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Facebook extends its work-at-home policy to most employees

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Re: Facebook extends its work-at-home policy to most employees

#321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Starlink conveniently solves that problem.

Oh yeah? Where can I sign up to use Starlink today?

I’m in Austin and I can order a router for $100. Timeline is mid 2021. https://www.starlink.com/

But not sure when it will actually happen.

Re: Facebook extends its work-at-home policy to most employees

#322
post #189

Speaking as someone who now works remotely permanently, this has been... life-changing. So for 10 years I lived in NYC and--don't get me wrong--there are lots of things I liked about NYC but I'm so over the summers and the winters. Also bear in mind that I think NYC is infinitely better for most people to live in than the Bay Area. But I now live in Florida. It's about the 182nd day in a row where it's been 70-80F. S…

I've never lived or spent significant summer time in Florida or New York City, but your descriptions of summer weather sounded surprising to me. I looked up weather data, and Jacksonville, Miami, and Tampa all get significantly hotter (4-7 degrees Fahrenheit higher average temperatures in the hottest part of summer), muggier, and cloudier in the summer. Only Miami is consistently windier in the summer than NYC. Is th…

15 year NYC resident, spend many long weekends going down fo FL in summer.

In NYC it may be a little cooler, but your exposure to the elements is constant. You walk to the train, lunch, coffee, dinner, groceries, etc out on the sweaty sidewalk.

When it's 90F, the train station might be 100F and train at best 80F though often much higher.

You can live in a $2-3 million apartment yet have a lobby not be air conditioned, nor the hallways or elevator. No one has pools. You can go down to the park by the rivers, but you aren't going in for a swim. All the concrete & asphalt absorb and radiate the heat.

I'd go down to FL in summer since if it's going to be 90F+ and humid, I'd rather be able to jump in the ocean or a pool.

Re: Facebook extends its work-at-home policy to most employees

#323

I am really curious to see where we'll be in a year, two, three down the line wrt remote/office/hybrid work at major companies. This forced experiment has had some surprising outcomes about the effectiveness of remote workplaces, but working from home for only a year, in pandemic conditions, is clearly not the same as indefinitely in normal times. But there's reason to think that may go even better, not worse; I am r…

I do think many of the WFH productivity gains seen can probably be attributed to 2 things: 1) Many workers (but certainly not ALL workers) had a much more quiet and focused work environment at home, compared to their buzzing open-plan desk in the office, making them more productive. 2) COVID severely limited socializing, so some people poured that time into work out of boredom. #1 is constant, and might get better fo…

I've got a shitty window AC, a houseful of pets, an out of work partner and a 6x10 office next to a house under construction.

Of course managers want to "wfh" taking calls by their pool and outdoor bar

Re: Facebook extends its work-at-home policy to most employees

#324

I am really curious to see where we'll be in a year, two, three down the line wrt remote/office/hybrid work at major companies. This forced experiment has had some surprising outcomes about the effectiveness of remote workplaces, but working from home for only a year, in pandemic conditions, is clearly not the same as indefinitely in normal times. But there's reason to think that may go even better, not worse; I am r…

My biggest question right now about sustained wfh is how much of the current productivity is the result of relationships that were built in the office. A year ago, I remotely onboarded for a new position and recently I can head back into the office, and there's a massive difference for me between the virtual relationships I built and the in-person ones. I learned more about people that I had spent months zooming/emai…

I've now spent decades working with people I never met.

Re: Facebook extends its work-at-home policy to most employees

#325

I've been back in my company's office in person (medium-sized tech company) for the last week with a small subset of employees before we all go back, and I've become pretty convinced that these hybrid models will not go well. Even while wearing masks and social distancing, I feel far more connected to the others that work in the office, and whether it's fair or not, personal connection and trust play a huge role in c…

TBH your personal experience has no bearing on mine. I can't help but feel like people with _opinions_ like yours are going to ruin it for the rest of us who are orders of magnitude more productive at home. "But I can't socialize"... I don't care. I would rather not work in tech anymore than return to an office full time.

Re: Facebook extends its work-at-home policy to most employees

#326
post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My biggest question right now about sustained wfh is how much of the current productivity is the result of relationships that were built in the office. A year ago, I remotely onboarded for a new position and recently I can head back into the office, and there's a massive difference for me between the virtual relationships I built and the in-person ones. I learned more about people that I had spent months zooming/emai…

This conversation, when I've had it with people, usually ends up with the same conclusions: people would like to see their coworkers face-to-face like.... a couple times a month. People have deep relationships with others without needing to see them 5 times a day, after all! I think the difficulties around relationship building in this time are deeply linked to whether you are able to socialize "through a computer" w…

Hm I hadn’t thought about this in that way - this is very true - we maintain a lot of close relationships with people we don’t spend nearly 40 hours a week with.

And fwiw, I think I fall within this line of thinking - for me going to the office would be productive if it were at its absolute most once per week.

Re: Facebook extends its work-at-home policy to most employees

#327

I am really curious to see where we'll be in a year, two, three down the line wrt remote/office/hybrid work at major companies. This forced experiment has had some surprising outcomes about the effectiveness of remote workplaces, but working from home for only a year, in pandemic conditions, is clearly not the same as indefinitely in normal times. But there's reason to think that may go even better, not worse; I am r…

To be honest, once a person next to them cough. All these millionaires will immediately realize that the vaccine that is 99.999% is still not worth their kids' lives. No matter how low known risk is, it's not worth it. Cough and whisper "why can't I taste anything?" Then, everyone will get to work from home. Nobody will get an advantage of being at the office. Keep coughing.

It's such a joke too. My firm is letting us know they will be so benevolent as to give us 20% time WFH "hybrid" once we return but "you can't just all take Fridays" and "we will set the WFH schedule for you initially".

Well the CTO & half of his reports were already doing Friday WFH before the pandemic, so.. clearly some people can all take Fridays off, and 20% is nothing new for some people..

Re: Facebook extends its work-at-home policy to most employees

#328

It cuts both ways. I love WFH and would love to do it indefinitely. Used to do it 1-2 days/week at prior job. My wife and I are both ICs and introverts, and happy to have the space/privacy/quiet. However, my firm especially is really taking advantage of it. They are getting far more work out of us while acting like they are doing us a favor by not dragging us back yet. Meeting load is up 25-50%, but story points per…

About the meeting load proble, this was actually happening with me a bit before 2021 so I did the most sane thing: I talked with my manager and my manager's boss about it in a non-confrotarional way.

Turns out both of them and 80% of my coworkers felt the same way, so we decided to trim down meetings to the bare minimum,arrange them so they are close to each other, and the company had to instate that meetings need a clear description and goal before setting them up.

I still get the odd day where my afternoon is completely booked, but I now have about 30 hours of uninterrupted work where I can program, trouble shoot, analyse data or pair program with junior people.

I believe we have to be constantly watchful "meeting creep" and always question stuff such as ritual meetings. If an IC is swamped by meetings, things are very wrong indeed.

And about the communication after work hours, unless it's an outage, I reply when I get back at work and so does everyone in my team. Maybe having this arrangement with your boss and setting boundaries is a good idea? You can't forbid them from communicating asynchronously whenever they want, but they need to respect that you won't reply to them right away.

Re: Facebook extends its work-at-home policy to most employees

#329

I am really curious to see where we'll be in a year, two, three down the line wrt remote/office/hybrid work at major companies. This forced experiment has had some surprising outcomes about the effectiveness of remote workplaces, but working from home for only a year, in pandemic conditions, is clearly not the same as indefinitely in normal times. But there's reason to think that may go even better, not worse; I am r…

Hope it's here to stay for everyone. I've been remote most of my professional life. The only hang up was meetings where half team was in office other half was remote. It created an odd "legs in two boats / chasing two rabbits and catching none" vibe. Now with everyone Zooming together it's smooth sailing. When the pandemic is over. Kids are full time in school. Restaurants, bars, stores, and life is normal... It will…

Similar experience. Pandemic made everyone work the same way I do. That said, I worked in 100% remote teams the previous decade so the Pandemic just opened up the rest of the industry as a potential place to contribute.

Re: Facebook extends its work-at-home policy to most employees

#330
post #317
post #75

I currently have 10 fully remote engineering jobs. The bar is so low, oversight is non-existent, and everyone is so forgiving for under performance I can coast about 4-8 weeks before a given job fires me. Currently on a $1.5M run-rate for comp this year. And the interviewing process is so much faster today, companies are desperate, it takes me 2-3hrs of total effort to land a new job with thousands to chose from.

I get that this is a joke, but — would that be legal in the US? In Germany it definitely would not, at least not without it being specifically allowed by your contract. But maybe in the US, as long as you didn’t have a conflict of interest? Would the amount of total time worked matter? Would doing it in multiple states simultaneously matter?

There aren't any laws about how many jobs you can have. Your employer is free to fire you if they find out though. Usually you have agreed not to have multiple jobs when joining, especially so at places like Facebook.
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