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Anthropologists and the business of sense-making at work

theguardian.com

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Re: Anthropologists and the business of sense-making at work

#11

Post by anthropodie »

DoingIsLearning wrote: post #8
SilverRed wrote: post #2

It almost feels like there is a conspiracy brewing to talk down on WFH despite most employees loving it. I suspect that the commercial property owners and middle managers are behind this because they are the ones who have mostly lost out here. The cat is out of the bag I think. Once people can work from home in a post covid world where they can socialize normally, I think many companies, and especially in software de…

Indeed I know we shouldn't instigate conspiracy shilling without evidence. However it does feel that there is an agenda from the Savills of the world to justify office leases with a lot of these fragile reasoning articles coming out. Of course remote meetings will not have the same 'feeling' as a live meeting the question is do you have the right tooling and processes to achieve the same outcome. That is something co…

> The right tooling and process to achieve the same outcome

Not to mention this is true even when working from office.

Re: Anthropologists and the business of sense-making at work

#12

Post by [deleted] »

philliphaydon wrote: post #5
jolux wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s funny because I feel like I’ve been reading article after article recently about how working in offices is dumb and they can’t imagine why anyone would do it anymore unless they were zombified corporate stooges. My feeling is that working in an office makes it possible for me to separate work from the rest of my life, and my commute (about 30 minutes, soon to be fifteen or less via public transit once I move) ni…

I saw a comment in the Apple thread where someone said people who don't like WFH hate their family, or themselves. Which was a shocking comment. I love spending time with my family and daughter, but I get paid to work to support my family, and working from home makes me feel distracted. I thought working from home would be the best part of a job, but losing the separation of work/life, going from avoiding meetings to…

[deleted]

Re: Anthropologists and the business of sense-making at work

#13

Post by lnenad »

jolux wrote: post #3
SilverRed wrote: post #2

It almost feels like there is a conspiracy brewing to talk down on WFH despite most employees loving it. I suspect that the commercial property owners and middle managers are behind this because they are the ones who have mostly lost out here. The cat is out of the bag I think. Once people can work from home in a post covid world where they can socialize normally, I think many companies, and especially in software de…

It’s funny because I feel like I’ve been reading article after article recently about how working in offices is dumb and they can’t imagine why anyone would do it anymore unless they were zombified corporate stooges. My feeling is that working in an office makes it possible for me to separate work from the rest of my life, and my commute (about 30 minutes, soon to be fifteen or less via public transit once I move) ni…

I'm in the same boat, 15 mins to work. I like the separation aspect, and the social aspect as well. Can't wait to go back.

Re: Anthropologists and the business of sense-making at work

#15

Post by weird-eye-issue »

anthropodie wrote: post #7
philliphaydon wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I saw a comment in the Apple thread where someone said people who don't like WFH hate their family, or themselves. Which was a shocking comment. I love spending time with my family and daughter, but I get paid to work to support my family, and working from home makes me feel distracted. I thought working from home would be the best part of a job, but losing the separation of work/life, going from avoiding meetings to…

I guess finally it comes down to individual choice. Let people choose where they want to work from!

It depends on company culture. Some places are "remote friendly" and some places are remote friendly.

Re: Anthropologists and the business of sense-making at work

#16

Post by anthropodie »

codingdave wrote: post #10
SilverRed wrote: post #2

It almost feels like there is a conspiracy brewing to talk down on WFH despite most employees loving it. I suspect that the commercial property owners and middle managers are behind this because they are the ones who have mostly lost out here. The cat is out of the bag I think. Once people can work from home in a post covid world where they can socialize normally, I think many companies, and especially in software de…

I feel like it is just the concept of the vocal minority. People who are seeing the world go their way tend to just enjoy the ride. People who don't like how it is going tend to be quite vocal about their displeasure. Minority opinions can be quite loud, in any aspect of our society. Personally, I want to respect our differences. I support people figuring out where they want to work and finding companies who let them…

Let people choose where they want to work from!

Now if people who want to work from office find themselves in empty office then they need to adapt to this new paradigm shift the same way rest of us adapted to loud open offices where anyone can walk up to anyone and interrupt the flow.

Some people adapt to whatever reality is while others force their responsibility of adaptation on their peers/environment.

Re: Anthropologists and the business of sense-making at work

#17

Post by whateveracct »

oDot wrote: post #4

I wrote a booklet[0] about being thrown into remote work, and as I gathered, really the only objections are the likes of this article, something along the lines of "We had this good thing in the office and now we don't have it therefore we need the office". They all fail to use the important lesson Henry Hazlitt thought us: > The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effec…

That booklet is nice!

Re: Anthropologists and the business of sense-making at work

#18

Post by tehbeard »

flukus wrote: post #6
jolux wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s funny because I feel like I’ve been reading article after article recently about how working in offices is dumb and they can’t imagine why anyone would do it anymore unless they were zombified corporate stooges. My feeling is that working in an office makes it possible for me to separate work from the rest of my life, and my commute (about 30 minutes, soon to be fifteen or less via public transit once I move) ni…

> My feeling is that working in an office makes it possible for me to separate work from the rest of my life This is seems to be pretty common, can you explain why it's so hard to separate? Generally I start the work day by turning on the work computer, when I'm done I turn it off and anything beyond that is the sort of rare exception I would have logged in from home for even if I was working in the office. That and…

Most of us don't have a separate room for an office, or might be stuck using our own equipment (pc, phone) for our job now, which blurs the lines on home/work.

Re: Anthropologists and the business of sense-making at work

#19

Post by dougmwne »

SilverRed wrote: post #2

It almost feels like there is a conspiracy brewing to talk down on WFH despite most employees loving it. I suspect that the commercial property owners and middle managers are behind this because they are the ones who have mostly lost out here. The cat is out of the bag I think. Once people can work from home in a post covid world where they can socialize normally, I think many companies, and especially in software de…

For many, many people the cat is out of the bag. I went through this 5 years ago and couldn't stand being back in the office. I was the rat that escaped the maze. There was no going back for me.

Most people have never in their lives experienced the autonomy and self-direction of WFH. They have been running from obligation to obligation, expectation to expectation with no time to digest or consider if there's a better way. Now, for many people they have lived that better way and they will never go back.

Re: Anthropologists and the business of sense-making at work

#20

Post by swiley »

codingdave wrote: post #10
SilverRed wrote: post #2

It almost feels like there is a conspiracy brewing to talk down on WFH despite most employees loving it. I suspect that the commercial property owners and middle managers are behind this because they are the ones who have mostly lost out here. The cat is out of the bag I think. Once people can work from home in a post covid world where they can socialize normally, I think many companies, and especially in software de…

I feel like it is just the concept of the vocal minority. People who are seeing the world go their way tend to just enjoy the ride. People who don't like how it is going tend to be quite vocal about their displeasure. Minority opinions can be quite loud, in any aspect of our society. Personally, I want to respect our differences. I support people figuring out where they want to work and finding companies who let them…

WFH is an instant 13-20% raise for most people because they're not compensated for the commute. The same economic effect that results in SWEs being paid well above minimum wage will also result in widespread remote work.

If you like socializing you can still do that, in fact you can do more of it since you're not spending an hour or two every day in a car, alone.

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