When working from home is toxic • Hacker News Board

Re: When working from home is toxic

#11

Post by acheron » Mon, Jul 05, 2021, 3:04 PM UTC

xwdv wrote: post #2

You know what we need? Something that is the equivalent of a blue check mark for remote workers. The check mark would mean that this worker has a home office setup that meets or exceeds standards for remote work. The certification process can be handled by a neutral third party. The standards would be stringent, a laptop on on some corner desk wouldn’t quality. You must have a room with a door that can be closed IMO.…

You know what we need? Something that is the equivalent of a blue check mark for offices.

The standards would be stringent, an open office hoteling arrangement wouldn’t qualify. You must have an office with a door that can be closed IMO.

Re: When working from home is toxic

#12

Post by shagie » Mon, Jul 05, 2021, 3:04 PM UTC

xwdv wrote: post #2

You know what we need? Something that is the equivalent of a blue check mark for remote workers. The check mark would mean that this worker has a home office setup that meets or exceeds standards for remote work. The certification process can be handled by a neutral third party. The standards would be stringent, a laptop on on some corner desk wouldn’t quality. You must have a room with a door that can be closed IMO.…

For WFH, the organization that I work in had a form that I had to fill out prior to getting authorization. It essentially looked like something from OSHA.

* The working area is maintained between 68°-76°

* The working area is free of tripping obstructions

* The working area has a adjustable chair

* The working area has handholds on any staircase of more than two steps

Etc...

And yes, I am working on improving the area that I work in. It currently meets the requirements, I'm just looking to go another step for a more comfortable area now that I know that long term WFH is possible and reasonable.

Re: When working from home is toxic

#13

Post by plank_time » Mon, Jul 05, 2021, 3:04 PM UTC

xwdv wrote: post #2

You know what we need? Something that is the equivalent of a blue check mark for remote workers. The check mark would mean that this worker has a home office setup that meets or exceeds standards for remote work. The certification process can be handled by a neutral third party. The standards would be stringent, a laptop on on some corner desk wouldn’t quality. You must have a room with a door that can be closed IMO.…

Why not just have employee cameras so that they can both verify the workstation set up as well as make sure they’re actually working for the full 8 hours a day?

Sounds like a great YC startup idea. They can use machine learning and AI to calculate the times that the employee is sitting at their workstation, have eye tracking to make sure that they are looking at the screen, and analyze the network traffic and keystrokes to make sure that people aren’t goofing off on HN or Reddit.

Re: When working from home is toxic

#14

Post by samhuk » Mon, Jul 05, 2021, 3:04 PM UTC

xwdv wrote: post #2

You know what we need? Something that is the equivalent of a blue check mark for remote workers. The check mark would mean that this worker has a home office setup that meets or exceeds standards for remote work. The certification process can be handled by a neutral third party. The standards would be stringent, a laptop on on some corner desk wouldn’t quality. You must have a room with a door that can be closed IMO.…

I can see how that can quite easily be viewed as gatekeeping.

Having a "spare" room or a rented coworking space to use as a remote office is a luxury of the middle/upper class.

I can see your logic, and I can see how it would be more profitable for companies when hiring remote, but at the end of the day, there are many profitable things a company can do that they are not (technically, see: "legally") allowed to do, for example not hiring disabled workers, firing pregnant female workers, and so on.

We choose to not maximise productivity to create a more accepting and equal society.

That is of course all in theory.

Re: When working from home is toxic

#15

Post by xwdv » Mon, Jul 05, 2021, 3:04 PM UTC

vxNsr wrote: post #5

xwdv wrote: post #2

You know what we need? Something that is the equivalent of a blue check mark for remote workers. The check mark would mean that this worker has a home office setup that meets or exceeds standards for remote work. The certification process can be handled by a neutral third party. The standards would be stringent, a laptop on on some corner desk wouldn’t quality. You must have a room with a door that can be closed IMO.…

What’s the benefit of this?

It helps the professional remote workers with dedicated power user setups standout from the crowd.

Re: When working from home is toxic

#16

Post by Cthulhu_ » Mon, Jul 05, 2021, 3:05 PM UTC

xwdv wrote: post #2

You know what we need? Something that is the equivalent of a blue check mark for remote workers. The check mark would mean that this worker has a home office setup that meets or exceeds standards for remote work. The certification process can be handled by a neutral third party. The standards would be stringent, a laptop on on some corner desk wouldn’t quality. You must have a room with a door that can be closed IMO.…

Eh? An employer should ensure all of this; money normally spent on that employee's workspace should be spent on their home setup. This should include enough money so that the employee can move houses to a place with a spare room, desk, chair, screens, electricity, internet connection, etc. Take what you pay per employee in desk space, and pay it to your employees directly.

And open up your wallet for relocation, since it's unlikely they'll find housing in SF.

Re: When working from home is toxic

#17

Post by xwdv » Mon, Jul 05, 2021, 3:05 PM UTC

samhuk wrote: post #14

xwdv wrote: post #2

You know what we need? Something that is the equivalent of a blue check mark for remote workers. The check mark would mean that this worker has a home office setup that meets or exceeds standards for remote work. The certification process can be handled by a neutral third party. The standards would be stringent, a laptop on on some corner desk wouldn’t quality. You must have a room with a door that can be closed IMO.…

I can see how that can quite easily be viewed as gatekeeping. Having a "spare" room or a rented coworking space to use as a remote office is a luxury of the middle/upper class. I can see your logic, and I can see how it would be more profitable for companies when hiring remote, but at the end of the day, there are many profitable things a company can do that they are not (technically, see: "legally") allowed to do, f…

A company can still hire unverified workers though if they want.

Re: When working from home is toxic

#18

Post by gambiting » Mon, Jul 05, 2021, 3:06 PM UTC

deregulateMed wrote: post #7

xwdv wrote: post #2

You know what we need? Something that is the equivalent of a blue check mark for remote workers. The check mark would mean that this worker has a home office setup that meets or exceeds standards for remote work. The certification process can be handled by a neutral third party. The standards would be stringent, a laptop on on some corner desk wouldn’t quality. You must have a room with a door that can be closed IMO.…

I can't tell if this is serious. If you are serious, what's stopping me from renting a space for 1 hour, getting the check mark and going back home to my slum? Or fixing up my place, getting rid of kids toys, getting the check mark, then letting things go back to before? Seriously though, if you can't do your job, your manager should be able to figure it out.

I mean, I hate it, but it's not THAT far from certain requirements that you can run into. For instance....when doing games development as an indie dev, you can't have a Playstation devkit at home unless you have certified locks installed on all doors, the devkit is positioned out of view, the window isn't easily accessible from the outside(preferably with metal bars)....it's a pain to actually demonstrate that your place of work is safe enough to have a devkit present there.....otherwise they just won't send you one, end of story. So yes, in order to just do your job from home, there is a requirement for a level of security and setup involved.

As an aside - funny how in the pandemic these requirements were massively relaxed and as a remote worker I currently have a PS5 devkit on my desk like it's a not big thing.

Re: When working from home is toxic

#19

Post by stank345 » Mon, Jul 05, 2021, 3:06 PM UTC

Getting back to working from the office last week has done wonders for my mental health. I went from being locked up for a year WFH with my wife and kids in a small row home working out of my goddamn basement to actually being able to concentrate in a beautiful, still-mostly-dead office with a view. There's an exercise room on my floor that no one uses so it's basically my private gym. I can chat a bit with the few coworkers who are in the office regularly. It's been amazing. I feel like an actual adult human again instead of a parent/employee trying to hold on to various threads to keep everything from becoming undone.

Re: When working from home is toxic

#20

Post by jwlake » Mon, Jul 05, 2021, 3:06 PM UTC

plank_time wrote: post #13

xwdv wrote: post #2

You know what we need? Something that is the equivalent of a blue check mark for remote workers. The check mark would mean that this worker has a home office setup that meets or exceeds standards for remote work. The certification process can be handled by a neutral third party. The standards would be stringent, a laptop on on some corner desk wouldn’t quality. You must have a room with a door that can be closed IMO.…

Why not just have employee cameras so that they can both verify the workstation set up as well as make sure they’re actually working for the full 8 hours a day? Sounds like a great YC startup idea. They can use machine learning and AI to calculate the times that the employee is sitting at their workstation, have eye tracking to make sure that they are looking at the screen, and analyze the network traffic and keystro…

I think android overloads would improve the situation.