Shopify Goes Digital by Default • Hacker News Board

Re: Shopify Goes Digital by Default

#171

Post by enumjorge » Thu, May 21, 2020, 4:58 PM UTC

chrisseaton wrote: post #132

booleandilemma wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in a tiny, crappy, pre-war apartment that gets cold in the wintertime, next to loud, obnoxious neighbors, and I prefer working at my company’s spacious, modern Manhattan office.

But presumably you live in that apartment because you needed to be within commuting distance of the Manhattan office? If you don't need to be so close to Manhattan I would guess (not really knowing anything about your situation) that you could afford a mansion in a town or village instead.

Some people like living in big cities, and are ok trading off a bigger living space to make that happen. I love being able to walk out to a bunch of different restaurants, having easy access to entertainment venues, etc. The idea of having a giant house in the middle of nowhere has very little appeal to me. This is especially common for younger people and those with no kids.

Re: Shopify Goes Digital by Default

#172

Post by bregma » Thu, May 21, 2020, 4:58 PM UTC

purple_ferret wrote: post #24

>we now have the opportunity to be joined by a whole lot of incredible individuals from around the world that otherwise couldn’t because of our previous default to proximity. Wow, so they'll be hiring non-Canadians by the majority now? Interesting. I wonder how this will affect the economies of places like Ottawa, with Canada not having the type of Tech Sector the US does.

Well, Canada has a robust tech sector, equivalent to the US but proportional to population size.

The question is whether Americans can compete in a global marketplace against the rest of the world who don't expect SV-level compensation and also don't need US-level private health insurance. I'm trying but failing to see the value proposition to hiring American outside of the USA.

Re: Shopify Goes Digital by Default

#173

Post by kjakm » Thu, May 21, 2020, 4:58 PM UTC

cletus wrote: post #141

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…

>> I of course miss the meals and snacks.

I'm not trying to be facetious - you seriously can't provide your own meals and snacks working from home?

>> 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.

Do you live in that space because it's close to your office? Ok, so now you're remote you can live anywhere. If there was no pandemic you could work from a library, or café or dozens of other places. You could move around each day. Or you could move to a cheaper location and have a nice home office.

Re: Shopify Goes Digital by Default

#174

Post by ativzzz » Thu, May 21, 2020, 4:58 PM UTC

curiousllama wrote: post #127

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…

Take an extreme example: consultants, in order to be colocated, routinely travel ~8 hours twice a week AND convince their clients to pay an extra ~2k/person/week. Why? Shouldn't firms that don't require travel have outcompeted firms that do, if it's such a costly activity? why has the industry standardized on crazy levels of travel? (1) Personal relationships & trust - it's very, very hard to build strong personal re…

Consultants are forced to travel primarily for marketing value rather than for productive value.

Yes, you want to travel to meet your client in person, maybe to do some big planning/milestones, but for every day work, the consultants are in person to give the clients the perception that their money is being put to good use. This is especially important as the top consulting companies hire undergrads fresh out of school (who don't know anything except how to put in the hours and do powerpoints/excel) and bill them out for several hundred dollars an hour.

Re: Shopify Goes Digital by Default

#175

Post by dehrmann » Thu, May 21, 2020, 4:59 PM UTC

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.

This varies block-to-block. It's fine by Embarcadero, OK around Powell, sketchy as fuck at 6th.

Re: Shopify Goes Digital by Default

#176

Post by CPLX » Thu, May 21, 2020, 4:59 PM UTC

r00fus wrote: post #165

cletus wrote: post #141

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…

> 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. Could this be the tipping point to a sustained exodus from an urban kind of lifestyle? (spoken as someone who likes/values density)

The idea that this will result in an exodus from urban areas presupposes that jobs are the reason people moved to the urban areas, rather than social, leisure, or cultural reasons.

That's highly arguable. Young people like cities, that's where the girls and the parties are. That's been true for a really long time.

Re: Shopify Goes Digital by Default

#177

Post by kkcorps » Thu, May 21, 2020, 4:59 PM UTC

GhostVII wrote: post #11

I really hope this doesn't become a bigger trend. Shopify was a company I was seriously considering working at in the future, but this would probably disqualify them. Working from home once a week sounds great to me, but doing it full time would drive me insane. Virtual meetings are awful for me, and you miss out on so much of the discussion that happens outside of the meeting - I think most of the important discussi…

I would happily trade-off all the benefits you mentioned for not spending 2 hours daily in commute.

Re: Shopify Goes Digital by Default

#178

Post by furyofantares » Thu, May 21, 2020, 4:59 PM UTC

cletus wrote: post #141

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…

I could see the whole team meeting in person 1-2 days per week and the whole team working from home the rest of the time. I find lots of teamwork to be way more effective in person, but tons of heads-down work to be way more effective in private.

Re: Shopify Goes Digital by Default

#179

Post by wnzl » Thu, May 21, 2020, 5:00 PM UTC

Even tho all those companies are shifting to perma WFH, still it's utterly impossible to be considered if you work from Europe, relocation must happen anyway. Wondering if this will change at some point as well :)

Re: Shopify Goes Digital by Default

#180

Post by skwb » Thu, May 21, 2020, 5:00 PM UTC

cletus wrote: post #141

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…

I think the optimum is 3 days of WFH, with the remainder being spent in person. For most people, you're going to have work you can do on your own. You probably only need a little bit of help here and there. The office specific days, you spend on meetings, working more directly with people.

I think this would also significantly reduce stress on employees. You could live in more affordable areas, and take commuter transit for the days you have in office. It wouldn't bother me too much to take a 90 min transit if I knew it was only a couple of times week. It's the day after day that really kills ones soul.