We Can't Let People Work from Home, for Stupid Reasons • Hacker News Board

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

#221

Post by jfrunyon » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 8:26 PM UTC

librish wrote: post #167

jfrunyon wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is your idea of an employee's value relative to who that employee is?

Mainly that people are good at different things so I wouldn't want to compare two people on only one task. I don't really see how that interjection is particularly relevant for the point I'm making though.

Okay then what do you compare people on? If you're not comparing them against other people who can do the same job...

The point you made is that you think it's only a fair comparison if you can clone the same person. Which is simply false unless your determination of a person's value is dependent upon that person rather than upon their output.

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

#222

Post by jfrunyon » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 8:29 PM UTC

librish wrote: post #166

jfrunyon wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Things don't take unexpectedly longer all the time. No, you can not make this judgement based on a single week, or even a single month. That's true whether the employee is remote or not.

I agree completely and that's my point. Evaluation is hard. Separately from that, many people believe having people be in office leads to a higher chance of them doing work because the alternatives are much less enticing.

Yes. Evaluation is hard. That has never been at dispute. So... your point is pointless?

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

#223

Post by jfrunyon » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 8:29 PM UTC

acuozzo wrote: post #200

jfrunyon wrote: post #144

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.

Okay but latency is not dependent upon bandwidth unless you're filling your bandwidth. The OP talked about bandwidth, not latency.

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

#224

Post by jfrunyon » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 8:30 PM UTC

cratermoon wrote: post #219

acuozzo wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ?!?! 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 o…

Latency is not the same as bandwidth.

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

#225

Post by jfrunyon » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 8:31 PM UTC

cratermoon wrote: post #199

jfrunyon wrote: post #144

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...)

It's not the download speed that's the problem, it's the upload. For one person, the FCC definition[1] of "broadband" speeds of 3MB/s up are barely sufficient. The are lots of places that barely break that. Now get both parents and the kid, there are plenty of folks who can't do it[2]. Sure, they could watch , but they'd have to have their video off. Better hope that some program doesn't try to download an update. We…

Okay. Again. How much bandwidth do you think it takes?!?!?!

You do realize that 3MB/s is TWENTY FOUR Mbps, i.e. over 6 times Zoom's requirement for 1080p, right?

Even 10Mbps upload is enough for at LEAST two video calls.

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

#226

Post by rodly » Fri, Jun 25, 2021, 5:49 PM UTC

jonny_eh wrote: post #47

dilippkumar wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I don't want to change the way I work I understand. > I just want people to join me in the office. Not cool, don’t make me change my lifestyle. > My kids are driving me crazy. I understand. > Is it weird to say I'm lonely; I understand. > I miss my office friends. I understand.

> > I just want people to join me in the office. > Not cool, don’t make me change my lifestyle. Having everyone work at home also changes my lifestyle. There's no way to make everyone happy.

It's not a symmetric need though. Your need requires other people to be around you to have your ideal lifestyle. The WFH need doesn't require other people to do anything different (we all use slack/email/etc regardless of where we physically are). Your need is wronging others (requiring them to spend time commuting and being in a distracting office) and their need (you aren't affected) is not wronging others.

It's insane that so many people are okay pathetically dragging other people into a shitty situation just to make themselves happy.