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I will always prefer to work from home

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Re: I will always prefer to work from home

#221

Post by angarg12 »

Here is an argument in favor of WFH that I hardly ever see:

Growing up in a second rate city in a country with little tech scene, my and my colleague options to advance our career was to leave our city or our country behind. Having to choose between family/friends and career is a pretty tough choice to face. My sister in law moved to the capital for 2 years and had a distance relationship until she was able to transfer back to our city.

WFH makes this much less of an issue. Now someone can have a successful career more easily even if they live in a small town. Having more choice of career while not sacrificing friends and family is something I wish I had 15 years ago.

At the same time people starting their career tend to be the ones who benefit the most from an office setup, so there is probably still a tradeoff to make.

Re: I will always prefer to work from home

#222

Post by watwut »

ghaff wrote: post #120
rootusrootus wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't even need a private office. One of the best environments I've ever worked in was a hybrid office/open model. Basically a bunch of conference rooms where each team got a room, and within the room the desk walls were low. Decorate it however you want, if you agree on style then you can have ambient music, etc. It was pretty great. But then they knocked all the walls down and put in rows of desks because they co…

People here talk a lot about being able to have closing doors. My experience with private offices was, barring confidential conversations or rarely going really heads down for a few hours, the unwritten policy was you kept your door open. I've never worked anyplace where private offices generally had their doors shut.

It may be cultural, but in here offices are usually closed. It is kind of "weird" to see them with open doors.

Re: I will always prefer to work from home

#224

Post by paulddraper »

whoknowsidont wrote: post #190
paulddraper wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet for millions of people and many years, it has worked out. There are tradeoffs, sure. But there are a lot of jobs in a lot of fields in a lot of places. The venn overlap is not tiny.

>it has worked out. Hardly. This is actually kind of insanely tone-deaf statement to make. People have uprooted their lives, spent lots of their wealth in expensive real-estate markets due to artificial demand, given up time with their families, etc etc. Saying it's "worked out" is a really bland dismissal of the entire conversation.

What was artificial about demand?

Re: I will always prefer to work from home

#225

Post by paulddraper »

eropple wrote: post #191
paulddraper wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, my dog and I do makeupless squats on my bed after work. I appreciate a hard division between work hours and personal hours, and WFH (for me) makes an already tenuous line even more leaky.

> I appreciate a hard division between work hours and personal hours Agreed--this is why I've got an office at home, and it's bigger and better-appointed than any company would ever allocate to me, with a better desk and a better chair (when I use it, because that better desk lets me stand). I'll spot them the rent for not having to make the commute, but I need the firm separation.

Wow working and living space that's great, good for you

Re: I will always prefer to work from home

#226

Post by 8n4vidtmkvmk »

soneil wrote: post #126
morelisp wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One side-effect of the WFH period for us (and I assume a number of other EU companies) is that once we went WFH, we also went remote; previously we had two offices and everyone worked in one of those two cities and today we have (IIRC) five and people work all over the country and take rail into the nearest office when necessary. This has... mostly worked out OK. In any given office there's some spaces dedicated for…

That's what we've been seeing. My team were all in one corner of one room. Then "one day", we were all sent home. Someone left, and was replaced by someone in another European country. He's nominally "in the office", but since it's not the same office as the rest of us (and we're not in ours anyway), he's free to come and go as he pleases. It's not like it makes any difference to us. Then our manager moved on, and wa…

People evidently were ignoring the rto mandate at my company too. But the VPs noticed and said they'll start docking our perf if we don't start showing up.

Also, wfh weekends? What the heck man. 40 hours M-F tops. Even that I'd like to see dropped to 4 days but that'll never happen.

Re: I will always prefer to work from home

#227

Post by 8n4vidtmkvmk »

strangesmells06 wrote: post #6
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…

Yes! This! I think anyone would not mind the office if they werent treated like cattle. I dont think people dread going back to the office. People dread going back to the open office.

I'm used to open office. Not sure it'd matter if I had my own room. I'd still get dragged into useless meetings that interrupt my flow. If I can even get into a decent flow because our DX is so atrocious.

Re: I will always prefer to work from home

#228

Post by just_boost_it »

I have a 100% remote job, but I had them set me up with a desk in a coworking space. I just felt that being alone all day was just a lonely way to live my life. It was great at the start to have so few interruptions, but y'know we're not building the pyramids. Everything we make in tech becomes legacy pretty quickly and eventually forgotten about and lost. I think a lot of life is what happens in the interruptions. That's where you find out about the guy that goes ice fishing and get invited along, or about someone who plays in a band and introduces you to a weird new music scene or something like that. I think everyone should get to work however they feel they need to within reason (I like the coworking space vibe myself), but I just hope people aren't giving up more than they realised.

Re: I will always prefer to work from home

#229

Post by [deleted] »

spondylosaurus wrote: post #195
paulddraper wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet for millions of people and many years, it has worked out. There are tradeoffs, sure. But there are a lot of jobs in a lot of fields in a lot of places. The venn overlap is not tiny.

In the context of the modern American nuclear family, the concept of both adults working is relatively new. The traditional arrangement was one breadwinner, one homemaker, and ~2.5 kids. Which is still common these days, but not to the point of exclusivity: I work remotely, but my partner works hybrid.

[deleted]

Re: I will always prefer to work from home

#230

Post by asynchronous »

LegibleCrimson wrote: post #186
tqi wrote: post #33

Who is this meant to convince? Has anyone ever changed their mind as a result of reading a listicle of complaints? This seems more like something for people who already agree with the author to read and self righteously think "yeah, this is THE way" There isn't some objective right answer here. Different people value different things, and that's ok. Companies can set their RTO policies as they see fit, and that's ok.…

> Has anyone ever changed their mind as a result of reading a listicle of complaints? Maybe they should have, because people were complaining about mandatory office work for no benefit for years, especially when open office plans, and most businesses ignored it entirely until a pandemic forced them to actually evaluate it. Most people would rather have a choice. Being told that you will be fired unless you bring your…

I think that’s the thing that’s most frustrating, is all the emails and published metrics about “great job being even more productive during the pandemic!” And then in the exact same breath saying “and you’re all coming back to the office.” Like, if the former isn’t true then don’t lie to us, say we were less efficient.
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