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

I will always prefer to work from home

shavingtheyak.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 273 posts

Re: I will always prefer to work from home

#21

Post by agumonkey »

I'm mostly in favor of WFH, but there are a few missing spots:

- toxic people ? if you're in a small team, or it's your direct lead, you will endure his toxicity even when remote

- dedicated space for calm/silence: unfortunately not everybody has an isolated spare room. And personally I don't mind house noises, but the person there can get pissed if not very angry very often during zoom calls and it may/will eat your energy.

Other than that the luxury of not having to commute or avoiding very bad workplaces is still something that should be the norm and part of worker union rights. If there's a coworking space and positive teammates I will come to see them very often, after all what's better than having a good team to work with closely ? but this is not the average experience.

Re: I will always prefer to work from home

#22

Post by wood_spirit »

donbox wrote: post #9

Does your team use Slack (or something similar). Don't you get random pings, mentions or calls for help/input. Is there an expectation around for you to respond within a short period. I have been 100% WFH since last 5 years and I am only productive after 5 pm.

Yes a big downside from wfh is that you don’t need to book a meeting room :(

This means people can book meetings when people are free instead of being limited by the availability and preplanning of big enough rooms!

Re: I will always prefer to work from home

#23

Post by wrp »

the_snooze wrote: post #4

I feel these discussions always go the same way. Working at an office sucks because of some combination of {long commute, open office plan, team not being there}. I quite like going to the office myself because my situation is the opposite: I bike to work, where I have my own office, and my team likes to come in too. Hating the office is totally justifiable given that my setup isn't common; most people are forced to…

I know a few retired guys who pay their own money to rent office space away from the house. They don't even have kids living at home any more. If you have a nice office, it's...well...nice.

Re: I will always prefer to work from home

#24

Post by joshmanders »

grubbs wrote: post #10

I understand why these get posted. But not everyone is in the same situation as the author. I can bike to work, I'm extroverted, and I like free coffee. So I go into the office 2-3 days a week by choice. I have no on-site requirement. I also get quite depressed in winter working in my cold basement office with a space heater :( But that's just me. And I don't feel like I should force my WFH opinion on anyone else.

On the flip side, if I was required to be in an office for any job, I would not be working in this industry because the only jobs in my area are paying literally $10/hr for this work and it's mostly just building brochure sites on Wordpress.

Being able to even go to an office is a luxury for a LOT of people.

"But Josh, move to a place that has jobs, duh!" Yeah, I highly doubt any place in this world is willing to not only pay to relocate me, but also my ex-wife and her family because I can promise you no job in this world is worth giving up my child for.

Re: I will always prefer to work from home

#25

Post by agumonkey »

the_snooze wrote: post #4

I feel these discussions always go the same way. Working at an office sucks because of some combination of {long commute, open office plan, team not being there}. I quite like going to the office myself because my situation is the opposite: I bike to work, where I have my own office, and my team likes to come in too. Hating the office is totally justifiable given that my setup isn't common; most people are forced to…

yeah, switch this with open floor and bad peers and you get a ptsd swamp

Re: I will always prefer to work from home

#27

Post by totallywrong »

Not to mention the ability to do work holidays, where I go to the beach or whatever and work from there for a week or two. And the sick days is a big one that benefits the company. I've never once oficially taken one since WFH. I might have been mostly just standing by if I felt like shit, but still available for anything urgent.

Re: I will always prefer to work from home

#28

Post by tymscar »

askonomm wrote: post #13
codegeek wrote: post #7

Yes great points. But most WFH advocates forget to talk about juniors or people who are just starting their careers or people who just cannot wfh effectively. The article talks about Management's arguments against WFH but fails to mention any of the points I mentioned. The best solution in my opinion is hybrid especially for juniors and I will die on this hill.

Not sure why you can't just teach juniors how to work from home effectively, just how you teach them how to do their job. It's all part of the same thing. I've certainly helped juniors over a video call just as effectively as being next to them physically. In one case I point a finger on their screen, in another I point my mouse cursor on their screen.

And if anything, it’s much better remotely because you don’t have to be hunched over at the same time as someone else on a single keyboard.

Re: I will always prefer to work from home

#30

Post by lapcat »

The article rehashes some well-known arguments, but the most interesting part of it for me was this:

> “People need to be in the office to be a part of the TEAM”

> This gets at a much deeper issue, however. Should we be loyal to companies who would lay us off at the drop of a hat to pad their quarterly earnings? Companies who decide the projects we work on have no merit but can’t be bothered to reassign us to more critical work after spending the time and money to get us in the door? Many of us feel the need to be loyal but what are we getting in return?

The author acknowledges that team-building may be easier in the office, but the question is whether team-building is of any benefit other than to keep employees stuck to their employer.

Post reply on HN