A recent poll of employees who are working remotely • Hacker News Board

Re: A recent poll of employees who are working remotely

#141

Post by Bakary » Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 9:44 PM UTC

throwarayes wrote: post #83

I worry at the long term implications of remote work: - I hear of Bay Area tech companies throwing stupid high salaries at senior devs in smaller local firms -> more consolidation in tech - how non people centric will work become? I feel being 100% remote I have even less of a relationship with anyone at home. I’m a commodity doing work. Maybe there’s more of a temptation to get that commodity cheaper elsewhere

>how non people centric will work become? I feel being 100% remote I have even less of a relationship with anyone at home. I’m a commodity doing work. Maybe there’s more of a temptation to get that commodity cheaper elsewhere

Do not think for a second that you are not already disposable

Re: A recent poll of employees who are working remotely

#142

Post by taylodl » Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 9:46 PM UTC

kube-system wrote: post #55

kodah wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are some people who cannot work from home. These people have been especially vocal. Sometimes they include people who have kids, other times they include people who get their social interaction in at work. I think the office should accommodate them as well as remote workers. The biggest challenge I've faced being on a remote team (read: not necessarily WFH) is that people who are at the primary physical locatio…

In my experience, there are two ways for a company to be successful at having remote employees: 1. everyone is 100% remote 2. everyone comes into the office occasionally Anything else leads to a two-tiered system.

That's the same conclusion my company, a Fortune 500 utility company in the US, came too. Their solution? 90% of the staff is expected to continue working remotely as the new normal. Frankly it's working too well. Productivity has increased, employees are happy, we've successfully on-boarded new hires and we can expand the geographical range from which we can hire. Win-win-win. The executives are happy, the workers are happy, we're all saving time and money - this is good!

Re: A recent poll of employees who are working remotely

#143

Post by Bakary » Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 9:46 PM UTC

bzbarsky wrote: post #68

ange1a wrote: post #34

just wait until corporations realize that if your job can be done from kansas city... it can also be done from manila... and a whole new class of gigs just vanish.

There are a lot of assumptions going into that implication. My experience with working remotely, on globally distributed teams, for about 20 years now is: * Synchronous high-bandwidth communication (read: meeting, ideally with a shared whiteboard) is pretty handy sometimes. * Timezones really do matter. If you want a sync meeting that includes people in Europe, the US, and APAC, someone will have a bad time. If you w…

Most of these hurdles seem really unimportant compared to the salary savings

Re: A recent poll of employees who are working remotely

#144

Post by dudul » Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 9:54 PM UTC

IMTDb wrote: post #79

mabbo wrote: post #26

Simply put, if my employer told me I needed to be in the office more than 5 days per month, I would find a new employer. I'm more productive than ever. I'm happier than ever. I'm eating healthier. I sleep better. My marriage is stronger. My finances are kicking ass. I won't give this up.

Too take the exact opposite view : Simply put, if my employer told me I needed to setup zoom calls every time I need to talk to someone more than 5 days per month, I would find a new employer. I'm less productive than ever. I'm more depressed than ever. I'm eating poorly and drinking more. I almost don't sleep anymore. I just want to spend few hours by myself instead of being constantly around my family members. My f…

What do zoom calls have to do with eating poorly and drinking more? What does it have to do with not sleeping?

Go to the office if you want (to be "by yourself"? a bit weird but whatever) and let your coworker stay home if they prefer that.

Sounds like your problems are caused by something a bit more profound than a few zoom calls a day.

Re: A recent poll of employees who are working remotely

#145

Post by epr » Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 9:55 PM UTC

I really appreciate the big "Reject All" button for cookies consent as opposed to all the irritating dark patterns most websites seem to use where if you don't want to "Accept All", you're forced to drill down into submenus to disable every type of cookie individually. Thanks for not being subhuman garbage.

Re: A recent poll of employees who are working remotely

#146

Post by dublinben » Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 9:56 PM UTC

ht_th wrote: post #65

deeeeplearning wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No amount of "camaraderie" or "social interaction" is worth the soul killing experience of commuting to and from work >200 times a year.

I miss my 20 minute bike ride between work and home. That bike-ride truly separated work-life from home-life. It cleared my head, and I got some exercise in. I really miss that. And no, just going cycling or walking for an hour or so during the day isn't the same. I don't know why.

If more people had a 20 minute bike commute, we'd all be much better off. Unfortunately, far more people are facing the prospect of returning to 60+ minute driving commutes, which are hell.

Re: A recent poll of employees who are working remotely

#147

Post by cosmodisk » Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 9:57 PM UTC

geoelectric wrote: post #45

ghaff wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of outsourcing was basically done with the difficulty set on hardest to get at perceived lowest labor costs. So you ended up with big time zone differences, cultural and language issues, etc.

Yeah, exactly. Back in the 90s-2000s, though, it was easier to deal with an office-based outsource hub that had its own line manager, etc, mostly because things were so damned slow to send back and forth that you wanted to chunk project coordination. Those were comparatively rarer in the US, since anywhere you could put one together had enough tech industry to make the costs there prohibitive. Nowadays, you could jus…

If the tech salaries would become much lower, a lot of people would simply start doing something else, which in turn reduce the pool of candidates. I'm not in a very intense tech job, however it still requires lots of reading, trying to figure out things and some days are nerve wrecking and tense,which often results in headaches,etc. So why do it for low money if I could go and many other jobs that would require additional reading once a year and won't have to sift through stack overflow comments to be able to do my job..

Re: A recent poll of employees who are working remotely

#148

Post by aspaceman » Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 10:00 PM UTC

psim1 wrote: post #138

standardUser wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a group of coworkers who've taken the initiate to slyly relocate during the pandemic, in some cases signing leases and buying houses. I think their idea is to either stay fully remote indefinitely or find a different remote job if the company won't abide. The remote revolution may be overblown in general, but for programmers, the appeal is particularly strong. They've seen the promised land and it turns out it…

If by "slyly" you mean without notifying their employers, this could backfire on them in small and big ways. In a small way, it would affect local/state taxes that are withheld. In a big way, employers--whether rightly or wrongly--want to know where the employee lives in order to set a cost-of-living salary. If the employer finds out you're taking a SF salary while living in Bend, there are likely to be consequences.

I think they mean ask for forgiveness instead of permission, as the saying goes.

Re: A recent poll of employees who are working remotely

#149

Post by benhurmarcel » Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 10:01 PM UTC

sharkweek wrote: post #73

My partner works in operations for [fairly large company]. Her job is to min/max space use, organize for hiring pushes, keep the office space humming, revamp existing space as needed, plan out new space... etc. etc. etc. It's an interesting job, she's probably the person you're pissed at when your desk gets seemingly randomly moved to another floor. Right before COVID, she was managing a HUGE densification project to…

Right, my company plans to let us work from home a maximum of 3 days a week in the future, but they're cutting our office space by at least 30%. So we wouldn't have a designated desk anymore, just a bunch of similar desks on a first-come-first-serve basis every day.

My main issue with this is that you can't set up your desk how you like it anymore. You can't set the desk height, you get a chair that's differently broken every day, often a different sized screen, you can't ensure to seat nearby the people you need to collaborate with, you can't put up some decoration or printed cheatsheets…

Re: A recent poll of employees who are working remotely

#150

Post by IMTDb » Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 10:02 PM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #121

IMTDb wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Too take the exact opposite view : Simply put, if my employer told me I needed to setup zoom calls every time I need to talk to someone more than 5 days per month, I would find a new employer. I'm less productive than ever. I'm more depressed than ever. I'm eating poorly and drinking more. I almost don't sleep anymore. I just want to spend few hours by myself instead of being constantly around my family members. My f…

It’s almost as if different people have very different preferences and companies should provide flexibility to work in whatever way you prefer and are most productive.

Exactly, until people need to work together. If I like talking face to face in an office, and you prefer talking via zoom from home: either I have to yield to your preference and setup zoom, or you have to yield to mine and come to the office.

And that's where company/team policy and culture will rule. Some companies will be "remote first" and zoom will win - most of the time. Some companies will be "onsite first" and office it will be - most of the time. Both policies are completely OK when understood and agreed upon by everyone. I know that it's important for me, personally, to work in a company that will favour the office option. I also know that some other people will prefer the zoom option. The key part I believe is that company should clearly set and communicate their policies and expectations and employees should seek to work in companies that have culture matching their preferred way of working.