so employees from Dropbox have to use Dropbox to share theirs files...
Dropbox Converts to Permanent WFH
451–460 of 490 posts
Re: Dropbox Converts to Permanent WFH
#452Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, I'm 7 months into being forced to WFH and I still hate it. I like the work/life separation going into the office brings. I actually liked my commute since I took the bus, so it was time to read and decompress. I like seeing and talking to my coworkers. I like having the variety of simply being out of the house. I like not having work stuff at home, so when I'm home, I don't have the temptation to do work. I'm g…
Just curious... have you thought about after work going for a walk to a park etc and reading there?
Yes and I did for a while earlier this summer. But I fell out of the habit and it's getting cold now here in Minnesota. It was nice to just have it part of my daily routine.
Re: Dropbox Converts to Permanent WFH
#453Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes. And the flip side is you have people who hate WFH (especially in the current situation) who liked the everyone in the office model really fear that, even absent 100% remote, the in-office experience will be much reduced with many of their co-workers coming in seldom. And meetings will all still be on Zoom. There are a lot of incentives to stake out positions. People don't really want to be fully remote at a comp…
> And meetings will all still be on Zoom. Replace Zoom with whatever meeting solution you like, but it's probably for the best that all meetings be on some sort of meeting platform long term. At least in my experience, people seldom take notes during meetings; they rely on their memory and forget about everyone else that didn't attend. Not to mention that if you're typing on your machine during a meeting it's assumed…
>Do you mean the scenario where employees come in a limited number of days for meetings?
What I meant is that individuals who would prefer to be in an an office come in and mostly the only other people there are other groups doing their own thing.
And I agree about the structure. Where I work, people have been pretty good about using shared docs--Etherpad for a long time and Google Docs now. But with everyone on video calls, shared docs are now used pretty religiously for most meetings.
Also agree about the use of office. I'm happy to come into an office now and then if it's for a particular purpose. I've no interest in coming into one to work individually or maybe run into someone and have a serendipitous conversation. Serendipity is fine but it's actually pretty inefficient.
Re: Dropbox Converts to Permanent WFH
#454Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's also time for us to raise our voices and be heard. If we pro-remote people don't say anything then companies could easily think that everyone wants to go back to the way things were.
There has to be a balance though. I'm desperately missing the office and have experience moderate depression for the first time in my life working from home. Atm everything I read is 'WFH is the new normal' or 'we'll never have an office again'. If the balance goes too far to home working then folk like me will need to start clamouring for offices. There needs to be a balance and acknowledgment of each others prefere…
Something that might bear considering, is what is the office providing you that can't be served some other way? Socializing can be served outside of work (friends, hobbies), Work structure or a dedicated work space can be created without requiring a company office (pay consideration for co-working space or re-allocate commute costs/proximity premiums to a larger living space with a dedicated room for work). For most companies, if they are paying for an office, they are going to require people to come to them. Remote folks lose the main thing they want, the ability to work remote. For the office preference folks, the reasons are varied and can often be solved for sans office.
Re: Dropbox Converts to Permanent WFH
#455Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's also time for us to raise our voices and be heard. If we pro-remote people don't say anything then companies could easily think that everyone wants to go back to the way things were.
There has to be a balance though. I'm desperately missing the office and have experience moderate depression for the first time in my life working from home. Atm everything I read is 'WFH is the new normal' or 'we'll never have an office again'. If the balance goes too far to home working then folk like me will need to start clamouring for offices. There needs to be a balance and acknowledgment of each others prefere…
I expect full remote will be quite rare. On the other hand, I also expect that at many companies I do expect a new normal where many/most people are not in the office on a given day so the office may be there but the prior office experience will not.
Re: Dropbox Converts to Permanent WFH
#456Re: Dropbox Converts to Permanent WFH
#457Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
You’ve misread my point, and are arguing against something I didn’t say. I never said that people didn’t have social networks at work before, I said that they didn’t depend so heavily upon them.
People used to also have extensive social networks outside of work through various religious and social institutions, most of which have withered in the past 20 years or so. This is a huge part of this “loneliness epidemic” you mention. We should rebuild those so that people alternating their work structure isn’t a debilitating blow to their social network. This is particularly important since people change jobs much more rapidly now, which disrupts any social network based on work.
Re: Dropbox Converts to Permanent WFH
#458Earlier quoted context omitted.
But for what benefit? Will the office be full sized (forfeiting the cost savings to the business), or will teams have to negotiate which days they’re supposed to come in (forfeiting a large amount of the team building benefits). It just seems like a lot more work and hassle than being fully colocated or fully remote.
Teams schedule conference rooms. Even fully remote, teams will presumably get together physically a few times a year. Whether you're "fully remote" (and maybe have to fly to a get-together) or schedule weekly/biweekly office time will be a function of how a team/company wants to operate.
There’s a huge difference between a few times a year and once every 1-2 weeks, both on the company and the employee. At once a quarter we can just rent a coworking space and fly in, but at once a week everyone needs to live within ~90min of the office and the company needs to maintain some level of excess office capacity in order to seat these workers 1x a week.
To my eye remote 4x a week forfeits most of the benefits of full remote purely for the sake of a vestigial habit. It seems superior to me that either the team either goes full remote, or reverts to a “remote work when errands require it” arrangement.
Re: Dropbox Converts to Permanent WFH
#459Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's also time for us to raise our voices and be heard. If we pro-remote people don't say anything then companies could easily think that everyone wants to go back to the way things were.
There has to be a balance though. I'm desperately missing the office and have experience moderate depression for the first time in my life working from home. Atm everything I read is 'WFH is the new normal' or 'we'll never have an office again'. If the balance goes too far to home working then folk like me will need to start clamouring for offices. There needs to be a balance and acknowledgment of each others prefere…
[deleted]
Re: Dropbox Converts to Permanent WFH
#460Earlier quoted context omitted.
There has to be a balance though. I'm desperately missing the office and have experience moderate depression for the first time in my life working from home. Atm everything I read is 'WFH is the new normal' or 'we'll never have an office again'. If the balance goes too far to home working then folk like me will need to start clamouring for offices. There needs to be a balance and acknowledgment of each others prefere…
Something that might bear considering, is what is the office providing you that can't be served some other way? Socializing can be served outside of work (friends, hobbies), Work structure or a dedicated work space can be created without requiring a company office (pay consideration for co-working space or re-allocate commute costs/proximity premiums to a larger living space with a dedicated room for work). For most…
Americans have increasingly depended on work for connection and meaning as various non-work social institutions have withered. It is probably a bad thing that work is a core social network for a lot of us, and we should all attempt to diversify our networks.