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I Miss Working from the Office

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141–150 of 502 posts

Re: I Miss Working from the Office

#141

Post by finalight »

to me, the moment this work from home kicks in, i really enjoy it throughout

i have a newborn to take care in my family. if i go to work, i can't concentrate because i will always wonder what is going on with my newborn. when i'm at home working, i can easily see what's going on exactly.

the commute time is also also another issue. i use to spend an hour to and fro from the office each. now with this situation, i can wake up very late and still be on time for the meeting

did my efficiency drop? hard to say, but i give my 100% even when i'm working from home

Re: I Miss Working from the Office

#142

Post by Tomis02 »

intricatedetail wrote: post #45

Work in office was a thing because we didn't have great tools to communicate. Now that changed and I think office work is an unnecessary luxury. If people need face to face meeting, then maybe it is a sign they need to work on their communication skills? I find text communication more meaningful and productive that f2f where things easily get lost. If you need to escape family life, consider working from a cafe or re…

No, work in office was a thing because it's always been like that and change is difficult. It's not like remote work is a new idea, it's just that the idea of not visually seeing asses in seats was perceived as very radical.

Re: I Miss Working from the Office

#143

Post by jcims »

knuthsat wrote: post #40

I have too much pressure from my significant other. She can't look at me doing nothing (when I'm thinking or having my 15 minute rest between productive hours). Every single time I need to clean something up. I started going to the store and cooking lunch during work hours. Then I also get complaints about not doing the dishes while I'm working. It was nice when the work and home were separated and I just did all my…

Unsolicited advice warning

That's a long road.

I think it's fair to ask you to pull your weight with the housework but maybe try setting some standard boundaries e.g. between 8-5 or something, so there's no need for an interaction ('are you done working?'). If you're conveniently 'working' every time she asks that's not going to help.

Or you could ask her to do your work while you do the dishes/cook/etc.

My suggestion would be that no matter what you decide, propose the idea proactively. Don't wait until there's an ask on the table.

Re: I Miss Working from the Office

#144

Post by learc83 »

lokedhs wrote: post #90
chrismcb wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before my current job I worked from home for 8 of 9 years. Right in the middle I worked in an office in a small start up. We were about 10 people squeezed into a space the size of my living room. I spent more time chatting with them over some form of messenger than I did in my remote jobs! And no, I feel like I get more done, because I don't have someone just turning sideways and interupting me. While it may be quick…

That may be the case for you, but for many people, their job requires them to communicate with a lot of people. For these kinds of jobs, being in the office is a lot more efficient. If I was a regular developer, working on a single part of a larger application, I would have zero problems working from home. Once you're in a position where you have to coordinate work with several other people, things are very different…

I’ve been the principal engineer for my company, remotely for the past 4 years. I’ve never had a problem with it.

There are tradeoffs, but just the fact that nearly every single one of our conversations are documented and searchable is worth it alone.

You can’t just walk over to talk to someone anytime the notion strikes you, but you shouldn’t have been doing that anyway. I love to talk, and I love to think out loud. But every time I do that, I’m asking someone else to divert there attention to me.

Being remote allows people to turn off the majority of the interruptions and get work done when they need to.

And it forces me to spend more time thinking about my communications. Instead of just constantly walking over to people the moment an idea pops into my head.

Re: I Miss Working from the Office

#145

Post by tluyben2 »

easton wrote: post #127
canofbars wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really relating to this. While I'm working from home I just put my headphones on and ignore everyone else at home. Are you not able to do this?

People often consider it impolite, regardless of what you’re doing (I had to find more and more ways to work around it with my parents during lockdown because getting pulled out of flow when trying to do schoolwork was aggravating). explaining didn’t seem to help, they didn’t understand why I couldn’t just quickly do X.

> impolite

While that is true if it's just some singular instance, when living with people (parents, spouses, kids, roommates) it is better to explain it once or twice and after that, just be impolite. Even for the simple reason that they are actually the impolite ones for not respecting your process.

Re: I Miss Working from the Office

#146

Post by mrweasel »

intricatedetail wrote: post #31
mrweasel wrote: post #15

The biggest one for is, as mentioned in the article: casuasl collaboration. I mis being able to just walk over to a coworker. I’m just home every other week, which strikes a reasonable balance for me.

I always found the fact that I can be interrupted at any time in the office very annoying. When I was in the flow and then someone comes up with a question that makes me switch context, then that affected productivity badly. Other colleagues raised this too and in the end we adopted a rule that you either ask a question on Slack or schedule an appointment. After that we found we could get much more done. Some people…

That's a very real problem, sometimes you just need long periods of uninterrupted time to get a task done.

We solve this by having a special office, placed in a "remote" corner of the building. It's equipped with proper desks, monitors, chair and so on. You can go there if you need a few hours, or days, of dedicated time. If you're working on a specific project, we'll often move the team working on that project to a dedicate office. For your daily job, you just just stay at your normal desk in a semi-open office space, with plenty of meeting room and smaller rooms for calls or online meetings.

Re: I Miss Working from the Office

#147

Post by layoutIfNeeded »

knuthsat wrote: post #40

I have too much pressure from my significant other. She can't look at me doing nothing (when I'm thinking or having my 15 minute rest between productive hours). Every single time I need to clean something up. I started going to the store and cooking lunch during work hours. Then I also get complaints about not doing the dishes while I'm working. It was nice when the work and home were separated and I just did all my…

>It was nice when the work and home were separated

Ehm... how should I put it... I think your issue is not the separation of work and home per se, rather the separation of you and your SO.

Re: I Miss Working from the Office

#148

Post by Tomis02 »

We have a subset of the workforce who misses the office. Before you shed tears for them, consider when the roles were reversed, office work was mandatory and it was you who wanted (but could not get) remote work. Did your office-loving coworkers put pressure on upper management to support a hybrid model? Now that the tables turned, I don't think having too much empathy is justified.

TL/DR: you think half a year of WFH is hard? It's nothing compared to decades working from the office.

Re: I Miss Working from the Office

#149

Post by singemonkey »

donatj wrote: post #133
Jugurtha wrote: post #65

Yes. Some people on the internet were also advocating for a return to the office because people could not stand the loneliness anymore and need to interact socially. I had to point out that this was symptomatic of a poor social/family life [outside of work]. If someone is lonely working remotely and they miss humans, it is a sign the only humans they interacted with were colleagues. It's also a sign of what the perso…

I don’t follow. Why should where I spend the majority of my waking hours, the majority of my life in practical terms, not also be my primary source of socialization? I genuinely feel the opposite. Relying on your few off hours to satisfy your innate human need for socialization places an unhealthy demand on your off hours, not to mention an unfair demand on your friends and family. I am now forced to spend 8 hours a…

> loneliness is somehow my fault

I mean, yes. Who else are you going to blame for YOUR loneliness?

If you're that lonely, talk to your many friends and arrange some co-working or something?

Re: I Miss Working from the Office

#150

Post by sbuk »

DrBazza wrote: post #135
st1x7 wrote: post #48

I think that what isn't discussed enough is the variance in quality of your office environment and of your home office and how that quality affects your preferences about working from home. It sounds quite obvious but in these arguments people often just state what they personally like and leave it at that. Your office can be place where you still have the option to work uninterrupted but also get the benefits of fac…

That's a well reasoned comment. I'm 'of that age' where I have a large-ish house, and hence a large, well equipped study. I don't much like my work office. It's on the top end of 'good': spacious, well equipped, light, modern, free snacks, etc. But... and it's a big but, it's open plan. And noisy. With people eating at their desks, talking, interrupting you and so on. But I still miss it. The last nine months has tau…

This comment really resonates with me. The difference for me is that we have an amazing office space, comfortable chairs, big desks and monitors and ample space. But, it's open plan and extremely noisy, with interruptions being frequent. It's not a space that allows deep work. I feel that 1 or 2 days in the office would make for a healthy harmony between work and life. We also really need to rethink working hours.
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