by chrishynes on 4/14/20, 11:57 AM with 281 comments
by gspr on 4/14/20, 12:58 PM
My productivity has definitely dropped, and it feels like my brain never really fully turns "on". It feels a lot like those times in university I decided to study for exams from home instead of going to campus. I can't explain it, but 9 out of 10 times it just feels bad, like the way your brain feels if you've spent the day watching TV or something (when, in fact, I haven't). This doesn't even begin to consider the social punctuations of work that are essential to my psychological well-being.
Does anyone feel the same? I'm a little bit worried that I just have a personality type that isn't well-suited for the remote work culture that is likely to become more prevalent after this crisis is over. I'm in my early thirties, but I've felt this way for as long as I can remember, independently of whether I was in a relationship, whether I was working or studying, etc.
by drewg123 on 4/14/20, 1:03 PM
- An office, with a door I can close
This was going to be a big list, but I actually think that just about sums it up. The cube environment at Google was utterly intolerable, and made it hard to concentrate. It didn't help that the guys in another group next to us had a game where they flew rc drones around for fun, or the folks on the other side of my group that were always discussing food, or the loud door to a lab behind my desk that was constantly slamming, etc, or just the constant stream of people walking by my cube.
At home I have a door that I can close. I can think. So I get a lot more done.
I'm not saying all office environments were terrible. Before 2001, I worked doing research at a University and I had a fantastic office with a door. I think I was just as productive there as I was at home. Because, again, distractions were minimal.
by Tade0 on 4/14/20, 12:55 PM
I've been working remotely since 2015 and have already decided to settle in a perhaps less attractive, but definitely cheaper neighbourhood so that I could have some office space in the house.
In the long run it's probably going to cost as much as the sum total of fuel and vehicles used over the years, but the main benefit is not having to go over this stressful routine of negotiating my place in a stream of cars.
by willvarfar on 4/14/20, 12:57 PM
So, anyway, here's my vote in favour of remote working!
I've worked from home for the last 10 years straight, and two years in the decade before that. Working from home has always been best for me.
Historically, colleagues have always been amazed I get anything done, and wondered about how teams can possibly function etc etc. Lots of people have been skeptical.
And now so many of my colleagues are working from home, and all the awful destruction hasn't happened, and in fact many people are saying they've never been more productive...
Yay to remote working, long may it continue!
by deevolution on 4/14/20, 1:15 PM
I wont be going back to the office for a number of reasons, however, and I think everyone should boycott the office as well. Weather you want to work in the office or not should ultimately be the employees choice.
1. Commuting pollutes.
2. Commuting is lost time. Almost a month of lost time every year.
3. Office spaces are expensive. Without them, companies would have lots of extra cash. Ideally that extra cash goes to wages or hiring.
4. VR workplaces can be and will be a sufficient substitute. You can get about the same quality of social interaction + more in VR as you can in meat space. Its a different experience and until you try it you aren't really entitled to an opinion.
5. You can go to the gym whenever you want (assuming businesses open up again).
I'm sure there are other benefits that I'm missing.
by yodsanklai on 4/14/20, 12:56 PM
That being said, working from home is not for everyone. Not everybody has a good working environment. Some people get distracted, feel lonely, or are unable to maintain good work/life balance.
It really has pros and cons. What I hope at least is that it will be less taboo in the future and more employers will be open to that option.
by mabbo on 4/14/20, 1:51 PM
The office is where I work. Home is where I don't work. I have a 30-40 minute subway ride between the two for changing gears. Home-no-work. Office-yes-work. Sudoku and Kindle in between. It's a pattern I hadn't realized I'd so strongly driven into my mind.
The first two weeks of this pandemic? I accomplished nothing. I sat down and tried to work at my desk (I even have a dock and a KVM switch so I could use my dual-monitors, keyboard, and mouse) and I did almost nothing for two weeks. I just could not change gears. It was agony.
I finally was able to get working again by moving from my desk to a chair beside it, with just my laptop. I have no pattern for this place- it's a chair usually covered in stuff I need to put somewhere so I have no really deep patterns for what I do when I sit here (is my own self-psycho-analysis). I'm still not as productive as before, but at least I'm getting some things done.
Even then, I miss running into people in the kitchen that I haven't talked to in a while. I miss grabbing lunch with friends from other departments. I miss that first 15 minutes of the day where we're all waiting for the caffeine to kick in, asking what the weekend plans are. The social aspects keep me sane.
And right now I'm trying to train new guys. One guy, we started him during the lockdown by just mailing him a laptop with instructions for how to get on the VPN. Training people remotely is hard. Even mostly-remote companies often start new people in the office for a week or two, then send them back home. There's video calls and screen sharing- it's not the same. I find it very difficult.
I have many criticisms of modern offices, but I still want mine back.
by Arubis on 4/14/20, 1:23 PM
WFH is okay. It beats an office. But it blurs the lines between work and not-work life further than they already are unless you’re highly skilled in setting boundaries, and if you have kids or other dependents it’s a fresh challenge to stay focused every day.
Working remotely, in non-pandemic times, opens up real possibilities. The young and the restless can try the nomadic worker thing; that looks like it’s be fun for a while. Coworking (in the small community sense, not WeWork) gets you the separation of work and home on your own terms and can be a fabulous balance for the extroverts (and also introverts) among us. And WFH gets rolled in there as well.
At present moment, as the world suddenly is all doing this at once, while confined at home—of course these concepts will be conflated. But let’s be deliberate to ensure we aren’t setting ourselves up for a world where managers get suspicious of you for leaving the house during work hours. That sounds worse than the situation we started with.
by mark_l_watson on 4/14/20, 1:25 PM
Working remotely got old. In 2016 I worked on a project at Google so we lived in Mountain View for a while. I really enjoyed the change of working in an office (and the food was good). After we returned home, I accepted a gig to work for an AI company in Singapore and after that worked onsite managing a deep learning team at Capital One (an excellent company to work for, BTW).
We are back home now, and I am retired except for writing and working on a commercial software product (in Common Lisp) in the semantic web/linked data space. Frankly, as much as I love my day to day life, to be honest I really miss working in a team with face to face brainstorming, etc.
by Ygg2 on 4/14/20, 12:52 PM
by keiferski on 4/14/20, 1:14 PM
by dathinab on 4/14/20, 1:09 PM
So while I like remote work a lot I think it's best "in general" to only have it just part of the week.
Honestly best is still to not work remote but have a way to work of 10-15min walking or similar (e.g. cycling, reliable public transmute). Enough time to clearly separate work from home and think a bit.
Naturally this is very unlikely to happen.
But worst is if cities are seperated in "residential" and "office" areas as this will make transmute times spike. Having a nice intermixing it much much better. Sure it doesn't guarantee short travel times (or else you would need to potentially move every time you change the job). But it allows them.
by deevolution on 4/14/20, 12:53 PM
by kevinherron on 4/14/20, 1:08 PM
I'm sorta serious but not sure I'd be allowed to. We were already allowed 2 days per week of remote working but 5 seems like a stretch.
FWIW I have a dedicated office at home and no kids. Commute is not a factor - I live ~7 miles from the office, it takes 10-15 minutes to get there or get home. There's also an alternative ~7 mile route that is almost entirely bike path I can ride to work on.
by formercoder on 4/14/20, 1:21 PM
by rb808 on 4/14/20, 1:00 PM
by shortoncash on 4/14/20, 12:56 PM
by therealvayne on 4/14/20, 12:52 PM
by thrownaway954 on 4/14/20, 1:41 PM
since working from home, my anger and anxiety level are at a lifetime low. i don't have bleeding ulcers and i actually get a 4 mile walk in in the morning since i'm not rushed to fight traffic. my life is so serene now.
I hope this lasts forever.
by lordnacho on 4/14/20, 1:02 PM
Prior to that there was something called the "putting-out" system, where you'd sew some clothes or whatever and put it outside for someone to collect. And they'd leave you some raw materials.
I'm also of the WFH persuasion, but I'm unsure whether it's great for people who are starting their career.
For experienced people, they already know what the business is about, they are more likely to have kids and need a longer commute from the suburbs.
For people on their first job there's a lot of informal learning that happens in the workplace. You run into more people randomly at a traditional office, and you learn more about what exactly your role is.
What would probably make sense is for businesses to get more relaxed about whether you actually come into the office. If there's no meetings or requirements to get immediate feedback on a given day, why make people sit on a train for an hour?
by mslack616 on 4/14/20, 4:59 PM
by rootusrootus on 4/14/20, 2:49 PM
I suspect the reason is that my wife and kids are at home right now. So I can close the door and they will leave me alone, but I still have a sense of them being around. So I am comfortable. But during normal times, the kids would be at school all day and my wife would be at her office. So then the house would be empty except for me, and then I get a little stir crazy after a couple days.
We will find out eventually, when offices reopen. I am secretly hoping that I will be able to continue working from home while maintaining my sanity.
by jdhn on 4/14/20, 1:10 PM
by HenryBemis on 4/14/20, 12:59 PM
For people who just started WFH they may combine WFH with virus, kids screaming, lockdown, isolation, etc.
Circumstances are not BAU right now, for 99.9% of us. Once this blows over, and the infrastructure remains in place, and business start making their typical revenue, it will be interesting to run the same survey and compare it with 12 months ago.
sorry for the Metallica reference, I couldn't help myself.
by cik on 4/14/20, 1:16 PM
The reality is that environment more than makes up for all of it. At home, I completely control my work environment. Sure, there are elements to communication you have to change - amongst other things, but working from home is fantastic if you WORK from home.
I find those days at home are significantly more effective - and the clients, partners, and employees I've worked with have always agreed. There's also a lot to be said for face-to-face time though.
by krisroadruck on 4/14/20, 1:35 PM
Have a dedicated office. Yeah you aren't going to be as productive on your kitchen table or your couch on a laptop as you would be in a quiet dedicated room with a desk, multiple monitors and clear delineation between work and play time.
Get the kids/dog/whatever distraction dealt with. You don't have kids at your office, why would you think your productivity wouldn't take a hit if you have them around at home while you are trying to work? Not now obviously because Covid, but under normal circumstances, send them to day care or whatever arrangement you gotta make to have quite during your business hours.
Figure out your coms! If your team/company isn't built around remote work, obviously there are going to be issues. You have to have a strategy for communication that's designed for remote. Both to keep you from feeling like an island or second class citizen and also because remote communication requires a totally different regiment than the random water cooler check in.
If you are doing all of these things and remote work still isn't your cup of tea I'd love to hear about it. If you aren't doing most or all of these things, It's probably not remote work that is the problem, it's how you are treating it.
by duxup on 4/14/20, 1:41 PM
I loved it.
Now with my wife and kids home ... working form home is horrible.
COVID-19 has ruined work from home for me ;)
I want some alternate bandwagon "work from home sucks" articles.
by jpxw on 4/14/20, 12:49 PM
by papito on 4/14/20, 1:37 PM
It's the sort of epiphany you get after you retire ("oh crap, I worked too much and now my healthy years are gone"), except this time a lot of people will realize it when they are still young.
by twodave on 4/14/20, 1:14 PM
- on site for a non-tech company
- on site for 2-3 small tech companies (10-100 employees) between 20 and 60 minutes away (depending on traffic)
- fully remote for a tech company 5 hours drive away (with on-site visits 2-3 times per year)
- a blend of on-site and remote at my own discretion for a tech company 20-45 minutes away
- fully remote as a contractor with occasional (monthly-ish) on-site visits
What I have learned through the years is that my needs change with the growth of my family and the dynamics of my work. I have by far enjoyed working the remote/on-site blend because it allows me the freedom to make a mature decision about my own work needs each day.
What we especially as thought workers ought to be advocating for as an industry is the freedom to CHOOSE where we work each day, not a fully-remote mandate or an on-site mandate. To me, this is a compromise among many concerns, such as infrastructure costs, accountability, collaboration, a quiet work environment, and generally the ability to break up the monotony of doing the same thing every day.
by shadowpawn on 4/14/20, 4:56 PM
by baron_harkonnen on 4/14/20, 1:12 PM
If you live in a city right now, just peer out at all of those sky scrapers. A huge amount of that is currently empty office space that costs a fortune. For many companies the idea that this space was truly optional was absurd, but right now companies everywhere are seeing that they have to be able to do 100% remote to survive.
Within a month an office space has gone from essential to being more and more of a luxury, way more expensive per employee than a automatic espresso machine.
I suspect a small but non-trivial number of companies will break their leases in the coming months. But far more companies will emerge from this crisis no longer believing that every employee needs a desk in an office.
by oblib on 4/14/20, 6:54 PM
It took me until the late-1990s to get there, but that's when I started working from home full time. Right now I have my office in the basement of our house. It's quiet, and spacious, and cluttered with the stuff I tinker with.
For me, the "shelter in place" thing we're going through hasn't really changed much at all in my routine. I prefer being alone in a quiet space when coding and have spent most of my days doing that for the past 20 years.
Since I could choose anywhere to do it, I chose the Ozark Mountains. I packed up and left Malibu and haven't regretted it for even a moment. I've hardly spent any time at all sitting in traffic since I got here. Before then it was common to spend a couple hours sitting in traffic getting to and from work. And often the same on days off going somewhere to have fun.
But it's not for everyone. My wife is way too social to spend much time alone. Right now she's on the phone or facebook almost all day chatting with friends and family, or watching TV.
I have all kinds of stuff to do aside from coding. We've got a big yard and a few acres of forested land with a menagerie of "critters", a barn, and a big veggie garden. All of them wanting my attention. I spend most all my time at home working on something. Shoot, I have to remember to drive my car now and then to keep the battery charged.
Most of my friends in LA could never live here. My wife struggles with it. She was raised Lake Forest, Il and loves whooping it up "Downtown". For me, all of Los Angeles felt pretty much like a "Downtown". Malibu Canyon St. Park in the Spring is actually a lot like the Ozarks, and I did love it there. But I hated sitting in traffic. I felt like I was wasting my life doing that.
by dec0dedab0de on 4/14/20, 1:39 PM
What I don't miss is waking up early and getting ready, picking out clothes, combing my hair, and all that nonsense every single morning. I even had 8 of the same exact outfit when I worked in an office, and it was still such a drain.
by AndrewKemendo on 4/14/20, 1:56 PM
You can't competently work from home full time and also manage children. Even for people without children, they are dealing with co-workers who are juggling a new normal, have not set up dedicated work spaces, are fumbling to learn how to use zoom/meet/hangout etc...
I say all this to point out that, even in non-ideal conditions with little to no preparation or planning, most people would still rather work from home.
Work from home should be the STANDARD, not the exception, for white collar work.
by jve on 4/14/20, 12:54 PM
That is a VERY rough (actually false) sentance, considering they have only surveyed ~500 Americans out of 205'950'000+ population at working age.
> We surveyed over 500 Americans...
by hprotagonist on 4/14/20, 12:59 PM
by Mountain_Skies on 4/14/20, 3:29 PM
by tilolebo on 4/14/20, 1:06 PM
Some of them are openly "against" work from home.
by beepboopbeep on 4/14/20, 1:07 PM
I think there is something to be said about the autonomy we're given while at home. No pretend needed when your interactions with coworkers are purely work-event driven and not social for the sake of "team building" or "Culture".
Give me a paycheck to do work, beyond that transaction I shouldn't owe any more of my mind and body to a job.
by nerdbaggy on 4/14/20, 12:50 PM
by icedchai on 4/14/20, 1:27 PM
by ff317 on 4/14/20, 1:55 PM
I'm excited about the work-from-home revolution that's going on here, and I think it will benefit society and some level of work-from-home will stick for the long term, for many people. However, it's not for everyone. Some people just don't like the remote work lifestyle at all. It's also not for every kind of job or office.
I think we'll see a lot of hybrid arrangements in the post-covid world. Some offices might institute work-from-home only for tuesdays and thursdays. Or just have everyone come into the office on Mondays and cram all the important in-person meetings into that day. Or in some situations it will be an at-will flexibility (come in for specific meetings when it makes sense, or come use the office like you would a co-working space when your home life is a little crazier because the kids are out of school for the summer and/or there's a contractor remodeling the kitchen, etc).
I think most seemingly-virtualizable businesses that had offices before will still have offices for the foreseeable few years, but by implementing various hybrid policies they could see their average headcount onsite per day shrink significantly over time. For many the office will become optional and/or a part-time thing. One way they could react to this is to downsize their commercial real estate the next time contracts are up. Another way they could handle it would be to remodel the space they've got, trading out cube-farm areas for more private offices and private conference rooms that can be reserved ahead, which will draw some employees back for more hours on-site, until they find a balancing point.
The deeper transition for managers is getting away from the control-freak model of tracking "hours worked", and starting to focus instead on the "things done". The reason you hired your employee is not to punch a clock and stare at a wall for a fixed number of hours; you hired them to accomplish goals, and you're actually going to have to focus directly on measuring true work rather than time in a post-office-hours world. Once you break free of the chains of time-tracking, all kinds of efficiencies that benefit both the employer and the employee are unlocked through remote and flexible work arrangements.
by jefftk on 4/14/20, 2:05 PM
by mpalmer on 4/14/20, 2:03 PM
- Seventy-nine percent of workers can work from home at least some of the time? Maybe the ones your survey reached, but I'm pretty sure I've read the real fraction is under 30%. - "Do you think your employer will make working remote permanent?" is a bad question because it's easy to interpret it multiple ways.
by rurban on 4/14/20, 8:24 PM
Also I do much longer hours, because it's much more fun, and I can take a siesta nap when I need it. I'm an extrovert btw.
by ianai on 4/14/20, 1:54 PM
by RickJWagner on 4/14/20, 11:55 PM
It suits me-- I'm more of a quiet, research-type worker.
But some of my friends are more 'cubicle hoppers' / social butterflies. I really don't think those folks would do well with it in the long term.
by smartDevel on 4/14/20, 1:52 PM
by maceurt on 4/14/20, 1:45 PM
by mhinton on 4/14/20, 1:18 PM
by NoSalt on 4/14/20, 1:22 PM
by PragmaticPulp on 4/14/20, 1:12 PM
No mention of the study methodology. Given that this was performed by an online job search website, it's not clear that they invested effort into collecting unbiased samples. Visitors looking for new jobs on a somewhat obscure online job search site aren't exactly an unbiased sample.
Regardless, I think the important takeaway is that work from home preferences vary. Not everyone enjoys working in an office. Not everyone enjoys working from home. And not everyone has made up their mind on the topic yet.
They also asked whether or not people thought they were more productive working from home. 44% said yes. When asked if people thought their companies would move to permanent WFH after this, 17% said yes.
by mkl on 4/14/20, 1:09 PM
by flurdy on 4/14/20, 1:01 PM
They might represent the other half...
by AzzieElbab on 4/14/20, 2:12 PM
by AmazingTurtle on 4/14/20, 1:23 PM
by ebg13 on 4/14/20, 1:33 PM
by mendelmaleh on 4/14/20, 1:39 PM
by yters on 4/14/20, 1:15 PM
by andarleen on 4/14/20, 12:52 PM
by AtlasBarfed on 4/14/20, 1:00 PM
Cube farms in America are like adult day care that doubles as a basic income mechanism.
Although of course MY work is very important and useful to civilization...