVID we switched to almost 100% work from home. Office became mandatory 3 days a week but only on paper. In practice workers applied "passive aggressive" method, just didn't show up. And management didn't do…

> One guy in my team would be idle for long swathes of time although it would appear "green" on Teams - first sign someone's an asshole: they put a mouse move program but don't reply for hours.

Maybe his job was not to be on standby for your service 8 hours a day. Maybe he also had a job to do? Why would he be obliged to reply to your messages immediately?

The whole point of Slack / Teams communication is that it can be async, meaning you can ask people something and they will get back to you when it is convenient for THEM, not for YOU. If urgent, just call.

Re: Paul Graham on Remote Work

#47

Post by helij »

senttoschool wrote: post #12

Are people still going to try to blame office lease agreements for management wanting workers back in the office? When are remote workers going to start blaming themselves? Clearly, companies big and small are recalling their workers back to their office. Clearly, they have data showing that their productivity metrics have declined. Tech management are usually very data-driven compared to other industries. So if they…

The issue is that data is the opposite or wfh and in the office are on par in terms of productivity. Of course they'll use every trick in the book to get people into the office - even economy cooling and will try to work on your feelings like 'let's support the economy by having buzzing city centres'. Then 'culture', 'energy' and all other bits and pieces. They'll even give you a carrot in terms of pay rise and bonus which will then get eaten by transport costs making your actual pay in reality less than last year due to inflation, etc.

I am thankful that our company doesn't do that. We have data that proves wfh is at least the same and better in terms of productivity. Oh, and also, we listened to our employees when they wanted complete flexibility. It was not just HR exercise sending questionnaire out and then ignoring it saying something like 'we hear you but...'.

Re: Paul Graham on Remote Work

#48

Post by ekianjo »

Industry leaders complaining the lack of productivity of remote work is like a joke. They are the ones who infuse the organization with countless useless administrative tasks, mandatory meetings, and endless disruptions with their push for open offices.

They are the last people I would trust on Earth for productivity advice.

Re: Paul Graham on Remote Work

#49

Post by nunez »

I thought it was ABSOLUTELY CRAZY that so many people actually trusted their employers enough to think that they would be totally okay with highly-paid-because-of-location employees moving to low cost of living areas with zero changes to their comp structure.

If leadership at big companies were actually 100% sold on remote work, then they would have given up their offices long ago.

Re: Paul Graham on Remote Work

#50

Post by senttoschool »

helij wrote: post #47
senttoschool wrote: post #12

Are people still going to try to blame office lease agreements for management wanting workers back in the office? When are remote workers going to start blaming themselves? Clearly, companies big and small are recalling their workers back to their office. Clearly, they have data showing that their productivity metrics have declined. Tech management are usually very data-driven compared to other industries. So if they…

The issue is that data is the opposite or wfh and in the office are on par in terms of productivity. Of course they'll use every trick in the book to get people into the office - even economy cooling and will try to work on your feelings like 'let's support the economy by having buzzing city centres'. Then 'culture', 'energy' and all other bits and pieces. They'll even give you a carrot in terms of pay rise and bonus…

>The issue is that data is the opposite or wfh and in the office are on par in terms of productivity.

But clearly, the tech companies recalling workers disagree.

PS. I don't believe in 3rd party studies since they rely surveys and the subjectiveness of remote workers. Companies actually have access to employee data. Also, studies need to be multi-year because while people were likely enthusiastic and motivated 3 years ago, they might have checked out while WFH by now.

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