I Miss Working from the Office • Hacker News Board

Re: I Miss Working from the Office

#61

Post by iso947 » Sat, Nov 21, 2020, 10:33 AM UTC

bamboozled wrote: post #10

Thing I miss are: * Having someone clean my works space. My house gets dirtier now and I’m forever cleaning it, doing dishes. * The distinction between the beginning and end of my work day. * Having free space in my house. * Off the cuff dinner and drinks with colleagues. * No lag meetings and whiteboard sessions. * Having intervals apart from my family actually felt healthy, although we have adapted to being around…

I’m confused about your dishes claim. You mention you go home for lunch anyway so dishes don’t seem terrible, otherwise it’s a plate and a knife to pop in the dishwasher.

When you were in an office and someone scheduled a 6am meeting what would you do?

For me in the office I have a cup that I put in the dishwasher at the end of the day. At home I have a better cup that I put in the office at the end of the day.

If you’re only 5 minutes from your colleagues why can’t you go for spontaneous pub etc (assuming it’s open in your locality) Or pop out for lunch?

Re: I Miss Working from the Office

#62

Post by AniseAbyss » Sat, Nov 21, 2020, 10:34 AM UTC

Considering the remorseless singular dedication to efficiency in my country that takes no prisoners I think offices are on the way out.

Why would you as a company want to pay for an expensive building?

Re: I Miss Working from the Office

#63

Post by pracer » Sat, Nov 21, 2020, 10:34 AM UTC

nonbirithm wrote: post #32

I gave up trying to work from home and commute to the office as an essential worker, because the distractions were so frequent I was not getting much work done. I'm the only person in the office and it is night and day for my productivity.

At the end it is about finding a place without distractions. Not every home is prepared for that (and sometimes even impossible, due to kids, for example). But it is not the office per se which I claim that tend to be really disruptive in general.

Re: I Miss Working from the Office

#64

Post by Roritharr » Sat, Nov 21, 2020, 10:34 AM UTC

inglor_cz wrote: post #57

Roritharr wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"soon" in Germany might mean 2022

Not great, not terrible. This means a year and a half. If it saves you 300 000 eur on purchase of your home, it paid for itself. I am a Czech; property prices around Prague are hopping mad, but top German cities like Munich are just beyond belief. Buying a house in an expensive region means debt slavery till the end of your days. Waiting to 2022 does not sound as bad in comparison. You can probably have a big, even t…

For this reason I don't plan on buying in Germany unless I hit the proverbial lottery.

But rent slavery is not much better, having my entire extended family living in this High CoL environment makes moving hard on the kids aswell... Atm I have a hard time being happy with any of the combinations of tradeoffs we could make.

Re: I Miss Working from the Office

#65

Post by Jugurtha » Sat, Nov 21, 2020, 10:36 AM UTC

Yes. Some people on the internet were also advocating for a return to the office because people could not stand the loneliness anymore and need to interact socially. I had to point out that this was symptomatic of a poor social/family life [outside of work].

If someone is lonely working remotely and they miss humans, it is a sign the only humans they interacted with were colleagues. It's also a sign of what the person could try and improve.

This situation exposed a lot of crutches.

Re: I Miss Working from the Office

#66

Post by iso947 » Sat, Nov 21, 2020, 10:37 AM UTC

as1mov wrote: post #14

I recently switched jobs and the new company onboarded me remotely. It's difficult for someone who's new to get acquainted with the new job remotely. Simple things like a small question regarding the codebase turns into a video call with a colleague where you first ping them on chat and ask them if they are free and then schedule the call. Even if the whole thing takes 10 minutes, it's too much compared to just turni…

We have a permanent open chat in slack, so you just make a quick comment.

Re: I Miss Working from the Office

#67

Post by pracer » Sat, Nov 21, 2020, 10:38 AM UTC

mrweasel wrote: post #15

The biggest one for is, as mentioned in the article: casuasl collaboration. I mis being able to just walk over to a coworker. I’m just home every other week, which strikes a reasonable balance for me.

If you think about it, what you miss is the possibility to interrupt others at any time, which is not very considerate once you realise it.

Calling it "casual collaboration" is not honest, as that's not collaboration. The other person is not collaborating, just being interrupted to help you with something. the only thing I agree is that you lost the casual talks in the coffee break or kitchen, but that is not always about being more productive.

Re: I Miss Working from the Office

#68

Post by villuv » Sat, Nov 21, 2020, 10:41 AM UTC

I have been working fully from home more than 5 years now. And before that almost as much half time from home. I think I can safely say that I would be devastated if I had to go full time office worker again. I have been working in office more than 10 years in the past. I find myself lot less distracted and interrupted even when the kids are at home. Digging in some code with other people over screen sharing is much better experience than over-the-shoulder way. Lot less fingerprints on screen is an added bonus. Sometimes I like to work late in the evening and I absolutely hated commuting home after long days in the office. YMMV obviously.

Re: I Miss Working from the Office

#69

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Nov 21, 2020, 10:41 AM UTC

[deleted]

Re: I Miss Working from the Office

#70

Post by matthewmacleod » Sat, Nov 21, 2020, 10:42 AM UTC

I'd like to think that after the nth discussion of this topic we could all generally agree:

- Some people prefer working in an office environment. There are valid reasons for this, and it's totally fine.

- Other people prefer working at home, and this is also completely fine and understandable.

- People other than yourself who experience challenges with either one of these arrangements are not idiots and the things they talk about are genuine issues that they experience, which are unlikely to be effectively solved by suggestions like "you are doing it wrong" or "get a new job".

- Not everybody out there is in the same situation as you with regards to living arrangements, family commitments and so on. Solutions that seem obvious and easy to you are unattainable for others.

My hope at least is that the experiences we've all had over the past year will help to make work more flexible and inclusive, so that we can take all of the above into account. In particular, is seems inevitable that companies should stop adopting an inflexible "no remote work" policy and instead make it easier for people to work from anywhere.

I'd love to see some new and creative approaches – like companies using their newfound remote-friendliness to make it feasible to spin up small branch offices in co-working spaces, so that workers' commutes can be reduced but they still get an office environment if it's helpful for them.