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Dropbox Converts to Permanent WFH

businessinsider.com

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Re: Dropbox Converts to Permanent WFH

#361

Post by dubcanada »

Solvitieg wrote: post #230
dubcanada wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My company did internet reimbursement. But most people don't know that there are massive tax benefits to working from home (at least in Canada) you can write off the percentage of your house you work in of your rent and stuff like that. That alone can equal a $1000 a year or so. But from a company point of view, getting rid of the office is a massive save in money, so I suspect some will increase salaries or offer ot…

I think this is an exaggeration. The "massive tax benefit" is not that large for most people. Perhaps if you have dedicated office space and a large mortgage. I did the math for my T2200 and the total tax benefit was $500/yr.

2x is hardly exaggeration, but my amount was including extras and other office stuff you can write off (power, internet, heating, office supplies, etx)

Re: Dropbox Converts to Permanent WFH

#362

Post by gotaran »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #328
throwaway98az8 wrote: post #179

Context: I was in the interview pipeline before/when this announced, so I've gotten some additional clarification on the logistics. I think this is strictly worse than providing employees with the option of where to work (office/remote/some WFH). Something missing in this announcement is that you still need to live in one of the main cities with offices (SF, Seattle, Austin, Dublin) in order to receive full pay. Movi…

Ironically WFH, whilst being forced to a local actually makes it more expensive. You could live in a tiny studio when your office was available. So now you must rent a sufficient space to include your home office -- In a locale where the price per sq ft is higher. someone invent a murphy bed that converts to a desk that converts to a toilet so our workforce can live in a space smaller than solitary confinement.

I wonder how the calculus plays out.

You could be local but within "commuting distance" of the office, which could include Sacramento, Tracy, etc. for an SF office. I think you could get a 2BR in Sac for the price of a studio in SF.

We might also see some exodus from the Bay Area, which would put a downward pressure on tech salaries till they hit some equilibrium.

I also wonder what enforcement mechanisms exist short of an IRS audit to make sure you're actually "local" and not in a cheap cabin in North Dakota. Employers could monitor corp traffic, but I wonder if it's actually worth the cost to enforce and they'll just go by honor code.

Re: Dropbox Converts to Permanent WFH

#363

Post by xur17 »

ghaff wrote: post #218
dhouston wrote: post #33

To be clear (if you only read the headline :)), not entirely remote. Solo work at home, collaborative work in "studios", basically reimagining the offices into collaborative/convening spaces that you go into from ~once/week to once a quarter depending on team/role. Remote-only cuts out the in-person experience entirely, which is problematic for building teams and culture; and ad hoc "WFH whenever you feel like it" ge…

>Remote-only cuts out the in-person experience entirely Not necessarily. I work in a group that's very distributed and we get together (normally) a couple of times a year plus another once or twice with a larger group. Of course, that doesn't work if it's more like getting together in person every week or two. In any case, I agree it makes sense to collaborate. If you wander into the office and no one you know and wo…

I work at a 100% remote company, and we do this as well (before covid). We're a smaller company, so I'd be curious to hear how it scales, but at least for us I've found it to work pretty well.

Re: Dropbox Converts to Permanent WFH

#364

Post by nimchimpsky »

dhouston wrote: post #33

To be clear (if you only read the headline :)), not entirely remote. Solo work at home, collaborative work in "studios", basically reimagining the offices into collaborative/convening spaces that you go into from ~once/week to once a quarter depending on team/role. Remote-only cuts out the in-person experience entirely, which is problematic for building teams and culture; and ad hoc "WFH whenever you feel like it" ge…

I mean that is your interpretation/experience of it. Mine is entirely different, which would be entirely different to others.

If your workspace can't handle wfh you have other issues imo

Re: Dropbox Converts to Permanent WFH

#365

Post by edmundsauto »

stagger87 wrote: post #129
johnward wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> which is problematic for building teams and culture; Why? I've been remote for about 8 years. I don't think I've had any problems building relationships. The only thing you miss from the office is the time spent screwing around with co-workers. I guess you could consider that "Team building".

If you are genuinely asking, there are people, myself included, who don't think virtual interactions are a substitute for building relationships. It's the same reason I want to transition to meeting someone in person after talking to them on a dating app. I can totally understand that everyone is different and may not think the same. For instance, if the only advantage of in-person interactions at work you can think…

The reason to transition to in-person for a dating app is because the relationship is supposed to become physical. Not so in an office - I don't think the analogy makes sense, because they types of relationships are so different.

Re: Dropbox Converts to Permanent WFH

#366

Post by [deleted] »

headmelted wrote: post #124
dhouston wrote: post #33

To be clear (if you only read the headline :)), not entirely remote. Solo work at home, collaborative work in "studios", basically reimagining the offices into collaborative/convening spaces that you go into from ~once/week to once a quarter depending on team/role. Remote-only cuts out the in-person experience entirely, which is problematic for building teams and culture; and ad hoc "WFH whenever you feel like it" ge…

"Remote-only cuts out the in-person experience entirely, which is problematic for building teams and culture" This is stated as fact everywhere but I've not seen supporting evidence anywhere. I spend about as much time in my day speaking to other people as I would have done productively and by choice before. The only difference now is that I'm more able to avoid extraneous meetings and other drags on my time that don…

[deleted]

Re: Dropbox Converts to Permanent WFH

#367

Post by throwaways885 »

ashtonkem wrote: post #305
rtkwe wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing mostly talked about is social isolation and it seems pretty straight forward that going from time in the office to the same time at home reduces social contact.

Or, it’s good that people will be forced to build social networks outside of their work, as it was a bad development that citizens began to depend heavily on work for meaning and connection. Once the pandemic is over, of course.

People have always relied on work for building social lives. Even when I worked in a shop, I'd end up going for drinks with those people and making friends. When I moved to a new city, my entire social fabric stems off of work (even if the majority of friends are now 1 or 2 steps removed, I needed that foundation to bootstrap).

We're already in a loneliness epidemic, WFH will make that 10x worse.

Re: Dropbox Converts to Permanent WFH

#368

Post by nullsense »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #325
spdionis wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stole the words out of my... keyboard. Wait till people who love WFH say "You just need the proper setup". Yes, I need a proper setup. An office, please.

but it could be a home office with 0 minute commute.

Ah yes, my lonely concrete bunker beneath my house.

Re: Dropbox Converts to Permanent WFH

#369

Post by zwayhowder »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #104
bob33212 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have done this for years. I have seen that some people don't like it for the following reasons. 1. They prefer a predictable schedule. 2. They don't like being at home ( family or workspace issues) 3. They are good at or enjoy office politics. 4. They are incompetent managers and they don't know how to manage engineers other than looking over shoulders and taking attendence.

> 3. They are good at or enjoy office politics. As a counterpoint, we had a mix of remote department and in-office departments at my last company. Transitioning to fully remote made marked an increase in politics every time. It sounds counterintuitive at first, but fully remote moves even more conversations to side channels. At the office it’s hard to have secret exclusionary meetings without other people noticing ev…

The usage stats for our MS Teams instance shows this. Before COVID hardly any messages, after a massive increase as you'd expect, but private messages outnumber public messages 10:1 or more. Several times I've found out that there are multiple private chat groups all for the same P1 or Project instead of using Channels that all staff can see.

Re: Dropbox Converts to Permanent WFH

#370

Post by vkou »

flyingramen wrote: post #144
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 3. They are good at or enjoy office politics. As a counterpoint, we had a mix of remote department and in-office departments at my last company. Transitioning to fully remote made marked an increase in politics every time. It sounds counterintuitive at first, but fully remote moves even more conversations to side channels. At the office it’s hard to have secret exclusionary meetings without other people noticing ev…

> Online, you can create a private Slack channel or even a separate off-Slack group for the in-crowd where you exclude others, and no one can see it. Since you say politics reasons wholly because of this reason, it’s not like Slack is not available if you are not fully remote.

It's available when you're not fully remote, but people prefer to have in-person meetings instead, because they have higher communication bandwidth.
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