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Working from home is powering productivity

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Re: Working from home is powering productivity

#351

Post by mamonster »

noch wrote: post #303
CalRobert wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately this can be a race to the bottom as companies with wfh are driven out of business by those without

> companies with wfh are driven out of business by those without This is unlikely. Notice the parent post said: >> I don't care about company KPI or efficiency, I care about my own well-being first and foremost […] So you have a situation where: - Most of your employees think of your company's success and their lifestyle as competing interests. - Most of your employees are focused on optimizing their lifestyle rather…

>I recall one of my German managers said: "The difference between workers today and the previous generation is that we lived to work, while they work to live."

I know 2 Boomers who have 8 figure networths and own their own businesses(manual work, think maintenance and installing stuff). They frequently take the opportunity to self congratulate("I worked so hard for 30 years") and complain about younger people("They don't work hard at all, always on their phone during their shift").

Can't say I was surprised when I found out that back when they started their businesses these fields were basically completely unregulated, that the regulations for these areas were in part lobbied by them(and by others like them) once they got off the ground and that both were sitting on juicy government contracts because the guy in charge of the finance department of the canton was in their unit during obligatory military service. And that's just the stuff I am aware of.

The point being: Older people really did live to work, but they never mention that their marginal rewards for extra work were much greater in most areas of the economy as compared to today.

Re: Working from home is powering productivity

#352

Post by ajuc »

CalRobert wrote: post #292
vbezhenar wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might be efficient to work 60 hours week. Doesn't mean we should agree to it. Remote work improves quality of life. I don't care about company KPI or efficiency, I care about my own well-being first and foremost, as long as I have a choice. Companies should adapt and if it means that their efficiency will decrease, so be it.

Unfortunately this can be a race to the bottom as companies with wfh are driven out of business by those without

> Unfortunately this can be a race to the bottom

This works as an argument against 8h work day and 5-day work week too.

Ultimately if something is better for the society (and WFH obviously is - commute time, carbon footprint, land prices, housing crisis - it helps with almost everything) - we should just force companies to use it by regulation, so that there's no "race" in that regard cause the conditions are the same for everybody.

The exact regulation is tricky, but sth in the spirit of "if your job can be WFH you should have an option of WFH" is a good starting point.

Re: Working from home is powering productivity

#353

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

Re: Working from home is powering productivity

#354

Post by akoboldfrying »

shinryuu wrote: post #336
akoboldfrying wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think bosses overwhelmingly want RTO? I think they want it because they fear productivity losses that mean lower profits, and ultimately lead to the threat of becoming uncompetitive. If you agree with that, is your position that these fears are irrational (because in your view, no such productivity loss would occur)?

At the same time if they get worse talent because of it they could get lower productivity because of it

Agreed. So I think the question is: Which effect dominates?

Both effects depend greatly on whether most other employers in the industry agree amongst themselves on whether to allow WFH: If everyone allows WFH, or everyone forbids it, there's no incentive to change employers, so these are stable equilibria, all other things being equal. Employers prefer the no-WFH equilibrium since (they believe) that leaves productivity highest.

Re: Working from home is powering productivity

#355

Post by strken »

newswasboring wrote: post #316
bromuro wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is an “IC work” and what does it mean “being an IC”? Can’t get the acronym.

It is my understanding that IC is individual contributor. So basically devs who are making their own parts of the code.

IC is usually meant in contrast to manager, meaning ICs are the engineers without anyone reporting to them.

The difference between "not a manager" and "working on their own part of the code" is important when you're talking about positions with a lot of seniority like staff or principal engineers, because those ICs are still expected to work on massive projects involving a lot of cat-herding and leadership that touch large chunks of a company's code, they just aren't doing it as the manager of a team.

Re: Working from home is powering productivity

#356

Post by brainzap »

novok wrote: post #234
throwaway918299 wrote: post #52

I am literally at least 10x when I work from home. I have ADHD and through years of discipline, cultivating my workspace to suit my needs, and hard work I can be productive most of the day in the zone without (much) sidetracking. Literally impossible for me to do in the modern software dev sweatshop. I also make more money, can spend more time with my family because I don’t commute, and plenty of other positives. I l…

A lot of adult ADHD diagnoses came from the pandemic because a lot of people were suddenly without the structure of an office and became adrift and unproductive. The office provided body doubling, some executive functioning, some help with time blindness, a prosthetic environment and more and now they had to make it themselves without any direction while suffering from poor executive functioning. It was not good for…

Agree, I have a coworker with some addictions and only performs in close proximitry to other workers.

Btw which is something I also sometimes seek out, a hard working colleague is an inspiration.

Re: Working from home is powering productivity

#357

Post by nox101 »

DrBazza wrote: post #307
jandrewrogers wrote: post #260

I think a lot of people are talking past each other. I’ve mostly WFH since long before the pandemic, in many different capacities at many companies. A lot of people have tunnel vision and the reality is more nuanced than most allow. For IC work that requires minimal collaboration, WFH is often more productive. Fewer interruptions, more focus. However, when the role requires detailed collaboration and regular interact…

WFH is best for focused work. Office is best for collaboration. I'm not sure I've found a tool that works for collaboration like a whiteboard. Digital solutions just never really worked in our company and we tried a few. On the flip side, open source projects function just fine with 100% remote work in different time zones. One thing I found with WFH pre-and-post Covid is the the 'Feynman moment'- "If you cannot expl…

Documentation is not a complete fix. So you have 1000 pages of documentation. Which page has the answer to your question? At work you ask your coworker with more experience "Can you tell me how X works?" and get an answer immediately. On remote you type in to chat "Can you tell me how X works?" you get an answer in 5 seconds, or 30 or 5 minutes, or 10 or 3hrs later, or never. Where as in the WFO example you were back to work immediately with little to no context switching, in the remote example you might have to just go work on something else (30-60 minute context switch) while you wait for an answer, then once you get it do another 30-60 minute context switch to get back into whatever it was you were doing.

Maybe LLMs will solve this. Have them read the code and then be able to ask them questions about how it works?

It's not just docs though. Maybe it's going over an idea. "I'm thinking of solving this issue by doing X, what do you think?" Same, WFO, immediate answer. WFH, answer in 5 secs to 5hrs+ or never.

People will complain that getting a question takes them out of the zone. That might be true but it's never been true for any co-worker I've ever personally worked with. Nor with myself. It's always been easy and pleasant to answer a coworker's question. A few times a year I'm working on something so complicated I need to be uninterrupted for a few hours but that's rare, for me at least.

Re: Working from home is powering productivity

#358

Post by [deleted] »

CalRobert wrote: post #292
vbezhenar wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might be efficient to work 60 hours week. Doesn't mean we should agree to it. Remote work improves quality of life. I don't care about company KPI or efficiency, I care about my own well-being first and foremost, as long as I have a choice. Companies should adapt and if it means that their efficiency will decrease, so be it.

Unfortunately this can be a race to the bottom as companies with wfh are driven out of business by those without

[deleted]

Re: Working from home is powering productivity

#359

Post by j7ake »

jandrewrogers wrote: post #260

I think a lot of people are talking past each other. I’ve mostly WFH since long before the pandemic, in many different capacities at many companies. A lot of people have tunnel vision and the reality is more nuanced than most allow. For IC work that requires minimal collaboration, WFH is often more productive. Fewer interruptions, more focus. However, when the role requires detailed collaboration and regular interact…

When figuring out precisely what problem to work out, in person meetings are critical, and WFH is a huge obstacle towards progress.

Once a problem is well defined, WFH is more productive.

Re: Working from home is powering productivity

#360

Post by HPsquared »

noch wrote: post #303
CalRobert wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately this can be a race to the bottom as companies with wfh are driven out of business by those without

> companies with wfh are driven out of business by those without This is unlikely. Notice the parent post said: >> I don't care about company KPI or efficiency, I care about my own well-being first and foremost […] So you have a situation where: - Most of your employees think of your company's success and their lifestyle as competing interests. - Most of your employees are focused on optimizing their lifestyle rather…

I think part of this is because most work today is not strictly "necessary to society". The basic needs of the population are provided by maybe 10% of the workforce now. So of course people see work as less important, because for most jobs at least - it IS less important.
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