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Just because you don't see it doesn't mean it's not there. Do you have any sense of how many people who are forced to head to an office each day would rather n

Just because you don't see it doesn't mean it's not there. Do you have any sense of how many people who are forced to head to an office each day would rather not? Probably not. I know I don't. But that's because the majority controls how these people work. Working remotely doesn't mean you're a hermit. If you are, your organization has a communication problem. I work remote and am able to get social interaction instantly with anyone in the organization.

jerf 9y ago
"Working remotely doesn't mean you're a hermit." Yes, I'd call it much closer to monk-like existence. It still isn't what the vast majority of humanity is going to prefer. The proof is that if there was some sort of massive preference for working from home, we should be seeing it now. The tech is here. The Internet is here. The computing power is here. All the preconditions would seem to be here. If what is missing isn't that humans don't generally prefer to be physically together in a group structure, what exactly is it? If the revolution is so inevitable, what's stopping it? If the answer is "Well we need more VR that makes it feel like they are there", that's a goal post move. May be true, but still a goal post move. If the answer is "because $MANAGEMENT", what's going to change about that in the future, and why aren't the managers also eager to work from home if it's so inevitable? If the answer is "Well Americans (who are uniquely terrible in all the world) have this irrational desire to spend time in their car in gridlock because they love it so much" then I guess that's more inevitable than the move to telecommuting then, huh? I haven't got an alternate explanation for why this isn't already happening that makes any sense, other than, we are not generally psychologically suited to work that way.
- ghaff 9y ago
  > The tech is here. While I WFH quite a bit, I have to disagree with this statement. For a lot of interaction modes, being remote still lacks a lot of the bandwidth (for lack of a better term) than in person. If you're working out a problem/presentation/etc. with a group, it's still hard to beat a conference room with a whiteboard. Things are better than they used to be. Something like Google Docs can certainly help. But working with a group F2F, serendipitous encounters, informal interactions, etc. can be hard to replicate. And, again, I say this as someone who works remotely much of the time and doesn't go out of my way to commute, even though it's not a bad commute.
  - CydeWeys 9y ago
    Thanks to Google Docs and video Hangouts it's gotten a lot better than it used to be when I first joined the industry a decade ago. You're right though, it's still not as good as being physically co-present in a conference room, or sitting side-by-side at a computer. I suspect it will get better with VR. For now, though, I definitely enjoy working in an office with my coworkers the most, with perhaps a very occasional work-from-home day (only 5% of all work days) thrown in as a sort of quasi-vacation.
    - davidjnelson 9y ago
      I love my vive and all, but having to deal with it for every meeting just sounds like a hassle.
      - CydeWeys 9y ago
        That's actually a good point. I hated remote meetings back in the day when you had to call up a number and then enter a meeting ID, and having to put on a VR headset seems like a similar amount of hassle. I also have eye issues readjusting for some time after using one -- that doesn't seem like fun to deal with repeatedly throughout the day. Maybe we'll have to wait until mind-integration VR becomes a thing.
  - davidjnelson 9y ago
    I'm perplexed that to this day there still aren't physical whiteboards with a screen underneath where you can write on them and see others writing. This, along with seeing the face of whoever is talking would be basically as good as being in person.

jerf 9y ago

"Working remotely doesn't mean you're a hermit." Yes, I'd call it much closer to monk-like existence. It still isn't what the vast majority of humanity is going to prefer. The proof is that if there was some sort of massive preference for working from home, we should be seeing it now. The tech is here. The Internet is here. The computing power is here. All the preconditions would seem to be here. If what is missing isn't that humans don't generally prefer to be physically together in a group structure, what exactly is it? If the revolution is so inevitable, what's stopping it? If the answer is "Well we need more VR that makes it feel like they are there", that's a goal post move. May be true, but still a goal post move. If the answer is "because $MANAGEMENT", what's going to change about that in the future, and why aren't the managers also eager to work from home if it's so inevitable? If the answer is "Well Americans (who are uniquely terrible in all the world) have this irrational desire to spend time in their car in gridlock because they love it so much" then I guess that's more inevitable than the move to telecommuting then, huh? I haven't got an alternate explanation for why this isn't already happening that makes any sense, other than, we are not generally psychologically suited to work that way.

ghaff 9y ago
> The tech is here. While I WFH quite a bit, I have to disagree with this statement. For a lot of interaction modes, being remote still lacks a lot of the bandwidth (for lack of a better term) than in person. If you're working out a problem/presentation/etc. with a group, it's still hard to beat a conference room with a whiteboard. Things are better than they used to be. Something like Google Docs can certainly help. But working with a group F2F, serendipitous encounters, informal interactions, etc. can be hard to replicate. And, again, I say this as someone who works remotely much of the time and doesn't go out of my way to commute, even though it's not a bad commute.
- CydeWeys 9y ago
  Thanks to Google Docs and video Hangouts it's gotten a lot better than it used to be when I first joined the industry a decade ago. You're right though, it's still not as good as being physically co-present in a conference room, or sitting side-by-side at a computer. I suspect it will get better with VR. For now, though, I definitely enjoy working in an office with my coworkers the most, with perhaps a very occasional work-from-home day (only 5% of all work days) thrown in as a sort of quasi-vacation.
  - davidjnelson 9y ago
    I love my vive and all, but having to deal with it for every meeting just sounds like a hassle.
    - CydeWeys 9y ago
      That's actually a good point. I hated remote meetings back in the day when you had to call up a number and then enter a meeting ID, and having to put on a VR headset seems like a similar amount of hassle. I also have eye issues readjusting for some time after using one -- that doesn't seem like fun to deal with repeatedly throughout the day. Maybe we'll have to wait until mind-integration VR becomes a thing.
- davidjnelson 9y ago
  I'm perplexed that to this day there still aren't physical whiteboards with a screen underneath where you can write on them and see others writing. This, along with seeing the face of whoever is talking would be basically as good as being in person.