I sincerely don't, I don't see a reason to waste time and money commuting every day. As is I hate driving, but even with public transit why do I want to waste an hour or an hour 30 per day.
I've been able to save so much money in the last year, for the first time in my life I would be fine for good amount of time if I got fired today. I very much do expect big companies to force workers back in the office, tons of middle managers don't feel like they're being effective if they can't stare at you typing for 8 hours
I love working from home and would never work in an office again. I prefer the freedom of schedule, quietness and lack of constant surveillance from my bosses.
It feels like the office was geared 100% for extroverts and finally introverts have an option that works for them. My productivity has never been higher and my stress has never been lower.
Fewer restrictions and less questioning of your use of time and your activities is typical the higher one observes the class ladder. WFH (absent remote monitoring tools, which take it back down below an in-person job without such tools) is like bumping up to the upper-middle, or professional, class, which most programmers are not in, ordinarily, socially speaking.
... and yes, a taste of class privilege is, frankly, wonderful.
You nailed it. I may never have much class privlage, but I can emulate it with WFH, location flexibility and by cultivating small amounts of financial independence.
I truly think class-anxiety will make the freer kinds of WFH fairly uncommon over time, if it persists on a large scale at all, the more savvy managers get to it. I'm seeing non-programmer, bog-standard office drone friends get their work done in a couple hours and have the rest of the day basically to themselves (though no fault of their own, as they've sought more work in the past and found no-one to give it to them, and just happen to be way more efficient than some of their peers). They did the same in the office, but they weren't free there. I don't think managers will like mere office drones, or even huge numbers of programmers (just office drones they have to pay more, while resenting it every day, really), gaining those kinds of privileges, which ordinarily aren't available to such a degree even for middle managers.
I expect work spyware and spying services to be a booming market, even more than it has been. :-(
The relationship between employer and employee is founded on control and power. The employer is absolutely going to claw back as much of that power as possible post-pandemic. More spyware is a possibility. Even more likely is that most roles will switch back to on-site because control over the physical bodies of others is the most primal kind of power. One WFH insight I've had is that at home you are able to control your physical comfort to a much greater degree. You don't have to dress like they tell you, you have control of the thermostat, your chair, desk, keyboard, mouse, monitor, noise environment, air quality, odors, food, lighting, body position, and so on. This is an enormous bodily freedom and it won't be continued to be given without fighting for it. People go on about the social benefits of work, though I think back to Maslow's Hierarchy and that the social is less important if your office is noisy, freezing and your chair is causing severe back pain.
After 7 years of remote work, the times I have spent a few weeks or months back in an office have been an enormous shock. You always feel what you are currently missing most strongly, so I suspect once most people get back into the office, the enormous lack of freedom will weigh more heavily than they could have realized before experiencing it.
Why don't you consider most programmers to be upper-middle class? The only explanation I can come up with is that it is based on the fact that most programmers are junior level due to the rapid growth of our industry and that junior level professionals haven't made it to the upper-middle rung yet.
Class isn't just money, it's habits, attitudes, and the way others treat you, some of which are related to money, in a necessary-but-not-sufficient way. Besides, the vast majority of programmers in the US, let alone abroad, don't make enough money to sit in that class comfortably.
Upper-middle is "why of course our kids are going to a private prep school, what else would they do?" and "oh, where will you Summer? We're planning to just do Nantucket again" territory.
The dude who's made it at age 45 running a plumbing business is his own boss, has employees, has maybe triple or quadruple median take-home income because he's decent at business and works hard—but will still almost certainly not be perceived, or treated, by anyone, as "upper-middle". Not like a surgeon would be, almost by default, even in residency, or perhaps a junior investment banker.
My observation has been that programmers are mostly treated either as just expensive middle-class office drones, or pandered to as a substitute for actual upper-middle treatment. One key indicator, for office workers like us: where the hell are our private offices with doors that close? (yes, I know some places have them, but they're rare) Oh but we have foosball tables and catered lunch, so oh, look how respected you are, you little programmer.
We're probably closest to accountants, overall, in the social class we're treated as inherently belonging to and the class toward which admitting to being a "programmer" will drag you in most anyone's mind. Solidly, solidly middle.
Which, maybe, who'd give a shit, except that you actually do get treated better as upper-middle.
I'm really enjoying working remotely, and in-fact my company is allowing people to work perm. from home, a hot-desk system where you can book a desk, or if you want to work three or more days a week, you can get a permanent desk.
A couple of friends and I decided it'd be nice to go in once a week to catch up, we all live quite locally (15min cycle for me) so for me it's a nice idea that would work for me.
Pre-pandemic I already had the career goal of a fully remote position. Working remotely for the past year or so has confirmed to me that I prefer working remote. It's going to be disappointing when I have to return to my old office in the coming months, but I plan on keeping my eye open for alternative positions which allow my to forgo the office experience completely.
Ron Swanson put it best. I don't have coworkers, I have workplace proximity associates. I don't particularly care to be around the people I work with so being at home has probably kept me in this job longer than it would have otherwise. Also they built us a new office building right before they sent us all home and they're taking me out of an office where I can close the door and putting me in an open air cube farm. I always said if I had to work in a cube I would quit. They're looking at us going back in July and that's about the time I hope to have a new job.
I have a few fantastic co-workers that I'd happily spend a day in the office with. Unfortunately, I have a few fantastically terrible co-workers that outweigh the benefits of being with the good ones. I've become incredibly office averse.
I might not necessarily want to go back to the office full time (I always had the possibility for part time remote work anyway), but I'm missing my bike ride commute and some off-record discussion with colleagues that are harder to have over Teams.
I don't want to go back, I can get my day job done in < 5 hours. I intend to start a couple of fun side businesses and it's easier to do that with no time (and emotional exhaustion) wasted on commuting and sitting at my desk trying to look busy.
Do your tasks in as little time as it takes leaving more room for leisure, this is the first time I'm feeling the benefits of that 'increased productivity per hour'[1] economists talk about.
This made me laugh. I am totally with you. I burn myself out by stretching 3 hours of work into 9, punctuated by podcasts, reading the news, doing household chores, ... basically whatever I can find that will allow me to avoid what important work I have in front of me.
That always feel so unrealistic to me. Do you guys really feel recharged after a 5 minute break? Thats just enough to visit the toilet and get a drink. It would mean you are focused 7 hours out of 8. Seems very unrealistic to me.
The usual "pomodoro" schedule I see also includes a half-hour break every 4 or so focus sessions. The 5 minute break is more to remind you to stand up and get a few stretches - and also to give your brain the prospect of the break as a "reward" if only you start now.
When I was doing it consistently for a while, a productive day looked like a 30-45 mins of emails + standup, 4 pomodoros, lunch, 4 pomodoros, break, 2-3 pomodoros. However, there always seems to be meetings scattered around, and a more typical day would only get 6-8 pomodoros of focus time.
> I intend to start a couple of for profit side businesses
Not saying this applies to you, but a thing a lot of people are going to find out is how little they actually accomplish with the extra time. It's so much easier (and fun!) to dream about going to the gym, having a garden, and starting a business while stuck in traffic than to actually follow through and do those things.
I don’t know about that.
Start small work up from there.
I started with just a small walk each day, fast forward a few months and I’ve taking up ruck marches and lost all sorts of weight.
I’m exceedingly undisciplined.
I would encourage anyone to take a bit of that free time and take a step in the right direction.
I am in office but I love it. But I am a founder and I have a great office where it is not crowded and with kids at home, I really cannot get any work done at home.
When I worked in the office, I thought I could never work at home because I'd be too distracted. Once I started working at home, I realized that WFH is really good for me and that I'd never want to go back to the office. I suspect that if I do have to go back to the office, I'll find some advantages to being back in the office and enjoy it.
I'm interested in an adjusted schedule. Like all Fridays WFH or something. I imagine my work will eventually bring us back to the office but I'm definitely interested in working from home in some capacity.
I am currently looking for a work from home job making games or other complex systems...
Reason is that when I did that in a office little would get done, not just endless meeting but people interrupting, distractions, and weird office-only issues (like drama, office politics, HR nagging people because they left books on their desk, etc...)
At home even with family around, I can tell them it is my worktime, and then focus on work, and they will respect that.
>> HR nagging people because they left books on their desk
You just reminded me one more reason for me not to return office - we have policy that when leaving for the day employees must remove all extra items [] from the desk and put that into personal cabinet.
extra items - everything apart from phone, display and keyboard + mouse.
In one workplace of mine was because the office was built deliberately with glass walls, so any random visitor would see everyone working.
So HR wanted the tables looking always pristine and organized, shockingly the team that made the company most of their money, made a cool castle using tictac boxes, and HR during a performance review gave that particular team a smaller raise than planned, and told them it was about of the "objects in the table looking unprofessional", when they asked if it was the castle, HR comfirmed yes, it was the castle, and they would get further punishments and maybe even refused promotions if they didn't put the castle in the trash.
EDIT: I wasn't part of that team. Only thing I left on my table was books.
Pre-pandemic policy for more efficient utilization of office space.
Reasoning: it's never the case that 100% of staff is in the office - there's always be someone on sick leave or vacation or working from home. So let's rent office for say ~90% (I don't know what exact number was) of employees and let them use places on first in-first served basis.
While I get why it's needed by it's still very annoying carrying all my stuff back and forth every morning and evening.
I live in Fremont and had a job in Los Angeles. Had to fly in every week. It was exhausting. Then Covid came and got rid of the flight and commute. It was awesome.
But after a year of being cooped up with a wife and a 4 year old, I yearn to be back at the office about twice a week.
Really enjoying working remotely. Looking back in time, it seems silly that people at my company were disallowed to work a few days from home whenever they asked. When I think back to the time I was in the office, I believe I spent roughly 80% of my time focusing on what needed to be done, and the remaining 20% in face-to-face discussion, whether casual or not. That 20% is very valuable and I would not want to replace that. Based on that, and what my team needs, I believe it would be optimal to come into the office 1 or 2 days a week. It should be easy to defer the necessary conversations and face-to-face meetings to those days. But of course, everyone's needs are different and a balance must be struck.
I may be the malcontent, but I'm tired of being at home. I want to keep the option of being at home, but I miss the community I found at work, I miss the non-work adventures our team had, and frankly, I think the new folks joining our teams are not nearly as integrated into our family as those of that came before the pandemic. I've worked remote for a decade and the option to work remote for 2ish days a week makes life incredible, but beyond that, teams I've been a part of tend to be less cohesive.
Your coworkers are not your family, unless they are literally your family business. Most people don't learn this lesson till the first layoff and they watch those warm and friendly relationships sublimate in an instant.
That seems somewhat overly general and pessimistic. Some of us develop strong support relationships with our colleagues on our teams, which results in conversations and activities that happen well outside of work hours or premises, and lasting friendships that remain strong even years after they've parted ways with the company that brought us together.
It's the grown-up version of school as a substitute for parents. In grade school, school holds your hand and ideally teaches you how to be functional in society and in groups. In college, the school holds your hand through learning to be an independent adult with freedoms and responsibilities, but shielding you from real consequences: bad grades? Probation. Drugs or alcohol? Deal with the school, not the cops. The office is just another iteration of that: can't meet people on your own? Just come to the office. Can't find meetups despite infinite facebook groups, subreddits, etc? Come to happy hour.
I understand why people like the office, but it's frustrating to be forced to go into the office just because other people aren't able to have a social life without an office holding their hand through it.
Companies know this, and depend on this effect. It keeps most of their employees "loyal" to the company at an incredibly low cost, since our social instincts are doing most of the work for them.
Management training pretty explicitly teaches you how to use your team's ego, desire for respect, need to please others, and need for acceptance and praise to push more work to be done and shape behavior.
I think your own experience isn’t always what others is. I’ve seen lots of people make lasting friendships through meeting at work.
My best friend is someone I met at work 6+ years ago. I’ve got plenty of other people I stay in touch with. Not all relationships need to be everlasting too. Sometimes work relationships are fun and the authenticity is still real. It’s just that now you’re both not working together, you can’t have the same level of a relationship.
Just because things don’t progress once you’re outside the workplace doesn’t mean it’s not real. Sometimes people have different priorities.
I think it takes both parties to maintain a connection. I'm part of several Slack groups with friends and acquaintances from old jobs. We aren't as tight as we were while working together, but we aren't radio silent either.
I've had lifelong friends come from every job I've had. I can name many people from my last 3 jobs that I would want to (and will) get a beer with after the pandemic.
> Most people don't learn this lesson till the first layoff
You hit the nail on the head. While I definitely feel for all the early-career folks out there who are genuinely missing out on the camaraderie of working together, I urge all of you not to fall into the trap of thinking that your employment relationship is anything more than mercenary.
They will cut you without a moment's hesitation. Buying into the "we're a family" propaganda makes them rich and makes you dependent on them. Use the learnings of the Pandemic to redefine the future of work on your own terms. It's time we all flipped the script. We're the ones producing value, and from now on we're going to do it on OUR terms.
> Buying into the "we're a family" propaganda makes them rich and makes you dependent on them
I agree that one should not overvalue work relationships, but it doesn't seem like there's a "we're a family" propaganda/conspiracy designed to lure people in. It is just human nature to look for connections, regardless of the work environment's friendliness.
I strongly encourage every one I know to prevent this through continuous learning, skill acquisition and savings. Take it from one who is somewhat dependent. Work toward financial independence not for the goal of 'retiring' (aka doing nothing all day) but the goal of not having to do a job you don't want to do. In my mind, that is what it means to be financially independent.
But the relationships are largely fake, constructed out of easy chit-chat, and often quite manipulative of the politically clueless and naive. I've had worthwhile relationships at work, people who have deeply influenced me, but it's not the norm and they are not my family.
Remember when your schoolmates were your best friends at the time, then you changed schools and their friendship sublimated? I guess they weren't worthy of being your friends after all.
Where were you when I was 35 and let go from a company I had worked at for 10 years. I was invited to coworker weddings, birthday parties, helped them move, you name it. Soon as I was let go, I never heard from them again. That really hurt for a long time.
Me too. I'm more productive at the office, the daily routine helps me get into "work mode". Home is my place to relax, working at home was a dissonance I never quite resolved. I think many people at my company struggled with this, even managers, because they started working at home late. We ended 2020 with our days being a mishmash of personal and work activities 16/7, it was horrible.
If there was another lockdown, I believe we would manage it better, but I'm convinced remote work is not everyone's best scenario.
Surprised to see so many people in this thread who don't want to go back to the office at all, but I do understand.
I've been given the flexibility to define my own schedule with regards to when I'm in the office and when I'm working from home. I can't WAIT to go back: it's great having a dedicated work space, I like hallway conversations and in-person meetings, and it'll be AWESOME to be able to snag a hot meal at our cafeteria without having to prep or think about it.
BUT, I'll probably never go in for a Friday ever again, and realistically I'll be working from home 2-3 days/week.
So yes, I feel very fortunate my employer is extending that flexibility post-COVID.
Seems strange to comment that you can't wait to go back in a discussion about people who don't want to go back to the office. Surely you meant to post in one of the other dozens of WFH threads?
Given the OP is asking for opinions on said issue, this seems incredibly normal?
What would be the point of a thread where only people with an opinion/preference on one side post they all feel the same way? The point is to get a discussion and understand where everyone stands and why, at least it seems to me.
I think you've fallen into trying to moderate the internet as a user here. The verbiage of this post just isn't that strong, as evident by the primary reply being far from alone
WFH is great but I'm concerned it would hinder career advancement.
I think managers, given two equally skilled and productive staff, would be more likely to promote the one they see more (whether consciously or subconsciously)
I had already worked remotely for years and loved it. On average, I would travel to the office every 2-3 months. The trips were always a fun change of scenery (other than dealing with the TSA) and often found that all the face time and in-person planning / design sessions were key to keeping me productive the rest of the time. But overall I hated the trips because I wouldn't sleep well, I'd work extra long hours, and I did actually find all the interaction exhausting. Given the choice, I would have stopped the trips altogether, and I wasn't that broken up about mass quarantines.
Now that it's been over a year, I absolutely yearn for a trip to see my coworkers in person. And I think the needs of people vary in this regard: my heart breaks for some coworkers who have clearly struggled through all this and who feel extremely isolated. I'd gladly inconvenience myself regularly for them to stop feeling like that.
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[ 3.9 ms ] story [ 56.8 ms ] threadI've been able to save so much money in the last year, for the first time in my life I would be fine for good amount of time if I got fired today. I very much do expect big companies to force workers back in the office, tons of middle managers don't feel like they're being effective if they can't stare at you typing for 8 hours
[1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/newpoll
It feels like the office was geared 100% for extroverts and finally introverts have an option that works for them. My productivity has never been higher and my stress has never been lower.
... and yes, a taste of class privilege is, frankly, wonderful.
I expect work spyware and spying services to be a booming market, even more than it has been. :-(
After 7 years of remote work, the times I have spent a few weeks or months back in an office have been an enormous shock. You always feel what you are currently missing most strongly, so I suspect once most people get back into the office, the enormous lack of freedom will weigh more heavily than they could have realized before experiencing it.
Upper-middle is "why of course our kids are going to a private prep school, what else would they do?" and "oh, where will you Summer? We're planning to just do Nantucket again" territory.
The dude who's made it at age 45 running a plumbing business is his own boss, has employees, has maybe triple or quadruple median take-home income because he's decent at business and works hard—but will still almost certainly not be perceived, or treated, by anyone, as "upper-middle". Not like a surgeon would be, almost by default, even in residency, or perhaps a junior investment banker.
My observation has been that programmers are mostly treated either as just expensive middle-class office drones, or pandered to as a substitute for actual upper-middle treatment. One key indicator, for office workers like us: where the hell are our private offices with doors that close? (yes, I know some places have them, but they're rare) Oh but we have foosball tables and catered lunch, so oh, look how respected you are, you little programmer.
We're probably closest to accountants, overall, in the social class we're treated as inherently belonging to and the class toward which admitting to being a "programmer" will drag you in most anyone's mind. Solidly, solidly middle.
Which, maybe, who'd give a shit, except that you actually do get treated better as upper-middle.
A couple of friends and I decided it'd be nice to go in once a week to catch up, we all live quite locally (15min cycle for me) so for me it's a nice idea that would work for me.
Do your tasks in as little time as it takes leaving more room for leisure, this is the first time I'm feeling the benefits of that 'increased productivity per hour'[1] economists talk about.
[1] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/exports/labor-productivit...
When I was doing it consistently for a while, a productive day looked like a 30-45 mins of emails + standup, 4 pomodoros, lunch, 4 pomodoros, break, 2-3 pomodoros. However, there always seems to be meetings scattered around, and a more typical day would only get 6-8 pomodoros of focus time.
Not saying this applies to you, but a thing a lot of people are going to find out is how little they actually accomplish with the extra time. It's so much easier (and fun!) to dream about going to the gym, having a garden, and starting a business while stuck in traffic than to actually follow through and do those things.
I would encourage anyone to take a bit of that free time and take a step in the right direction.
Yeah, I'm saying it's pretty clear most people won't even do this.
Reason is that when I did that in a office little would get done, not just endless meeting but people interrupting, distractions, and weird office-only issues (like drama, office politics, HR nagging people because they left books on their desk, etc...)
At home even with family around, I can tell them it is my worktime, and then focus on work, and they will respect that.
You just reminded me one more reason for me not to return office - we have policy that when leaving for the day employees must remove all extra items [] from the desk and put that into personal cabinet.
extra items - everything apart from phone, display and keyboard + mouse.
So HR wanted the tables looking always pristine and organized, shockingly the team that made the company most of their money, made a cool castle using tictac boxes, and HR during a performance review gave that particular team a smaller raise than planned, and told them it was about of the "objects in the table looking unprofessional", when they asked if it was the castle, HR comfirmed yes, it was the castle, and they would get further punishments and maybe even refused promotions if they didn't put the castle in the trash.
EDIT: I wasn't part of that team. Only thing I left on my table was books.
Reasoning: it's never the case that 100% of staff is in the office - there's always be someone on sick leave or vacation or working from home. So let's rent office for say ~90% (I don't know what exact number was) of employees and let them use places on first in-first served basis.
While I get why it's needed by it's still very annoying carrying all my stuff back and forth every morning and evening.
But after a year of being cooped up with a wife and a 4 year old, I yearn to be back at the office about twice a week.
Every other place, all of my "friends" at work, even those I had outside contact with via Facebook or beers, went radio silent when I moved on.
It's not pessimistic, it's reality. Exceptions that prove the rules, etc.
I understand why people like the office, but it's frustrating to be forced to go into the office just because other people aren't able to have a social life without an office holding their hand through it.
Companies know this, and depend on this effect. It keeps most of their employees "loyal" to the company at an incredibly low cost, since our social instincts are doing most of the work for them.
My best friend is someone I met at work 6+ years ago. I’ve got plenty of other people I stay in touch with. Not all relationships need to be everlasting too. Sometimes work relationships are fun and the authenticity is still real. It’s just that now you’re both not working together, you can’t have the same level of a relationship.
Just because things don’t progress once you’re outside the workplace doesn’t mean it’s not real. Sometimes people have different priorities.
I don't think your experience is representative.
You hit the nail on the head. While I definitely feel for all the early-career folks out there who are genuinely missing out on the camaraderie of working together, I urge all of you not to fall into the trap of thinking that your employment relationship is anything more than mercenary.
They will cut you without a moment's hesitation. Buying into the "we're a family" propaganda makes them rich and makes you dependent on them. Use the learnings of the Pandemic to redefine the future of work on your own terms. It's time we all flipped the script. We're the ones producing value, and from now on we're going to do it on OUR terms.
I agree that one should not overvalue work relationships, but it doesn't seem like there's a "we're a family" propaganda/conspiracy designed to lure people in. It is just human nature to look for connections, regardless of the work environment's friendliness.
I strongly encourage every one I know to prevent this through continuous learning, skill acquisition and savings. Take it from one who is somewhat dependent. Work toward financial independence not for the goal of 'retiring' (aka doing nothing all day) but the goal of not having to do a job you don't want to do. In my mind, that is what it means to be financially independent.
If there was another lockdown, I believe we would manage it better, but I'm convinced remote work is not everyone's best scenario.
I've been given the flexibility to define my own schedule with regards to when I'm in the office and when I'm working from home. I can't WAIT to go back: it's great having a dedicated work space, I like hallway conversations and in-person meetings, and it'll be AWESOME to be able to snag a hot meal at our cafeteria without having to prep or think about it.
BUT, I'll probably never go in for a Friday ever again, and realistically I'll be working from home 2-3 days/week.
So yes, I feel very fortunate my employer is extending that flexibility post-COVID.
What would be the point of a thread where only people with an opinion/preference on one side post they all feel the same way? The point is to get a discussion and understand where everyone stands and why, at least it seems to me.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23086452
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25168589
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24452280
This thread was intended for people who do not want to go back. It's not a big deal, it just isn't the place.
I think you've fallen into trying to moderate the internet as a user here. The verbiage of this post just isn't that strong, as evident by the primary reply being far from alone
I think managers, given two equally skilled and productive staff, would be more likely to promote the one they see more (whether consciously or subconsciously)
Now that it's been over a year, I absolutely yearn for a trip to see my coworkers in person. And I think the needs of people vary in this regard: my heart breaks for some coworkers who have clearly struggled through all this and who feel extremely isolated. I'd gladly inconvenience myself regularly for them to stop feeling like that.