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Why Five Days in the Office Is Too Many

nytimes.com

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Re: Why Five Days in the Office Is Too Many

#61

Post by cbs »

marquis wrote: post #25
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #24

Prerna is a good CEO and did some great things at Khush which helped her acquisition. Even still this intro is maddening: >The freedom to work outside a traditional office was one of the main reasons I left the corporate world eight years ago, at age 23, to start a software company. Maddening because she spent about a year in that "corporate world." Hardly a good sampling period. I don't disagree with her conclusions…

I spent less than 3 months total in the corporate world at her age and quickly knew I wanted out. I haven't been back in over 10 years and don't believe it makes my thoughts on the matter irrelevant.

I've been to Tahoe. It doesn't make my thoughts on California in general irrelevant, but incredibly suspect if I make a statement about any part of the state that is not a high elevation desert currently covered in snow.

Re: Why Five Days in the Office Is Too Many

#62

Post by res0nat0r »

outside1234 wrote: post #15
res0nat0r wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This policy hasn't been set in stone as a permanent measure. I'm sure it is being put in place for now to help the company get its act together to help bring it back from the sub par arena it has been swimming in for so long. Once that hopefully happens then the policy could be lifted.

you mean like at Google. oh wait.

Google and Amazon both don't allow permanent work from home positions.

Re: Why Five Days in the Office Is Too Many

#63

Post by dwj »

enjo wrote: post #48
devcpp wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your sound like an executive too, putting emphasis on well-researched words, and mentioning things like capturing inspiration. As far as I've seen, there is little inspiration involved in most programming environments, just a lot of thinking.

I'm going to assume this was meant to be insulting. A lot of that is going around on HN these days. It's really too bad. I'll just leave it at this. Isn't inspiration often the end-result of careful thought? I don't see what about an office makes it the right place for the thinking you see in programming environments. I've solved more hard problems in the shower than I have at my desk.

enjo is absolutely right. I regularly require inspiration in order to solve difficult problems. This inspiration generally never happens when sitting in front of a computer screen - most of my ideas come when I am walking, swimming, cycling, etc.

Certainly there are many dull development jobs that require no inspiration or even much thinking - I worked in many of them before I got bored to death and started my own business.

If you are in one of those dead-end jobs, you're not the kind of person that enjo is talking about.

Re: Why Five Days in the Office Is Too Many

#64

Post by RougeFemme »

soneca wrote: post #44
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have focus rooms in our semi-open plan. They suck, they aren't fairly utilized and usually monopolized, or they are quickly turned into the service of other purposes (like store rooms or guest offices).

I imagine that must be hard to manage the use of the rooms. I think an open plan with distanced, isolated through architecture one-person workspaces might work better. But that demands a lot of space, must be hard to implement.

I like that idea, but agree it would be hard to manage. First-come, first serve can still lead to monopolizing the room. There would need to be time limits, but again, that requires management. And if I'm in there and "on a roll", I would have to have to leave just because of a time constraint. Unless I could just go home and continue working.

Re: Why Five Days in the Office Is Too Many

#65

Post by RougeFemme »

djhworld wrote: post #54
com2kid wrote: post #2

In contrast, I am energized by going into the office and working side by side with my peers to solve hard problems. I dislike programming by myself, it is dull, boring, and much more error prone than when I have someone to bounce ideas off of. (Rubber Ducking only goes so far!) Really every time this topic is brought up the overall consensus seems to be "it varies for different people." Some people seem to really ben…

I think the bigger problem is most working environments are not conducive to productivity or pleasant places to be. You see awesome offices in places like Google, Facebook et al where workers have plenty of space around their desk, and other areas in the building where they can work/socialise/relax. Unfortunately most businesses are not like that, they cram as many people as they can into vast open plan offices where…

I don't work in a "Google-style" office, but I'm not stuck in an open plan office, either. I have a spacious (for a cube) cube, but it's not quiet, at least not when certain folks are in the office, which is all too frequent.

Re: Why Five Days in the Office Is Too Many

#66

Post by RougeFemme »

onemorepassword wrote: post #46
methehack wrote: post #22

The very term "work from home" suggests separation. That's the wrong model. This is not about introverts and extroverts. Working with a remote team is not a choice about whether to collaborate or not. When a team is set up properly, remote work is no less collaborative than any other kind of work. The tools are there, widely available, and free. Everyone on a team needs to be using them, yes, but duh. As near as I ca…

I'm all in favor of letting people work from home and facilitating remote work for certain kinds of projects, but if you seriously think remote work is no less collaborative or technology can replace "face time", I assume you're missing a lot of human communication skills. Not only does physical interaction have a much higher bandwidth, it goes well beyond just the work. The more you interact, at lunch or in the hall…

This is not referring to you, since you seem open to a mix of remote and onsite work, but. . .the flip side of this argument is that there are hiring managers who believe that employees can only be effective when their "butts are in the chairs" from 9 to 5 each and every day - don't know any other way to measure their productivity. And, unfortunately, there are also hiring managers who don't know to effectively use "face time" and, of course, don't know to help their employees who may also be lacking in that skill.

Re: Why Five Days in the Office Is Too Many

#67

Post by jcheng »

quaunaut wrote: post #34
obviouslygreen wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't mean to be condescending, but the only "telling" thing about that is your inexperience. If you already know it's a place you couldn't stand to live, it's an extremely bad idea to move there. Do not second-guess yourself like this! You will end up regretting it. Telecommuting is not for everyone, but being new to the industry, your perspective is likely to change over the next few years if you stick around. I'…

This is incredibly true. Though, the main thing keeping me in line right now, is that I'm just over a year away from moving to where I really want to be- Seattle! Once I'm there, I don't know what I'm gonna do. Probably program at a cafe every day.

When you get to Seattle, check out Office Nomads in Capitol Hill. Sounds like you will find lots of like-minded people there.

Re: Why Five Days in the Office Is Too Many

#68

Post by devcpp »

enjo wrote: post #48
devcpp wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your sound like an executive too, putting emphasis on well-researched words, and mentioning things like capturing inspiration. As far as I've seen, there is little inspiration involved in most programming environments, just a lot of thinking.

I'm going to assume this was meant to be insulting. A lot of that is going around on HN these days. It's really too bad. I'll just leave it at this. Isn't inspiration often the end-result of careful thought? I don't see what about an office makes it the right place for the thinking you see in programming environments. I've solved more hard problems in the shower than I have at my desk.

Sorry if you found that insulting. I guess I got used to this aspetic cold language you see on HN to make emotion invisible. That's one of the things I miss from Reddit.

I know there are many people like you that somehow intuitively capture these abstract concepts, and I respect that. I just find it amusing that you can notice these things even when the person is out of work. That's when you differentiate the manipulative managers from the true ones.

My point wasn't particularly focusing in offices. Being pragmatic and rather emotion-less, I find programming requires more logic and method than feelings.

Re: Why Five Days in the Office Is Too Many

#69

Post by smrtinsert »

com2kid wrote: post #2

In contrast, I am energized by going into the office and working side by side with my peers to solve hard problems. I dislike programming by myself, it is dull, boring, and much more error prone than when I have someone to bounce ideas off of. (Rubber Ducking only goes so far!) Really every time this topic is brought up the overall consensus seems to be "it varies for different people." Some people seem to really ben…

Extroverts become energized through contact, but I would say most programmers are not extroverted.

Re: Why Five Days in the Office Is Too Many

#70

Post by smrtinsert »

Uncompetative wrote: post #55

I find it disgusting that people are forced to commute at great expense to our planet's dwinding natural resources, their finances, time and stress so that they can physically congregate for an 'inspiring water-cooler moment' that may catalytically lurch their company towards an original, otherwise undiscoverable, profitable path or endless corporate meetings to please unnecessarily multi-layered paranoid management…

Its a false premise quite honestly. Look at some place like Google, absolutely brilliant people work there and brainstorm there, yet their greatest "ideas" are acquisitions.
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