When Work Didn’t Follow You Home • Hacker News Board

Re: When Work Didn’t Follow You Home

#111

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jul 13, 2023, 4:32 PM UTC

nobsthrow wrote: post #93

distcs wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They may be 2nd year CS student but the world they experience is not any less real than ours who have been in the industry for 10-20 years. You may disagree with them and that's fine. There is a sort of generation gap obviously and our opinions would differ from theirs. That's fine too. But what is really unacceptable to me is how you dismiss their viewpoint because they are a 2nd-year CS student! What if they were n…

I think the internet would be a much better experience if every person online had generic details about themselves attached to their handle; e.g. age, ethnicity and nationality, parents' net worth and income, employment history or lack thereof, etc. So just like in real life, I could easily dismiss the strong opinions of others who do not have the experience necessary to form any educated opinions on which they speak…

[deleted]

Re: When Work Didn’t Follow You Home

#112

Post by korpsey » Thu, Jul 13, 2023, 4:33 PM UTC

jader201 wrote: post #6

I’ve been working from home 100% for going on 10 years. I’ve had a mix of experiences re: disconnecting from work, and three things that I believe are key: 1. Work out of a separate office, ideally with a door. Don’t go in that room except when you’re working. If you work from a laptop, (mostly) never take it out of that room. Obviously some don’t have this luxury, but if you do and you’re not doing this, I highly su…

I've been working from home since 2016 and I had similar problems with the addition of having a hard time "getting into work mode".

It took me 6 months to adjust to it and I can't even think about going to an office anymore nowadays.

Re: When Work Didn’t Follow You Home

#113

Post by dopylitty » Thu, Jul 13, 2023, 4:33 PM UTC

It’s really time for office workers to unionize to demand basic rights like:

- Ability to disconnect after work - Explicit pay for any after hours work (no more salary workers being forced to work 24/7) - Limits to hours worked per week - Meal breaks (no being forced to eat lunch while on videoconference ) - Safe work environments with minimum distance between workers and air flow / filtering requirements

Re: When Work Didn’t Follow You Home

#114

Post by westernpopular » Thu, Jul 13, 2023, 4:41 PM UTC

doublerabbit wrote: post #77

spacemadness wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seeing the amount of people that answer late night chats from people in other timezones upsets me. What upsets me more are the people on vacation answering chats as soon as they’re pinged. That behavior changes work culture and expectations the more it happens. Bad managers love this sort of thing. I learned a long time ago that to keep my sanity I need a wall up between work hours and my personal life.

Its not always that easy. Enterprise just doesn't work that way. Where multiple timezones come in to play you need to be around. If I need email comms for an important document regarding to something super tight. I can't just wait till tomorrow. Information can be crucial at times and emails can cause break down in communications. Spreadsheets need to be spread and PowerPoints need to be pointed. Work yes, you can st…

Counterpoint, I work in an international company where teams in Europe often need to liaise with teams in the US. The policy is: if it needs to wait, it waits. If it can't wait, you need to reorganize your teams' responsibilities so that those who are reliant on each other are timezone-aligned.

Re: When Work Didn’t Follow You Home

#115

Post by distcs » Thu, Jul 13, 2023, 4:41 PM UTC

nobsthrow wrote: post #93

distcs wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They may be 2nd year CS student but the world they experience is not any less real than ours who have been in the industry for 10-20 years. You may disagree with them and that's fine. There is a sort of generation gap obviously and our opinions would differ from theirs. That's fine too. But what is really unacceptable to me is how you dismiss their viewpoint because they are a 2nd-year CS student! What if they were n…

I think the internet would be a much better experience if every person online had generic details about themselves attached to their handle; e.g. age, ethnicity and nationality, parents' net worth and income, employment history or lack thereof, etc. So just like in real life, I could easily dismiss the strong opinions of others who do not have the experience necessary to form any educated opinions on which they speak…

I disagree with their comment too. I too believe their comment is way too much wrong. I disagree with them. But I would not go so far as creating a throwaway account (like you did) just to do dig up their past threads to find out that they are only a 2nd year CS student. It does not matter to me that their views (which are diametrically opposite than mine) came from an experienced pro or a 2nd year student. What matters to me is that their views are opposite of mine. That can be expressed without digging up their past threads.

Re: When Work Didn’t Follow You Home

#116

Post by distcs » Thu, Jul 13, 2023, 4:44 PM UTC

tristor wrote: post #103

distcs wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They may be 2nd year CS student but the world they experience is not any less real than ours who have been in the industry for 10-20 years. You may disagree with them and that's fine. There is a sort of generation gap obviously and our opinions would differ from theirs. That's fine too. But what is really unacceptable to me is how you dismiss their viewpoint because they are a 2nd-year CS student! What if they were n…

No, his comment is spot on. A 2nd year CS student doesn't know jack shit about working in a professional capacity, and should not be sharing terrible advise that leads to burn out that other people may follow because they too don't know shit about working in a professional capacity. Advice carries accountability, and if you don't have the necessary experience to carry advice, it is much better to shut your trap than…

So you think it is ok to dig up someone's past threads and show that they are 2nd year CS student to discount their point?

If their point is incorrect or wrong, why can't they be discussed on its own? Why is it necessary to discuss the person?

May I suggest reading DH1 of http://paulgraham.com/disagree.html?

> Saying that an author lacks the authority to write about a topic is a variant of ad hominem—and a particularly useless sort, because good ideas often come from outsiders.

There are many others who are engaging with the arguments this young person made without bringing their age or professional status into question. That's a healthy debate. What is happening in this subthread is not!

Re: When Work Didn’t Follow You Home

#117

Post by pedrosorio » Thu, Jul 13, 2023, 4:56 PM UTC

distcs wrote: post #86

nobsthrow wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are a 2nd-year CS student.* You have never worked as an engineer. You do not understand what the real world is like. Please stop waxing about shit you don't know a la /r/cscareerquestions. * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36344172

They may be 2nd year CS student but the world they experience is not any less real than ours who have been in the industry for 10-20 years. You may disagree with them and that's fine. There is a sort of generation gap obviously and our opinions would differ from theirs. That's fine too. But what is really unacceptable to me is how you dismiss their viewpoint because they are a 2nd-year CS student! What if they were n…

> But what is really unacceptable to me is how you dismiss their viewpoint because they are a 2nd-year CS student!

> Saying that an author lacks the authority to write about a topic is a variant of ad hominem

This is not really about authority. An outsider can have good ideas. A person who has no experience and no knowledge of the subject will usually spout nonsense as seen on this thread.

If someone was talking about how child birth doesn't need any sort of pain medication because the experience isn't that painful, wouldn't you want to know if they had actually given birth at least once?

Concretely, reading what a person who has never worked a full time job (much less had to juggle having a family and a full time job), has to say about work-life balance is pointless.

Reading their thoughts on how not working overtime precludes raises and promotions is a waste of time.

Watching as they finish their rant by appealing to a sense of duty that every software engineer must have because "if Google or AWS goes down, it breaks everything" when the people responsible for these systems are a tiny minority of all software engineers...

Come on. If OP was not a 2nd year CS student, I would have been surprised.

Re: When Work Didn’t Follow You Home

#118

Post by tristor » Thu, Jul 13, 2023, 5:05 PM UTC

distcs wrote: post #116

tristor wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, his comment is spot on. A 2nd year CS student doesn't know jack shit about working in a professional capacity, and should not be sharing terrible advise that leads to burn out that other people may follow because they too don't know shit about working in a professional capacity. Advice carries accountability, and if you don't have the necessary experience to carry advice, it is much better to shut your trap than…

So you think it is ok to dig up someone's past threads and show that they are 2nd year CS student to discount their point? If their point is incorrect or wrong, why can't they be discussed on its own? Why is it necessary to discuss the person? May I suggest reading DH1 of http://paulgraham.com/disagree.html ? > Saying that an author lacks the authority to write about a topic is a variant of ad hominem—and a particula…

Both are good. I did both in my other comment. Appeal to authority and ad hominem may be fallacies, but there is truth to the fact this person is speaking advise without any basis for offering it, which is relevant and helpful to point out. It is improper to chastise someone for speaking the truth.

Re: When Work Didn’t Follow You Home

#119

Post by hotpotamus » Thu, Jul 13, 2023, 5:18 PM UTC

ye-olde-sysrq wrote: post #48

lumost wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm honestly surprised that more companies haven't invested in broader vacation policies. My experience has been that the constant "on" state wears you down. The only way to get to "off" is to be OOTO officially for a week+. Add in parental responsibilities and you really don't have any headspace for yourself. Would love to have 5-8 weeks per year, that would let me take at least 1 week's worth of time per quarter to…

>Add in parental responsibilities Out of curiosity, how many of your coworkers have kids? I have 3, and I've always found it a bit ominous that even when I'm on large teams (8+) I'm typically still the only person with kids. So far: 1. job 1, team of 8, only 1 other IC had kids 2. job 2, team of 10, nobody else had kids 3. current job, team of 8, nobody else has kids. If you expand it to the suborganization we're in,…

Children seem like a liability in almost every aspect. I'm honestly a bit surprised when anyone mentions they have/want them, and I'm not even a type A/career climber, who I would think would see them as even more of a liability.

Re: When Work Didn’t Follow You Home

#120

Post by thrashh » Thu, Jul 13, 2023, 5:42 PM UTC

jader201 wrote: post #59

stavros wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you. I continue sitting in my home office after I stop work, and I don't feel tempted to check in at all. #2 and #3 are paramount to me, though.

I believe there's still a mental separation you get from having separate physical spaces for work life and personal life. E.g. there are times that I do break the rule (very rarely) and get on my work computer (e.g. download work documents for tax prep), and part of me feels like I'm back at work. If you've not tried it before, it may be hard to relate or recognize the difference.

I don't know about everyone else, but once I close all my work apps, I completely forget about work. I just got other things I wanna do on my mind so I don't see why I would think about work.

Work to me is like going to the bathroom. I go, do my business, then leave and it's back to my normal day. With WFH, that's even more the case.