I can't stand fishbowl jobs. Cubicle farms make me depressed. I don't like being on display when I work.
Humans are animals. We stretch. We burp. We fart. We scratch ourselves. We eat. We drink. We dance. We might want to randomly punch something. We nap. We naturally do all sorts of things which are "unprofessional." When we get tired, we need a break to recoup and come back supercharged.
None of those interfere with getting stuff done.
I hate going to work in any job where I'm on display since I need to suppress all of that for 8 hours a day. More with most jobs.
I don't mind going in nearly as much if I have an office with a door which closes.
When I was an executive, I'd sometimes hold longer business meetings with people I knew well hiking, walking, on a kayak, or similar. Those were hyper-productive meetings compared to sitting in office chairs across a coffee table. It only worked for meetings which didn't need a whiteboard or computer, but that's a lot of meetings.
I won't say whether WFH or in-person is the future, but I suspect many traditional corporate practices won't survive.
When some cubicle-farm jobs go remote, they go remote with the employer requiring you to run surveillance software (webcam observing you, tracking of continual mouse and keyboard activity) to ensure that you are present at your computer all working hours, except authorized breaks. So, even when liberated from the office those workers don’t get all the freedoms that you might hope for.
Is it? Platforms like Upwork advertise this software to businesses wanting to hire freelancers as a major advantage of choosing to go through them, and I hear that trucking companies in the US regularly install cameras within their trucks to watch the drivers at all times.
Various reasons. One is to check that the driver is not looking at his phone or watching videos while driving (because they have so much downtime, truckers often have a tablet or laptop to watch movies on), i.e. the same reason there are cameras watching the drivers of trains. Truckers occasionally try to bring their spouses along, which is against the company’s rules, or they make use of prostitutes on the road, and a camera lets the company ensure that no one is ever inside their truck but the driver.
As far as I know our company does not have such surveillance software. But we all use Microsoft Teams, which changes the color of your icon from green to yellow if you leave your computer for a minute (or stop using keyboard and mouse). So I guess the only difference is whether someone looks at the icons.
Just download a jiggler. Most of the icon color changing systems are just looking for some kind of user event. Turn it on when you step away and no one is the wiser. Didn’t answer a DM? You were in deep focus mode and didn’t see it, etc.
I noticed that when running MS teams in a flatpak on wayland, it no longer has access to the mouse and keyboard input so it just shows me as online always.
>When I was an executive, I'd sometimes hold longer business meetings with people I knew well hiking, walking, on a kayak, or similar. Those were hyper-productive meetings compared to sitting in office chairs across a coffee table. It only worked for meetings which didn't need a whiteboard or computer, but that's a lot of meetings.
Steve jobs was also known for his walking meetings. I walk around during phone calls since I'm working remotely and it has improved my focus 100x.
Same here, sure there are downsides as mentioned above, but the interaction creates a strong human connection that is just not there when working remotely.
In a team where one member might only be present in the office 1 or 2 days a week, i tend to talk to the other team members instead.
I am not one of these people. I miss going into work and seeing people in person. I left my previous awesome job when I moved from Toronto because I decided I would find whatever developer job I could find in the town I was moving to rather than work remotely (that was before the pandemic). Now I'm at a job that will eventually be in the office, and also has traveling to customer sites built in, and I can't wait until that starts up.
Arguably $30k isn't a meaningful wage increase to the people surveyed on Blind — especially if the users are heavily weighted towards the FAANG / SV / SF crowd with high housing / cost of living expenses.
Right, and a lot of the lower wage jobs never got to work from home in the first place. By definition, the question is selecting for a higher earning group.
The selection will be to change employers. Not sure how much that $30k in savings on salary is going to benefit the company when they can't retain employees.
I guess there are many people who would never go back to the office, even for, mostly, whatever money. I myself would not return for any amount. Life is too short.
Am I the only one who wants to work from home and still get the 30k-a-year raise?
jokes apart, if remote culture consolidates with different compensation and benefit packages compared with those in the office, we'll likely start to see lawsuits in that matter.
If employers feel employees working from home are less valuable, and employees prefer working from home, it sounds logical this will results in lower compensation for WFH employees. Not sure what laws they would be breaching here, it's just the market at work. It doesn't even matter whether they are right or wrong, the market should take care of that.
The assumptions are so lop sided and disproportionately benefit emloyers. Not everyone has a spare unused room at home. If they do, they are likely paying rent or mortgage. So not everyone has the option of choosing whether or not to work in an office. Your suggestion becomes less incentive more punishment of the less fortunate.
Something about this feels very much similar to airplane pricing.
Intentionally make the default (come into work) option uncomfortable or inconvenient. Offer “upgrades” for more comfort (work from home) and convenience.
WFH is more convenient for most people. No need to make going to office less convenient.
The question what price do people put on that convenience.
But on the other hand, WFH creates savings for employers so they are actually able to pay people more for the same overall cost as working from office, if they so wish (e.g. to attract top talents in a concurrential market)
Seriously though, working from home essentially requires permanent rental of a room on your house you might otherwise use for something else, or not need in the first place. And you foot the Internet and heating bill. Like-for-like, surely WFH should demand a higher, not lower, salary.
Of course ofice vs home is often not like-for-like and it enables people to live in different locations.
essentially requires permanent rental of a room on your house you might otherwise use for something else
Does it? When I'm working, I don't need that room during working hours for another purpose. I just work in it, tapping away and speaking into the microphone and so on, and when work is done, I use the room for sitting, reading, all that sort of thing; it's the lounge, I guess. Worked out fine so far.
Indeed they do. Many of those families and dependents have individual bedrooms. During the day, when they're not sleeping in it, those rooms have sat empty because the person has been at school or the office.
Same argument as before, I guess. I could sit in there working away quite happily. No extra room needed.
Sure, it's not the case for everyone, and some people share bedrooms, but the blanket statement that "working from home essentially requires permanent rental of a room on your house you might otherwise use for something else, or not need in the first place" is a massive generalisation that doesn't apply to many households in which people have bedrooms and in which there is a lounge.
Sure, add a desk, change the furniture layout. I'm saving 25% of my rent by not having to commute. It's a two-bed flat; between us, we have 50% of the rent to spend again each month on furniture, rearranging things, or just renting a place with two extra rooms. Not that we need them, with three rooms available to work in during the day (two bedrooms and a lounge). My experience is not uncommon and in no way do we essentially need more rooms to work in.
It's harder for the type of management who sit in their glass aquariums and mostly make sure there are butts in seats. It makes that type of management redundant.
I am not sure if that is not a very high % of managers though. Talking with colleagues, my own experiences and reading online, it seems large groups of managers need direct control and get very stressed if they do not have that. It is easier to wield your whip if people are actually there to receive the blows.
Well, we have run a natural experiment. At least where I work, productivity doubled towards the beginning of the pandemic, and has been rising since then.
I imagine part of that is physically separating the micromanagers from their reports. Another big part is not putting everyone in a distracting cube farm.
Depends on the manager and on the team. I've been promoted while WFH so my employer is clearly happy with my work. But I have no interest in going back to the office and if they insist then I'll look for a new job.
The costs of commuting are hard to measure. It’s not home vs office so much as office with extremely stressful and increasingly dangerous 10-15 hours a week commute that makes work less productive due to cognitive and psychological carry over effects. On the other hand working from home leads to isolation and suicide. Modern life is treacherous.
The author is pretty stupid to put out a weird point of view on defunding the police, he seems to think it's already done & there are less cops or something so crime is high? Is he nuts?
From wiki-
"
Police officers may be particularly badly suited for some community issues, such as mental health crises.[50] However, 1 in 4 people who are killed by the police have severe mental illness. Some activists argue that, if someone is experiencing a mental health crisis, and if there is no emergent threat to themselves or other people, mental health professionals may be more adept and capable responders. Furthermore, if more funds were diverted to help treat and support those with mental health issues, there could be better outcomes"
Also he's talking as if defunding(which he thinks) has already happened, what a dimwit.
Humans are animals. We stretch. We burp. We fart. We scratch ourselves. We eat. We drink. We dance. We might want to randomly punch something. We nap. We naturally do all sorts of things which are "unprofessional." When we get tired, we need a break to recoup and come back supercharged.
None of those interfere with getting stuff done.
I hate going to work in any job where I'm on display since I need to suppress all of that for 8 hours a day. More with most jobs.
I don't mind going in nearly as much if I have an office with a door which closes.
When I was an executive, I'd sometimes hold longer business meetings with people I knew well hiking, walking, on a kayak, or similar. Those were hyper-productive meetings compared to sitting in office chairs across a coffee table. It only worked for meetings which didn't need a whiteboard or computer, but that's a lot of meetings.
I won't say whether WFH or in-person is the future, but I suspect many traditional corporate practices won't survive.