Shopify Goes Digital by Default • Hacker News Board

Re: Shopify Goes Digital by Default

#61

Post by raiyu » Thu, May 21, 2020, 4:21 PM UTC

Malp wrote: post #39

raiyu wrote: post #31

The biggest positive to companies going all digital especially at Spotify's scale is the cost savings. The problem with companies that have started in Urban centers is that many of their employees don't have the "extra" bedroom in their house to be able to accommodate for this new work from home scenario. This is especially true in NYC. Where apartments are usually significantly smaller than anywhere else. And if bot…

Minor nit: Shopify, not Spotify. This mixup happens frequently.

Opppfh my mistake, easier to spell spotify than shopify mentally for some reason! =]

Re: Shopify Goes Digital by Default

#62

Post by MattGaiser » Thu, May 21, 2020, 4:22 PM UTC

I am curious about the sustainability of work from home for truly team-based work.

I get to develop features independently, so if I am given the spec, I have no need to speak to anyone for the rest of the day except for a couple messages with QA. For me, it is great.

But I am essentially a microservice with defined inputs and outputs. For the people who actually work in teams (rather than me who is part of a team but works independently), this seems to be a miserable experience.

Anecdotally, while productivity seems to remain at a high level, a lot of that seems to be enabled by employees working more hours and being always available.

Re: Shopify Goes Digital by Default

#63

Post by [deleted] » Thu, May 21, 2020, 4:22 PM UTC

testfoobar wrote: post #41

How does corporate security handle permanent work-from-home? It seems that there would be vastly more risks added. E.g. When Joe Employee walks into the office, we know it is him and what he does and where he works. At home, Joe Employee might have a friend who looks over his shoulder at the project launch document he is completing, at the financials that are being submitted to the CFO.

[deleted]

Re: Shopify Goes Digital by Default

#64

Post by smnrchrds » Thu, May 21, 2020, 4:22 PM UTC

godzillabrennus wrote: post #26

Anyone else think these companies will pull a Yahoo and undo this policy after the pandemic?

I am not familiar with the history of Yahoo. What event are you referring to?

Re: Shopify Goes Digital by Default

#65

Post by cryptoz » Thu, May 21, 2020, 4:23 PM UTC

tachyonbeam wrote: post #56

weston wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only if they want to end up like Yahoo. Taking away a benefit, be it free cokes or working from home, likely would cause a huge exodus of engineers.

I don't think of it as a benefit... It kind of sounds like WFH is going to be mandatory from now on?

Where did you read that this is mandatory? It sounds optional to me from the opening sentence of the article.

Re: Shopify Goes Digital by Default

#66

Post by apocalyptic0n3 » Thu, May 21, 2020, 4:23 PM UTC

heartbreak wrote: post #46

clivestaples wrote: post #27

Sometimes I wonder how long "permanent" will be for these decisions. Off topic, but if the permanent work-from-home trend continues, I cannot imagine what is going to happen to commercial real estate. Convert to residential? Is this equilibrium needed for overheated housing markets?

Some commercial real estate will be leased out as individual offices to people who have WFH jobs but want to have an office (don't have space at home, etc.).

WeWork will rise again

Re: Shopify Goes Digital by Default

#67

Post by parthdesai » Thu, May 21, 2020, 4:24 PM UTC

evgen wrote: post #45

joelbluminator wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Different tastes. With all due respect, for every guy like you who doesn't want to work there, there are 10 that do. I understand that remote first doesn't work for everyone, nothing works for everyone.

You are quite delusional if you think the ratio is 10:1 in favor of WFH. One thing that the recent lockdown and forced WFH experiment has revealed is that while people are strongly in favor of flexibly WFH the ratio is closer to 10:1 against having no office at all.

yeah, I like having the option to WFH, but I definitely don't think I can WFH permanently. At least, not right now. If a person is living in an urban city, I doubt they have space to have a proper WFH setup to begin with. I had to move my desk from my bedroom to my living room, which is fine when everyone is social distancing, but I definitely don't have space it for under normal circumstances.

Re: Shopify Goes Digital by Default

#68

Post by peruvian » Thu, May 21, 2020, 4:24 PM UTC

danlugo92 wrote: post #42

peruvian wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Commuting is the big time saver, but you can also do chores you'd relegate to the weekend or after work while WFH. Not always of course, but chores like a quick grocery trip, laundry, cleaning, errands in your immediate neighborhood no longer crowd your weekend.

This is a recipe for disaster, at least in my experience, chores pile up and before you know it's 4pm and you still short on hours worked/output emitted..

Not in my experience. I'm not saying disappear from work for 3 hours to clean the whole house.

When I'm in the office, I often take breaks - 20-30 mins. Sometimes a longer walk during lunch time. I'm simply doing the same here but instead of being on my phone I'm maybe doing a quick vacuum sweep, trip to the bodega for some hand soap, or dropping off my laundry somewhere.

I do have friends that work for companies that expect them to be "online" all the time so this may not work for them.

Re: Shopify Goes Digital by Default

#69

Post by anarbadalov » Thu, May 21, 2020, 4:24 PM UTC

tachyonbeam wrote: post #35

godzillabrennus wrote: post #26

Anyone else think these companies will pull a Yahoo and undo this policy after the pandemic?

It's possible. Lots of people don't like working remotely. They might lose a lot of valuable employees. I suppose over time they might also attract people who prefer working from home exclusively, but they would be losing many older employees with valuable knowledge. One way or another, there's going to be some kind of pushback. Many people threatening to quit, many actually quitting. The cynical part of me thinks th…

The cynical part of me thinks this is a way of trying to save costs (of renting offices) and pass this as some kind of politically correct virtue signalling.

100% this. Will be interesting to see what employers do when workers start requesting part-time coworking space.

Re: Shopify Goes Digital by Default

#70

Post by rfdearborn » Thu, May 21, 2020, 4:25 PM UTC

Seems like permanent remote-optional is rapidly becoming the competitive equilibrium in tech.

As tooling improves, there is some point at which gains from expanded recruiting pool + real estate savings outweigh coordination/culture costs of remote. Beyond this it will be irrational to force physical presences (for many roles, at least) and there'll be no going back.