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Working from home is powering productivity

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Re: Working from home is powering productivity

#241

Post by csomar »

l33tbro wrote: post #27

I 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…

> How long until megacorps and SMEs actually execute this reality?

This is the best case scenario. As a country, you want your megacorps/SME to execute this somehow while keeping control. The alternative is that new megacorps/SMEs get spawned in the global south and there you have no job and no cash flow.

Re: Working from home is powering productivity

#242

Post by chii »

baxtr wrote: post #238
nmstoker wrote: post #16

It's good to see some serious arguments for WFH. 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, often it's something they're very grumpy about (hardly the best state of mind for good judgement) and often based on the assumption that company productivity is based on workers doing what they do (usually far fro…

It’s unfortunate that it has gotten so black and white. I’m a big fan of WFH. But I also think it’s beneficial to see people in the office and interact on a regular basis. Why can’t we have both?

> Why can’t we have both?

having both is equivalent to having WFH (but without the cost savings to the business regarding office rentals).

People who want an office are likely doing so in the expectation that there'd be people there. What actually happens is that the office is semi-empty on most days, and you'd get a few ghosts here and there (unless there's mandated office days).

So in the end, hybrid (without mandated days) is basically the same as WFH.

Re: Working from home is powering productivity

#243

Post by albedoa »

kortilla wrote: post #117
azemetre wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the case for the city of Boston. The city derives the vast majority of its budget from commercial property taxes, it's why residential property taxes are so low in the city. Use to work for a company that was literally told by the city that if they don't have X amount of people in the building they will lose their tax incentives they got for having the company there. The company slowly mandated hybrid then RT…

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

The value of office buildings don't come from nowhere — they come from being used as office buildings.

Re: Working from home is powering productivity

#244

Post by csomar »

hu3 wrote: post #49
l33tbro wrote: post #27

I 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…

I think you're onto something. Even Indians are losing their IT jobs to Vietnamese. [1] The squeeze is real. Good time to start a business I guess. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/developersIndia/comments/1eckee9/oh...

> our entire development team has been replaced. They can barely speak English.

The race to the bottom is real. xD. (ps: I've spent around a year in Vietnam and barely any software developer I met can speak any intelligible English. So I believe the OP).

Re: Working from home is powering productivity

#245

Post by bruce511 »

coliveira wrote: post #179
finnh wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it explains some of Amazon's choices, as they made multibillion dollar bets on office space and real estate in Seattle.

Yes, Amazon needs people to fill their expensive offices in Seattle, or otherwise explain to investors that they wasted billions of dollars building new offices that were used less than 5 years.

>> otherwise explain to investors that they wasted billions of dollars building new offices that were used less than 5 years.

So what? I mean companies write down things all the time. "We've revalued our $billion office and adjusted our balance sheet to match. Cause was a global pandemic which we considered as a risk factor in 2019, but it was negligible."

Stock will drop a % or two for a week, then recover and move on (especially as the Amazon machine continues to print cash.)

Microsoft wrote off the Nokia purchase with a shrug and the world just moved on.

Explaining a change of work environment to investors seems like a pretty minor bump, not a major factor in decision making.

Re: Working from home is powering productivity

#246

Post by csomar »

JTyQZSnP3cQGa8B wrote: post #167
l33tbro wrote: post #27

I 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…

I don’t understand this argument. It was called “outsourcing” 20 years ago when there was no AI.

Yeah, the argument made no sense. If "outsourcing" will work this time (and it might), it's because the global south have developed quite a lot in education and infrastructure (pretty much all of the global south has good internet now, sometimes better than the US).

Re: Working from home is powering productivity

#247

Post by typewithrhythm »

hu3 wrote: post #49
l33tbro wrote: post #27

I 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…

I think you're onto something. Even Indians are losing their IT jobs to Vietnamese. [1] The squeeze is real. Good time to start a business I guess. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/developersIndia/comments/1eckee9/oh...

I work for a company that has satellites in both India and Vietnam (among others).

Working with Vietnam is much better, if someone knows English then they have a decent enough education; and their local institutions make it possible to verify credentials. They have less social issues besides.

Indian outsourcing is almost a bit outdated... Effective machine translation and globally widespread english education, they really don't have much to offer.

Their culture essentially makes it impossible to get predictable value out of a hire.

Re: Working from home is powering productivity

#248

Post by capn_duck »

hirvi74 wrote: post #157
ahimthedream wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are the anomaly, not the norm. WFH takes discipline, work ethic and honestly the ability to manage a work life balance. Doing this is hard, like you said. Problem is most people aren’t disciplined:)

> 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?

The 16 pings a minute. The 6 hours of meetings a day because people aren't getting the information they need organically each day. The "hey, can I call?"'s during what I thought would be my free half hour in the afternoon. This is definitely not what it was like in the office.

Unfortunately, I recognize this doesn't change unless an org goes 100% back onsite.

Re: Working from home is powering productivity

#249

Post by bruce511 »

colechristensen wrote: post #240
nmstoker wrote: post #16

It's good to see some serious arguments for WFH. 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, often it's something they're very grumpy about (hardly the best state of mind for good judgement) and often based on the assumption that company productivity is based on workers doing what they do (usually far fro…

Working in the office could be pretty nice with reasonable commute times and actual office space for employees. Like earning a top 10ish percent salary but the parking lot is full and people use bike locks on their office chairs so they don’t get stolen because they aren’t enough chairs. Give me an office with a door and a reasonable commute and I’ll be happy to go in to work every day. “Cost optimize” your office sp…

Yes, all this. I have a 5 minute commute, an office with a door, and plenty of parking. Going back to the office is no big deal (and has some major advantages.)

But of course context will vary from one person to the next. Which is why sweeping generalizations is mostly fruitless. There are endless factors in play here on both sides of the table.

Re: Working from home is powering productivity

#250

Post by nnurmanov »

fragmede wrote: post #233
hirvi74 wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 manife…

The trick is getting those two days of being in the office and talking and interacting to sum up to be things you can put on your perf packet. those two days aren't "lost". they can be a different kind of work, which culminates into leading teams and mentoring people. work comes in many forms.

I WFH, even work on weekends. I notice that after working weekends I feel tired on Mondays, so I decided to spend Mondays on less technical stuff, e.g. customer meetings, interviews, lead generation etc
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