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Half of American workers would rather work from home forever: poll

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Re: Half of American workers would rather work from home forever: poll

#251

Post by nck4222 »

bart_spoon wrote: post #245
nck4222 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Children probably. Don't get me wrong, I love being home and spending time with the family more, it's really the best part of this experience for me. But there's no way I'd be able to be as productive as expected under normal circumstances. I'm lucky if I get 4 hours in.

But surely actually working from home wouldn't involve taking care of your children all day. When you actually go to work, your children are presumably not sitting at home unattended all day, correct? You either have a spouse who can take care of them, they are in school, or they are in daycare. So working from home shouldn't be any different, and the only reason it is now is because all of those things are closed du…

I don't mean this to be rude, but it doesn't sound like you have much experience working at home with children around. I don't think you should be so quick to assume you know the solution to a problem/situation you have no insight in to.

Maybe what you're describing would work for some people. But to so confidently say it's a blanket solution for everyone and is not actually a problem, is frankly laughable.

Re: Half of American workers would rather work from home forever: poll

#252

Post by xur17 »

tarsinge wrote: post #135
gspr wrote: post #29

I wonder if this is related to the long commutes Americans have gotten used to. I'm not in the US, and while I would say I definitely appreciate the flexibility of being able to work from home (or from "not the office") every now and then, and I do like the present drop in meetings, I cannot fathom how people stay sane without a variety of other people around. My productivity has definitely dropped, and it feels like…

Personally it took me at least two years to learn to work from home. The key for me is actively rebalancing your social life and interactions on outside of work activities. That's not intuitive because we are so used at getting some interactions everyday automatically in a job, so if you don't take action you will end up in a social deficit very fast.

I'm about 2 years into working from home, and recently came to a similar conclusion. Unfortunately rebalancing your social life is a bit challenging given the circumstances :).

If I might ask - what was your approach for increasing outside of work activities. I recently moved to a new city, so I'm still figuring this part out.

Re: Half of American workers would rather work from home forever: poll

#253

Post by commandlinefan »

mfer wrote: post #78
gspr wrote: post #29

I wonder if this is related to the long commutes Americans have gotten used to. I'm not in the US, and while I would say I definitely appreciate the flexibility of being able to work from home (or from "not the office") every now and then, and I do like the present drop in meetings, I cannot fathom how people stay sane without a variety of other people around. My productivity has definitely dropped, and it feels like…

I did when I started working from home. I was lucky to have a manager who knew about habits and patterns to fix that. A lot of this isn't about going to work but about our habits and patterns. For example, I have a room I go into and close the door. When I am in there I am working. When I am out of there I'm not. It's like a mental switch. I also use some tricks to keep be from being distracted like a pomodoro timer.…

> close the door.

I'm guessing you don't have a cat, then.

Re: Half of American workers would rather work from home forever: poll

#254

Post by Mountain_Skies »

I've been remote for two years and don't want to go back to the daily commute. I've been happy to sacrifice one room in my home to be an office in exchange for not running the traffic gauntlet each day. The one thing I still prefer in person is whiteboarding. We have good collaboration tools but none of them yet match the efficiency of people in a room together working on a common whiteboard. There are digital whiteboards that might fill this niche but currently they're too expensive to distribute to entire teams. Maybe over time this will change.

Re: Half of American workers would rather work from home forever: poll

#255

Post by snarf21 »

Tade0 wrote: post #19

No wonder given that the daily commute is both mentally and physically taxing for most. I've been working remotely since 2015 and have already decided to settle in a perhaps less attractive, but definitely cheaper neighbourhood so that I could have some office space in the house. In the long run it's probably going to cost as much as the sum total of fuel and vehicles used over the years, but the main benefit is not…

I can understand but these things are different for each of us. I love my 20 minute low stress commute. I listen to podcasts or think about problems in an isolated day. It breaks work life from home life and helps with boundaries. Obviously some commutes are worse than others but we all have different needs.

Re: Half of American workers would rather work from home forever: poll

#256

Post by [deleted] »

dagmx wrote: post #210
flatline wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My work is all meetings all the time, now. I’m on the phone most of the day. Little things that used to take 20 minutes now take an hour. I used to enjoy working from home a couple days a week because I got some peace and quiet and knew I could catch back up with people when I returned to the office. I went from loving to hating my job in the last three weeks. I am also constantly distracted by having the kids around…

Conversely for me, meetings have reduced because more people are using slack and email to communicate more frequently, and the quality of their communications has gone up. While i know that sounds like hell for some people, it’s where I thrive since I’ve always worked at multi site companies before, and it was the only effective way to scale communication. So I’ve gone from having meetings all day, every day, to havi…

[deleted]

Re: Half of American workers would rather work from home forever: poll

#257

Post by bart_spoon »

nck4222 wrote: post #251
bart_spoon wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But surely actually working from home wouldn't involve taking care of your children all day. When you actually go to work, your children are presumably not sitting at home unattended all day, correct? You either have a spouse who can take care of them, they are in school, or they are in daycare. So working from home shouldn't be any different, and the only reason it is now is because all of those things are closed du…

I don't mean this to be rude, but it doesn't sound like you have much experience working at home with children around. I don't think you should be so quick to assume you know the solution to a problem/situation you have no insight in to. Maybe what you're describing would work for some people. But to so confidently say it's a blanket solution for everyone and is not actually a problem, is frankly laughable.

I have been working from home with 2 children under 5 for 6 weeks now. So you are the one being quick to assume something that you have no insight to.

> Maybe what you're describing would work for some people. But to so confidently say it's a blanket solution for everyone and is not actually a problem, is frankly laughable.

Please explain to me in what situation what I described wouldn't apply? When people work in an office, they have to have some form of childcare. Daycare, school, or a caretaker/spouse at home. Obviously those are not available right now in the pandemic, but if we are assessing the viability of WFH typically, then why wouldn't they work just as well as they do when traveling to an office? What is laughable about that line of thinking?

Re: Half of American workers would rather work from home forever: poll

#258

Post by deevolution »

chosenbreed37 wrote: post #224
deevolution wrote: post #100

I think alot of people will want to go back because they've now associated working remotely with being in an isolated jail cell. Also I'm sure couples and people with kids are ready to jump out their windows. I wont be going back to the office for a number of reasons, however, and I think everyone should boycott the office as well. Weather you want to work in the office or not should ultimately be the employees choic…

You make a compelling case for more people to opt to working from home given the choice. I wonder in all of this whether or not we might be losing something. I'd say that co-location (and possibly commuting) are a part of a larger ecosystem. For instance there are a number of businesses that cater for the office based folks. This could be providing breakfast, lunches, coffees, cigarettes (vapes), etc. In some cities…

These are definitely valid concerns but usually the way changes happen is slowly and then suddenly all at once like we are witnessing with COVID-19 or as we saw with the transition from horses to automobiles, and from blockbuster to netflix. Technology is an incredible force and slowing it down is hard. Ultimately it will come down to which companies, bussinesses and people display the most adaptability.

Re: Half of American workers would rather work from home forever: poll

#259

Post by deathanatos »

snarf21 wrote: post #255
Tade0 wrote: post #19

No wonder given that the daily commute is both mentally and physically taxing for most. I've been working remotely since 2015 and have already decided to settle in a perhaps less attractive, but definitely cheaper neighbourhood so that I could have some office space in the house. In the long run it's probably going to cost as much as the sum total of fuel and vehicles used over the years, but the main benefit is not…

I can understand but these things are different for each of us. I love my 20 minute low stress commute. I listen to podcasts or think about problems in an isolated day. It breaks work life from home life and helps with boundaries. Obviously some commutes are worse than others but we all have different needs.

People really ought to put the number on their post (like you did; thank you) so we know where they're coming from.

I was in the Bay Area, and one of the big reasons I left was the 3-4 hour commute. For a while, it was manageable, as the train provides some ability to work, but towards the end CalTrain was just falling over from lack of capacity. Packed to the gills trains, trains breaking down, hell, even derailments.

Moved, and cut the commute in half; it's only two hours now, and it feels wonderful. Somewhat hilariously, biking is the same speed as public transit. Sadly, my public transit still no longer really supports a working; too packed.

I'd love to have a 20 minute low stress commute. But I also don't equate "low stress" with driving, regardless of podcasts.

(Unless you have a 20 minute commute on public transit. I must spend ~30-40 minutes of my commute simply getting to public transit.)

Re: Half of American workers would rather work from home forever: poll

#260

Post by sethammons »

deevolution wrote: post #100

I think alot of people will want to go back because they've now associated working remotely with being in an isolated jail cell. Also I'm sure couples and people with kids are ready to jump out their windows. I wont be going back to the office for a number of reasons, however, and I think everyone should boycott the office as well. Weather you want to work in the office or not should ultimately be the employees choic…

Re VR workspaces: I’d love to try that. I can’t imagine it accounts for body language and facial expressions though, and those are core to meatspace.
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