Is This the Office of the Future or a $5B Waste of Space? • Hacker News Board

Re: Is This the Office of the Future or a $5B Waste of Space?

#51

Post by sneak » Thu, May 21, 2015, 10:29 PM UTC

tikhonj wrote: post #46

sneak wrote: post #2

I can't be the only one who's tired of the USA's alcohol-drenched startup culture. In the first four paragraphs: keg, keg, beer, bar, tap, bar, pub, microbrews, tap, happy hour, tequila, margaritas, "90,000 glasses of beer".

That's interesting, because I have the opposite reaction: I'm really tired of USA's general puritanical anti -alcohol culture. It's tiresome and moralistic. I'd love to have a glass of beer with lunch and not have an arbitrary taboo about alcohol at work. I'd love not to worry about drinking in public. It's treated like an ugly bodily function! I'd love not to be hassled for ID everywhere I can drink. I'd love (or, m…

That's not anti-alcohol culture, that's simply authoritarian legislation. Alcohol licensing authorities, operating on 200+ year old laws enacted by uptight religionists, have taken it upon themselves to cause as many possible hurdles to business owners as possible, simply because they can.

It's not an "anti-alcohol culture". It's simply power-hungry officials. The US drinks like there's no tomorrow.

Re: Is This the Office of the Future or a $5B Waste of Space?

#52

Post by rifung » Thu, May 21, 2015, 10:39 PM UTC

bweitzman wrote: post #40

rifung wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely not alone. I don't drink so when the company gets together for beer I just feel really awkward or don't go.

Purely out of curiosity, do your coworkers know that you don't drink or are you trying to keep it a secret (which is totally understandable)?

They know. I'm not the only one who doesn't drink. I think one other person doesn't in our company of 10 people.

Re: Is This the Office of the Future or a $5B Waste of Space?

#53

Post by themartorana » Thu, May 21, 2015, 10:46 PM UTC

krisdol wrote: post #37

Beached wrote: post #27

I work from home... Its much nicer then that place, I dont have noisy people running around and talking on the phones all day, unlimited food and drinks all day, and i get to keep my stuff laying out on the desk without fear of it getting stolen or messed with! I never understood why people who can choose to work from anywhere, choose to pay a monthly commitment to go to a co working space, instead of choosing to wor…

I get depressed cabin-fevery if I spend many days working from home. Going to a cafe, outdoors, or any change of scenery generally helps. I think part of it is that I've officially married my relaxing escape from the office with all the bad features of the office, and that takes a mental toll after a while. I know others that do, but salaried or not, I'm a 9-5er and I don't degrade my hourly rate by putting in extra…

"Making my home the office is no different than making my office my home..."

Brilliantly said. Leave home for living your life outside of work. As much as I am my work in so many ways, being able to have a zone that is (usually) free of work is very important.

To me, anyway :)

Re: Is This the Office of the Future or a $5B Waste of Space?

#54

Post by ryandrake » Thu, May 21, 2015, 10:56 PM UTC

Beached wrote: post #27

I work from home... Its much nicer then that place, I dont have noisy people running around and talking on the phones all day, unlimited food and drinks all day, and i get to keep my stuff laying out on the desk without fear of it getting stolen or messed with! I never understood why people who can choose to work from anywhere, choose to pay a monthly commitment to go to a co working space, instead of choosing to wor…

I can't work productively from home:

1. Young children don't understand daddy having to separate work time from home time

2. Wife that doesn't get that just because I'm in the house, it doesn't mean I can babysit or help with household chores

3. Crazy dog barking every time a car passes outside the front door

4. Lack of a dedicated space (in an already small Bay Area living space) for doing work

5. Commuting is my way to mentally get myself in and out of work mode, driving around the block doesn't cut it

6. Lack of regular, daily human interaction (even if it's just co-workers) is depressing after a day or so

7. My typical work role has me having to hunt people down who don't respond to E-mail/text/etc.. can't effectively do that from home

Re: Is This the Office of the Future or a $5B Waste of Space?

#55

Post by Domenic_S » Thu, May 21, 2015, 11:03 PM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #54

Beached wrote: post #27

I work from home... Its much nicer then that place, I dont have noisy people running around and talking on the phones all day, unlimited food and drinks all day, and i get to keep my stuff laying out on the desk without fear of it getting stolen or messed with! I never understood why people who can choose to work from anywhere, choose to pay a monthly commitment to go to a co working space, instead of choosing to wor…

I can't work productively from home: 1. Young children don't understand daddy having to separate work time from home time 2. Wife that doesn't get that just because I'm in the house, it doesn't mean I can babysit or help with household chores 3. Crazy dog barking every time a car passes outside the front door 4. Lack of a dedicated space (in an already small Bay Area living space) for doing work 5. Commuting is my wa…

You have to train your housemates to respect your space, and having a dedicated home office really helps. One of our bedrooms is a combined guest room/office and a closed door means "don't bother daddy".

IMO the best usecase for WFH is to live in a lower-cost area. If I was in SF or SJ metro instead of the Bay Area suburbs I'd probably go to the office just to hang out with people, cause that's kind of the point of living in SV.

Re: Is This the Office of the Future or a $5B Waste of Space?

#56

Post by Domenic_S » Thu, May 21, 2015, 11:05 PM UTC

karmajunkie wrote: post #29

Beached wrote: post #27

I work from home... Its much nicer then that place, I dont have noisy people running around and talking on the phones all day, unlimited food and drinks all day, and i get to keep my stuff laying out on the desk without fear of it getting stolen or messed with! I never understood why people who can choose to work from anywhere, choose to pay a monthly commitment to go to a co working space, instead of choosing to wor…

I'm with you on working in a cheaper locale. You lost me at working from home all the time. I'm guessing you don't have kids?

I've got a 2-year-old and my successful founder friend has two under 4, we both WFH full time. Although I think he has a co-working space within biking distance in case he really needs to get out.

Teach your kids boundaries young!

Re: Is This the Office of the Future or a $5B Waste of Space?

#57

Post by [deleted] » Thu, May 21, 2015, 11:11 PM UTC

krisdol wrote: post #37

Beached wrote: post #27

I work from home... Its much nicer then that place, I dont have noisy people running around and talking on the phones all day, unlimited food and drinks all day, and i get to keep my stuff laying out on the desk without fear of it getting stolen or messed with! I never understood why people who can choose to work from anywhere, choose to pay a monthly commitment to go to a co working space, instead of choosing to wor…

I get depressed cabin-fevery if I spend many days working from home. Going to a cafe, outdoors, or any change of scenery generally helps. I think part of it is that I've officially married my relaxing escape from the office with all the bad features of the office, and that takes a mental toll after a while. I know others that do, but salaried or not, I'm a 9-5er and I don't degrade my hourly rate by putting in extra…

[deleted]

Re: Is This the Office of the Future or a $5B Waste of Space?

#58

Post by CalRobert » Fri, May 22, 2015, 12:33 AM UTC

bweitzman wrote: post #38

CalRobert wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like beer, but it's exhausting because the assumption is your socializing now takes place at work. I imagine it's pure hell for anyone who struggles with alcohol addiction. As a compulsive eater, I HATE it when offices have free snacks. It's mentally taxing to know there's free snacks only meters away all day long. When I switched from a place with free chips and candy to a place with free apples and pears, I lost…

But at the same time, you can't expect places to not have free snacks out just because you can't deal with them. And for the record, I actually hate having snacks around too but that's something that I feel like I need to deal with myself. It must be really difficult to be an alcoholic in a workplace environment where people drink regularly. But being an alcoholic in general must be really difficult because of the em…

Very true - I just find it to be a great challenge. I certainly wouldn't tell my coworkers they shouldn't have access to snacks because of my own issues, the same way I enjoyed the free beer (good beer too!) at my previous job. The difference is I don't have any trouble putting beer out of my mind until Friday afternoon, whereas food is ever in my thoughts when it is presented.

Re: Is This the Office of the Future or a $5B Waste of Space?

#59

Post by omonra » Fri, May 22, 2015, 1:15 AM UTC

moron4hire wrote: post #23

joslin01 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work in this youth glorified startup world. It's awfully critical to imply that those of us who enjoy the atmosphere are "seeking blatant disregard to their personal dignity and craft." There's not as much drinking done as you would think and really it's either an after work hours thing or someone is coming in checking the place out and has a beer. It's really not a big deal. It's actually just more convenient beca…

I'm not as vociferous as the person you're replying to, but I'm starting to think of the all-consuming social scene of modern startups as one of the reasons why diversity is still a major problem in the tech industry. I don't think socializing with coworkers all the time--either in the office or outside of it--is healthy. It reinforces monoculture. I think it's healthier to have everyone socializing outside of the ci…

Slightly off-topic - but how is diversity (or lack of thereof) a major problem in the tech industry? Is there any proof that it's a problem? Are there companies that have truly diverse workforce that are more successful than ones without?

Re: Is This the Office of the Future or a $5B Waste of Space?

#60

Post by kvcc01 » Fri, May 22, 2015, 2:58 AM UTC

petercooper wrote: post #44

Despite being (at the time of writing) 2 hours old with 26 points, this story has crashed from the front page to position 103? An intriguingly fast fall..

I was curious about that myself (for the obvious reason :) I presume some of the deeply nested comments tripped a flamewar detector, and the ranking cratered thereafter. (I remember reading somewhere about the nesting level being used as a post quality indicator.)