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Shopify Goes Digital by Default

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Re: Shopify Goes Digital by Default

#141

Post by cletus »

So I've now been WFH for 2 months and honestly I hate it. Work was already flexible enough such that if you wanted to WFH you could. By convention, people would most often WFH on Wednesdays. I liked this timing of people doing it at the same time.

But communication and collaboration is just much harder work remote and you can't change my mind. I'm sure you can work hard to make it almost as good but it's never going to be better (IMHO).

I of course miss the meals and snacks.

Many people who work at these companies live in big cities where they don't have huge amounts of space and it's not conducive to being productivity, particularly if you live with other people, if you can't get some form of separation.

Those of you who are claiming this will be some form of revolution I think are naive. I've found that advocates of WFH are mostly motivated by that's what they want to do more than anything else. I mean that's fine but it often leads to thinly-veiled, self-serving, biased arguments and proclamations of the benefits to everyone.

If you need an office anyway you don't really save anything by WFH unless you oversubscribe your work areas (eg hot-desking) and that has its own problems.

All-remote might work best. I've seen this claimed but have no direct experience with it. I do know that mixed WFH and in the office is nearly always detrimental to the remote people and the team as a whole (IME).

I just don't think a company with 50,000+ employees can operate this way indefinitely.

Re: Shopify Goes Digital by Default

#142

Post by DJHenk »

danlugo92 wrote: post #42
peruvian wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Commuting is the big time saver, but you can also do chores you'd relegate to the weekend or after work while WFH. Not always of course, but chores like a quick grocery trip, laundry, cleaning, errands in your immediate neighborhood no longer crowd your weekend.

This is a recipe for disaster, at least in my experience, chores pile up and before you know it's 4pm and you still short on hours worked/output emitted..

Do you have so many chores that you spend every day until 4pm doing them? Of course not. Because when you worked at an office, you also did not spend that much time on them. I love to mix chores with work, because your mind gets a break and you're still doing something useful. And most of the time, in the back of your head you're unconsciously still solving the problem that you were working on. So when you get back at your keyboard, you can continue right away. How can anyone not like this enormous productivity boost?

I think that working from home will stay and that some kind of work discipline will be a skill people are just required to have. You know, like being able to communicate professionally and to keep promises.

Re: Shopify Goes Digital by Default

#143

Post by Shivetya »

newfeatureok wrote: post #90

Remote-first is the future. I'm not sure why anyone would be against it. No one is forcing you to work from home. From a compliance and operations perspective a remote-first company is effectively forced to do a lot of things many companies do not or will not undertake: - Make meetings accessible to everyone - Communicate more effectively and transparently internal to the organization (and even externally, for the ad…

a few points

How will local governments adjust for loss of tax base as it is likely real estate values for office properties will drop and in turn the cascade effect on businesses which serve them; from restaurants to small services.

Companies that own their own head quarters and other facilities may be less willing to have people work from home. Some companies put a lot of pride in their head quarters and other facilities.

How many companies who do swing to this type of work will expect reduction in salaries as compensation? Would you trade a percentage of your salary for the guarantee of working from home? How many days would you be willing to meet at a central site or would they even be a thing?

Personal experience, it took till COVID19 for where I work to make quarterly meetings available to those who are remote. For the most part they have done pretty well in this regard to even offering streaming of past events and presentations normally done by phone to using survey monkey to gather questions to be addressed.

Re: Shopify Goes Digital by Default

#144

Post by stronglikedan »

newfeatureok wrote: post #52

Remote-first is the future. I'm not sure why anyone would be against it. No one is forcing you to work from home. From a compliance and operations perspective a remote-first company is effectively forced to do a lot of things many companies do not or will not undertake: - Make meetings accessible to everyone - Communicate more effectively and transparently internal to the organization (and even externally, for the ad…

> No one is forcing you to work from home.

> And after that, most will permanently work remotely. Office centricity is over.

It does seem like they plan on forcing their employees to work from home in this case.

I think that's the problem that most people have - not having the option to work from work.

Re: Shopify Goes Digital by Default

#145

Post by curiousllama »

newfeatureok wrote: post #135
benrbray wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(I posted this in another thread, but it's also relevant here) As a new grad, I'm terrified of a transition where WFH is the default. I recognize that I still have a lot to learn, and that I can't do it all on my own. Casual interactions with coworkers and the ability to passively absorb new information in the workplace are essential for entry-level employees like me. Plus, personally, I find the social aspect of wor…

I would argue that absorbing new information would be much easier in a remote-first environment (such meandering conversations would be available for everyone to see, not just the participants of a given conversation). The rest of what you said is not unique to new-grads in any way. Also, a remote-first company could still have an office - albeit reduced. If all your friends were at remote-first companies wouldn't yo…

New grads, almost by definition, have absorbed whatever they can from reading, the internet, and education; what they need is attention. How to interact in a professional environment; the details of the company, industry and role; the office politics... all are "unknown unknowns" to a new grad. I learned about them from mentorship, 1:1 conversations, and by reading the body language of people around me. It would've been a LOT harder to do that over Zoom...

(That said, anyone smart enough to be concerned about it is also probably smart enough to seek out what they don't know so I'm sure the author of the parent comment will be fine.)

Re: Shopify Goes Digital by Default

#146

Post by pb7 »

fourmyle wrote: post #115
pb7 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the glaring problems with SF were fixed, this is still one of the best places in the world to live quality-of-life wise. Weather, accessibility to some of the best nature in the world, great food, entertainment, etc.

SF anywhere near Market or Mission is a 3rd world country. I just moved to Seattle. The QoL difference is striking.

Yeah, it sucks. From my few visits to Seattle, it seemed similar in parts but I haven't spent enough time there to make a confident assertion.

Re: Shopify Goes Digital by Default

#147

Post by fullshark »

godzillabrennus wrote: post #26

Anyone else think these companies will pull a Yahoo and undo this policy after the pandemic?

If I were to bet, it'd be that this is a knee jerk reaction to feeling helpless currently with everyone forced to WFH / lack of clarity on timeline and won't become the norm.

Re: Shopify Goes Digital by Default

#148

Post by alexbanks »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #134
alexbanks wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm confused by your wording. Are you saying that working independently is important but also unavailable because you're working from home? How?

Sorry, no, I meant the opposite. Being available for essentially arbitrary interruptions is part of how some people naturally work.

Ahhh gotcha. I think it's just a different way of thinking. "I'll pop over to Alex's desk" vs. "I'll ping Alex to see when he's able to chat"

Re: Shopify Goes Digital by Default

#149

Post by codegeek »

newfeatureok wrote: post #90

Remote-first is the future. I'm not sure why anyone would be against it. No one is forcing you to work from home. From a compliance and operations perspective a remote-first company is effectively forced to do a lot of things many companies do not or will not undertake: - Make meetings accessible to everyone - Communicate more effectively and transparently internal to the organization (and even externally, for the ad…

One of the biggest challenges with Remote-first are Tax and Compliance issues. In the US for example, the moment you have out of state employees even if within US, you need to do a lot more paperwork in terms of taxes, payroll etc. How will we handle for example Workers Comp. A lot of questions need to be answered.

Also, Remote domestic or Remote International ? That changes things drastically as well.

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