261–270 of 597 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The commercial real estate market is a lot bigger than $5B.
But FAANG doesn’t care about the commercial real estate market, so why would they make any decisions based on it?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's the point where you're no longer an individual contributor. Running a team and keeping people on target is difficult remotely. Consensus is difficult remotely. Feedback is difficult remotely. Getting your head down and coding on your personal goal is easy remotely. I think some ICs like that it's harder for people to say to them that they are driving in the wrong direction, even if it's still true.
I argue against this point. I believe it indicates a skill gap, not a physical law. If you've played MMOs, been parts of raids, or been active in a guild - you figure out how to solve these problems. I've been in a community management and moderation role entirely online - those interactions and issues were, by far, the most subjective and complex project discussions I have had to conduct. I believe that there is an…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
For me it was: >Company A is 2.5 hours of drive time >Company B is remote Pay is the same. lol I imagine that Company A will find some sucker, but instead of getting A+ workers that can realize company B> company A, they are going to get the leftover workers, their second choice. To be fair, leftover workers seem to stick around at a company for 10-20 years.
Why call people suckers? Maybe they don't mind commuting? Maybe their commute is only 15 minutes, and not 2.5 hours? > To be fair, leftover workers seem to stick around at a company for 10-20 years. Even if they were "leftovers", their value to the company they know in and out after 10 to 20 years and their productivity skyrockets compared to the A+ rock stars that left the company after one year.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
For every positive that I can possibly read about in office work. Not one can combat my horrible situation of working next to a colleague with post nasal drip. Imagine every 60s hearing the sound of phlegm being sucked through a throat. I have sympathy for this person, but I can't work in this environment. Headphones can't be worn 8 hours a day.
That's an insanely specific situation that could be remedied by getting your seat moved. Loads of offices have hot desks these days anyway. What I'm talking about - young people having no chance to build a network of peers because the end of their university years were ruined by COVID and now they are expected to work from home without interacting with humans ever, leading to severely negative mental health outcomes…
My story is an anecdote, and moving seats was not an option. For this situation I might as well be remote if I'm not next to the team.
> If remote work boosts productivity in a substantial way, then it should improve productivity performance Not necessarily given the methodology. For example, if remote work allows a worker to do their laundry in parallel where they would be otherwise unable to in an office, their productivity has increased, but the gains would not show up in the study. It observes industry productivity, not work productivity.
Sure, but then we're discussing remote work as an employee benefit, which is a different discussion driven by a different part of the company etc. Not as a thing which improves the company's bottom line which is where C suite and shareholders spend the vast majority of their attention. If it doesn't improve job productivity then at the level where decisions get made I can think of two really significant points regard…
It would be nice if the rich assholes making these decisions realized that allowing people to take care of life stuff during work hours actually does make them more productive. But it's tough to measure, and impossible to convey to someone who can just afford to pay a person to do their dishes.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is my experience. My productivity on coding is a lot hire remote. On many leadership / management-style tasks, it's a lot lower. Come to think of it, I'm wondering if that's where the split comes in. Upper management sees their productivity go down -- on what's fundamentally an interpersonal endeavour -- while individual contributors see theirs go up -- on what's primarily solitary ones. As a result, there is fr…
It's the point where you're no longer an individual contributor. Running a team and keeping people on target is difficult remotely. Consensus is difficult remotely. Feedback is difficult remotely. Getting your head down and coding on your personal goal is easy remotely. I think some ICs like that it's harder for people to say to them that they are driving in the wrong direction, even if it's still true.
I think this is extremely cynical. Feedback makes for good organizations, and when I built teams, anyone who doesn't value, actively solicit, and provide good feedback doesn't have a very long tenure.
There are many things which go into building this culture, but I think I've only had one or two cases where this led to negative career impact for individuals. Most people adopt to this very quickly, very well, and work well in high-feedback settings.
I've absolutely never had, nor could imagine having, this problem on teams I've led.
Much more, I find the limitation is on my end. Going for a walk-and-talk is relaxing. A Zoom meeting is tiring. 1-2 Zoom meetings per day is not a problem, but a day of Zoom meetings basically leaves me a zombie. Group meetings are also much more tiring online than 1:1s.
I'm a good in-person manager. I'm also a good remote IC. I not nearly as good with those flipped around.
I also don't find any of these to be the case for me:
> keeping people on target is difficult remotely. Consensus is difficult remotely. Feedback is difficult remotely
I can do all of those individually -- quite well -- remotely. I just can't do those for anywhere close to 8 hours per day.
To be very clear: That's me. I'm not speaking for you or for anyone else, and YMMV. I'd be genuinely interested in hearing other stories or contradictory opinions, and how things work for others.
Most employees can screw around websurfing or shopping just as well at work as at home. They mostly do it because they are bored. Give them interesting, meaningful work and they will be productive.
Work avoidance typically stems from fear of failure, not boredom. If workers are screwing around when there is work that needs to be done, that is indicative of an environment that doesn't provide the proper failsafes. That said, a lot of jobs simply don't have a constant stream of work that needs to be done, with the work available being dependent on when the customer chooses to engage. It is likely that for a lot o…
I'd rather write a new feature with clean code and improve the existing code base in the meantime.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is my experience. My productivity on coding is a lot hire remote. On many leadership / management-style tasks, it's a lot lower. Come to think of it, I'm wondering if that's where the split comes in. Upper management sees their productivity go down -- on what's fundamentally an interpersonal endeavour -- while individual contributors see theirs go up -- on what's primarily solitary ones. As a result, there is fr…
It's the point where you're no longer an individual contributor. Running a team and keeping people on target is difficult remotely. Consensus is difficult remotely. Feedback is difficult remotely. Getting your head down and coding on your personal goal is easy remotely. I think some ICs like that it's harder for people to say to them that they are driving in the wrong direction, even if it's still true.
Most offices I’ve been in have had deficient conference room setups and open floor plans, and I’ve come to enjoy the ease with which private conversations, pairing, and ad hoc meetings can happen without being disruptive to others or booking a room way in advance.
I do think that conversations have higher bandwidth in person, and I’ve really missed having a proper big whiteboard to gather around, but I’ve come to realize that this restriction can be a positive forcing function for organizations to write things out and maintain more organized planning documents, which is a desirable outcome.
People are different. For some it really increases productivity and wellbeing. For others the opposite. I'm not surprised it is about the same on average as measured by work output. I've been working 100% remote since 2017 and I'll never willingly change it.
Then again, I do choose jobs where I don't commute 3 hours into SF. More like 30 minutes, preferably by bike rather than car (location:Europe)