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Shopify Goes Digital by Default

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Re: Shopify Goes Digital by Default

#331

Post by shade »

To add some counterpoints to the WFH criticism here, my team's also been working from home for the last two months and I'd honestly prefer to never go back to the office.

I have a unique situation since I can't hear well, and everyone being on WFH has been a huge benefit for me: since everyone's got their own microphone/camera/etc, they come through clearly enough that my captioning app can actually understand them well - typically I get captioning as live CART through a crap conference room phone. Being able to hook my captioning app on my phone up to my laptop's audio out and jump on a Teams call with just a few minutes' notice has also been a huge benefit in easily being able to collaborate with my team and talk through problems.

I'd worked from home before, but never in this kind of remote-first/remote-only scenario, and now that I've gotten a taste of it I kind of never want to go back. I understand that other people are more extroverted than I am, and can hear normally, and it's not an ideal situation for them - but it's been pretty awesome for me.

Re: Shopify Goes Digital by Default

#332

Post by gregmac »

ponker wrote: post #209
dan_quixote wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

| I've found that advocates of WFH are mostly motivated by that's what they want to do more than anything else. I've heard endless people state that WFH productivity is through the roof with absolutely no evidence. And lets not pretend that we can accurately measure productivity of software devs - we've all been down this road with agile.

Here are some numbers... I work at a FAANG and 28-day commits in my division (~5K engineers) are down ~3% from February. Not an exact science but some real data I just pulled for you.

It's an interesting data point, but hard to judge much by it.

Two things:

1. Working-from-home-during-global-pandemic-with-kids-and-spouses-and-roommates-and-not-ideal-setup isn't the same as working-from-home. Undoubtedly some people are less productive today.

2. Commits isn't necessarily a great proxy for productivity to begin with. For example, with greater focus comes less "oops I missed a unit test and broke the build" type commits, or even just more time to interactive rebase and clean up commits before pushing. "Go slower, you'll be done sooner."

Re: Shopify Goes Digital by Default

#333

Post by alteria »

pb7 wrote: post #296
landryraccoon wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I live in NYC because I want to live in NYC. It doesn't make NYC sound very appealing if working from your home in NYC is hellish. Working from my home in the Bay is actually quite nice. The best part is getting an hour of my day back because I don't have to commute to work. That 1 hour commute probably added more stress to my day than any other hour.

I love my home in SF and have been deeply enjoying the COVID-induced work from home life. Many people don't invest in making their home comfortable and enjoyable to be in and it shows when it comes to these types of conversations.

True, but it also is the case that younger folk/non-devs are more likely to live in smaller spaces with housemates.

Speaking personally, I made some optimizations, but there's only so much that can be done with the fixed amount of space that I share with others.

Re: Shopify Goes Digital by Default

#334

Post by mokash »

bamazizi wrote: post #191

Consider the domino effect of these decisions. With WFH culture rising: (Disclosure, I'm 100% in favour of WFH and been doing it for past ~5 years) - Commute time is reduced to seconds/minutes - Driving or taking public transportation plummets - Fuel consumption is vastly reduced, taking care of Pollution as well - Rush hour peaks flattens. might still have traffic, but it won't be because of volume of cars. like fro…

On a practical level, I agree, working from home is better in many ways. However, you can't forget to think about this on a human level. We are social animals after all. You may not agree but I feel that so much human interaction is non-verbal and it is very difficult to replicate this very natural form of communication over video link. Meetings are great but so many great ideas and initiatives (valuable to your employer or not), friendships, romances and what have you arise from informal and off-the-cuff discussions that take place in offices, at the tea point, at lunch, at 4pm when you are mentally dozing off and the guy next to you starts to talk about how he is remodelling his kitchen. You miss all of that by working from home. The sponteneity, the organic and unplanned human interaction that makes life so great. That being said, I do enjoy working from home but I also like being in the office. Perhaps a more hybrid solution is the future, rather than working from home being the exception, or vice versa.

Re: Shopify Goes Digital by Default

#335

Post by gamblor956 »

cletus wrote: post #295
dominotw wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> leads to thinly-veiled, self-serving, biased arguments and proclamations of the benefits to everyone. > So I've now been WFH for 2 months and honestly I hate it. > I just don't think a company with 50,000+ employees can operate this way indefinitely. ok. Why do you consider your arguments against WFH not biased and useful. "other side is biased" ...quite funny :D

> ok. Why do you consider your arguments against WFH not biased and useful. Because what I'm saying is objectively true: physical colocation with your coworkers is inherently easier to work with than working remotely and no one in their right mind disputes that. The best you can argue for WFH-first is that it can be made to work. Your other clue is the choice of language. I said, for example, "I hate WFH" and (paraph…

Because what I'm saying is objectively true: physical colocation with your coworkers is inherently easier to work with than working remotely and no one in their right mind disputes that. The best you can argue for WFH-first is that it can be made to work.

This is objectively not true for the kind of work I (and many others) do. Physical colocation with coworkers actually makes it harder for knowledge workers to do their work, which is why lawyers and accountants have their own offices even when they're in the same building.

Re: Shopify Goes Digital by Default

#336

Post by nemetroid »

foobiekr wrote: post #229
fourmyle wrote: post #137

People are going to change their tune once the paycuts start coming. There is no reason to pay SF money to someone living in the Midwest. $80k a year is comfortable most places. I hope remote first people like the suburbs and country because there is no reason to live in the city with no office. The real truth though is most people are far less productive remote because it requires proactive communication and self di…

Right now, there is _zero_ reason for companies not to announce permanent work from home. It gets them positive attention and makes them part of the buzz. They are already paying the comp they are paying. Putting aside the fact that these policies can change on a dime (it's really "permantnet work from home _for now_"), what's really crazy is that people are seriously planning to take companies at their word and are…

> there is _zero_ reason for companies not to announce permanent work from home

This is obviously not true. If my employer announced permanent work from home, I would immediately start looking for a new job.

Re: Shopify Goes Digital by Default

#337

Post by hackissimo123 »

exdsq wrote: post #195
fourmyle wrote: post #137

People are going to change their tune once the paycuts start coming. There is no reason to pay SF money to someone living in the Midwest. $80k a year is comfortable most places. I hope remote first people like the suburbs and country because there is no reason to live in the city with no office. The real truth though is most people are far less productive remote because it requires proactive communication and self di…

"If you are fully remote then anyone in the world can do your job. Supply goes up prices go down." I work for an all-remote company and wages are based on the NY labour market. Anyone on the planet can apply sure, but I've not seen salaries reduce (if anything they're highly competitive outside of SF!). If you can get $150k and live wherever you want I wouldn't complain!

What company do you work for? Do they have any openings?

Re: Shopify Goes Digital by Default

#338

Post by sekai »

julianeon wrote: post #111
peruvian wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Commuting is the big time saver, but you can also do chores you'd relegate to the weekend or after work while WFH. Not always of course, but chores like a quick grocery trip, laundry, cleaning, errands in your immediate neighborhood no longer crowd your weekend.

Lol, found the guy who doesn't have kids. I don't want this to come across as overly harsh. But a helpful rule of thumb to understand what life is like after having kids, is: there is no free time. None! It's like being in the military, where you wake up at 6am, shower until 6:30am, do calisthenics until 9:30am... and so on, with every single hour occupied, until bedtime, promptly at 9:00pm. If you tell a person like…

I mean kids do grow-up you know? Unless your 18 years olds still do nothing.

Re: Shopify Goes Digital by Default

#339

Post by nickv »

andreilys wrote: post #242
CPLX wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that this will result in an exodus from urban areas presupposes that jobs are the reason people moved to the urban areas, rather than social, leisure, or cultural reasons. That's highly arguable. Young people like cities, that's where the girls and the parties are. That's been true for a really long time.

If we’re talking about LA or NYC I would agree. In the case of SF almost every 20-something I’ve interacted with is here primarily for career and plans on relocating at some point.

Honestly, this is EXACTLY the problem with the current tech scene in SF.

SF used to be a place people moved to because they wanted to live in San Francisco, they wanted the culture, the access to nature and its beauty, the arts scene that was traditionally more cutting edge (citylights, burning man), the cutting edge food and wine scene, the walkability.

Nobody moves to San Francisco for that anymore. They move to San Francisco for work not life. They move to San Francisco to extract value from a job and then leave.

San Francisco is too amazing a city to be relegated to becoming a company town. If there is a positive outcome from this, it will hopefully result in a recalibration and people who want to be in SF because they WANT TO BE IN SAN FRANCISCO will stay and the people who came here to just smash and grab some cash will leave.

Re: Shopify Goes Digital by Default

#340

Post by ABeeSea »

rhodysurf wrote: post #319
ABeeSea wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you have a remote first company, it means your employees can actually move somewhere that they can settle down and own a house. People don’t live in cities just for jobs. I live in the city to go to museums, art galleries, the symphony, plays, comedy shows, concerts, restaurants, happy hours etc. I have no interest in living outside the city and I especially have no interest in maintaining a house. I really want…

All of those things you mentioned exist outside of major cities.

Right but it requires planning and a “night out in the city.” Meanwhile, I buy symphony tickets an hour before show on a lark because they are cheap on stubhub.
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