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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

#241

Post by agumonkey »

lnsru wrote: post #128
agumonkey wrote: post #21

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…

WFH is much nicer, the toxic person will need to call you and this is extra effort. But in the office you’re few steps away, so the whole day can be poisoned easily. My stupid manager (and former brilliant technical contributor) once sat for tho hours between my and colleague’s tables and watched what we do. Because he had nothing to do between meetings. I understand, that this is not everyday’s normal situation, but…

yeah that's for sure, in remote you're one button away from peace :)

but when you have mandatory regular calls with the somehow just slightly too toxic but not enough to grant company action.. you know it's gonna be a long term issue

Re: I will always prefer to work from home

#242

Post by phpisthebest »

ghaff wrote: post #124
cebert wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My office is all setup for work and has the best perk, I can physically leave work behind each day. You can also have a room setup for work at your home.

Not everyone has a spare room for that purpose.

This is my #1 complaint for WFH, if you do not have a spare room / office in your home to do WFH, then IMO your productivity tanks and you are not really working from home... you are at home and maybe doing some work likely far less than if you were in the office.

If you are sitting on your bed, a kitchen table, or some other like space then i question how much work you can actually get done.

Also people are TERRIBLE judges of their own productivity, most people claim their productivity sky rockets when at home, were alot of data shows this not the be the case as time is focused on household items, cleaning, taking care of children, laundry, netflix, etc.

people that are successful at WFH and where doing it before COVID has a dedicated space for "work" in the home. With a Door they could close to block out all other household interruptions focusing on work, and would take defined breaks just like if you were in an office.

Re: I will always prefer to work from home

#243

Post by acherion »

LRVNHQ wrote: post #213

I much prefer working at the office. There's less distraction and better divide between work and private time. When I leave the office, I'm done for the day. I find somewhat ironic that people use an alleged higher productivity at home as justification for remote work, but but doing chores around the house throughout the day always comes up as a perk of WFH. Doing chores and being productive are antithetic. Anecdotic…

> There's less distraction and better divide between work and private time. When I leave the office, I'm done for the day.

I am glad I have the luxury of having a separate room as my home office. When I’m done for the day, I leave that room and close the door, and don’t go back in unless it’s the next day or an emergency.

Re: I will always prefer to work from home

#244

Post by paulddraper »

Mountain_Skies wrote: post #210
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.

One of the nice things about working at home is that async tasks can be taken care of during the workday. Laundry doesn't need a lot of hands-on time but does have a lot of waiting time. It's also easier to get local errands like grocery shopping done during lunch than if you're at an office. Even lunch itself can be easier, with a couple Instant Pots, lunch can be ready to eat right at lunchtime. None of these tasks…

Yes there are benefits to that multitasking

Re: I will always prefer to work from home

#245

Post by askonomm »

oHqgTQUT wrote: post #131
askonomm wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And we continue to be social animals over video chat. Harder in what sense? I hear this a lot, but I rarely hear concrete examples. Feels to me more that people are just not accustomed to fully online communication at work rather than that it actually being harder. Change is hard, yes. But that doesn't mean that what you change into is actually more difficult. Also, I'm not sure of newer generations where you're from…

The single biggest issue I've noticed is that body language communicates a lot, and in remote environments you cannot see this. You don't feel at all invested in the other person either, and I've noticed people multi-tasking instead of listening to what the other person is telling them - often followed up with a "Sorry, I missed that. Can you repeat it?" As another example, I've worked with some people who are quite…

The disconnect is real indeed, and in my experience mostly solved with company get-togethers. After the first get-together, people have a much better idea of other people, vibe better together and thus have a lot more empathy as well.

That said, if a person is unable to conduct themselves professionally whether it is via a video call or not, I think it has nothing to do with remote work and all to do with that particular person being bad to work with.

Re: I will always prefer to work from home

#246

Post by twothamendment »

cebert wrote: post #121
aplummer wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most will just give up on comfort, where WFH is an option to be in a better situation. It’s also an option to be in a worse situation. My office is all setup for work and has the best perk, I can physically leave work behind each day.

> My office is all setup for work and has the best perk, I can physically leave work behind each day. You can also have a room setup for work at your home.

I worked in an office, then at home where I worked constantly, then back to the office where I appreciated closing my laptop and being done.

Now I've been remote for many years and am happy to say I've trained myself to watch my hours and leave work even though I'm home. I change my slack status, minimize all work apps and walk away. When I come back to my computer for something personal in the evening I don't look at work. It took some practice, but closing things down walking worked for me. Now if I could only stop solving work problems as I try to fall asleep...

Re: I will always prefer to work from home

#247

Post by rreyes1979 »

Introvert and HSP software engineer here. Not only working from home comes naturally for me but I have to say that since I started WFH 15 years ago, I've been a top performer in most of the teams I worked for (and that includes some teams where I was the only remote worker). I don't see any reason why I should work from an office at this point in my career and it actually makes little sense to me why some companies are losing top performers just to enforce some silly back to the office rules. I guess they just promoted the wrong people :)

Re: I will always prefer to work from home

#248

Post by makeitdouble »

aplummer wrote: post #72
makeitdouble wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why office sucks can be for any number of reasons, I think it's more of a long tail phenomenon with a myriad of distincts personal preferences and special needs. For instance office drinks can suck, and someone drinking 3 to 5 cups of warm drinks a day, being able to prepare delicious beverages with specialized equipement is a godsend. Or people who work sitting on their bed. Or want their pet around. Or don't want t…

> Most will just give up on comfort, where WFH is an option to be in a better situation. It’s also an option to be in a worse situation. My office is all setup for work and has the best perk, I can physically leave work behind each day.

Good for you ! You have no specific reason to really want to WFH, and that's great, probably a strong asset to get hired.

Some people will also have no specific reason to want to live alone and can join dormitories or share houses. Some don't even need a stable home and can join military camps etc.

We all have different thresholds of what we want or can deal with in our lives.

Re: I will always prefer to work from home

#249

Post by goalieca »

jes5199 wrote: post #110
karaterobot wrote: post #102

Here's a reason I never see brought up in discussions like this. For me, it's as important as the others: Being an introvert, I always used to be exhausted at the end of the work week. I liked my coworkers a lot, and I liked spending time around them, but it didn't matter, I'd still feel wrung out at the end of the day. And by the end of the week, each day's exhaustion would have accumulated to the point where I need…

I find Zoom so much more exhausting that being in the office, I am way more wiped out by my 2023 job than by my 2019 job

I used to be more exhausted from 5-6 hours of in person meeting than 5-6 hours of camera off zoom meetings. Sometimes I do things like fold laundry or eat lunch during meetings where I dont need to talk and this gives me time to have an actual break later.

Re: I will always prefer to work from home

#250

Post by Volundr »

goalieca wrote: post #249
jes5199 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find Zoom so much more exhausting that being in the office, I am way more wiped out by my 2023 job than by my 2019 job

I used to be more exhausted from 5-6 hours of in person meeting than 5-6 hours of camera off zoom meetings. Sometimes I do things like fold laundry or eat lunch during meetings where I dont need to talk and this gives me time to have an actual break later.

Off camera meetings are great. Especially when I don't need my computer and can sit I the yard watching the bees work.
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