Not opposed to the office myself, "new" offices are nowhere what the glory of the old office days.
One hybrid day in the office meant none of the familiar faces also shared the same areas.
Instead I saw one maybe two familiar faces and the rest of the empty office was a doldrum of emptiness.. The undependable nature of the new "who's on first" office musical chairs is gaudy. It's a mishap waiting to happen, and there are no world expert managers who also have experience re-engaging a whole new social scene in a post apocalyptic world of the empty office space. Drudgery is the new office scene... Blehhh
> a lot of people who have returned to their offices for some or all of the week have found that they’re the only ones there, or others are staying isolated in their offices, and all communication still happens over email, Slack, or Zoom. As a result, they’re spending time commuting to and from the office and dealing with all the hassles of in-person work but without any of the promised payoff.
Same experience as me, went in nobody was there. Spent day doing the exact same thing as at home with a different view and extra 50 minutes of driving. Did not go in again.
Totally the same for me. I have started going into work one day a week at my own prompting just to get some bike commute in (I just don’t like biking in circles unless there’s some mileage away from the city). No one else is there but I have seen a few old friends in the tiny remnants of the cafeteria. And I sit all alone up in the top floor where it used to be execs so I have an awesome view of the mountains and so on. And the network bandwidth is much nicer than my wifi.
I was in the same situation. In the end I solved the problem by cycling the same amount of kilometers each morning and evening but in a different direction (and nicer surroundings - without having to go along the street).
Totally not the same for me. I anticipated that I will move less when WFH and started eating healthier and less chocolate. I think it has to do with self-discipline.
This is great, so long as you have the choice to just WFH when you're not feeling it - you have a cold, the weather is shit, the bike needs maintenance etc.
That's what I did when I had a 10-minute cycle. A 25-minute minute walk gave me a chance to, depending on the morning, either listen to a podcast or shake off the morning grogginess before heading in to work.
Something like that is very hard in practice unless you live extremely close, like walking distance.
Even in a densely populated area such as Manhattan, getting from midtown to lower manhattan (which is quite close btw) is 20 minutes either biking or taking the subway.
This is what I love about working from home. I live somewhere with frankly a decent amount of transit as far as american cities go; I can take a subway or bus lines to work from my place, but it still takes a ton of time (like 45 mins if the stars align with the schedule, over an hour if they don't).
Meanwhile, with working from home, I've been simulating a commute. I walk for 5-30 mins maybe with a mug of coffee, or go biking in the morning, then come back and start working. It helps give some separation between home and work. Then I do the same thing at the end of the day to close it out and help clear the head.
We had a small office in a smaller town (Odense) in Denmark and reopened ~July 2020. We had no masks within the office by agreement among ourselves, but were very strict in our personal lives. We really enjoyed the interaction during lockdown, and I think that our commutes were all less than 10 mins helped.
Thats what I like about wfh. I can simulate a commute in my neighborhood. Do I want to bike to work today? OK, I can decide how far work is, then I come home after that and start working. Do I want a 5 min walk with a mug of coffee? I can do that too. Do I need to work in a walk to the grocery store to get stuff for lunch? Boom, convenient errand and morning commute while working from home.
I like that, too. The problem is, those who are left enjoy catching up. That is fine in general but I noticed I'm much less productive in the office than at home because I need to listen to small talk whenever I go to the kitchen or just pass my coworkers. I'm not an introvert and I enjoy talking to people in general, but when I'm at work, I have a certain amount of things to do and I really want to complete them all. When I'm WFH, nobody is calling me on Zoom saying, "Hi, what's up, have you seen the last Batman"? That is perfectly fine by a friend after work, but during work hours I prefer to be focused on my work and decide when to take a break when I need to, not when someone comes to my desk (sometimes with trifle issues that could be solved more easily by async communication).
People see this as a waste, but that is how team relationships are formed. Jeff from accounts may be eating up time today talking about Batman, but 3 months down the line you'll be ringing him up saying "hey buddy, I need a favour on those TPS reports" and he'll oblige because you've formed a bond. It's human nature.
I found WFH was great when we all left the office en masse and had already got a close-knit team. Changing jobs during the pandemic and trying to build new relationships remotely was really, really hard because that human-level interaction wasn't there.
Yes, I agree with you and I didn't see it as a problem when we had just one day in the office - I just took into account I'll do 1/4 less than usual - but now that we have 3 days in the office, it becomes visible. It's not a huge problem, just one of these little hings that make me think about finally switching my job to one of these companies offering giving you a choice between hybrid and fully remote, meaning you can come to the office when you want/need rather than when your boss thinks you should.
We solved it by every now and then burning a friday and having potlucks at the beach or some park. Not mandatory but if its convenient people show up, and people actually do make the trek from far off sometimes just to have a cookout and a little fun. Its all social too, work isn't mentioned at all in conversations.
Our return to the office has been back and forth for various reasons, but the ultimate goal is that everyone work in the office every day. But in an effort to make commuting easier, we are opening satellite offices in the metropolitan area...which (when all satellites are open) scatters teams between up to four offices. So nearly all of our meetings will be via Zoom, even if team members are "in the office."
I don't want to criticize too much, because I work for an otherwise great employer, but this decision just has me shaking my head.
The problem with Zoom calls in the office is that you usually do them at your desk rather than in a meeting room, and when you do that, you are totally destroying the productivity of anyone who happens to be in the room with you. Not to mention what happens if several people in the same room have different calls at the same time...
The absolute worst is being in an office with several people who are on the same call as you at their own desks. You can neither listen to the call nor the person near you speaking and you hear everything the say with a 2 second delay.
In our office, this created in-group out-group dynamic within the meeting each time. The in-person people were making jokes to each other and commenting stuff while online people had no idea. So, result is that the same meeting have one group coordinating with muted microphones and other oblivious. Perfect.
It did not created some kind of real split (yet), but the potential is super clear and it is pretty much guaranteed to happen.
Ah yes. This is horrible when a big chunk of the meeting are in the same room with several others joining online.
Honestly, given the choice an all face to face meeting is the best. However, with any kind of cross location collaboration this quickly becomes impossible (even before WFH). An all online (ideally in their own workspace) meeting is far better than any other mixed mode alternative.
I've had that as the standard practice for meetings at a job so we accommodate remote/other employees but the employer had bought us good noise-canceling headsets so there was no issue when a person near to you will be speaking.
So all the people in the office on calls are wearing noise cancelling headphones so they can take part in meetings with people who may be in the same office. Even with good noise cancelling they have to be permanently muted if not talking to avoid bleed though noise from the environment. All of the other people around then are forced to wear noise cancelling headphones to cancel out the noise of all the people around them talking into their noise cancelling headphones.
Remind me again which part of this is better than those people just being at home in their own space?
It is a massive problem, especially if people don't mute when not speaking, or if people nearby are speaking at the same time (on a different meeting). Nothing to do with noise cancelling headphones
Conference rooms are a great idea. Unfortunately, while we have multiple conference rooms set up for video meetings, we don't have nearly enough of them.
Not just that but if it is a private meeting and you are not on a laptop, then you have a problem unless all parties are in the office. Management meetings where you might be discussing problems in the team need to be made in private.
Unless you're steno-typing, good luck matching speech speed with your typing. And I'm not even talking about audio & visual cues.
There's no way typing can replace speech in an actual meeting. It's better reserved to either deliberate asynchronous communication, or very short, often purely factual, conversations.
> There's no way typing can replace speech in an actual meeting.
I think it can come close, provided everyone involved are experienced, fast typists, but it’s definitely a different dynamic if someone is slower. I’ve had incredibly fast chats in typing that were close to real time, face to face discussions. And when you reach a certain speed, the illusion of actual speech and listening is created, which is a fascinating phenomenon in and of itself. There’s a certain level where you reach peak verbal acuity and everything you type transcends the medium itself. At that point, you can seemingly intuit little tics, idiosyncrasies, sarcasm, humor, emotion—almost everything you get in a real time, face to face meeting.
I now would have to take a plane to go to the office so I am now 100% remote but in my previous company they implemented hybrid for those who wanted and the idea was that the conference rooms were to be used for those being on site and the rest of the team would be remote. All rooms had been equipped with decent audio and camera that made the process seamless. People who wanted to be there 3 days a week or more could have a fixed office and leave belongings, other would have to reserve a shared one and work in a clean desk method.
No company can expect having an hybrid system work without a little bit of investment and some decent guidelines. With so many space gained in the offices there is a lot of space to liberate to build more small conference rooms and some storage area for those who don't have a fixed desk but may wish to keep things on site.
We have "Phone booths" that essentially are sound isolated single person meeting rooms for calls both video and phone. Of course, they are incredibly hard to find empty. From where I'm sitting I can see 3 of them, and this is in an area that has probably 80-100 desks in it. How am I ever supposed to use these?
The one thing I think they did right is keep the surface high enough it's hard to type on. Now people can't camp them all day.
Its even worse when you have a zoom call with some people in a meeting room on one line, and other people connecting on another line. The people in the meeting room basically have their own discussions since the people on zoom can't get too many words in due to being talked over. Then usually the audio or video is terrible in the meeting room and if you are on the zoom call you can only hear who is standing closest to the AV equipment.
In one of my previous jobs, I worked at a company where this was what things were like even before the pandemic. I worked in one office, but members of my team were scattered across two other offices. I had a 90 minute commute only to sit in an office where none of my immediate colleagues worked, and most meetings were done over WebEx. Here and there, people would travel to my office for some big marathon meeting/conference session. And to add insult to injury, if my manager happened to show up at my office that day and I wasn't there, I was given a hard time about my absence.
It was horrible and demoralizing. I got to a point where I basically didn't show up to the office at all except for the occasional scheduled meetings, which were about once a month at most. I got three hours of my time back every day and actually increased my productivity, because I was able to stay home and deal with some health issues that I had at the time.
That said, lots of people at that company sporadically worked from home, and even in the offices with my colleagues, there were days where as much as 1/3 of the team wasn't present.
There seems to be a kind of critical mass number of working in the office: below that amount, and the office starts to feel like a ghost town, and it's benefits shrink past the point of being worth the commute.
So I think companies are wrong to force people to come in every day every week, but it's clear that the benefits of working in an office on the manifest when there are enough people in the office.
Some people (such as myself) rely on the somewhat enforced structure of going into the office to "attach" other life things onto, like exercise and going out. Without that structure, i'm miserable.
This isn't a personal attack, we all live our lives differently, but in my opinion that attitude is holding back a lot of people. It used to hold me back. People who 's main social life is their coworkers, rely on the structure to keep them healthy, need the commute because it's their only quiet time, etc.
Everyone can have all of these things and work from home 100% of the time. It requires greater self awareness, self control, and communication with your family.
That can be easier said than done, but if its accomplished it is in all ways better than relying on wasting a large portion of your day in a building you wouldn't otherwise want to be in every day.
I'm not entirely sure what communication with my family would have to do with it. But honestly if there's one thing I don't think anyone would accuse me of is a lack of self-awareness. I know how my motivations work, and I know that the structure of physically _having_ to leave the house is beneficial for me.
My main social life has never been my coworkers, it's been the salsa parties I used to go to 4-5 nights a week, primarily after work. If I'm already in town, it's significantly easier to motivate myself to go to them.
Talk about privilege here. Just this week I've receive an e-mail from my employer stating that due to the influx of Ukrainian immigrants most of the main cities are full and people are encouraged to look for accommodation in nearby satellite cities. I'm used to 2 hours commute stripping away 4 hours of my free time. Not US. Good luck finding accommodation near business centers.
So far I've managed to resist coming in to the office for pointless reasons.
Our team was already split between the US and UK, and we tend to work outside of our team across multiple projects with people all over the world. So all meetings were always video calls even pre-pandemic.
Some senior managers want us to be in the office 20% of the time to get that nebulous "collaboration" thing... Which literally never happened in person anyway. On the other hand, my managers have said we shouldn't come in unless there is an actual reason to do so.
I go into the office, and everyone just works, no one talks. Even the people that really wanted to be back in the office don't chat. So I spend a day in silence, rather than a day at home taking coffee breaks in the yard with my dog.
I'm going with a 7/3 split, favoring WFH. If it rains that ratio can change.
My workplace requires me to visit the office once every two weeks. And even then I only go for a friendly one-on-one type of lunch with my boss. Nothing we ever discuss justifies the two hour commute, the same things could be discussed in Zoom. And yet, I am supposed to visit every two weeks.
Now it turned out that during my last visit my boss had already been infected with covid. So not only me, but my wife and my two kids will need to stay home, isolate and take days off to look after the kids. WTF is the point of this? I am losing valuable vacation days, my boss also loses an employee for days (and my wife's boss ditto) and the kids will go bat-shit crazy because they will not be allowed to go outside.
Yay. How much fun the office it is.
And this was just one example of how idiotic and unproductive this whole on-site in-person office work arrangement is.
At some places, you get to choose when to use sick days but not vacation days. All else being equal, in that case, I'd sometimes prefer to burn vacation.
First the companies offshored the jobs, now the employees offshore themselves.
At some point, somebody will start asking why the Indian working remotely in India is paid less than the American/European expat working remotely from Bali.
Pretty sure competent people anywhere in the world get the same salary in remote only companies.
That has actually become a trend in Portugal: people are quitting local companies to get US/German/UK salaries working remotely for US/German/UK companies.
Nope. I know of several remote only companies that take advantage of local wages. Say someone in Bulgaria can make 30K € locally, but a US employee would cost 100K USD. The company will pay the contractor 60K in Euros. Still a huge bump for the Bulgarian, but far less than a US employee, even after you factor in employment taxes.
Many companies already do location based salaries for remote workers, meaning you will be paid less if you live in Bali than San Francisco. Essentially, the company is performing location arbitrage rather than the employee.
Next companies create more attractive work places in cheaper areas and lures employees there.
> a lot of people who have returned to their offices for some or all of the week have found that they’re the only ones there, or others are staying isolated in their offices, and all communication still happens over email, Slack, or Zoom. As a result, they’re spending time commuting to and from the office and dealing with all the hassles of in-person work but without any of the promised payoff.
This is hardly surprising. At the last few offices I worked in during the Before Times, everyone in the open office crammed a few feet apart was typing away and focused on their monitors, wearing headphones that said "don't interrupt me!" And watching Slack.
Yep. And the management of these companies are dabbing their misty eyes as they grieve over all the "impromptu" "serendipitous" "water cooler" innovation sessions that have been lost.
You can just see the visuals in their minds. Stock images of their lowly, loyal drones clad in business casual, smiling, scurrying about with manila folders in hand, shaking hands. Not a single human being that they actually know or have observed in the workplace.
These people wouldn't be caught dead near a humble IC, and yet they have the gall to tell us how best to get our work done.
As of yet we've only been into the office a couple of times and mostly as an excuse for a social event. I didn't actually mind the time we spent working in the office, as we deliberately all came in as a team. I did however have to bring some headphones and plug in to get any work done, same as the old days.
I don't mind the chance of scenery and would be happy to do it once in a while. I just hope the flexibility we have at the moment is retained. Thankfully my current employer has cut office space so much it would be impossible for us all to turn up if we wanted to.
I don't understand the headline. What's the 'worst part of working from home' in this context?
In my case, my employer isn't forcing anyone to come back to the office, but there's definitely an unspoken understanding that 'collaboration' and 'team feeling' will improve if we're at the office more often.
But when I go to the office it perfectly reflects the experiences described in the article: I'm almost always the only person from my team in the office at the time, or otherwise the only other team-member has their work to do, and I have mine, so we sit next to each other on the considerably less comfortable office chairs than I have at home, and work 'side-by-side' with our headphones on, and pretty much don't speak to each other any more than we usually do in Meet or on Slack.
I tend to use the days for wondering around and chatting randomly with other people at the office: hang with the Sales people, mosey past the Support team, spend half an hour in the office kitchen.
I guess this is ok if the idea is to be a more socially cohesive group, but it's disastrous for my productivity, and I always have to work twice as hard for the following days at home - even though it takes a while to regain my focus afterwards, so the rest of the week is often a little bit disrupted by the wasted day at the office.
I don't want to only work at home for the rest of my life though - but it feels like we haven't worked-out what the new situation should be just yet. And in the meantime, managers are just thinking in outdated terms of getting everything back to 'normal'.
> […] and I always have to work twice as hard for the following days at home […]
Why? If socializing in the office is part of your job now (explicitly or implicitly), you're working your hours either way. If that leaves you with too little time to get things done, address it with your manager.
This is really interesting - I wonder how much the set-up of someone's compensation package correlates with how much someone is willing to go back to the office. Mine's almost exclusively performance based and so I tend to want to work from home. The people going into work getting antsy about other people not being there are people who treat work more like a hobby or have a more basic pay structure.
I actually prefer being in the office but we're in a sort of death spiral of the place having turned into a social hub and me feeling like I'm being left to babysit people at my own expense.
This is the same as my office in London. There's little point going in, and when I have done, my experience is the same as this article - waste 90mins in each direction getting in, to sit on my own, and reply via email + Teams.
But, well, "collaboration".
I'm sure it's time and cost effective for senior management that are paid $$$$ and only have a really short commute from the office. But not for the other 99% of the workforce.
Same situation with me. I go to office 3 days but most of the time the meetings are taken from the desk, on zoom. This is because most tech employees have bigger monitors which is convenient compared to tiny laptop screens.
IMO remote is extremely popular among employees and many will jump ship if given remote option. Any eventual plans for mandatory all 5-day at office will be suicidal for knowledge work companies.
Of course, the big monitor and quiet room that some of us get to enjoy were paid for by our salaries, net of tax. Yet if we try to convince the employers paying those salaries to give us computing equipment that we like and private offices, it's hopeless.
I think that people coming in and being alone or not talking whole day are things that will solve themselves over time. People/management will start to coordinate when who comes. People will start to socialize again.
But, omg, I really don't want to go back to office. I like not having to travel there. I like breakfast in peace taking my sweet time for it and lunch at home. I like extra sleep I am getting in the morning. I like extra exercise I am getting. I like being at home when kids come, have quick chat with them before returning to work.
I think WFH could be a blessing when you have a family. I still like WFH to a certain extent because I get more focused and more productive. But it has one major drawback: for solo people, like me, living alone, far from friends and family, it's very hard to not feel lonely. And to fill the loneliness gap, I tend to work more, casually burning out myself and then ending up depressed and feeling overworked.
I am still trying to build a social network on this new city, but it's a very hard process and a very long one. For now, going to office, makes me feel less lonely and I get some interactions and also do some activities with co-workers.
> And to fill the loneliness gap, I tend to work more, casually burning out myself and then ending up depressed and feeling overworked.
This happened to me working in an office every day. I moved to a new city for work and lived alone. My friends and family were hundreds of miles away.
Co-workers are not going to solve this problem for you I am sorry to say. They're a temporary reprieve at best. You're going to need to build some sort of social circle for yourself outside of work.
You really should treat that situation as a major problem that needs to be addressed. You wouldn't drag around a broken leg, don't drag around loneliness and depression. Going into the office can't be your only in person socializing. It's only going to end up feeding into depression. It's not a fun spiral to get on.
It's the harsh reality but I completely agree on your take. As you summed it up, "You wouldn't drag around a broken leg".
How did you approach this issue? Did you manage to create a strong social circle outside of work? Any helpful tips for the lost me would be appreciated.
I do the exact same job in my office than with my laptop anywhere else.
Im in my mid 30s, and most of employees are +45 in my job. They really want to come back, and there are already a few in there, but whats the point?
I guess they feel lonely, bosses too, but my life is so much better with WFH.
Now Im just used to go places with my laptop, my phone as hotspot, and do work somewhere nice and quiet.
I can even travel on workdays. This very week Im heading to Madrid to visit a friend. I don't need to take time off as I'll be capable of working there.
It's usually just around my province, but knowing I can do this if I want is very liberating.
Im not a SWE, I'm aiming to be one, as I currently work for an ISP and get low pay. Getting even a junior job in SW will likely give me a jump in income. I wonder if I will be able to continue with this lifestyle, because I'll probably need more concentration, not sure yet.
Of course the fact that I can do this makes my otherwise boring and alienating job, with low pay, much more attractive. I didn't leave because I was afraid when the pandemic, now I just take it easy while I i study to change career.
Of course I have no kids, no wife, no responsibilities. If I don't do this now...
It might go either way to be honest.
I'm currently living and working Spain as a SWE (immigrant) for a US company and the amount of useless meetings there is insane. That makes it quite hard to work on-the-go as half of the day is spent in meetings (most of them with camera turned on).
We rearely do that. We just type the stuff we need in teams and the occasional formative talk once a month or so.
Meetings are about twice a year, and they appear in my teams calendar so I can plan ahead.
When I feel we need a serious discussion I write a long ass text, and people usually follows without needing a call. It's like forums, so that's something I'm used to.
But again, my job is very jump in, jump out. I don't really need too much focus, it's pretty much helpdesk with some admin, so I can get distracted without problem, and I don't really need to keep any code model in my head.
My only worry if I find a job in SW will be that, the need to keep my mind focused, not being able to be pretty much anywhere. I hope the pay offsets this fact.
That sounds like a dream to be honest. I wish I could work without having meetings where nobody likes to say anything and it just drags on.
Wrt the SW job, it might be more difficult in the beginning as it takes some focus to understand the system and how your work fits into the bigger whole.
After a time it becomes easier to understand and to jump in, jump out.
Of course this completely depends on the company and job type. My job is very non-demanding and I can easily coast by on just 3-4 hours of work a day. Other people are in a different situation.
Can I ask how are you dealing with taxes, working for a US company in Spain? Are you contracting your SWE services and billing them? Or are you an employee of the US company?
Yes, that's common for sure, but you also don't have to deal with the amount of BS that comes with being a contractor in some countries. It's the case of Spain, where the Tax Agency and Social Security are very aggressive and gives lot of headaches depending on what you do.
Some employees even have premiums for putting their hand in your pocket. So yea, it may be more expensive but the peace of mind that gives you for offloading all of that to someone else is priceless.
The same thing for me. I go to another city and pay a visit for a week, but say I need to be available on Teams from 9 to 5 and attend some meetings, and get some work done. Usually it slows me down a little, so I do some extra prep work before the visit and catch up when I return home. It's like a little vacation without taking time off.
What do you do on your city visits? I would like to do that but everything I like to do is only open during the day, and where I live by 5pm when I finish work it's dark and cold
Usually I go back to my hometown and work during the day, and visit friends at night. I go out during the day on the weekend.
I go out during lunchtime during the week (or message on Teams that I will be out for a little while), but usually that is for appointments or errands - on my last visit to my hometown I visited my accountant to do my taxes.
You can change time zones too. I went skiing recently and ran into some people who wfh in the east coast. They were living right in breckenridge for the season, working in the mornings, then by quitting time east coast time hit they still had a few hours every single day to go out and ski in mountain time.
We do design days in office once a quarter, fits within the project planning takt and feels great to catch up in person outside of the occasional after work drinks, some however do still choose to come in on a regular basis on their own accord. We greatly reduced our office space since the pandemic and i personally can't see us ever going back to the former status-quo.
> all the benefits of working from home (no commute, more focus, hanging out with the dog, whatever it may be)
More focus…hanging out with the dog…
These things literally contradict each other. The fact that someone can type this out and not even realize that just goes to show why everyone is convinced they have become so much more productive WFH, when companies dhar actually track their employees and their productivity have hard data that shows otherwise (Facebook, Google, etc would not be calling people back to the office which only serves to increase their costs, if they didn’t have the data to back it up).
> Facebook, Google, etc would not be calling people back to the office which only serves to increase their costs, if they didn’t have the data to back it up
Yes they would. Both companies have the same toxic management types that see their direct reports as serfs in their fiefdom. They bitch and moan to upper management to get their serfs back in the fields.
It's not difficult to focus while hanging out with a dog. The sort of attention they want typically isn't the same as a coworker standing over your desk. Petting a dog releases endorphins and oxytocin while dealing with the hovering coworker only generates cortisol.
> Facebook, Google, etc would not be calling people back to the office which only serves to increase their costs, if they didn’t have the data to back it up
"They must have the data" is a very popular way to appeal to authority lately.
I have my cat sitting next to me on a window ledge. Every now and then she makes a noise when she sees a bird. Totally disrupts my day. Can't focus for a good 24 hours. Yes, I'm being sarcastic.
Imagine replacing my cat with my former cubicle mates. One who has ADHD and feels the need to verbally express every thought that comes to mind. And who gets upset when he doesn't get the validation he desires. Now that disrupts my day. Add in 2000 other employees in my company, any of which can walk by my desk and ask me about XYZ.
I don't see how to be honest. I don't have a dog but I hang out with my spouse more now that we both work from home: instead of going to make coffee in the little office kitchen or walking to a cafe we both hang out in our kitchen while we make coffee, we eat lunch together (admittedly we did that sometimes when we worked in offices too because we didn't work too far apart), and we have more time together in the mornings/evenings without having to commute. You add all that up and we get more time together while spending the same amount of time working...
It's the same way that I have more time for housework: I can do things like quickly put a load of laundry in the machine while I'm stuck waiting to hear back from a colleague or do it on my lunch break or I'm waiting for some long process to execute before I analyse the results. In the office I'd be sitting on my hands waiting, at home I can get some non work related tasks out of the way
Granted, I live a 20 min walk away. The walk in is through a beautiful county park, surrounded by nature.
Most of my colleagues who live further away have stopped coming in. Understandable, I wouldn't want to get in a car to get here, traffic in the UK is horrible.
It's all about personal circumstances, really. Living close to my workplace, having access to a nice office that is (now) mostly quiet, I quiet enjoy the new work culture :).
> Granted, I live a 20 min walk away. The walk in is through a beautiful county park, surrounded by nature.
This is likely the reason you love coming into the office. The fresh air, greenery in the park, and the walk that gets your blood flowing ... emotionally you _should_ be in a better place. Compare this with someone who commutes 30 minutes in traffic, and they will arrive at the office in a worse emotional state.
It took me a long time to realize that in addition to the team culture, my happiness/satisfaction at work depends a lot on my commute and the ambiance at the office (quiet and comfortable is good; noisy and cramped are bad).
More of a reason for those that used to commute to take some of their reclaimed time to take a stroll/exercise during their normal commute hours... maybe even doing some of the things they would have done in the car or on the train like making calls or listening to podcasts.
Of course I'm a hypocrite for not exactly doing this myself... instead I take a short drive to pick up coffee in the morning. There's no traffic (esp at 5am) and it's quite a beautiful location. It at least helps define somewhat of a boundary between work and home life for me.
The office is not as bad as people make it out to be. Its commuting that really sucks. I used to hate working in the office and then I moved to an apartment next to work and I decided to walk in even while WFH was an option because I did slightly prefer going to the office and being with everyone.
I’ve commuted by foot through a park, great but when it’s -20c not so great.
I’ve commuted by bike, a 60 km round trip through a big city, and loved it… the exercise, being outside and the time alone to think. 3-4 hours of riding was the best part of the day.
Until winter came and I had to make the trip on a train and I got sick and hated the noise and people.
Exactly my feeling. I love working in the office, but I hate any kind of commute. Commuting in London is particularly atrocious, but I guess it could be worse (any US city apart from NYC).
> The office is not as bad as people make it out to be
Correction: "[my] office is not as bad [for me] as [other] people make [their offices] out to be [for them]"
Every office I've worked in has been horrible to work in. I hate being around other people, the random distractions of office noises/smells/etc, and I hate not having control over my environment so that I can be comfortable. For people like me who specifically want to not see other humans unless they're family or friends, it really is that bad.
Glad to get validation/confirmation that there really are multiple of us out there in the world lol. It's discouraging that people are either completely ignorant or are willing to deny that others are different, including in how much interest we have (or don't have) in being around others. I feel the same as you about people and hope we continue to have options expand for controlling who we interact with
My office is also a 10 minute bike ride or short bus ride away, and I never minded going in previously.
My company is allowing permanent work from home, however, we are keeping our office, as not everyone has a great home office set up.
However, my company actually expanded during the pandemic, and we don't actually have enough desks for all the employees. Instead of increasing our office space, my company decided to move to an open seating. This makes sense, as people are just now coming and going on their own hours.
I suppose this is fine for some people, but it really isn't ideal for developers.
I have _my_ keyboard and _my_ mouse that I want. I'm not lugging this into the office anytime I come in. I really prefer working on my snappy workstation, with my standing desktop and perching chair.
I don't drink coffee, so the office coffee machine isn't useful to me, but I do like to have cups of my preferred yan cha (loose leaf tea), which means I need a kettle and tea pot (Making tea is part of my ritual that lets me take an important mindfulness break).
I was previously able to mostly accommodate myself, since I had my own permanent desk and storage space. But now that I don't, I rarely come in, and it is usually just for a meeting, lunch, or to have some facetime with colleagues.
I don't see myself wanting to do serious work from the office, as the space is no longer designed for that.
My office is between my kitchen and the bathroom so the commute isn't exactly onerous
However when the sun is shining I'll take a 20 minute walk a few times a day through the country, or I'll take an 40 minute long walk to a nice cafe for lunch.
If it's pissing it down then I won't.
Working from home doesn't stop me from choosing to go for a walk, or run, or bike ride, or horse ride, before starting work.
I don't have an "office", but in my experience, and when I do visit various offices around the world, offices tend to be surrounded by buildings and traffic and shops, and tend not to be surrounded by fields, mountains and lakes
I don't exactly love the office but prefer it. I like to have a strong separation between working and living space/time. I have a room in my apartment that I could use as an office, but I rather use it for hobbies than work. Even when, almost a decade ago, I was freelancing and could work from wherever, I worked from home only an hour or two in the morning before moving somewhere.
That said, me wanting this separation is probably not stronger than a bad commute. It is currently a 15min stroll. Before that, it was an 45min train ride, but in Switzerland where trains are quite comfortable and I could use the time to work, do some admin, listening to podcasts, read a book or chat with friends.
Definitely not in favor to require people back to the office and thus force them living nearby. I like for people to have options.
In a hierarchy of options, it’s unsurprising most companies are settling in the worst of options, much like they did with their poorly designed open office plans.
There’s nothing worse than the “flexible” options companies are settling on, where people come 2-3 days a week, have no fixed seating arrangements, and need to get used to a new setup every time.
Not necessarily. In Paris I had a 45 minutes subway commute, or a 35 minutes -somewhat dangerous- bike commute (time for a one-way trip), and while sometimes I could appreciate either the disconnection the subway provided me or the physical effort need for the bike ride, it was mostly a hassle and lost time I am not compensated for.
Living close to where you work is pretty expensive, especially when the CEO likes the prestige associated with the building or area (and lives nearby, of course, but he gets 10 times my salary).
Train and bus rides come with their own set of problems, whereas any other form of transportation is generally much slower, pushing people to relocate closer to the office in an often expensive and very population dense area. The premise remains the same: time spent commuting is often time better spent differently.
Ehh, 40 minutes on a crowded tram isn't much better. A 1.5 hour walk is better in the actual experience, but that extra 50 minutes comes out of my sleep.
I think you have a point — a typical US commute is probably worse than, for example, a typical UK commute. But that's not to say UK commutes are acceptable — my 2 hour each way commute was expensive as well as horribly uncomfortable, and that was on pretty much one of the best rail lines I've used for commuting! Unless we solve the "it's too expensive to live near where you work" problem, I think the trend has to be more towards WFH.
I live in Philadelphia, commute was still 45min-1hr. Would either have to walk 15 min to the El, stay on its for about 25-30min, then walk another 15ish min to my office. Or take a trolley to 30th street then transfer to the El then walk.
When I moved to a different neighborhood, I'd take Regional Rail, which was about 40 mins door to door. Only advantage is there aren't people shooting up or getting raped on RR.
Driving actually would only take ~15min door to door if I left after rush hour. But then parking was very variable. It could be instant (finding spot right when I get there) or I'd have to drive around for 10 minutes.
Honestly, I liked commuting either of those ways (outside of finding needles on the El) since I'd just listen to music or a podcast.
Sadly I dont think there are good short term incentives for most companies to go 100% remote yet. For example, most companies obtain tax benefits from buying office space which incentivates company owners to invest on real estate without spending their own money, then there are mid-managers who keep people accountable only through meetings. And from the political perspective, why would some local politicians be interested on incentaviting remote works? that would hit hard other businesses like restaurants at business areas and that would also decrease housing prices, rental prices and local population because people could decide to move to other more affordable areas.
Covid19 created a real short-term incentive for remote work, that generated some momentum around it, there are some companies which saw the real productive value behind remote work but most others didn't see it and they are taking these mid-road of "hybrid" work.
There is a big reason to Work from office, apart from the merits of the case like close collaboration, productivity et al. Most important of all is being able to see your manager on a day to day basis, a lot of people don't really understand how important seeing your bosses on a day to day basis can be to their careers.
Most people have a problem of neglecting what isn't front of them, it's not malice or anything its just how it is. We ourselves have forgotten people with whom we don't have in person check often. People change with time, and people tend to work more closely, and are more likely to give promotions, rewards or anything for that matter to people with whom they have a daily check-in.
I wouldn't be surprised if in a few years, compensation, benefits and overall career trajectories of people who work with top bosses at office is better than those working from remote.
You haven't seen your cousin or a friend for a while? What is your perception of them now? I am sure all that Facebook liking and commenting hasn't given you a clue of what they are now, and more importantly even the perception of them from when you last had a chance to see them often has now been long forgotten/hazy.
The facts here are anybody you don't see often, you don't know them well enough and they don't figure anywhere in your list of top people to give anything.
> The facts here are anybody you don't see often, you don't know them well enough and they don't figure anywhere in your list of top people to give anything.
Then you leave and find work with someone that doesn't have the attention span of a goldfish. If you're producing work of value you should be compensated. If the company is doing well then all of the employees should be doing well. No one should have to put on a song and dance for their managers to get their work recognized and rewarded.
If your manager can't remember you unless you're in front of them at all times they're not fit for their job.
I have heard this argument against WFH many times over. Especially from my relatives that work in bullshit jobs (cough ... investment banking ... cough).
I wonder if people that brings up this understand what they are really saying.
Because it's not like WFH reduces the amount of promotion that goes around.
Its just have the potential of reallocating it differently.
And this means that they are afraid that they will be out competed by others that are willing to be near decision makers to influence (or rather manipulate them).
I would argue that this says more about those people than about WFH.
As I work for a company that was founded during the pandemic, it's 100% remote in the truest meaning of the word. I never even considered there might be a different perception for 'WFH' which were in-person jobs that turned remote.
I think for those jobs, both camps are right. To say WFH was just a temporary measure is just as valid to say you like working from home so much now you want that.
>> I never even considered there might be a different perception for 'WFH' which were in-person jobs that turned remote.
True, I was not talking about true remote job in truly remote company - if there are no possibility for in personal meeting than the power dynamic changes and the play ground is leveled for all players.
>>I would argue that this says more about those people than about WFH.
Not sure what your argument is, if a person eats lunch with another person on an everyday basis, or may be goes for a tea break walk, they are also likely to talk things about family, games and other such stuff. You really shouldn't be surprised if this sort of a relationship has a stronger bonding and more meaning, and this just can't be developed by some one calling another person for a 2 minute call. And by the definition when some opportunity comes up they are more likely to remember them due to both proximity and frequency of interactions.
If you have a friend whom you only occasionally ping on Facebook for a 'Happy Birthday!' message, you shouldn't be surprised if you aren't invited to parties after a while. It doesn't mean 'it says more about them', they are just reciprocating your feeling towards them, you don't want to see them in person, now neither do they.
Maintaining good relationship with bosses is just one of those hygienic things you do at work, like dressing well, or using a mouth freshener or showing up everyday etc etc. If you want any influence at all, there are a few set of things you need to do, there's enough literature written about this. Things like talking well, agreeability, consensus building, clarity, having the other person empty their thoughts etc etc. You just have to do this regardless of whatever profession you are in, because this is how humans work.
I'm not surprised - I really do understand all of this and know how the game works and kinda even know how to play it, just .. I'm really reluctant to do it.
If I did it would be a bit like in the famous quote from Groucho Marx : "I Don’t Want to Belong to Any Club That Will Accept Me as a Member"
The thing is that I was just really trying only to point out what a shitty system we have all developed together (we as a society) through this kind of tactics.
I suspect that You are looking at this only through the point of view of individual that is optimizing their own outcomes (the individual being yourself probably). But I try to look at this from a bit more systemic point of view. And what I see from up there isn't pretty.
Of course for me this isn't only purely theoretical thing - what really buggers me are the logical consequences of this system.
For example I really do not want to work for someone that becomes by boss only
because he can play social game (and maintain proper relationships with key persons in company). But the thing is, that in this system, almost always this kind of person wins.
I maintain a good relationship with my boss by communicating clearly with him. By asking him questions about his expectations, and by providing him with information that he needs to do his job. He trusts me to do these things, despite not knowing much of my personal life, and definitely NOT because either of us "empty their thoughts."
My boss isn't my friend. He's my boss. Clear boundaries are healthy boundaries.
Utterly ridiculous. My best friend lives 1600 miles away, and has for 10 years. We chat daily, sharing more details of our lives than I ever thought possible.
My mom lives 2000 miles away, I only get to see her once a year. Yet we talk on the phone, write emails, have FaceTime, and yes, like on FB or Instagram.
A cousin I haven't seen in a long time will take catching up at meals and activities; that's the role of family reunions.
The idea that you need to be physically close to be emotionally close is just silly.
>I wouldn't be surprised if in a few years, compensation, benefits and overall career trajectories of people who work with top bosses at office is better than those working from remote.
The way people find new jobs today is already largely digital. Networking events still exist as a once-every-so-often opportunity. The majority of recruiters and employers are still looking at personal projects, all which are accessible from a distance. Realistically there is very little reason the majority of people are affected by this when it comes to new jobs.
The majority of people don't grow well staying at the same job. This immediately lessens the impact of removing physical connections as a means to get better compensation. We've seen dozens of articles regarding this. As an added benefit, I wouldn't be surprised remote workers would have an easier time job hopping too.
I see many reasons the above would unfold, but even without WFH things have been trending against company loyalty and dedication being a great way to further oneself in most of the west.
Bear in mind that not everyone is particularly career-focused. I'm perfectly happy getting "meets expectations" at annual reviews, and if I'm not happy with the pay rise (as happened to me last week), I'm happy looking for another job to get the bump I want.
People who bother to go on HN probably skew more towards career-focused than not, but plenty of people are very happy doing the work given to them and no more.
I'm glad I'm not the only one. I love this community but sometimes it bums me out. If work is what truly makes people happen, then awesome, have at it. Personally, I get some but not all of self-fulfillment out of it. I use the paycheck to do the things I actually care about.
There’s truth to this but the reality is that even when you’re in the office you might not see your boss on a day to day basis. I haven’t lived in the same state as my boss for the past seven years. Remote work for me has been a great equalizer.
One advantage of WFH: Zoom has put me in front of more senior leadership on a more frequent basis than I’ve ever seen while in the office. I’ve talked to managing directors on a weekly basis, sometimes daily, for the past 18 months or so. Prior to that it was quarterly at best.
Not sure how "have a daily check-in" requires being in the office? If anything, more communication happening in open channels vs 1:1 talks means more visibility to higher levels.
Not my experience. I find that people who have good ideas and do quality work can be noticed and recognized in a remote environment. It's the mediocre that need face time to move up.
I'm sure my experience is not universal and it varies a lot with team and company.
My team prior to COVID could be broken down into four categories: introverts who perform well, introverts who don't perform, extroverts who perform well and extroverts who don't perform well.
When in the office, the un-performing extroverts could schmooze, bullshit, and kiss ass to maintain status. They've lost that now, and it's obvious how they're performing (though measuring performance in IT is very tough).
The extroverts who previously performed well are doing the same, but have learned how to use online tools to maintain their status. Now it's even easier to kiss up privately to your boss or scheme with another manager behind your bosses back.
The introverts are even more interesting. Past underperformers have improved dramatically. Whether it's not having to play the Game that they're unable or uncomfortable, they've all inarguably improved. The introverts who were doing well prior to WFH are also improving, though not at as dramatic a rate.
558 comments
[ 6.5 ms ] story [ 321 ms ] threadInstead I saw one maybe two familiar faces and the rest of the empty office was a doldrum of emptiness.. The undependable nature of the new "who's on first" office musical chairs is gaudy. It's a mishap waiting to happen, and there are no world expert managers who also have experience re-engaging a whole new social scene in a post apocalyptic world of the empty office space. Drudgery is the new office scene... Blehhh
Thank you.
My perfect commute would probably be a 10 minute bicycle ride, or maybe a short train ride.
I really felt it when we started working from home during corona and I was sitting on the couch just eating chips and ice cream.
But in the beginning it was bad.
Bike maintenance is really low, btw. I might bring it by the bike shop once a year, pay 100 euros and be done with it.
Even in a densely populated area such as Manhattan, getting from midtown to lower manhattan (which is quite close btw) is 20 minutes either biking or taking the subway.
Meanwhile, with working from home, I've been simulating a commute. I walk for 5-30 mins maybe with a mug of coffee, or go biking in the morning, then come back and start working. It helps give some separation between home and work. Then I do the same thing at the end of the day to close it out and help clear the head.
I found WFH was great when we all left the office en masse and had already got a close-knit team. Changing jobs during the pandemic and trying to build new relationships remotely was really, really hard because that human-level interaction wasn't there.
I don't want to criticize too much, because I work for an otherwise great employer, but this decision just has me shaking my head.
It did not created some kind of real split (yet), but the potential is super clear and it is pretty much guaranteed to happen.
Honestly, given the choice an all face to face meeting is the best. However, with any kind of cross location collaboration this quickly becomes impossible (even before WFH). An all online (ideally in their own workspace) meeting is far better than any other mixed mode alternative.
Remind me again which part of this is better than those people just being at home in their own space?
>Remind me again which part of this is better than those people just being at home in their own space?
I didn't argue against remote, simply that having an online meeting which includes people near you doesn't have to be problematic sound-wise.
There's no way typing can replace speech in an actual meeting. It's better reserved to either deliberate asynchronous communication, or very short, often purely factual, conversations.
I think it can come close, provided everyone involved are experienced, fast typists, but it’s definitely a different dynamic if someone is slower. I’ve had incredibly fast chats in typing that were close to real time, face to face discussions. And when you reach a certain speed, the illusion of actual speech and listening is created, which is a fascinating phenomenon in and of itself. There’s a certain level where you reach peak verbal acuity and everything you type transcends the medium itself. At that point, you can seemingly intuit little tics, idiosyncrasies, sarcasm, humor, emotion—almost everything you get in a real time, face to face meeting.
No company can expect having an hybrid system work without a little bit of investment and some decent guidelines. With so many space gained in the offices there is a lot of space to liberate to build more small conference rooms and some storage area for those who don't have a fixed desk but may wish to keep things on site.
The one thing I think they did right is keep the surface high enough it's hard to type on. Now people can't camp them all day.
It was horrible and demoralizing. I got to a point where I basically didn't show up to the office at all except for the occasional scheduled meetings, which were about once a month at most. I got three hours of my time back every day and actually increased my productivity, because I was able to stay home and deal with some health issues that I had at the time.
That said, lots of people at that company sporadically worked from home, and even in the offices with my colleagues, there were days where as much as 1/3 of the team wasn't present.
There seems to be a kind of critical mass number of working in the office: below that amount, and the office starts to feel like a ghost town, and it's benefits shrink past the point of being worth the commute.
So I think companies are wrong to force people to come in every day every week, but it's clear that the benefits of working in an office on the manifest when there are enough people in the office.
My bike ride to my office is 10 minutes. I miss my commute.
Everyone can have all of these things and work from home 100% of the time. It requires greater self awareness, self control, and communication with your family. That can be easier said than done, but if its accomplished it is in all ways better than relying on wasting a large portion of your day in a building you wouldn't otherwise want to be in every day.
My main social life has never been my coworkers, it's been the salsa parties I used to go to 4-5 nights a week, primarily after work. If I'm already in town, it's significantly easier to motivate myself to go to them.
Our team was already split between the US and UK, and we tend to work outside of our team across multiple projects with people all over the world. So all meetings were always video calls even pre-pandemic.
Some senior managers want us to be in the office 20% of the time to get that nebulous "collaboration" thing... Which literally never happened in person anyway. On the other hand, my managers have said we shouldn't come in unless there is an actual reason to do so.
Fingers crossed sanity prevails...
I'm going with a 7/3 split, favoring WFH. If it rains that ratio can change.
Now it turned out that during my last visit my boss had already been infected with covid. So not only me, but my wife and my two kids will need to stay home, isolate and take days off to look after the kids. WTF is the point of this? I am losing valuable vacation days, my boss also loses an employee for days (and my wife's boss ditto) and the kids will go bat-shit crazy because they will not be allowed to go outside.
Yay. How much fun the office it is.
And this was just one example of how idiotic and unproductive this whole on-site in-person office work arrangement is.
But keeping your kids indoors is not considerate towards anyone. It is simply abusive to your kids.
Let them out in the garden/park/street to play.
You are still required to live/reside near the office.
Fully remote allows me to live in a very affordable area while still earning a great salary
At some point, somebody will start asking why the Indian working remotely in India is paid less than the American/European expat working remotely from Bali.
That has actually become a trend in Portugal: people are quitting local companies to get US/German/UK salaries working remotely for US/German/UK companies.
Next companies create more attractive work places in cheaper areas and lures employees there.
If you actually tried to hire in the region, you would know.
If you find a really good programmer in the region, his pay will approach European pay, and he will escape to Europe/US as soon as he can.
Also I cannot imagine US expat working in Bali, as the time difference is 12 hours. That's very impractical for any collaborative work.
My company should not call itself remote if they also want to decide where I must live... :)
This is hardly surprising. At the last few offices I worked in during the Before Times, everyone in the open office crammed a few feet apart was typing away and focused on their monitors, wearing headphones that said "don't interrupt me!" And watching Slack.
You can just see the visuals in their minds. Stock images of their lowly, loyal drones clad in business casual, smiling, scurrying about with manila folders in hand, shaking hands. Not a single human being that they actually know or have observed in the workplace.
These people wouldn't be caught dead near a humble IC, and yet they have the gall to tell us how best to get our work done.
I don't mind the chance of scenery and would be happy to do it once in a while. I just hope the flexibility we have at the moment is retained. Thankfully my current employer has cut office space so much it would be impossible for us all to turn up if we wanted to.
In my case, my employer isn't forcing anyone to come back to the office, but there's definitely an unspoken understanding that 'collaboration' and 'team feeling' will improve if we're at the office more often.
But when I go to the office it perfectly reflects the experiences described in the article: I'm almost always the only person from my team in the office at the time, or otherwise the only other team-member has their work to do, and I have mine, so we sit next to each other on the considerably less comfortable office chairs than I have at home, and work 'side-by-side' with our headphones on, and pretty much don't speak to each other any more than we usually do in Meet or on Slack.
I tend to use the days for wondering around and chatting randomly with other people at the office: hang with the Sales people, mosey past the Support team, spend half an hour in the office kitchen.
I guess this is ok if the idea is to be a more socially cohesive group, but it's disastrous for my productivity, and I always have to work twice as hard for the following days at home - even though it takes a while to regain my focus afterwards, so the rest of the week is often a little bit disrupted by the wasted day at the office.
I don't want to only work at home for the rest of my life though - but it feels like we haven't worked-out what the new situation should be just yet. And in the meantime, managers are just thinking in outdated terms of getting everything back to 'normal'.
Why? If socializing in the office is part of your job now (explicitly or implicitly), you're working your hours either way. If that leaves you with too little time to get things done, address it with your manager.
While there definitely are exceptions, addressing something like this with an average manager is useless to contra-productive.
But, well, "collaboration".
I'm sure it's time and cost effective for senior management that are paid $$$$ and only have a really short commute from the office. But not for the other 99% of the workforce.
But, omg, I really don't want to go back to office. I like not having to travel there. I like breakfast in peace taking my sweet time for it and lunch at home. I like extra sleep I am getting in the morning. I like extra exercise I am getting. I like being at home when kids come, have quick chat with them before returning to work.
I am still trying to build a social network on this new city, but it's a very hard process and a very long one. For now, going to office, makes me feel less lonely and I get some interactions and also do some activities with co-workers.
This happened to me working in an office every day. I moved to a new city for work and lived alone. My friends and family were hundreds of miles away.
Co-workers are not going to solve this problem for you I am sorry to say. They're a temporary reprieve at best. You're going to need to build some sort of social circle for yourself outside of work.
You really should treat that situation as a major problem that needs to be addressed. You wouldn't drag around a broken leg, don't drag around loneliness and depression. Going into the office can't be your only in person socializing. It's only going to end up feeding into depression. It's not a fun spiral to get on.
How did you approach this issue? Did you manage to create a strong social circle outside of work? Any helpful tips for the lost me would be appreciated.
Im in my mid 30s, and most of employees are +45 in my job. They really want to come back, and there are already a few in there, but whats the point?
I guess they feel lonely, bosses too, but my life is so much better with WFH.
Now Im just used to go places with my laptop, my phone as hotspot, and do work somewhere nice and quiet.
I can even travel on workdays. This very week Im heading to Madrid to visit a friend. I don't need to take time off as I'll be capable of working there.
It's usually just around my province, but knowing I can do this if I want is very liberating.
Im not a SWE, I'm aiming to be one, as I currently work for an ISP and get low pay. Getting even a junior job in SW will likely give me a jump in income. I wonder if I will be able to continue with this lifestyle, because I'll probably need more concentration, not sure yet.
Of course the fact that I can do this makes my otherwise boring and alienating job, with low pay, much more attractive. I didn't leave because I was afraid when the pandemic, now I just take it easy while I i study to change career.
Of course I have no kids, no wife, no responsibilities. If I don't do this now...
Meetings are about twice a year, and they appear in my teams calendar so I can plan ahead.
When I feel we need a serious discussion I write a long ass text, and people usually follows without needing a call. It's like forums, so that's something I'm used to.
But again, my job is very jump in, jump out. I don't really need too much focus, it's pretty much helpdesk with some admin, so I can get distracted without problem, and I don't really need to keep any code model in my head.
My only worry if I find a job in SW will be that, the need to keep my mind focused, not being able to be pretty much anywhere. I hope the pay offsets this fact.
Wrt the SW job, it might be more difficult in the beginning as it takes some focus to understand the system and how your work fits into the bigger whole. After a time it becomes easier to understand and to jump in, jump out.
Of course this completely depends on the company and job type. My job is very non-demanding and I can easily coast by on just 3-4 hours of work a day. Other people are in a different situation.
I hope jumping into software makes this better and can finally be financially confy.
Just record a loop of yourself and use OBS as a virtual camera.
Some employees even have premiums for putting their hand in your pocket. So yea, it may be more expensive but the peace of mind that gives you for offloading all of that to someone else is priceless.
I go out during lunchtime during the week (or message on Teams that I will be out for a little while), but usually that is for appointments or errands - on my last visit to my hometown I visited my accountant to do my taxes.
Un Madrid I guess I'll visit my friend, some museums and stuff and go eat and drink out with people.
You don't even have to become a freelancer. Remote.com and similar companies can set you up as a portuguese employee.
I'm saying Portugal and not Spain bc I think it's better for foreigners right now. And Portugal is amazing.
More focus…hanging out with the dog…
These things literally contradict each other. The fact that someone can type this out and not even realize that just goes to show why everyone is convinced they have become so much more productive WFH, when companies dhar actually track their employees and their productivity have hard data that shows otherwise (Facebook, Google, etc would not be calling people back to the office which only serves to increase their costs, if they didn’t have the data to back it up).
Yes they would. Both companies have the same toxic management types that see their direct reports as serfs in their fiefdom. They bitch and moan to upper management to get their serfs back in the fields.
It's not difficult to focus while hanging out with a dog. The sort of attention they want typically isn't the same as a coworker standing over your desk. Petting a dog releases endorphins and oxytocin while dealing with the hovering coworker only generates cortisol.
"They must have the data" is a very popular way to appeal to authority lately.
I have my cat sitting next to me on a window ledge. Every now and then she makes a noise when she sees a bird. Totally disrupts my day. Can't focus for a good 24 hours. Yes, I'm being sarcastic.
Imagine replacing my cat with my former cubicle mates. One who has ADHD and feels the need to verbally express every thought that comes to mind. And who gets upset when he doesn't get the validation he desires. Now that disrupts my day. Add in 2000 other employees in my company, any of which can walk by my desk and ask me about XYZ.
> These things literally contradict each other.
I don't see how to be honest. I don't have a dog but I hang out with my spouse more now that we both work from home: instead of going to make coffee in the little office kitchen or walking to a cafe we both hang out in our kitchen while we make coffee, we eat lunch together (admittedly we did that sometimes when we worked in offices too because we didn't work too far apart), and we have more time together in the mornings/evenings without having to commute. You add all that up and we get more time together while spending the same amount of time working...
It's the same way that I have more time for housework: I can do things like quickly put a load of laundry in the machine while I'm stuck waiting to hear back from a colleague or do it on my lunch break or I'm waiting for some long process to execute before I analyse the results. In the office I'd be sitting on my hands waiting, at home I can get some non work related tasks out of the way
Granted, I live a 20 min walk away. The walk in is through a beautiful county park, surrounded by nature.
Most of my colleagues who live further away have stopped coming in. Understandable, I wouldn't want to get in a car to get here, traffic in the UK is horrible.
It's all about personal circumstances, really. Living close to my workplace, having access to a nice office that is (now) mostly quiet, I quiet enjoy the new work culture :).
This is likely the reason you love coming into the office. The fresh air, greenery in the park, and the walk that gets your blood flowing ... emotionally you _should_ be in a better place. Compare this with someone who commutes 30 minutes in traffic, and they will arrive at the office in a worse emotional state.
It took me a long time to realize that in addition to the team culture, my happiness/satisfaction at work depends a lot on my commute and the ambiance at the office (quiet and comfortable is good; noisy and cramped are bad).
Of course I'm a hypocrite for not exactly doing this myself... instead I take a short drive to pick up coffee in the morning. There's no traffic (esp at 5am) and it's quite a beautiful location. It at least helps define somewhat of a boundary between work and home life for me.
I’ve commuted by foot through a park, great but when it’s -20c not so great.
I’ve commuted by bike, a 60 km round trip through a big city, and loved it… the exercise, being outside and the time alone to think. 3-4 hours of riding was the best part of the day.
Until winter came and I had to make the trip on a train and I got sick and hated the noise and people.
It’s also good for family flexibility where I can take 10 minutes to drop off a forgotten lunch and that would be a 90 minute drive.
Correction: "[my] office is not as bad [for me] as [other] people make [their offices] out to be [for them]"
Every office I've worked in has been horrible to work in. I hate being around other people, the random distractions of office noises/smells/etc, and I hate not having control over my environment so that I can be comfortable. For people like me who specifically want to not see other humans unless they're family or friends, it really is that bad.
Thank you! I'm going to use this.
Other than my family and friends, the humans I regularly deal with are somewhere between terrible and mediocre. If they weren't, they'd be my friends.
My company is allowing permanent work from home, however, we are keeping our office, as not everyone has a great home office set up.
However, my company actually expanded during the pandemic, and we don't actually have enough desks for all the employees. Instead of increasing our office space, my company decided to move to an open seating. This makes sense, as people are just now coming and going on their own hours.
I suppose this is fine for some people, but it really isn't ideal for developers.
I have _my_ keyboard and _my_ mouse that I want. I'm not lugging this into the office anytime I come in. I really prefer working on my snappy workstation, with my standing desktop and perching chair.
I don't drink coffee, so the office coffee machine isn't useful to me, but I do like to have cups of my preferred yan cha (loose leaf tea), which means I need a kettle and tea pot (Making tea is part of my ritual that lets me take an important mindfulness break).
I was previously able to mostly accommodate myself, since I had my own permanent desk and storage space. But now that I don't, I rarely come in, and it is usually just for a meeting, lunch, or to have some facetime with colleagues.
I don't see myself wanting to do serious work from the office, as the space is no longer designed for that.
However when the sun is shining I'll take a 20 minute walk a few times a day through the country, or I'll take an 40 minute long walk to a nice cafe for lunch.
If it's pissing it down then I won't.
Working from home doesn't stop me from choosing to go for a walk, or run, or bike ride, or horse ride, before starting work.
That said, me wanting this separation is probably not stronger than a bad commute. It is currently a 15min stroll. Before that, it was an 45min train ride, but in Switzerland where trains are quite comfortable and I could use the time to work, do some admin, listening to podcasts, read a book or chat with friends.
Definitely not in favor to require people back to the office and thus force them living nearby. I like for people to have options.
There’s nothing worse than the “flexible” options companies are settling on, where people come 2-3 days a week, have no fixed seating arrangements, and need to get used to a new setup every time.
Living close to where you work is pretty expensive, especially when the CEO likes the prestige associated with the building or area (and lives nearby, of course, but he gets 10 times my salary).
When I moved to a different neighborhood, I'd take Regional Rail, which was about 40 mins door to door. Only advantage is there aren't people shooting up or getting raped on RR.
Driving actually would only take ~15min door to door if I left after rush hour. But then parking was very variable. It could be instant (finding spot right when I get there) or I'd have to drive around for 10 minutes.
Honestly, I liked commuting either of those ways (outside of finding needles on the El) since I'd just listen to music or a podcast.
However, I much prefer working from home.
Covid19 created a real short-term incentive for remote work, that generated some momentum around it, there are some companies which saw the real productive value behind remote work but most others didn't see it and they are taking these mid-road of "hybrid" work.
Most people have a problem of neglecting what isn't front of them, it's not malice or anything its just how it is. We ourselves have forgotten people with whom we don't have in person check often. People change with time, and people tend to work more closely, and are more likely to give promotions, rewards or anything for that matter to people with whom they have a daily check-in.
I wouldn't be surprised if in a few years, compensation, benefits and overall career trajectories of people who work with top bosses at office is better than those working from remote.
You haven't seen your cousin or a friend for a while? What is your perception of them now? I am sure all that Facebook liking and commenting hasn't given you a clue of what they are now, and more importantly even the perception of them from when you last had a chance to see them often has now been long forgotten/hazy.
The facts here are anybody you don't see often, you don't know them well enough and they don't figure anywhere in your list of top people to give anything.
Then you leave and find work with someone that doesn't have the attention span of a goldfish. If you're producing work of value you should be compensated. If the company is doing well then all of the employees should be doing well. No one should have to put on a song and dance for their managers to get their work recognized and rewarded.
If your manager can't remember you unless you're in front of them at all times they're not fit for their job.
Which is basically every where and every one. The bad news is you now start at the bottom of your level at the new company.
>>If you're producing work of value you should be compensated.
How naive are developers really?
>>If the company is doing well then all of the employees should be doing well.
There's a pyramid everywhere, even at F/MAANG's. Some one is always paid more than others, and that some one isn't always making it up on merit.
>>No one should have to put on a song and dance for their managers to get their work recognized and rewarded.
Work isn't an anonymous exam, subjective judgement follows by merely existence of more than one person in a team.
>>If your manager can't remember you unless you're in front of them at all times they're not fit for their job.
Yeah sadly, in a performance review, its us being evaluated not them.
I wonder if people that brings up this understand what they are really saying. Because it's not like WFH reduces the amount of promotion that goes around. Its just have the potential of reallocating it differently. And this means that they are afraid that they will be out competed by others that are willing to be near decision makers to influence (or rather manipulate them).
I would argue that this says more about those people than about WFH.
True, I was not talking about true remote job in truly remote company - if there are no possibility for in personal meeting than the power dynamic changes and the play ground is leveled for all players.
Not sure what your argument is, if a person eats lunch with another person on an everyday basis, or may be goes for a tea break walk, they are also likely to talk things about family, games and other such stuff. You really shouldn't be surprised if this sort of a relationship has a stronger bonding and more meaning, and this just can't be developed by some one calling another person for a 2 minute call. And by the definition when some opportunity comes up they are more likely to remember them due to both proximity and frequency of interactions.
If you have a friend whom you only occasionally ping on Facebook for a 'Happy Birthday!' message, you shouldn't be surprised if you aren't invited to parties after a while. It doesn't mean 'it says more about them', they are just reciprocating your feeling towards them, you don't want to see them in person, now neither do they.
Maintaining good relationship with bosses is just one of those hygienic things you do at work, like dressing well, or using a mouth freshener or showing up everyday etc etc. If you want any influence at all, there are a few set of things you need to do, there's enough literature written about this. Things like talking well, agreeability, consensus building, clarity, having the other person empty their thoughts etc etc. You just have to do this regardless of whatever profession you are in, because this is how humans work.
The thing is that I was just really trying only to point out what a shitty system we have all developed together (we as a society) through this kind of tactics. I suspect that You are looking at this only through the point of view of individual that is optimizing their own outcomes (the individual being yourself probably). But I try to look at this from a bit more systemic point of view. And what I see from up there isn't pretty.
Of course for me this isn't only purely theoretical thing - what really buggers me are the logical consequences of this system. For example I really do not want to work for someone that becomes by boss only because he can play social game (and maintain proper relationships with key persons in company). But the thing is, that in this system, almost always this kind of person wins.
My boss isn't my friend. He's my boss. Clear boundaries are healthy boundaries.
My mom lives 2000 miles away, I only get to see her once a year. Yet we talk on the phone, write emails, have FaceTime, and yes, like on FB or Instagram.
A cousin I haven't seen in a long time will take catching up at meals and activities; that's the role of family reunions.
The idea that you need to be physically close to be emotionally close is just silly.
Note this works with one's mom but not wife. Meaning what is the nature of relationship you are pursuing here? Deeper the stake closer you need to be.
The way people find new jobs today is already largely digital. Networking events still exist as a once-every-so-often opportunity. The majority of recruiters and employers are still looking at personal projects, all which are accessible from a distance. Realistically there is very little reason the majority of people are affected by this when it comes to new jobs.
The majority of people don't grow well staying at the same job. This immediately lessens the impact of removing physical connections as a means to get better compensation. We've seen dozens of articles regarding this. As an added benefit, I wouldn't be surprised remote workers would have an easier time job hopping too.
I see many reasons the above would unfold, but even without WFH things have been trending against company loyalty and dedication being a great way to further oneself in most of the west.
And never got a manager trying to change that. We are in a mercenary industry and the faster we accept that the better for us all.
People who bother to go on HN probably skew more towards career-focused than not, but plenty of people are very happy doing the work given to them and no more.
One advantage of WFH: Zoom has put me in front of more senior leadership on a more frequent basis than I’ve ever seen while in the office. I’ve talked to managing directors on a weekly basis, sometimes daily, for the past 18 months or so. Prior to that it was quarterly at best.
I'm sure my experience is not universal and it varies a lot with team and company.
When in the office, the un-performing extroverts could schmooze, bullshit, and kiss ass to maintain status. They've lost that now, and it's obvious how they're performing (though measuring performance in IT is very tough).
The extroverts who previously performed well are doing the same, but have learned how to use online tools to maintain their status. Now it's even easier to kiss up privately to your boss or scheme with another manager behind your bosses back.
The introverts are even more interesting. Past underperformers have improved dramatically. Whether it's not having to play the Game that they're unable or uncomfortable, they've all inarguably improved. The introverts who were doing well prior to WFH are also improving, though not at as dramatic a rate.