The Winners of Remote Work • Hacker News Board

Re: The Winners of Remote Work

#201

Post by Arainach » Tue, Aug 31, 2021, 10:39 PM UTC

bcrosby95 wrote: post #200

devonbleak wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue with this approach seems to be that hiring is fundamentally broken - hiring managers haven't really found a process with a high correlation of "good interview performance" = "good worker". I've personally been burnt a ton of times by remote people who knocked the interview process out of the park and then just didn't deliver and it's difficult to tell for quite a while without some kind of micro-managey fra…

What do you use in-person that is unavailable for remote work? Butt-in-seat time?

It's much easier to see the intangibles. For instance, I'm a fairly senior team member who's a core subject matter expert for a few major things our team owns. A huge chunk of my day involves people asking me questions about them.

In person, it's trivial to see everyone coming up to my desk, hear me jumping into team discussions, and so on. Remote, it's on me to let management know that's what my time is being spent on, and if I'm lying it's significantly harder to verify.

Re: The Winners of Remote Work

#202

Post by ghaff » Tue, Aug 31, 2021, 10:39 PM UTC

datavirtue wrote: post #165

ghaff wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not convinced a lot of these trends stick post-COVID. A lot of people like the in-person part of the spin class and probably would prefer it to the highly-paid video pro. That said, behaviors will have changed for a lot of things over the course of a couple of years. People have developed new habits. Not all of that--including going into an office five days a week in many cases--are going to just reset.

Pelaton trainers, on average, are far superior to in-person instructors. The experience is better in-home and less time is in used travelling and changing. My equipment. My home. Die hard educated professional leading the class. The only in-person that comes close runs about $300-500 a month.

It's not all about impersonal efficiency for many people.

Re: The Winners of Remote Work

#203

Post by tellersid » Tue, Aug 31, 2021, 10:48 PM UTC

eric4smith wrote: post #3

The only winners of remote work will be those who are self disciplined enough to get work done without outside supervision or motivation. That goes for every single field that does remote work - learning, teaching, Knowledge work etc. But let’s be honest - some people need the motivation of a workplace — and that’s ok! We are all different. Im somewhere in the middle… love working from home but it’s easy to get distr…

I have been going into the office when I could work remote.

I don't feel like it is a motivation thing. I was just sick of being home all the time.

I think many people on my team are not doing well mental health wise from being at home so much.

The most miserable people I know are a few software engineers that have been working remote for years making great money. One guy I know works at night because he can. Sleeps to 2pm. Basically, never leaves the house for anything. Seems unable to connect though that being a total shut in is why he is not happy even though he is killing it objectively. Practically hiding from the world in a nice house.

What has been good for my mental health is getting up and actually having to get dressed in the morning. Actually have to get out of the house at a specific time. Seeing people at the office in person. Saying good morning to the security people. Using a fitbit my friend noticed that by 10am they had already done the equivalent of a 20 min walk step wise just going to the office. At home, basically nothing. If you work at home you practically have to do a 90 min walk a day to get enough steps in. Good luck as your conditioning gets worse and worse trying to be happy.

Re: The Winners of Remote Work

#204

Post by oblio » Tue, Aug 31, 2021, 10:52 PM UTC

ThalesX wrote: post #118

joelbluminator wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Law and accountancy is much harder to outsource than programming. You usually have to be U.S certified so thats pretty much protected.

You have the Ubers and AirBnBs circumventing laws around the world and you think it's hard to optimize for a remote law and accountancy practice? Just have offshore remoters do the bulk of work and have it signed by a certified local lawyer / accountant.

To paraphrase Morgan Freeman in the Dark Knight:

So your target for disruption is law firms and your strategy is to do something illegal to build a huge business that destroys them?!?

Re: The Winners of Remote Work

#205

Post by throwanem » Tue, Aug 31, 2021, 10:54 PM UTC

Arainach wrote: post #201

bcrosby95 wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you use in-person that is unavailable for remote work? Butt-in-seat time?

It's much easier to see the intangibles. For instance, I'm a fairly senior team member who's a core subject matter expert for a few major things our team owns. A huge chunk of my day involves people asking me questions about them. In person, it's trivial to see everyone coming up to my desk, hear me jumping into team discussions, and so on. Remote, it's on me to let management know that's what my time is being spent…

So what I hear you saying is that management has a trust problem.

Re: The Winners of Remote Work

#206

Post by zz865 » Tue, Aug 31, 2021, 10:58 PM UTC

datavirtue wrote: post #166

gringoDan wrote: post #82

This makes complete sense – just another example of power law dynamics of the internet. Short-term, we're going to see companies pursue a remote model in order to attract talent. This will be great for employees; live in Colorado, go on hikes and have a great lifestyle while commanding a SF salary! Longer-term, companies are going to realize that (except for the top ~10% of performers, who will always command a high…

Offshoring failed for the same reason s we will not have the worries you espouse.

I'm not sure why you think it failed, my company's biggest office is in India, same as my last job.

Re: The Winners of Remote Work

#207

Post by wwarner » Tue, Aug 31, 2021, 11:02 PM UTC

I am desperate to get back to collaborating in person, with my team, in the office.

Re: The Winners of Remote Work

#208

Post by eptcyka » Tue, Aug 31, 2021, 11:04 PM UTC

Arainach wrote: post #201

bcrosby95 wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you use in-person that is unavailable for remote work? Butt-in-seat time?

It's much easier to see the intangibles. For instance, I'm a fairly senior team member who's a core subject matter expert for a few major things our team owns. A huge chunk of my day involves people asking me questions about them. In person, it's trivial to see everyone coming up to my desk, hear me jumping into team discussions, and so on. Remote, it's on me to let management know that's what my time is being spent…

Its far easier to quantify slack thread responses and emails than it is to transcribe and parse the audio recordings from your desk of said conversations.

Re: The Winners of Remote Work

#209

Post by not2b » Tue, Aug 31, 2021, 11:14 PM UTC

nathanvanfleet wrote: post #63

ThePadawan wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only if you consider Remote Global Work. As a European, it is very disheartening to see how many companies espouse "we are now embracing remote work company-wide", which on closer inspection means "California hours +-2h time difference".

It's not nearly as easy to have people in a timezone 16 hours offset than you might think. So I am not surprised that they would be two very different decisions.

I'm in California, and am currently interacting with developers and application engineers working in India, US East Coast, France, and Israel, and formerly China (haven't had to deal with that team lately). This means that evening or early morning meetings are sometimes needed. We try to keep it to a minimum, and this hits some people more than others.

Re: The Winners of Remote Work

#210

Post by vogt » Tue, Aug 31, 2021, 11:22 PM UTC

drewburg wrote: post #168

I haven't seen any mentions here if being in a startup fundamentally changes the argument. I think startups would want to leverage the individual talent and personal time sacrifice to bootstrap themselves and build their dream team. I have found the opposite, that they want to be even more controlling in work environment. I am probably biased as it did take a few months to adjust to remote work and find a decent bala…

Sounds like leadership has their heads up their asses. In my experience, a startup that acts like this is either bound to fail or is secretly not a startup - like the one I interviewed with who were owned - and therefore beholden to the whims of - Big Industry Corp. They simply went out of their way to not tell anybody about it publicly.

Sounds like you dodged a bullet there.