Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Shopify Goes Digital by Default

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

411–420 of 447 posts

Re: Shopify Goes Digital by Default

#411

Post by _peeley »

As a college student just entering the job market, this trend will be an absolute nightmare if it continues to its natural terminus (all tech companies permanently and primarily WFH).

My current internship has been WFH for the past ~2 months and it has drastically reduced how much I actually enjoy my job. Talking with my coworkers and the office atmosphere in general was a large part of why I enjoyed my job, and that has been reduced to a daily standup over Zoom and a handful of strictly work-related Slack messages when necessary. I understand there are some people who simply like to clock in and clock out but for people like me for whom the office is a large source of regular socialization, working from home is incredibly lonely.

It seems as though a large amount of people pushing for WFH situations are more senior engineers, especially those with children or other concerns at home. For a moment, just put yourself in the shoes of a junior engineer or fresh grad who is new to the job or the industry in general and remember your first day on your first job. Probably the only thing that relieved some of the stress or anxiety was a friendly coworker, or the ability to grab a mentor to answer questions sitting just a few feet away. WFH, no matter the technology, cannot create a substitute for this.

Re: Shopify Goes Digital by Default

#412

Post by rglullis »

stetrain wrote: post #403
rglullis wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get the sarcasm, but I do not get the point you are trying to make. Care to elaborate?

That the experience that many of us are having, where companies had to rush into supporting remote work by necessity, and where your home and personal life are affected greatly by factors other than not working in an office, is not necessarily a great indicator about whether the general idea of "working from home" is a good fit personally or professionally. And all of the medium.com thinkpieces and "COVID made me rea…

Right, thank you! (It was clear even before your edit).

One interesting thing to observe is how different cultures are reacting to the pandemic.

In Europe, it feels that the memories of two world wars are still recent enough to make people understand these are extraordinary times, and that the best way to return to normalcy is by collective effort and making the fight against the virus a top priority. It is hard in the beginning, but people promptly change their behavior until the problem is solved or controlled. Only when the war is over is when people start trying to go out on the streets to reclaim their lives.

In Brazil and in the US (where I lived and have friends and family) it seems they can not accept the reality changing so rapidly in front of their eyes. Even today, when I have my older relatives learning about a friend or acquaintance of theirs getting sick or dying, their reaction is "They were in the risk group/not taking care of themselves/did not take magical-pill-X". They are struggling so much to accept the risks and want so much to return immediately to having some sense of normalcy that in the end they are probably gonna end up worse than the Europeans - a lot of lives lost and still no true recovery.

Re: Shopify Goes Digital by Default

#413

Post by Androider »

xivzgrev wrote: post #10
dpflan wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for tracking. Maybe commercial real estate will have to become residential to survive the shift in demand? Economics of a skyscraper vs. residential are different, but the building still exists (I can see how not opening could be cheaper, but still, I'd like to ponder this situation.)

Whoa there silver. Just because a few tech companies are giving up their space doesn’t mean commercial office space is doomed. There are still plenty of non-tech companies and local businesses (like law firms) that I doubt will be going away. Tech companies have a huge incentive here - they can now start hiring engineers at non Bay Area prices. Which, if enough companies do it, means your salaries are at risk. Nobody…

Interestingly the law firm our company uses has converted to permanent remote only just now. So it's not just tech companies.

I think, once the boss gets a taste of working from home, they too want to enjoy their fancy homes and spending times with their kids instead of sitting in traffic all day. And Covid now provides them a generally acceptable way to push that change through.

Re: Shopify Goes Digital by Default

#414

Post by wh-uws »

_peeley wrote: post #411

As a college student just entering the job market, this trend will be an absolute nightmare if it continues to its natural terminus (all tech companies permanently and primarily WFH). My current internship has been WFH for the past ~2 months and it has drastically reduced how much I actually enjoy my job. Talking with my coworkers and the office atmosphere in general was a large part of why I enjoyed my job, and that…

A someone who started my career in the office and transitioned to full time remote over time I hear you.

Don't let these extraordinary circumstances color you vision of things though.

Once people feel like it's safe enough we'll likely go back to hybrid office / WFH as people manage building capacity to allow for distancing.

That will be a lot better

Re: Shopify Goes Digital by Default

#415

Post by postalrat »

pickle-wizard wrote: post #326
benbristow wrote: post #164

If I had a really nice detached home with a wife & children then working from home permanently would be the dream. I don't. I live in a flat and live by myself. The only physical people I talk to are cashiers or delivery drivers. If your life is further on than others or you have a nightmare capital commute then I can see WFH being the way forward. But personally I like to go to the office for social interactions and…

Before this job I worked from home for 2 years. When I wanted human interaction, I could go to a restaurant, the gym, a hockey game, or a friends house. You can't do any of those things now. Once things open backup, I think a lot of people find that WFH is a lot less lonely.

I don't think you will be doing those things 40 additional hours per week when you are purely WFH.

Re: Shopify Goes Digital by Default

#416

Post by wolco »

guptaneil wrote: post #204
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…

Those are all perfectly valid points. However, I don't think WFH advocates are claiming that working from home is definitively better. Both options have different trade-offs. You're right that collaboration is much easier in person, even with the latest remote work technology. But could we offset that with companies that have monthly/quarterly offsites instead? What if they invest their office budget into helping peo…

No offsites please. I'd rather go in then fly around the world at this point.

Re: Shopify Goes Digital by Default

#417

Post by newfeatureok »

benrbray wrote: post #302
newfeatureok wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why all of that can't be conducted over the internet. I mean, we're having this conversation over the internet, right? Plus, again remote first does not mandate working from home. One could still go into the office so the qualms are moot.

One big issue is that more experienced employees will be the ones to choose work-from-home as their default, while the newer employees seeking to learn the ropes will opt to come to the office. Perhaps a solution is to somehow formalize some of these implicit knowledge transfer mechanisms in the workplace. Explicitly assign mentors to new employees, etc.. But I just don't see how it could possibly compare to a normal…

Again remote first does not mean offices do not exist. Once you start working you’ll see that there’s already a lot of collaboration over the internet. It’s nothing like school

Re: Shopify Goes Digital by Default

#418

Post by julianeon »

nucleardog wrote: post #406
julianeon wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Can you clarify what exactly it is you're disagreeing with him about? From my read, he's saying "no commute is good because you can do a few chores during the week and not have as many to do on the weekends". You're saying "no commute is good because you can apply that time to cleaning and the house is cleaner; but also kids are exhausting". ?

I can clarify the disagreement.

He is saying:

> Commuting is the big time saver, but you can also do chores you'd relegate to the weekend or after work while WFH

I am saying:

> If my commute time is removed, some amount of necessary chores cannot get done. I can't do chores in any time other than the commute time. There is no real 'weekend' or 'after work' time, when I can do them 'later'.

All time is accounted for, and removing time necessarily knocks some items (like 'morning/midday rooms cleaning') off the list permanently.

Re: Shopify Goes Digital by Default

#419

Post by rglullis »

_peeley wrote: post #411

As a college student just entering the job market, this trend will be an absolute nightmare if it continues to its natural terminus (all tech companies permanently and primarily WFH). My current internship has been WFH for the past ~2 months and it has drastically reduced how much I actually enjoy my job. Talking with my coworkers and the office atmosphere in general was a large part of why I enjoyed my job, and that…

First, please do not confuse "Work-from-Home" with "Remote Work". These are very different beasts, and the situation you are going through now is neither of those.

Second, if you can avoid entering the market now, do so. There is a lot of data showing how entering the job market in an economic downturn can be worse than a few years of unemployment. You will thank me 25 years from today.

Third, understand that Remote Work (not WFH!) will also allow you to separate the choice of place of where you live from the place/activity that makes you money. You don't have to live in a big faceless city. It will be okay to try spending 3-6 months in different places of the world, meet different people, find different ways to belong to your local community, whatever. If in the end you still want to do Remote Work in an environment that resembles a company office, it will be possible (again: Remote Work is not WFH)

Fourth, if the office is your largest source of regular socialization, I'd seriously recommend you finding ways to change or mitigate that regardless of your working conditions. As friendly and cordial your relationship with your colleagues is, they are still just colleagues. You are not in school anymore.

Lastly, things are changing for everyone, not just the juniors. Even the seniors will have to figure out some of the new protocols and processes when dealing with the upcoming challenges. But finding a way to communicate and exchange some thoughts with your colleagues will always be necessary and recommended. There is no reason to feel more anxious about it.

Post reply on HN