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Shopify Goes Digital by Default

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Re: Shopify Goes Digital by Default

#351

Post by borski »

graham_paul wrote: post #343
cletus wrote: post #141

So I've now been WFH for 2 months and honestly I hate it. Work was already flexible enough such that if you wanted to WFH you could. By convention, people would most often WFH on Wednesdays. I liked this timing of people doing it at the same time. But communication and collaboration is just much harder work remote and you can't change my mind. I'm sure you can work hard to make it almost as good but it's never going…

1. communication and collaboration is just much harder work remote: you are probably used to an office culture where communication happens in person and nothing is ever documented. That's understandable. in a remote culture, the written world rules, communication would be much better (asynchronous, no more pointless meetings) 2. Work was already flexible enough such that if you wanted to WFH you could: could you WFH…

Re: “move somewhere better”; this is a flawed argument I’ve seen repeated a bunch. Some people just like where they live and don’t want to move to a bigger place. Bigger does not necessarily mean better. Cities provide more options for entertainment, more people to socially interact with, more unique opportunities (by the draw of the city population for these opportunities), etc.

“Move somewhere better” is naive, because where they live isn’t necessarily bad; just may not be conducive to full-time remote work.

Re: Shopify Goes Digital by Default

#352

Post by matthewfelgate »

rglullis wrote: post #314

Is it going to be a thing on HN now where the top thread for every announcement of a company embracing Remote Work will be from someone complaining about not liking Work-From-Home and 50+ replies discussing about "WFH vs office" or discussing their own personal preferences? I am starting to be astonished by the amount of supposedly-intelligent people who are completely missing the forest for the trees. What we are wi…

Yup I get frustrated at this too. Tectonic changes taking places but there is always 1 dickhead going "I don't like working from home" that seems to dominate the discussion.

I have a funny feeling the people that don't like working from home are the same dickheads in the office that everyone else hates working with.

Re: Shopify Goes Digital by Default

#353

Post by Apocryphon »

mokash wrote: post #334
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 empl…

> 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.

Maybe this will be the killer app that VR/AR was waiting for. Not entertainment, but enterprise.

Re: Shopify Goes Digital by Default

#354

Post by pmiller2 »

jacobr wrote: post #311
mrich wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It certainly depends on seniority and experience, the more you have the easier it is to work on your own. You don't need much guidance anymore and you know what communication and planning is needed in advance, so you can do it in batches.

Until you’re senior enough that most of your job is communication, then remote becomes difficult again. WFH now and maintaining Work/Life balance is really difficult when most of your time is spent sending emails, reviewing code and proposals and answering questions in a global company. Writing code at night happened occasionally before, but it required leaving my family and pulling out my laptop so it had to be for…

In terms of pure work productivity, I disagree. Emailing, reviewing code, and reviewing and writing proposals are all activities that are best done in a low distraction environment, which the modern open office is not. Dealing with questions has a bit more overhead on both the asker and the answerer, but I don't think it's so much that email and Slack don't mostly cover it. For those occasional instances where written communication doesn't cut it, video chat is an acceptable substitute in exchange for the benefits in other areas.

Even for whiteboard discussions, you can buy a literal whiteboard for your work area, hold the meeting over video call, and exchange photos afterward. It's not quite as low friction as walking up to a whiteboard in the office with a coworker, but, at least you know the damn markers will work.

Maintaining WLB is something one needs to be attentive to. Having a dedicated work area as well as maintaining specific work hours (and sticking to them) are key. Other than that, I don't think maintaining WLB at home has to be any tougher than at the office. Kids present special issues, but, if you're a non-WFHer, you already have provisions for the kids during work hours, anyway.

Re: Shopify Goes Digital by Default

#355

Post by foobiekr »

nemetroid wrote: post #336
foobiekr wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

well yeah, me too, but if they announced it you'd talk to your manager and she'd say "don't worry about it." then we'd wait and see.

Re: Shopify Goes Digital by Default

#356

Post by booleandilemma »

chrisseaton wrote: post #197
enumjorge wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people like living in big cities, and are ok trading off a bigger living space to make that happen. I love being able to walk out to a bunch of different restaurants, having easy access to entertainment venues, etc. The idea of having a giant house in the middle of nowhere has very little appeal to me. This is especially common for younger people and those with no kids.

There's a whole world between big city and the middle of nowhere. You can live in a small town with restaurants, culture, coffee-shops, a theatre, social life.

You're saying I should move to Jersey?!

Re: Shopify Goes Digital by Default

#357

Post by pmiller2 »

borski wrote: post #351
graham_paul wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. communication and collaboration is just much harder work remote: you are probably used to an office culture where communication happens in person and nothing is ever documented. That's understandable. in a remote culture, the written world rules, communication would be much better (asynchronous, no more pointless meetings) 2. Work was already flexible enough such that if you wanted to WFH you could: could you WFH…

Re: “move somewhere better”; this is a flawed argument I’ve seen repeated a bunch. Some people just like where they live and don’t want to move to a bigger place. Bigger does not necessarily mean better. Cities provide more options for entertainment, more people to socially interact with, more unique opportunities (by the draw of the city population for these opportunities), etc. “Move somewhere better” is naive, bec…

I agree, but my counterpoint would be this: I like having _access_ to the Bay Area, but I don't like how much it costs to live somewhere accessible to SF. If I could live somewhere a little further out to save money, but still be able to visit the City and other places when I wanted or needed, that would be theoretically ideal for me. In practical terms, I'll let you know after I get a chance to try it out. ;-)

Re: Shopify Goes Digital by Default

#358

Post by cuddlybacon »

nemetroid wrote: post #336
foobiekr wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

My office (small site within a big company) sent out a survey about working from home.

The majority responded that they didn't want to WFH. There was a question that had several options for which composition of WFH vs WFO people wanted in the new normal. Only 25% of people picked an answer where they would WFH more often than they'd WFO.

Re: Shopify Goes Digital by Default

#359

Post by pmiller2 »

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.

What are the stats per engineer over the past year or 2, including standard deviation? I suspect +-3% is within normal variation. Are you measuring literally the number of commits or number of lines changed? All of these are important metadata.

Re: Shopify Goes Digital by Default

#360

Post by Daegalus »

nickv wrote: post #339
andreilys wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Sa…

I agree with this. I just turned 30, and I couldn't wait to leave SF. Its a great city, I grew up in the Bay Area, but it is nto for me. I am not a city person. I never lived in SF proper, but I would hate it if I did.

So I took the plunge and moved to Washington last October before COVID was a thing. And i couldn't be happier. It was all because my company had a SF and Bellevue location.

I forsee many other people doing the same now that job opportunities aren't tied to location.

I was forced to work in SF because thats where the Jobs were for me, but I never wanted to be so near or work in SF.

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