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Working from home is powering productivity

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Re: Working from home is powering productivity

#211

Post by lolinder »

erik_seaberg wrote: post #200
lolinder wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in a company that doesn't do this—everyone gets paid the same amount, which is way above average for most of the country—and some of the Californians are actively lobbying for location-based pay. I don't think they realize that they're actually lobbying for most of the company to get a pay cut so they can get a greater percentage of the total salary budget, but that's what it would amount to if they got their way…

They expect you to compete with nearby employers. If not, you should hire from less active markets and probably go more remote.

The company is fully remote and only a tiny fraction of us live in CA. Most are distributed throughout the lower-density regions of the country and are very happy with our pay rates.

Re: Working from home is powering productivity

#212

Post by EasyMark »

bongodongobob wrote: post #137
kortilla wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would the city care about number of people in the office if they are deriving the money from commercial property taxes?

Why would the city care if no one is working downtown?

Because that’s what feeds local businesses especially shops and service oriented jobs. I’m not saying I care that happens because remote workers can do that closer to their home so it’s a net zero game, but not in the eyes of business owners downtown or the mayors of said downtowns.

Re: Working from home is powering productivity

#213

Post by fy20 »

iamthemonster wrote: post #201
THENATHE wrote: post #182

I love work from home, but I can’t help but feel like its only real benefit is removing a lot of the overhead from jobs that are already considered overhead. Agree with this next part or not, it isn’t really debatable: to the average person (which we aren’t), basically anything that can be done on a computer from home is overhead. Coding in the office? Takes up a lot of office space and commute time and energy. Finan…

I'm an engineer in the process industries (oil/gas) and we are constantly collaborating and running stuff by other engineering disciplines with different knowledge to us, and coordinating with management, logistics, maintenance, operations, commercial and contractors. Isn't there a similarly high level of interdisciplinary communication involved in coding? How do you keep up the quality of communication? (in my indus…

There is, but remote-first companies have learnt the skills to communicate this effectively without requiring members to be face-to-face or require hours of meetings.

That's what I see causes the biggest push-back against WFH: upper management who don't know how to communicate without being in-person, so they assume WFH is bad.

Re: Working from home is powering productivity

#214

Post by RiverCrochet »

Terr_ wrote: post #45
JoshTriplett wrote: post #34

Earlier 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.

> real-estate value Separately but simultaneously, there are often local tax-benefits which depend on the company "creating jobs", and that's often defined in a way that means butts-in-offices downtown.

so how is that verified, does the local tax authority come in and visually verify the butts in seats?

Re: Working from home is powering productivity

#215

Post by dublinben »

itohihiyt wrote: post #190
BadHumans wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hang on, why would I rent office space, to WFH? I don't mean to be blunt but I this seems ridiculous. >If it works for you I'm happy for you. For me I like that clear separation where it's not easy to slip into working beyond your time. You answered your own question. The article is using work from home as a catchall term for remote work but not everyone who works from home wants to literally work from home. Some c…

If I did I can't see it. You'll have to forgive my ignorance for assuming we were talking WFH instead of remote working. I got confused when it stated work from home instead of remote working. Either way "some companies" ain't mine, and I'm not being out of pocket for work.

>and I'm not being out of pocket for work.

Are you paid for the time spent commuting? Are your transportation expenses fully reimbursed?

Re: Working from home is powering productivity

#216

Post by hparadiz »

beaconify wrote: post #138
tomjakubowski wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zoom's latency is a killer. It is still harder to have the kind of natural back and forth conversation I'm used to having in meatspace pairing. Maybe I should try Discord.

Havent noticed that even on international calls. But it might depend on the type of convo. Latency for talk seemed a problem last in the 2010s skype era. Latency in what is shown on a screenshare.... yeah! A problem.

Maybe it's because I have fiber at home with Wifi6 but I never experience this lag.

Re: Working from home is powering productivity

#217

Post by [deleted] »

sjsisibdjcj wrote: post #83
l33tbro wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Completely agree. And it is funny how we put so much emphasis on developing our skills and abilities, when really our actual value is always determined by the market. 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!

How has western society completely forgotten the point of a country? It is not the to create the most efficient economical configuration for routing wealth from the masses to the capital holders. Your value is not determined by the market, and those who tell you it is are only looking to exploit you. There are people out there who haven’t succumbed to the nihilistic poison of modern liberalism, though the people in p…

[deleted]

Re: Working from home is powering productivity

#218

Post by supriyo-biswas »

sroussey wrote: post #120
Olumde wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I WFH 100% of the time. This allows my spouse and I to work. Without this one of us would have to leave the workforce to take the children to school. But because I WFH I can do the school runs and I realize I have it so good, it makes me unwilling to consider any other potential job offers. And BTW, because I don't have to commute 3 hours like I used to I can now work as late if a task requires me to. So yeah the abi…

You originally chose a job with 3hr of commute?

They might not have a choice (although this is somewhat relative); switching costs to changing jobs and a move elsewhere due to changes in family circumstances or rising rents might lead to a situation where one has to “accept” the 3 hour commute, at least until the right opportunity presents itself.

Re: Working from home is powering productivity

#219

Post by hirvi74 »

tiborsaas wrote: post #199
hirvi74 wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> WFH takes discipline That is bizarre to me. I find the office takes far more discipline. Do people really get that distracted at home? What is so distracting?

Office is an external discipline forced on you while WFH is an internal discipline no one watching over your shoulders, that's the difference. For an undisciplined person anything can be distracting: birds chirping, picking up a delivery, cooking, a friend dropping by, daily chores like washing, organizing things, etc... it's an endless list really.

> no one watching over your shoulders

That alone is distracting enough for me. I hate the "look busy" vs. actually being busy game people play in offices.

I have severe ADHD and I don't even know what discipline feels like. That's precisely why I can't work in offices. In fact, other people are more productive when I am not in an office with them as well.

I'm cursed with the fact that a lot of my hyperactivity manifests as talking. It's actually problematic enough that I have been reprimanded for talking excessively at points in my past. I am quite charismatic too, so people end up getting locked in these hour+ long conversations with me lol.

At home, there is no one talk to but my significant other who often works during the same time. So, WFH skyrocketed my productivity. I go in the office two days a week, and I basically lose two days of work a week now.

Re: Working from home is powering productivity

#220

Post by yard2010 »

THENATHE wrote: post #182

I love work from home, but I can’t help but feel like its only real benefit is removing a lot of the overhead from jobs that are already considered overhead. Agree with this next part or not, it isn’t really debatable: to the average person (which we aren’t), basically anything that can be done on a computer from home is overhead. Coding in the office? Takes up a lot of office space and commute time and energy. Finan…

It's funny how the internet became widespread which enabled what you say in theory but it wasn't enough, we needed a global pandemic to push us to use it as intended and get over the stone age type of culture we had before (remember doing your taxes on a frickin paper? Working only from the office? Having to sign papers with a pen?)

It makes me think about the other tech that's just waiting for the next catastrophe to become 10x more helpful.

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