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I don't like commuting but I do prefer being in the office. It helps me maintain as much of a work-life separation as I can, gives the company a chance to prov

I don't like commuting but I do prefer being in the office. It helps me maintain as much of a work-life separation as I can, gives the company a chance to provide me with a specialized environment to do my work (that I would otherwise have to provide myself), and greatly reducing the friction in having conversations with my direct team because I just need to turn around instead of chatting or emailing them.

theshrike79 7y ago
Exactly, I've worked at a place that let me work home as much as I wanted and it went like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=co_DNpTMKXk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=co_DNpTMKXk (That Mitchell and Webb Look - Working from home sketch) Maybe it's the fact that I don't have a separate "office", I just sit where I would do my computer stuff at home anyways. If I need to be "remote", I go to a coffee shop or a library, anywhere but stay home. It's essential for my brain to have that distinction between "I'm at work" and "I'm at home".
- brlewis 7y ago
  From the article: At GitLab, we don't force you to work from home, if you want to work from an office, we’ll pay for that. You can probably find an office space pretty close by, so you don't have to commute long. A lot of people when it's their first time remote working, they first do the office thing so that their family gets adjusted to it. And then also enjoy the benefits of your kids barging in on a meeting and distracting you, it's the best distraction in the world.
  - dagw 7y ago
    And then also enjoy the benefits of your kids barging in on a meeting and distracting you, it's the best distraction in the world. Perhaps the first N times. When it happens the N+1st time it is no longer the "best distraction in the world"
    - circlefavshape 7y ago
      What? Your kids barging in a meeting might be the "best distraction in the world" an arbitrary number of times, and then after that it no longer is? AFAICT this comment is indistinguishable from saying nothing at all
      - dagw 7y ago
        What I'm saying is it might be cute the first time it happens, but for all people there exists a finite limit where it stops being cute. That limit however is different for different people. I would however feel fairly comfortable saying that N<=15 in an 8 hour period for the vast majority of people.
      - SllX 7y ago
        Mate, he’s saying that as much as you love your kids, it gets old at some point to have them constantly interrupting your meetings. Sometimes you want to finish the meeting and be done with it, so you can go ahead and actually spend some quality time with them without any nagging concerns leftover from work.
    - jacobkg 7y ago
      When I was interviewing for my current job (to stop being remote) my 4 year old son barged in and started climbing all over me for the second half of a 30 minute video phone screen. That the CTO didn’t bat an eye at this was one strong indicator that she would be an amazing boss (she is)
      - RussianCow 7y ago
        That almost sounds like it would be a great way to screen potential companies! (But I don't have kids so that makes it difficult to implement for me.)
  - scarface74 7y ago
    If your kids are over three or four years old and you have a separate dedicated office, they are old enough to understand that when you are "working" don't disturb you. Also, just because you are physically at home, your kids should still be in daycare or have a stay at home spouse just as if you were at work in an office. There was one guy who was allowed to work remotely when he moved out of state and when he was on a conference call, there were frequent interruptions from his toddler. It's not professional and it happened often.
  - the_watcher 7y ago
    I really like how thoughtful GitLab has been about this, but it doesn't really address the social aspect or in person working dynamic if there's no one else on your team in the same location. That's a tradeoff GitLab is clearly aware of and thought about, but for me, having "an office that's in an office building" doesn't exactly equate to "is in an office with coworkers".
LandR 7y ago
When I worked in an office with people on my team, and my company, it was great. The atmosphere was great, lots of chatting and collaboration with colleagues. I really liked it. It felt like going to work and hanging out with mates. Now I work in a shared office space 4 days a week. I would rather be at home, it's depressing as shit when you are in a busy office and have no one really to talk to. So the days when no one else is there from my company, I just don't go and work from home. It's a bit tougher to motivate myself to work but I have a nice work space / home office setup and the work computer is a seperate computer to my personal one. So when it gets turned off, I'm done.
KoftaBob 7y ago
Wouldn't this theoretically support the middle-ground concept of coworking spaces then? They allow companies to be more distributed, but you're still working at an office rather than at home. The more decentralized nature of coworking spaces means you can choose whichever one is closest to you, shortening the commute and decreasing traffic. Sure you can choose a home near your company if you're just starting out your career or moving to a new city, but once you're in that city for a while, it's not feasible to move to a new home every time you move companies. Coworking spaces allow you that flexibility.
rcruzeiro 7y ago
I like having the OPTION of going to the office or a coworking space. The problem, at least for me, with offices is the constant interruption that could easily be replaced by Slack messages that I'll deal with once I'm not in the middle of something.
sharadov 7y ago
My ideal arrangement would be going to office once a week, hang out with the team, hear the latest gossip, play some foosball/table tennis get some drinks and do focussed work the other 4 days. I am completely remote, so really miss out on the social aspect. But, that being said I am productive atleast 80% of the time, the rest when I am not , I don't pretend to work, am doing other things. That being said when compared to onsite work , where I was probably productive only 50% of the time, this is a massive improvement.not to mention all the free time I've for - kids,gym, sports and reading.
- kylek 7y ago
  This is essentially my current gig for the last few months (my first "remote" job). It's about a 2.5 hour commute each way, but I plan on being in-office at least once a week. That day usually coincides with a scheduled 1:1 meeting with the boss, and usually a group thing with the team that happens to be on that day of the week. I took a pretty substantial pay cut compared to my last job, but still don't think I've ever been happier!
  - sharadov 7y ago
    In the last 2 years, I've not had one case of the Monday morning blues :-) Enjoy the bliss!
the_watcher 7y ago
I feel the same way. I dislike the act of commuting if it's longer than 20 minutes or so (from "when I decide to leave" to "arrives at destination"), but really enjoy being in an office that's at least somewhat designed for work and is cleaned nightly. I also like lunch with teammates. At the same time, I love being able to work from anywhere. I can visit family more often, take weekend trips with Tuesday flight pricing, save $500+ every Thanksgiving and Christmas. I wonder if the (long-term) winning model will be something like self-organizing hubs + remote workers. If enough employees are in one location and express interest, create a local office.
boring_twenties 7y ago
I've worked in offices for about 15 years and I've never had a specialized environment even close to as good as the one I have at home. Most companies flat out made us use Windows workstations, even though 100% of our work was developing for Unix/Linux and not for Windows. Another company allowed Linux workstations but only CentOS, and we were stuck with 6 until years after 7 was released. Finally there was the company that let me use whatever software I wanted, but had fixed-height desks that were simply too low to fit my knees underneath. Aside from that, it was the best place I've ever worked, but I had to quit after less than a year because my posture was getting noticeably worse just from having to use that desk. Now I work at home and everything is set up perfectly. I'll never go back to an office, even though I have to give up more than half of my potential income to work at home, it's just not worth it.
- souprock 7y ago
  The quick fix for desk height is 4 or 8 concrete blocks. You can get half-thickness concrete blocks to make the height 0.5 or 1.5 blocks. For most people, 2 blocks lying flat with the holes horizontal is enough for standing at the desk.
  - skookum 7y ago
    At Amazon, for their legendary door desks, the solution was almost this. You'd open a facilities ticket and eventually a guy with a glue gun and slices of 4x4s in various heights would show up. He'd pick the slice height necessary to get your desk to the right height, place a drop of glue on each slice, crawl under your desk and raise it with his shoulders while sliding the slices into place under the legs.
  - boring_twenties 7y ago
    This wouldn't have worked at this place because the entire row's was physically one long desk.
- thrower123 7y ago
  > Finally there was the company that let me use whatever software I wanted, but had fixed-height desks that were simply too low to fit my knees underneath. Aside from that, it was the best place I've ever worked, but I had to quit after less than a year because my posture was getting noticeably worse just from having to use that desk. I have broken down and just grabbed some bricks or cinder blocks to jack up such desks in the past. It does make me wonder why so many businesses draw the line and refuse to spend a couple hundred dollars to keep an employee that they are spending six figures on happy. This kind of penny-wise, pound-foolish thinking is endemic.

theshrike79 7y ago

Exactly, I've worked at a place that let me work home as much as I wanted and it went like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=co_DNpTMKXk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=co_DNpTMKXk (That Mitchell and Webb Look - Working from home sketch) Maybe it's the fact that I don't have a separate "office", I just sit where I would do my computer stuff at home anyways. If I need to be "remote", I go to a coffee shop or a library, anywhere but stay home. It's essential for my brain to have that distinction between "I'm at work" and "I'm at home".

brlewis 7y ago
From the article: At GitLab, we don't force you to work from home, if you want to work from an office, we’ll pay for that. You can probably find an office space pretty close by, so you don't have to commute long. A lot of people when it's their first time remote working, they first do the office thing so that their family gets adjusted to it. And then also enjoy the benefits of your kids barging in on a meeting and distracting you, it's the best distraction in the world.
- dagw 7y ago
  And then also enjoy the benefits of your kids barging in on a meeting and distracting you, it's the best distraction in the world. Perhaps the first N times. When it happens the N+1st time it is no longer the "best distraction in the world"
  - circlefavshape 7y ago
    What? Your kids barging in a meeting might be the "best distraction in the world" an arbitrary number of times, and then after that it no longer is? AFAICT this comment is indistinguishable from saying nothing at all
    - dagw 7y ago
      What I'm saying is it might be cute the first time it happens, but for all people there exists a finite limit where it stops being cute. That limit however is different for different people. I would however feel fairly comfortable saying that N<=15 in an 8 hour period for the vast majority of people.
    - SllX 7y ago
      Mate, he’s saying that as much as you love your kids, it gets old at some point to have them constantly interrupting your meetings. Sometimes you want to finish the meeting and be done with it, so you can go ahead and actually spend some quality time with them without any nagging concerns leftover from work.
  - jacobkg 7y ago
    When I was interviewing for my current job (to stop being remote) my 4 year old son barged in and started climbing all over me for the second half of a 30 minute video phone screen. That the CTO didn’t bat an eye at this was one strong indicator that she would be an amazing boss (she is)
    - RussianCow 7y ago
      That almost sounds like it would be a great way to screen potential companies! (But I don't have kids so that makes it difficult to implement for me.)
- scarface74 7y ago
  If your kids are over three or four years old and you have a separate dedicated office, they are old enough to understand that when you are "working" don't disturb you. Also, just because you are physically at home, your kids should still be in daycare or have a stay at home spouse just as if you were at work in an office. There was one guy who was allowed to work remotely when he moved out of state and when he was on a conference call, there were frequent interruptions from his toddler. It's not professional and it happened often.
- the_watcher 7y ago
  I really like how thoughtful GitLab has been about this, but it doesn't really address the social aspect or in person working dynamic if there's no one else on your team in the same location. That's a tradeoff GitLab is clearly aware of and thought about, but for me, having "an office that's in an office building" doesn't exactly equate to "is in an office with coworkers".

LandR 7y ago

When I worked in an office with people on my team, and my company, it was great. The atmosphere was great, lots of chatting and collaboration with colleagues. I really liked it. It felt like going to work and hanging out with mates. Now I work in a shared office space 4 days a week. I would rather be at home, it's depressing as shit when you are in a busy office and have no one really to talk to. So the days when no one else is there from my company, I just don't go and work from home. It's a bit tougher to motivate myself to work but I have a nice work space / home office setup and the work computer is a seperate computer to my personal one. So when it gets turned off, I'm done.

KoftaBob 7y ago

Wouldn't this theoretically support the middle-ground concept of coworking spaces then? They allow companies to be more distributed, but you're still working at an office rather than at home. The more decentralized nature of coworking spaces means you can choose whichever one is closest to you, shortening the commute and decreasing traffic. Sure you can choose a home near your company if you're just starting out your career or moving to a new city, but once you're in that city for a while, it's not feasible to move to a new home every time you move companies. Coworking spaces allow you that flexibility.

rcruzeiro 7y ago

I like having the OPTION of going to the office or a coworking space. The problem, at least for me, with offices is the constant interruption that could easily be replaced by Slack messages that I'll deal with once I'm not in the middle of something.

sharadov 7y ago

My ideal arrangement would be going to office once a week, hang out with the team, hear the latest gossip, play some foosball/table tennis get some drinks and do focussed work the other 4 days. I am completely remote, so really miss out on the social aspect. But, that being said I am productive atleast 80% of the time, the rest when I am not , I don't pretend to work, am doing other things. That being said when compared to onsite work , where I was probably productive only 50% of the time, this is a massive improvement.not to mention all the free time I've for - kids,gym, sports and reading.

kylek 7y ago
This is essentially my current gig for the last few months (my first "remote" job). It's about a 2.5 hour commute each way, but I plan on being in-office at least once a week. That day usually coincides with a scheduled 1:1 meeting with the boss, and usually a group thing with the team that happens to be on that day of the week. I took a pretty substantial pay cut compared to my last job, but still don't think I've ever been happier!
- sharadov 7y ago
  In the last 2 years, I've not had one case of the Monday morning blues :-) Enjoy the bliss!

the_watcher 7y ago

I feel the same way. I dislike the act of commuting if it's longer than 20 minutes or so (from "when I decide to leave" to "arrives at destination"), but really enjoy being in an office that's at least somewhat designed for work and is cleaned nightly. I also like lunch with teammates. At the same time, I love being able to work from anywhere. I can visit family more often, take weekend trips with Tuesday flight pricing, save $500+ every Thanksgiving and Christmas. I wonder if the (long-term) winning model will be something like self-organizing hubs + remote workers. If enough employees are in one location and express interest, create a local office.

boring_twenties 7y ago

I've worked in offices for about 15 years and I've never had a specialized environment even close to as good as the one I have at home. Most companies flat out made us use Windows workstations, even though 100% of our work was developing for Unix/Linux and not for Windows. Another company allowed Linux workstations but only CentOS, and we were stuck with 6 until years after 7 was released. Finally there was the company that let me use whatever software I wanted, but had fixed-height desks that were simply too low to fit my knees underneath. Aside from that, it was the best place I've ever worked, but I had to quit after less than a year because my posture was getting noticeably worse just from having to use that desk. Now I work at home and everything is set up perfectly. I'll never go back to an office, even though I have to give up more than half of my potential income to work at home, it's just not worth it.

souprock 7y ago
The quick fix for desk height is 4 or 8 concrete blocks. You can get half-thickness concrete blocks to make the height 0.5 or 1.5 blocks. For most people, 2 blocks lying flat with the holes horizontal is enough for standing at the desk.
- skookum 7y ago
  At Amazon, for their legendary door desks, the solution was almost this. You'd open a facilities ticket and eventually a guy with a glue gun and slices of 4x4s in various heights would show up. He'd pick the slice height necessary to get your desk to the right height, place a drop of glue on each slice, crawl under your desk and raise it with his shoulders while sliding the slices into place under the legs.
- boring_twenties 7y ago
  This wouldn't have worked at this place because the entire row's was physically one long desk.
thrower123 7y ago
> Finally there was the company that let me use whatever software I wanted, but had fixed-height desks that were simply too low to fit my knees underneath. Aside from that, it was the best place I've ever worked, but I had to quit after less than a year because my posture was getting noticeably worse just from having to use that desk. I have broken down and just grabbed some bricks or cinder blocks to jack up such desks in the past. It does make me wonder why so many businesses draw the line and refuse to spend a couple hundred dollars to keep an employee that they are spending six figures on happy. This kind of penny-wise, pound-foolish thinking is endemic.