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We Can't Let People Work from Home, for Stupid Reasons

blog.davidtate.org

211–220 of 226 posts

Re: We Can't Let People Work from Home, for Stupid Reasons

#211
More logical than the appeal to tradition fallacy would be to say if one needs A, B and C to do the work D should not be required, D should not even be part of the conversation.

One need a place where one can work [at home] if one fails at that for whatever reason a remote place might be an option. Just like proper training for a job one has to organize that themselves.

I work a lot of night shifts. My employer doesn't provide a place to sleep during the day. Productivity is regularly hurt by peoples children, construction work etc etc Should the employer now provide office style bedrooms and expect everyone to sleep there?

The office primarily exists for clients and investors to marvel at the marble floors, the fancy decorations, the smoothly shaved men in expensive suits, the open floor plan and many other D type rituals that after examining the price tag can only be considered a cult.

Why not replace some of that with parents playing with their kids? Or should that be: Show kids how work is done? (if we for laughs pretend nothing else is important) Which kids would end up more productive?

There is an expression in the Netherlands: "Dad is the man who cuts the meat on Sunday".

Re: We Can't Let People Work from Home, for Stupid Reasons

#212

I think a lot of the responses to the straw man's questions are reasonable and thoughtful. But I think this sentiment: >I don't want to change the way I work, I just want people to join me in the office. My kids are driving me crazy. Is it weird to say I'm lonely; I miss my office friends. Deserves more respect. There are lot of types of people out there, and it seems like at least some of them are energized by being…

I love working from home... except when I really need to hash out an idea with smart colleagues in front of a whiteboard. I've gotten a lot more "done" over the past 14 months, I think, but I don't think that everything has been as well thought through as it would previously have been.

try our solution to the remote whiteboard problem: https://sharetheboard.com

FYI, since it comes up often: digital annotations will be added in July

Re: We Can't Let People Work from Home, for Stupid Reasons

#213
post #6

I've tried a bunch of online whiteboard tools to design stuff (where stuff could be system architecture, UI, a business process, whatever), and nothing beats a whiteboard + post-its. Maybe I'm doing it wrong, it's possible, and I'd love to have some great counter-examples. Until then, I think that teams that can meet up in person will, on average, win over those who can't. Other days I just have long list of individu…

robbie-c, checkout our solution to the remote whiteboard situation (And please share some feedback): https://sharetheboard.com

We too are not fans of "online whiteboards." Instead, we're looking for ways to bridge the great offline tools around us with the powerful online/digital tools we use everyday. Our work is "hybrid" already - it's weird that our tools have not been.

Anyway, please check it out and share some notes. Happy to answer any questions you may have too.

Re: We Can't Let People Work from Home, for Stupid Reasons

#214
post #6

I've tried a bunch of online whiteboard tools to design stuff (where stuff could be system architecture, UI, a business process, whatever), and nothing beats a whiteboard + post-its. Maybe I'm doing it wrong, it's possible, and I'd love to have some great counter-examples. Until then, I think that teams that can meet up in person will, on average, win over those who can't. Other days I just have long list of individu…

I think it has to do with expressiveness. Mice + online whiteboarding tools are always a hassle, and are far far less expressive than just using your hands to draw shapes/words on a whiteboard. I don't really think online tools can replicate this process because of how hands-on it is. It's the same reason it's harder to draw on a WACOM vs. a piece of paper. Being able to quickly draw some things that may or may not m…

Bingo - well said:

"Being able to quickly draw some things that may or may not make sense, and then have someone else quickly draw on top of what you drew, and then sharing those ideas, is really hard to replicate online."

This is exactly what ShareTheBoard is aiming to deliver. The last piece of the puzzle are digital annotations - those will be added in July.

Please take a look and share some notes. I'm curious if our solution scratches the itch!

Re: We Can't Let People Work from Home, for Stupid Reasons

#215
Working at home during the pandemic != remote working. Full stop. Remote working is not about never going to the office again and not seeing anyone on your team for incredibly long stretches of time. Remote workers are typically physically present with their coworkers several times per year - often for several days at a time. Smart companies will make those opportunities available for their fully-remote staff.

Re: We Can't Let People Work from Home, for Stupid Reasons

#216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love working from home... except when I really need to hash out an idea with smart colleagues in front of a whiteboard. I've gotten a lot more "done" over the past 14 months, I think, but I don't think that everything has been as well thought through as it would previously have been.

try our solution to the remote whiteboard problem: https://sharetheboard.com FYI, since it comes up often: digital annotations will be added in July

That only works if we're all online at the same time. And yes, so does office discussion, but we're more likely to all be in the office at the same time than we are to all be online simultaneously when remote.

Re: We Can't Let People Work from Home, for Stupid Reasons

#217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

try our solution to the remote whiteboard problem: https://sharetheboard.com FYI, since it comes up often: digital annotations will be added in July

That only works if we're all online at the same time. And yes, so does office discussion, but we're more likely to all be in the office at the same time than we are to all be online simultaneously when remote.

Indeed, the assumption is that you're meeting, as you would with any other remote meeting solution (or in-person white boarding session).

That said, you can always whiteboard solo, save your digitized content and upload/send it wherever you want. We'll even support image vectorization soon.

Re: We Can't Let People Work from Home, for Stupid Reasons

#218
post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Care to share your best couple of drawings? (:

It's not THAT good, just good compared to how I drew before :) Here's a gnomish submarine I drew for D&D campaign I run. https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51263880414_ee12f5cc5d_o...

That's pretty neat, thank you!

Re: We Can't Let People Work from Home, for Stupid Reasons

#219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most people in the US can't afford or even get enough bandwidth to support two simultaneous video conferences ?!?! How much bandwidth do you think it takes??? Zoom requirements: For group video calling: For 1080p HD video: 3.8Mbps/3.0Mbps (up/down) (Of course, most people probably don't even have 1080p webcams...)

> ?!?! How much bandwidth do you think it takes??? I'm not OP, but latency matters more than bandwidth in this case. More specifically, the variance of latency matters. It's easy to grow accustomed to a constant 500ms delay, but it's incredibly difficult to deal with the random delays you get when you put a packet-switched network atop a high latency physical layer.

Yeah, I didn't even go to latency. One of my co-workers clearly had a lot of variance in latency to his home and it was noticeable. It might not matter much in an hour-long meeting where one or two people are doing most of the talking, but in a short meeting between 2-3 people working together it can really disrupt things and turn what could have been a 10-15 minute meeting of minds into a frustrating 20-30 minutes of "say again, you dropped out" and "I didn't get that, my stream froze for a second".

Re: We Can't Let People Work from Home, for Stupid Reasons

#220
post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of the calls for returning to office work boil down to people wanting to be in an environment where there's this "hum" of Serious Business™ being done--the "buzz" of people actively present and Doing Interesting Things. It's not the work itself, but excitement at the performance of work going on around them. Lots of work-from-office folks seem to get a charge out of this excitement. Maybe (and I'm half serious)…

20% of the people do all the work. So let us stay home so I don’t have to wear noise cancelling headphones all day. Let the other 80% “perform” their duties.

I think it strongly depends how narrowly we define "work"

- I will agree that there is significant productivity variation between team members

- On my team, sure, ~20% of people are developers and doing Development work

- But testers, business analysis, system admins, release managers, etc are all still necessary and valuable. It is common but inexcusable hubris or unawareness of business goals and other team's contributions, to think they don't have necessary and productive roles.

- I've been on several dozen projects across at least two dozen companies and cultures, and I don't think I've ever been on one where only 5th of people do all the productive/needed work. Not even remotely close :-/

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