Take that, Jassy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck%27s_principle > A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.
Working from home is powering productivity
61–70 of 481 posts
Re: Working from home is powering productivity
#62I despair a little at this. If I can do my job at home, then surely somebody can do it in the global south in tandem with AI for peanuts. Client-facing stuff gets centralised to a smaller team of specialists, and the ship gets much tighter. How long until megacorps and SMEs actually execute this reality? The management class and their unnecessary underlings like me have only been so resilient because companies are st…
There are latent questions in your response. The fear is justified but equally, viewed from a distance, what is the "worth" of your price point, if the same job can be done and lift somebody out of poverty in the developing world? I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm asking what an economist or social historian might say, much as if a Lancashire cotton worker asked if his job was disappearing into cotton factories in Ban…
I'm personally at peace with that, and would have a pretty hard time arguing against the logic of off-shoring my job. However, it's also rational to want to hold onto a favourable environmental niche for as long as possible!
Re: Working from home is powering productivity
#63WFH productivity is a matter of management. Pre-covid my company tried it and found that productivity declined. Also, the managers found it hard to trust that some of the workers were working and not doing other things.
Working at the office has its drawbacks too. As a developer, the worst one for me was working in an open area. It's extremely hard to concentrate without having to function like a hermit and alienating fellow workers.
I think some of that is still the case, but if managers define realistic expectations, I don't see why WFH can't continue to work. It's more work for management at the start but in time, as management and workers get accustomed, it will work out.
It seems to be a win for employees and companies.
Re: Working from home is powering productivity
#64I despair a little at this. If I can do my job at home, then surely somebody can do it in the global south in tandem with AI for peanuts. Client-facing stuff gets centralised to a smaller team of specialists, and the ship gets much tighter. How long until megacorps and SMEs actually execute this reality? The management class and their unnecessary underlings like me have only been so resilient because companies are st…
As for location... yeah shit may change. But hey at least we give poor countries a fishing rod not a fish. They get richer and you could always go live in cambodia. Digital nomad becomes something normal people do. Not travelling is for the rich!
Re: Working from home is powering productivity
#65Top tier, upber-productive, marketable talents don't have to tolerate bullying, even in a weak employment market. So the companies pushing RTO the hardest see their hardest to replace talent evaporate quickly, and their most desperate (but thoroughly demoralized) staff cling on for dear life. Not as a rule, but definitely a tendency.
Meanwhile the most flexible companies can pick up talent easily, picking and choosing and building very tough rosters for quite reasonable prices.
Re: Working from home is powering productivity
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Globally much of the pro-office camp's public position is driven by personal leanings of CEOs who genuinely seem to have made the decisions without evidence In some cases, the pressure is also coming from external to the company, from cities and VCs and similar who care about the commercial real-estate value of now-abandoned offices.
Is this actually happening? I have seen this idea thrown out a lot online but it always feels like a conspiracy theory to me (akin to "fine art is a tax write-off")
I bet there are some incentives in there but it's not the whole picture. It's probably the combination of many things but mostly management that don't know how to manage people remotely, or they started to realise that most middle manager positions are obsolete/unnecessary.
Re: Working from home is powering productivity
#67Work from home makes me LOYAL to a company, and makes me work my arse off! If you want to keep good employees, give them agency. I do hybrid, I’m half-half from home and in the office. I work so hard when I work from home, and I’m so happy when I work from home, my desk is setup how I need, I get free coffee, I can listen to music, my dog sleeps on the bed. Most importantly, more of the work gets done. I think the op…
Yes, as a well-paid, introverted, technical contributor who is internally motivated by their craft, with the luxury to afford good working space and at a moment in one's life where home haunts feel secure and supportive, you can't beat it. Like any tradesman in history keeping up their own shop, it's really quite empowering. I've been doing it for pretty much all of a very long career. But it's worth keeping in mind…
Amazon, Salesforce, etc should all fit well within those constraints. And nobody is suggesting that we ban offices - just stop pretending that all of us fit into those exception buckets.
Re: Working from home is powering productivity
#68I despair a little at this. If I can do my job at home, then surely somebody can do it in the global south in tandem with AI for peanuts. Client-facing stuff gets centralised to a smaller team of specialists, and the ship gets much tighter. How long until megacorps and SMEs actually execute this reality? The management class and their unnecessary underlings like me have only been so resilient because companies are st…
Re: Working from home is powering productivity
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck%27s_principle > A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.
It's an open secret that it is no longer day 1 at Amazon.
Re: Working from home is powering productivity
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck%27s_principle > A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.
It's an open secret that it is no longer day 1 at Amazon.