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Half of American workers would rather work from home forever: poll

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Re: Half of American workers would rather work from home forever: poll

#131

Post by chapium »

flatline wrote: post #112
gspr wrote: post #29

I wonder if this is related to the long commutes Americans have gotten used to. I'm not in the US, and while I would say I definitely appreciate the flexibility of being able to work from home (or from "not the office") every now and then, and I do like the present drop in meetings, I cannot fathom how people stay sane without a variety of other people around. My productivity has definitely dropped, and it feels like…

My work is all meetings all the time, now. I’m on the phone most of the day. Little things that used to take 20 minutes now take an hour. I used to enjoy working from home a couple days a week because I got some peace and quiet and knew I could catch back up with people when I returned to the office. I went from loving to hating my job in the last three weeks. I am also constantly distracted by having the kids around…

Work from home does work better when you have daycare. The isolation of wfh gave me a lot of anxiety (other life problems factored in as well). I think a good balance is 1-2 days/wfh. Wfh degrades into work from coffeeshop.

If your meetings aren't productive there's definitely a problem in your org. I suspect meetings are being driven by those without a clear goal and intend to fill a whole hour talking. Just a hunch, thats some good ole internet armchair analysis for ya.

Long meetings are a symptom of a lack of planning imho.

Re: Half of American workers would rather work from home forever: poll

#132

Post by mark_l_watson »

I think that I have relevant experience to talk about the advantages and disadvantages of working from home. In 1998 my wife and I moved from California to the mountains in Central Arizona. Until 2016, I almost exclusively worked remotely and sometimes I took long periods off work to write books and enjoy nature hikes. For about a decade I only accepted about 20% of offers to provide service.

Working remotely got old. In 2016 I worked on a project at Google so we lived in Mountain View for a while. I really enjoyed the change of working in an office (and the food was good). After we returned home, I accepted a gig to work for an AI company in Singapore and after that worked onsite managing a deep learning team at Capital One (an excellent company to work for, BTW).

We are back home now, and I am retired except for writing and working on a commercial software product (in Common Lisp) in the semantic web/linked data space. Frankly, as much as I love my day to day life, to be honest I really miss working in a team with face to face brainstorming, etc.

Re: Half of American workers would rather work from home forever: poll

#133

Post by cs02rm0 »

therealvayne wrote: post #7

Don’t people miss social interaction? I don’t understand how these articles are written. As a single man living on my own, this lockdown has made it pretty lonely.

Video calls are all the social interaction I need with coworkers.

Probably more than I need.

Re: Half of American workers would rather work from home forever: poll

#134

Post by dathinab »

grovellogic wrote: post #98
falcolas wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having your kids with you is a transitory thing, when school starts back up the problem will decline sharply. It’s worth remembering that these are not your standard work from home conditions - you’re being kept in due to an emergency, and trying to also get some work done.

I wouldn't call 18 year transitory. Yes the problems decline, but there are still issues with working from home with kids. Generally space and noise becomes an issue as well.

I think the parent comment means that in "normal" circumstances the kids are not at home all day making it less of an issue. I don't think he meant that they will move out (plus in the area where I live there was a sharp rise in rents in recent years and it's now much more common for people to stay with there parents _much_ longer. Like meeting a 24 year old person living with their parents (again) isn't that uncommon. (Not that common either)).

Re: Half of American workers would rather work from home forever: poll

#135

Post by tarsinge »

gspr wrote: post #29

I wonder if this is related to the long commutes Americans have gotten used to. I'm not in the US, and while I would say I definitely appreciate the flexibility of being able to work from home (or from "not the office") every now and then, and I do like the present drop in meetings, I cannot fathom how people stay sane without a variety of other people around. My productivity has definitely dropped, and it feels like…

Personally it took me at least two years to learn to work from home. The key for me is actively rebalancing your social life and interactions on outside of work activities. That's not intuitive because we are so used at getting some interactions everyday automatically in a job, so if you don't take action you will end up in a social deficit very fast.

Re: Half of American workers would rather work from home forever: poll

#137

Post by Shivetya »

willvarfar wrote: post #25

I'm anticipating that most HNers prompted to comment here will be those thinking this unlikely or wrong or whatever. Every time something positive about remote working is on HN, only those opposing it seem to comment... So, anyway, here's my vote in favour of remote working! I've worked from home for the last 10 years straight, and two years in the decade before that. Working from home has always been best for me. Hi…

I am in the camp of, it works for some but for a majority of workers and more important, managers, companies need to put forward some effort to train them to be effective. some are ineffective in the use of their time and subject to distraction. training can mitigate this.

however we also need consider that some corporations are way too proud of their headquarters or other buildings and having them fully staffed is part of that pride. something that also needs to be addressed.

now work from home can also means it can end up in a situation where you need to compete more on a world stage for employment. once some companies adapt to having remote workers does it really matter where they are? this can lead to wage erosion and even at times cultural conflicts.

Re: Half of American workers would rather work from home forever: poll

#139

Post by gspr »

tarsinge wrote: post #135
gspr wrote: post #29

I wonder if this is related to the long commutes Americans have gotten used to. I'm not in the US, and while I would say I definitely appreciate the flexibility of being able to work from home (or from "not the office") every now and then, and I do like the present drop in meetings, I cannot fathom how people stay sane without a variety of other people around. My productivity has definitely dropped, and it feels like…

Personally it took me at least two years to learn to work from home. The key for me is actively rebalancing your social life and interactions on outside of work activities. That's not intuitive because we are so used at getting some interactions everyday automatically in a job, so if you don't take action you will end up in a social deficit very fast.

> The key for me is actively rebalancing your social life and interactions on outside of work activities. That not intuitive because we are so used at getting interactions automatically in a job, so if you don't take action you will end up isolated very rapidly.

This seems reasonable. It's a shame it's a bit hard to try out these days ;-)

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