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Anecdote, at one of the affected companies and we’ve been wfh. I honestly think my productivity has tanked. That’s the general sentiment for other folks that I’

Anecdote, at one of the affected companies and we’ve been wfh. I honestly think my productivity has tanked. That’s the general sentiment for other folks that I’ve talked to, too

kccqzy 7y ago
My productivity has gone down as well. Because (a) I didn't have a coffee machine at home, and ended up either having to take a mile-long walk to Starbucks or fight against my morning drowsiness; (b) I now need to cook, do the dishes, etc, which are previously handled by the office cafeteria; (c) I tried to reduce my screen time by not having external monitors at home, and now I code on a small 13-inch laptop display.
- bitL 7y ago
  Oh yes, but that's easily solvable by a $2k investment into coffee machine, dishwasher and a monitor or two. I assumed people had comfortable living/working conditions at home.
  - jjeaff 7y ago
    Two thousand dollars for those 3 things? Are you Bill Gates? (See YouTube vid of Bill guessing how much household items cost.) More like $30 for a coffee machine and $250 for a dishwasher. Then $150+ each for external monitors.
    - bitL 7y ago
      Let's say you want to have two higher end monitors, those would get you to around $1k each. Coffee machine/dishwasher are cheap. You might also want to invest into some cooking machine or some kitchen equipment that could allow you to prepare healthy meals quickly.
      - jkachmar 7y ago
        My motorized standing desk, VESA amounting arm, and 27” FreeSync + color-calibrated monitor _combined_ total at around $1000 dollars. To highlight the absurdity of this estimate: $2000 USD should be enough to pay for an entire work-from-home setup with a high quality office chair, an ergonomic keyboard, and a whiteboard in addition to what I have mentioned above (assuming that work provides your computer).
        bitL 7y ago
        Imagine you are used to 4k quantum dot HDR10 displays from FAANG. Would you be happy with some gaming monitor instead? A decent 5k2k monitor is $1100, 5k2.8k is $1300. 4k DCI EIZO is 4k+. You might want two of those as well.
        ellenhp 7y ago
        Google's standard issue monitors are standard density. FAANG employees aren't used to fancy monitors, and can certainly get by without them. Edited to remove a claim that I haven't seen 4k monitors, since I just realized the big displays we can get must be 4k. We can only have one of those though and they're not as fancy as you're claiming.
        Ambroos 7y ago
        Don't be ridiculous. I work for a FAANG company and we get great but very standard Dell monitors that are all well below $1100.
        magduf 7y ago
        I don't work at a FAANG company, but we do have some pretty nice hardware. I have 27" Dell monitors that I think cost about $800 each when new. (They're probably less now, they're a few years out-of-date by now.)
        jkachmar 7y ago
        The monitor I have is a Samsung C27HG70, which _is_ a quantum for LED monitor. Although it’s not 4K, given the fact that it ships with a color calibration report I think calling it “some gaming monitor” is a bit silly. As someone who’s a bit of a picture quality fanatic (I preferred color accurate panel displays “before it was cool”, my television is a 4K HDR10 OLED, etc.) I think it’s quite ridiculous that you’d classify your suggestions as anything other than luxuriously decadent for most programming work.
    - RandomBacon 7y ago
      If you're going to ask people to watch something, it would be nice of you linked to it. Maybe this is what you wete refering to, but I could only find Bill Gates guessing grocery item prices: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ad_higXixRA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ad_higXixRA
    - TeMPOraL 7y ago
      Well, if you invest 10-20x that much in your coffee machine, you get something that's much less of a maintenance hassle and makes significantly better coffee. Worth it if you drink coffee every day.
      - dx034 7y ago
        Honestly, it's all about the beans. I've had fantastic coffee from a $20 french press and horrible coffee from a $5k machine. Don't splurge on the machine, splurge on the coffee.
        magduf 7y ago
        Admittedly, I'm not a coffee drinker, but rather a tea drinker, but I've seen French presses and I thought the idea was that they aren't very expensive, but they're a lot more laborious than a machine, both in preparation and in cleaning. It's kinda like my fancy tea infuser cup: I have a nice glass mug with a laser-cut stainless-steel infuser for loose tea. It was $30 at a fancy store (could probably get it cheaper on Amazon), but it's a one-time purchase. With high-end loose tea, it makes great tea, but the problem is cleaning: cleaning out the infuser (by hand) is a lot more work than just dumping a tea bag in the trash and putting a regular mug in the dishwasher. But the results certainly are a lot better than a $0.20 tea bag.
        dx034 7y ago
        They're not that bad. I rinse them out after use and then put them in the dishwasher. Preparation is like making a cup of tea, just pouring some hot water in. I would say prep takes <2min for a pot of coffee (including filling up the kettle), cleaning <1 min.
        magduf 7y ago
        The problem with the infuser is that there's only one of them, unlike regular mugs where I have a whole bunch of them because they're practically free (they're a common gift item, after all). The infuser set-up is expensive, so I'm not going to buy 5 of them so I make tea frequently with no cleaning, so I need to hand-wash it. Regular mugs aren't like this: I can just use them and toss them in the dishwasher and get another one when I want another hot drink. And you're right, it's not a huge amount of time to hand-wash, maybe about a minute or so, but it's still a lot more than the utterly trivial amount of time it takes to put a mug in a dishwasher.
    - Johnny555 7y ago
      If your house doesn't already have a dishwasher you might pay $500+ just for the plumbing and electrical work. Unless you get a "portable dishwasher" that you wheel over to your sink and attach it to the faucet every time you want to do dishes, but if you're going to go through all of that trouble, you may as well just do the dishes yourself.
    - retpirato 7y ago
      do you have the link?
    - magduf 7y ago
      Depends on the monitors and dishwasher. A $250 dishwasher is a pretty crappy one; the nice ones are $500-1000. $150 will get you a perfectly decent 1080p 23" monitor, however at work I have three 27" monitors that probably cost about $800 each. It just depends on if you want nice stuff or really basic stuff. The nice stuff costs a lot more than the prices you quoted, just like a nice midrange car like a Camry costs a lot more than a basic, bottom-of-the-line car (Yaris?). Considering the audience of this site, I would assume most here would buy higher-end stuff, and not the cheapest things available.
  - kccqzy 7y ago
    Fair enough. I suppose the fact that this outbreak happened suddenly contributed to my loss of productivity. If I had time to properly prepare a home office and gradually transition to WFH, I could be more productive than today.
    - eigenvector 7y ago
      I truly don't intend this to be snarky or rude, but the things you described are part of most homes, not home offices. You've been using your office as your home and your home as a place to sleep.
      - kccqzy 7y ago
        Correct. And this is, in no small part, due to the fact that there are many amenities in the office that I didn't see a need to buy at home. As a renter I've moved quite a lot of times and will probably move some more, so I've chosen to minimize my possessions at home.
- npo9 7y ago
  (a) and (c) sound like problems that are solved with very common household equipment.
- newtoday 7y ago
  I sincerely am not trolling, or being snarky in saying this, but that has to be the most privelaged, 1st world problem, entitled statement I've ever read.
  - jmspring 7y ago
    It’s not trolling, it is an incredibly entitled statement and the type of attitude that gives the tech industry a bad name.
  - jsight 7y ago
    If this is the most privileged comment that you've read on the internet, I don't think you've read much. I'm not even sure that the OP was complaining about it.
    - newtoday 7y ago
      Unfortunately, you're right, it's not. It's pretty disturbing, though.
    - newtoday 7y ago
      Furthermore, they weren't complaining, but exclaiming about their 'inconviences'
  - wolco 7y ago
    Yes it was. But in fairness for calling him out you have the most entitled statement ever read (until this message where I feel so entitled I call you out for calling him out)
- shadowprofile77 7y ago
  Because you lack a coffee machine you "have to" travel a mile for a starbucks? You've got to be kidding me. That's a preference, not a problem. Making very decent coffee requires exactly four things: 1. a small pot or kettle of nearly any kind 2. water 3. ground coffee (it can be bought ground and prepackaged by the way) 4. a source of high heat, usually found along the surface of a stove, I assume you have one of these. No offense man, but what an absurd thing to describe as a problem. People have been making coffee like this for centuries and continue to do so without a problem. It's a no-cost fixable situation you're in.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - jsight 7y ago
    I think his point is that he hasn't needed a satisfactory coffee setup at home before and thus hasn't done it. If WFH is temporary, then the issues he's facing make sense. I always work from home and I can see where his issues come from. I'm sure he'd do things differently if this were a permanent state for him.
    - wolco 7y ago
      Or perhaps the walk to starbucks will help him get in shape. Or perhaps he will finally be able to break the habit. Without coffee many (not all) are sleeping better and more rested. He may discover he is one of those people. Switch coffee with donut. Or newspaper and it starts sounding like traveling an extra hour in doesn't make as much sense as biking/roller blading/walking or driving 5 minutes to grab that coffee.
      - michaelt 7y ago
        I've no objection to people who want to take up new exercise regime and cut out coffee. Good for them! But when people are worried about flu-like symptoms like headaches, fatigue, muscle aches and being out of breath might not be the optimal time :)
  - 7y ago
- potatoyogurt 7y ago
  here is a french press for $15. It can arrive on thursday. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07HC22KQH/ref=sbl_dpx_B00008XEWG_0?th=1 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07HC22KQH/ref=sbl_dpx_B00008XEWG_... Is google not giving its employees monitors during this time? I find that surprising but also you could just go to Best Buy.
  - CydeWeys 7y ago
    Google is in fact allowing its employees to take their desktop monitors home, which I first discovered when I saw someone walking out through the lobby with one on Monday and thought it was hilarious, only for that to be repeated. It's funnier because this is the NYC office and no one drives, so he was probably lugging it all the way through the subway system.
    - frutiger 7y ago
      It’s about $500 for a 4K 27” monitor. I thought Google compensated their employees well enough for at least that.
      - tonfa 7y ago
        But what's the point in buying one if I only need it for a few weeks? I don't want to generate extra trash and those in the office are currently unused.
        Johnny555 7y ago
        You don't need to trash it when you're done with it -- donate it to a school or homeless shelter (and you can get a tax deduction!)
        CydeWeys 7y ago
        Or, even better, just don't buy it at all and bring your work one home with you for the duration of WFH. How is this even an argument??
- hermitdev 7y ago
  Id suggest giving up coffee. I mostly have. Maybe once a month I'll have a mug. Used to drink 3 pots a day. Caffeine lost its affect on me. Stupidly, I turned to chewing tobacco for the nicotine to keep me awake when pulling long hours. Like I said: stupid. Should have cut out all addictive stimulants. Working on quitting, but its a process.
  - dboreham 7y ago
    Wait..the guy telling us to give up coffee is addicted to chew?? Wouldn't it have been better to stick to the coffee?
- meowface 7y ago
  As a temporary solution, if you don't want to/can't make your own, you might be able to get coffee delivered. I do that a lot with Postmates etc. Generally works best with iced drinks, but some places make drinks hot enough to stay hot upon delivery, if the distance isn't too long. You could also make or buy cold brew coffee (Amazon Fresh delivers large Chameleon cold brew containers to many areas). It stays fresh pretty long if you keep it refrigerated.
  - CydeWeys 7y ago
    > you might be able to get coffee delivered Is this a joke??? Just buy a coffee machine like a normal person.
    - Stratoscope 7y ago
      It's not a joke at all. Google's sister company Wing can deliver fresh hot coffee by air in five minutes. You just have to move to one of their delivery areas, such as Christiansburg, Virginia. https://wing.com/ https://wing.com/
      - CydeWeys 7y ago
        Why would you go to all this trouble when you can just buy a cheap coffee maker (I use a Kalita Wave) and come out ahead in savings within a week? Coffee requires exactly two ingredients to make, one of which comes out of your tap. It's absurd to have it delivered by drone every day rather than just making it yourself. Is this the kind of thing that only sounds remotely reasonable to someone in the Bay Area?
        meowface 7y ago
        Sometimes I just want a kick, and sometimes I want to really appreciate the flavor or get some sort of specialty drink. Most coffee I've had from coffee machines doesn't taste great, even with good beans, and if you want good espresso you need to spend a lot of money and effort... or you can get it from a place that does it for you. But, yes, if you're looking purely for the caffeine and nothing else, a cheap coffee machine is the way to go.
- asdfasgasdgasdg 7y ago
  I don't have a coffee machine (we have pour over) but I will by tonight. Also as of today doubling our recipes to make leftovers for lunches, and we have sandwich fixins for lunch as well. I'm expecting this to last for a good little while so it's important to figure out ways to be efficient. The biggest hit to productivity is when the nanny brings the kids home in the afternoon, but it's manageable. I'll continue to perform. This is just part of being an adult. You can manage! You can get used to anything.
- robbrown451 7y ago
  All of these are easily solvable by simply getting the equipment you need to function. A coffeemaker is about $20. Making lunch and cleaning up shouldn't take more than a few minutes unless you genuinely need some elaborate meal. Geez. I mean, I understand if you aren't prepared for it, but if it is going to last for a while, just do what you need to do. And is your work actually closer than Starbucks? I don't understand that one.
  - jusssi 7y ago
    > Making lunch and cleaning up shouldn't take more than a few minutes Let's hear your cooking tips, then. Preferrably no "microwave the plastic box contents you got from the grocery store", that doesn't count as real food, for nutrients quality nor taste.
    - jinglebells 7y ago
      Here's one: Get some shelled shrimp/prawns. Mix mayo + ketchup, lemon juice, paprika + tabasco to make a sauce and pour over the shellfish Shred lettuce, slice avocado and serve with some chunky bread rolls. Shouldn't take more than 5 minutes, 1 bowl and a plate.
    - jinglebells 7y ago
      Another: mix a stock cube/gel with 1 pint water and put in a pot on the heat. Throw in some dried rice noodles, sliced salad onions, chopped pepper. Cook for 3 minutes and you have a delicious noodle soup. Add chicken or protein for extra fun.
    - zhte415 7y ago
      Bread takes about 10 minutes, leave it to rest, then bake it. And several loaves can be done at the same time. If you have a bread maker then that's even less work. Pasta just takes a boiling pan. Rice, a pan or a rice cooker. Starches largely cook themselves. Vegetables/fruit take a minute or two to chop and pan-fry / prep as you like. Protein can be as simple as a poached chicken breast, roasts again just stick them in an oven. Beans in a pressure cooker, that's also pretty automatic too. Cooking's as time-consuming as you make it. And then these can be batched-up / prepped as a morning chore; I find it takes less time than cleaning the house. I don't batch as I like the break in the day of another activity. It's less time than a commute. YouTube is packed full of easy, tasty recipes if looking for somewhere to start.
- bentcorner 7y ago
  > I tried to reduce my screen time by not having external monitors at home, and now I code on a small 13-inch laptop display. Unblock yourself maybe? Pitch to your management that your productivity is bad and get them to either: a) let you bring hardware home, or b) expense your monitors for WFH.
- smallfry 7y ago
  Have you tried instant coffee https://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-instant-coffee/ https://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-instant-coffee/
- xxpor 7y ago
  Just FYI, you're being (deservedly) mocked on Twitter about this https://twitter.com/MikeIsaac/status/1237577750480740353?s=19 https://twitter.com/MikeIsaac/status/1237577750480740353?s=1...
  - kccqzy 7y ago
    Thanks for the heads up. I honestly don't see why people see a need to mock me, when I'm pointing out the fact that at my home I don't have the amenities that I enjoy at the office. I'm not even complaining about anything. If someone else had posted a similar comment, I certainly wouldn't have mocked them. But then again, it is sad that these days, mockery is the default way of discourse on the internet.
    - retsibsi 7y ago
      For what it's worth, the mockery seems weird and dumb to me. It's pretty clear that you were just engaging in a discussion about whether working from home increased or decreased productivity. But everyone seems to be finding a 'woe is me' tone somewhere between the lines. I wonder if it's mostly a bandwagon effect or if people would tend to read it that way independently. On the bright side, maybe it will do some good overall, because working from home is (IMO) clearly a good idea at the moment, and now people have a strawman villain they can fight against by supporting WFH policies.
    - sophware 7y ago
      Poor you, again, lol. Seriously, though, I hear you both for what you were actually doing (not really whining) and for how you are taking it. I personally have never been able to just let things roll off me,either (or, better yet, turn them into humor).
    - KKKKkkkk1 7y ago
      In college I used to work tech support for $8/hour and we had free coffee. My mom used to work at a factory, and the factory-line workers would eat lunch at a subsidized cafeteria provided by the company. People just hate tech workers and are looking for every reason to represent them as being entitled and out of touch.
- jsolson 7y ago
  Folgers crystals can address your caffeine addiction. They taste like shit, but you'll live and it'll address the chemical needs, speaking from experience. Alternatively, you can buy and freeze pounds of ground coffee and use a filter and hot water for a similar (but vastly better tasting) effect. So sorry about the dishes, but perhaps your dish washing efficiency will improve? If it's directly impactful to your productivity now for a single individual's daily calories it suggests you've got a lot to learn here! Perhaps a G2G course once normal business returns? In terms of the monitor I can't help you, my most productive years were on an 11" MacBook air with a single tmux session. A 13" laptop sounds heavy. (Disclaimer: I work at Google)
- arminius2 7y ago
  You’re bad at living life.
- etxm 7y ago
  I don’t know how you hang in there.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  So buy a coffee machine! A quality one, if you care about your coffee that much. We bought one (my wife loves her morning latte) and it turned out to be the best QoL expense in the last few years. And it isn't even all that expensive!
- Johnny555 7y ago
  (a) There are any number of brew-at-home solutions, I really like my aeropress as it's simple to use and easy to clean. I grind my own coffee, but you can pick up a bag of beans at Starbucks and they'll grind it any way you like. Or if you don't want the trouble of brewing your own, there are some decent (but not great) instant coffees. I really like the Starbucks Via coffees but they are relatively expensive. Mt Hagen is supposed to be good for an instant coffee. (b) If you're really unable or unwilling to cook or do the dishes, food delivery services are still running and the restaurants they deliver from will be happy to have your order. Order hot food and re-heat it on arrival if you're worried about getting infected from your food. Or maybe look at once of the box-meal delivery services, you still need to cook, but most of the prep work is done. (c) buy a cheap monitor for now and sell or donate it after you go back to work. You can get a refurb 22" monitor for $50 or so which must be better than a 13" laptop display.
- martinbean 7y ago
  Wow. First world problems much…?
- clownpenis_fart 7y ago
  Working from home and now it turns out I have to shit in my own toilet. This is an outrage. Hoping I can expense the tp at least.
  - retpirato 7y ago
    This is the funniest comment I've read in a long time. I wish I could come up with a comment like that.
- qbx100 7y ago
  Starbucks does not sell anything that deserves the name "coffee". Buy coffee filters, ground coffee, and the result is 10x better than the horrible water with a taste resembling asphalt that Starbucks sells as "coffee".
- catacombs 7y ago
  Oh, no! Who will think of the Googlers?
- fragmede 7y ago
  re: C; Does Google WFH policy (esp in this specific case) not cover expensing or taking a full-size monitor home with you?
  - username90 7y ago
    It does allow both of those.
troydavis 7y ago
For anyone who is working remotely or managing a remote team for the first time: find a friend or ex-coworker who has done it and thrived. Ask them to be your sounding board - ideally daily given the situation. Whether it's amazing or terrible depends on execution (and obviously other things), and transitioning in a week makes it even harder. Lean on someone experienced.
- bitL 7y ago
  "Trust your team".
- hsod 7y ago
  Im in the same boat as OP and this advice just seems totally alien to me. i don’t optimize my productivity like this, I’m just a guy that understands how computers work. I think there are a lot of people like me
  - troydavis 7y ago
    My comment wasn’t about optimizing productivity, just being fairly productive and happy. If you’re unhappy or unproductive working remotely, someone who has thrived can suggest some changes — there’s a a good chance they experienced or witnessed the same thing.
m0zg 7y ago
I just think you notice how unproductive you are more when working alone. If you were in the office, you could go get a coffee or spend an hour or two bullshitting with someone near a watercooler, or have a longer lunch, or sit in some pointless meeting. I've been working from home for the last year and a half, and as a consultant I only charge for the time when I'm working, and let me tell you, to work for 8 hours a day _for real_ is a pretty difficult thing. It's something people never actually do on a consistent basis as FTEs. In any given day in the office _at most_ half a day, if not less, is spent doing something productive. And that's in a hard-charging company like Google. Other companies are worse: ~13 years ago I worked at Microsoft and we had a period where the team just didn't do any work at all, for like 2 months. Everyone still showed up and pretended to be busy AF, but nothing got done. Lots of meetings and watercooler conversations got done though. Lots of status reporting as well. By any traditional metric people appeared to be "productive". But nothing got done all the same.
- Kiro 7y ago
  I'm watching TV as we speak when I should be working. Pretty sure I will do 0 hours today. It has nothing to do with "noticing" anything. I simply can't work from home while I'm very productive in the office.
  - m0zg 7y ago
    You can. Just turn off TV and start working. Require of yourself that at the end of each week you write a report of what you've done ("snippets" if you work at Google) and send it to your boss. I also track the time (per client), and so could you. It does require some discipline, but it's doable. If you're so disinterested in your work, you'll find a million ways to goof off in the office also. Just because you're there doesn't mean you'll be productive.
    - Kiro 7y ago
      I don't have the will power or motivation. I can't just lie down in the sofa and watch TV at the office. Everyone sees my screen and that's what makes me work. Again, this is a forced WFH.
huehehue 7y ago
My company's moving towards WFH and my productivity is suffering, even though I've worked remotely for years with no problem. Many employees are new to remote work, and are now distracted by the virus, changes in the workplace, etc. This leads to bottlenecks for anyone relying on upstream work, and there's a chain reaction. I'm waiting a lot longer for work correspondence and code reviews. It's reasonable to be distracted right now -- doesn't seem too bad yet, but it's impossible to work at capacity with these factors.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

Anecdote, at one of the affected companies and we’ve been wfh. I honestly think my productivity has tanked. That’s the general sentiment for other folks that I’ve talked to, too

kccqzy 7y ago

My productivity has gone down as well. Because (a) I didn't have a coffee machine at home, and ended up either having to take a mile-long walk to Starbucks or fight against my morning drowsiness; (b) I now need to cook, do the dishes, etc, which are previously handled by the office cafeteria; (c) I tried to reduce my screen time by not having external monitors at home, and now I code on a small 13-inch laptop display.

bitL 7y ago
Oh yes, but that's easily solvable by a $2k investment into coffee machine, dishwasher and a monitor or two. I assumed people had comfortable living/working conditions at home.
- jjeaff 7y ago
  Two thousand dollars for those 3 things? Are you Bill Gates? (See YouTube vid of Bill guessing how much household items cost.) More like $30 for a coffee machine and $250 for a dishwasher. Then $150+ each for external monitors.
  - bitL 7y ago
    Let's say you want to have two higher end monitors, those would get you to around $1k each. Coffee machine/dishwasher are cheap. You might also want to invest into some cooking machine or some kitchen equipment that could allow you to prepare healthy meals quickly.
    - jkachmar 7y ago
      My motorized standing desk, VESA amounting arm, and 27” FreeSync + color-calibrated monitor _combined_ total at around $1000 dollars. To highlight the absurdity of this estimate: $2000 USD should be enough to pay for an entire work-from-home setup with a high quality office chair, an ergonomic keyboard, and a whiteboard in addition to what I have mentioned above (assuming that work provides your computer).
      - bitL 7y ago
        Imagine you are used to 4k quantum dot HDR10 displays from FAANG. Would you be happy with some gaming monitor instead? A decent 5k2k monitor is $1100, 5k2.8k is $1300. 4k DCI EIZO is 4k+. You might want two of those as well.
        ellenhp 7y ago
        Google's standard issue monitors are standard density. FAANG employees aren't used to fancy monitors, and can certainly get by without them. Edited to remove a claim that I haven't seen 4k monitors, since I just realized the big displays we can get must be 4k. We can only have one of those though and they're not as fancy as you're claiming.
        Ambroos 7y ago
        Don't be ridiculous. I work for a FAANG company and we get great but very standard Dell monitors that are all well below $1100.
        magduf 7y ago
        I don't work at a FAANG company, but we do have some pretty nice hardware. I have 27" Dell monitors that I think cost about $800 each when new. (They're probably less now, they're a few years out-of-date by now.)
        jkachmar 7y ago
        The monitor I have is a Samsung C27HG70, which _is_ a quantum for LED monitor. Although it’s not 4K, given the fact that it ships with a color calibration report I think calling it “some gaming monitor” is a bit silly. As someone who’s a bit of a picture quality fanatic (I preferred color accurate panel displays “before it was cool”, my television is a 4K HDR10 OLED, etc.) I think it’s quite ridiculous that you’d classify your suggestions as anything other than luxuriously decadent for most programming work.
  - RandomBacon 7y ago
    If you're going to ask people to watch something, it would be nice of you linked to it. Maybe this is what you wete refering to, but I could only find Bill Gates guessing grocery item prices: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ad_higXixRA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ad_higXixRA
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    Well, if you invest 10-20x that much in your coffee machine, you get something that's much less of a maintenance hassle and makes significantly better coffee. Worth it if you drink coffee every day.
    - dx034 7y ago
      Honestly, it's all about the beans. I've had fantastic coffee from a $20 french press and horrible coffee from a $5k machine. Don't splurge on the machine, splurge on the coffee.
      - magduf 7y ago
        Admittedly, I'm not a coffee drinker, but rather a tea drinker, but I've seen French presses and I thought the idea was that they aren't very expensive, but they're a lot more laborious than a machine, both in preparation and in cleaning. It's kinda like my fancy tea infuser cup: I have a nice glass mug with a laser-cut stainless-steel infuser for loose tea. It was $30 at a fancy store (could probably get it cheaper on Amazon), but it's a one-time purchase. With high-end loose tea, it makes great tea, but the problem is cleaning: cleaning out the infuser (by hand) is a lot more work than just dumping a tea bag in the trash and putting a regular mug in the dishwasher. But the results certainly are a lot better than a $0.20 tea bag.
        dx034 7y ago
        They're not that bad. I rinse them out after use and then put them in the dishwasher. Preparation is like making a cup of tea, just pouring some hot water in. I would say prep takes <2min for a pot of coffee (including filling up the kettle), cleaning <1 min.
        magduf 7y ago
        The problem with the infuser is that there's only one of them, unlike regular mugs where I have a whole bunch of them because they're practically free (they're a common gift item, after all). The infuser set-up is expensive, so I'm not going to buy 5 of them so I make tea frequently with no cleaning, so I need to hand-wash it. Regular mugs aren't like this: I can just use them and toss them in the dishwasher and get another one when I want another hot drink. And you're right, it's not a huge amount of time to hand-wash, maybe about a minute or so, but it's still a lot more than the utterly trivial amount of time it takes to put a mug in a dishwasher.
  - Johnny555 7y ago
    If your house doesn't already have a dishwasher you might pay $500+ just for the plumbing and electrical work. Unless you get a "portable dishwasher" that you wheel over to your sink and attach it to the faucet every time you want to do dishes, but if you're going to go through all of that trouble, you may as well just do the dishes yourself.
  - retpirato 7y ago
    do you have the link?
  - magduf 7y ago
    Depends on the monitors and dishwasher. A $250 dishwasher is a pretty crappy one; the nice ones are $500-1000. $150 will get you a perfectly decent 1080p 23" monitor, however at work I have three 27" monitors that probably cost about $800 each. It just depends on if you want nice stuff or really basic stuff. The nice stuff costs a lot more than the prices you quoted, just like a nice midrange car like a Camry costs a lot more than a basic, bottom-of-the-line car (Yaris?). Considering the audience of this site, I would assume most here would buy higher-end stuff, and not the cheapest things available.
- kccqzy 7y ago
  Fair enough. I suppose the fact that this outbreak happened suddenly contributed to my loss of productivity. If I had time to properly prepare a home office and gradually transition to WFH, I could be more productive than today.
  - eigenvector 7y ago
    I truly don't intend this to be snarky or rude, but the things you described are part of most homes, not home offices. You've been using your office as your home and your home as a place to sleep.
    - kccqzy 7y ago
      Correct. And this is, in no small part, due to the fact that there are many amenities in the office that I didn't see a need to buy at home. As a renter I've moved quite a lot of times and will probably move some more, so I've chosen to minimize my possessions at home.
npo9 7y ago
(a) and (c) sound like problems that are solved with very common household equipment.
newtoday 7y ago
I sincerely am not trolling, or being snarky in saying this, but that has to be the most privelaged, 1st world problem, entitled statement I've ever read.
- jmspring 7y ago
  It’s not trolling, it is an incredibly entitled statement and the type of attitude that gives the tech industry a bad name.
- jsight 7y ago
  If this is the most privileged comment that you've read on the internet, I don't think you've read much. I'm not even sure that the OP was complaining about it.
  - newtoday 7y ago
    Unfortunately, you're right, it's not. It's pretty disturbing, though.
  - newtoday 7y ago
    Furthermore, they weren't complaining, but exclaiming about their 'inconviences'
- wolco 7y ago
  Yes it was. But in fairness for calling him out you have the most entitled statement ever read (until this message where I feel so entitled I call you out for calling him out)
shadowprofile77 7y ago
Because you lack a coffee machine you "have to" travel a mile for a starbucks? You've got to be kidding me. That's a preference, not a problem. Making very decent coffee requires exactly four things: 1. a small pot or kettle of nearly any kind 2. water 3. ground coffee (it can be bought ground and prepackaged by the way) 4. a source of high heat, usually found along the surface of a stove, I assume you have one of these. No offense man, but what an absurd thing to describe as a problem. People have been making coffee like this for centuries and continue to do so without a problem. It's a no-cost fixable situation you're in.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- jsight 7y ago
  I think his point is that he hasn't needed a satisfactory coffee setup at home before and thus hasn't done it. If WFH is temporary, then the issues he's facing make sense. I always work from home and I can see where his issues come from. I'm sure he'd do things differently if this were a permanent state for him.
  - wolco 7y ago
    Or perhaps the walk to starbucks will help him get in shape. Or perhaps he will finally be able to break the habit. Without coffee many (not all) are sleeping better and more rested. He may discover he is one of those people. Switch coffee with donut. Or newspaper and it starts sounding like traveling an extra hour in doesn't make as much sense as biking/roller blading/walking or driving 5 minutes to grab that coffee.
    - michaelt 7y ago
      I've no objection to people who want to take up new exercise regime and cut out coffee. Good for them! But when people are worried about flu-like symptoms like headaches, fatigue, muscle aches and being out of breath might not be the optimal time :)
- 7y ago
potatoyogurt 7y ago
here is a french press for $15. It can arrive on thursday. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07HC22KQH/ref=sbl_dpx_B00008XEWG_0?th=1 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07HC22KQH/ref=sbl_dpx_B00008XEWG_... Is google not giving its employees monitors during this time? I find that surprising but also you could just go to Best Buy.
- CydeWeys 7y ago
  Google is in fact allowing its employees to take their desktop monitors home, which I first discovered when I saw someone walking out through the lobby with one on Monday and thought it was hilarious, only for that to be repeated. It's funnier because this is the NYC office and no one drives, so he was probably lugging it all the way through the subway system.
  - frutiger 7y ago
    It’s about $500 for a 4K 27” monitor. I thought Google compensated their employees well enough for at least that.
    - tonfa 7y ago
      But what's the point in buying one if I only need it for a few weeks? I don't want to generate extra trash and those in the office are currently unused.
      - Johnny555 7y ago
        You don't need to trash it when you're done with it -- donate it to a school or homeless shelter (and you can get a tax deduction!)
        CydeWeys 7y ago
        Or, even better, just don't buy it at all and bring your work one home with you for the duration of WFH. How is this even an argument??
hermitdev 7y ago
Id suggest giving up coffee. I mostly have. Maybe once a month I'll have a mug. Used to drink 3 pots a day. Caffeine lost its affect on me. Stupidly, I turned to chewing tobacco for the nicotine to keep me awake when pulling long hours. Like I said: stupid. Should have cut out all addictive stimulants. Working on quitting, but its a process.
- dboreham 7y ago
  Wait..the guy telling us to give up coffee is addicted to chew?? Wouldn't it have been better to stick to the coffee?
meowface 7y ago
As a temporary solution, if you don't want to/can't make your own, you might be able to get coffee delivered. I do that a lot with Postmates etc. Generally works best with iced drinks, but some places make drinks hot enough to stay hot upon delivery, if the distance isn't too long. You could also make or buy cold brew coffee (Amazon Fresh delivers large Chameleon cold brew containers to many areas). It stays fresh pretty long if you keep it refrigerated.
- CydeWeys 7y ago
  > you might be able to get coffee delivered Is this a joke??? Just buy a coffee machine like a normal person.
  - Stratoscope 7y ago
    It's not a joke at all. Google's sister company Wing can deliver fresh hot coffee by air in five minutes. You just have to move to one of their delivery areas, such as Christiansburg, Virginia. https://wing.com/ https://wing.com/
    - CydeWeys 7y ago
      Why would you go to all this trouble when you can just buy a cheap coffee maker (I use a Kalita Wave) and come out ahead in savings within a week? Coffee requires exactly two ingredients to make, one of which comes out of your tap. It's absurd to have it delivered by drone every day rather than just making it yourself. Is this the kind of thing that only sounds remotely reasonable to someone in the Bay Area?
      - meowface 7y ago
        Sometimes I just want a kick, and sometimes I want to really appreciate the flavor or get some sort of specialty drink. Most coffee I've had from coffee machines doesn't taste great, even with good beans, and if you want good espresso you need to spend a lot of money and effort... or you can get it from a place that does it for you. But, yes, if you're looking purely for the caffeine and nothing else, a cheap coffee machine is the way to go.
asdfasgasdgasdg 7y ago
I don't have a coffee machine (we have pour over) but I will by tonight. Also as of today doubling our recipes to make leftovers for lunches, and we have sandwich fixins for lunch as well. I'm expecting this to last for a good little while so it's important to figure out ways to be efficient. The biggest hit to productivity is when the nanny brings the kids home in the afternoon, but it's manageable. I'll continue to perform. This is just part of being an adult. You can manage! You can get used to anything.
robbrown451 7y ago
All of these are easily solvable by simply getting the equipment you need to function. A coffeemaker is about $20. Making lunch and cleaning up shouldn't take more than a few minutes unless you genuinely need some elaborate meal. Geez. I mean, I understand if you aren't prepared for it, but if it is going to last for a while, just do what you need to do. And is your work actually closer than Starbucks? I don't understand that one.
- jusssi 7y ago
  > Making lunch and cleaning up shouldn't take more than a few minutes Let's hear your cooking tips, then. Preferrably no "microwave the plastic box contents you got from the grocery store", that doesn't count as real food, for nutrients quality nor taste.
  - jinglebells 7y ago
    Here's one: Get some shelled shrimp/prawns. Mix mayo + ketchup, lemon juice, paprika + tabasco to make a sauce and pour over the shellfish Shred lettuce, slice avocado and serve with some chunky bread rolls. Shouldn't take more than 5 minutes, 1 bowl and a plate.
  - jinglebells 7y ago
    Another: mix a stock cube/gel with 1 pint water and put in a pot on the heat. Throw in some dried rice noodles, sliced salad onions, chopped pepper. Cook for 3 minutes and you have a delicious noodle soup. Add chicken or protein for extra fun.
  - zhte415 7y ago
    Bread takes about 10 minutes, leave it to rest, then bake it. And several loaves can be done at the same time. If you have a bread maker then that's even less work. Pasta just takes a boiling pan. Rice, a pan or a rice cooker. Starches largely cook themselves. Vegetables/fruit take a minute or two to chop and pan-fry / prep as you like. Protein can be as simple as a poached chicken breast, roasts again just stick them in an oven. Beans in a pressure cooker, that's also pretty automatic too. Cooking's as time-consuming as you make it. And then these can be batched-up / prepped as a morning chore; I find it takes less time than cleaning the house. I don't batch as I like the break in the day of another activity. It's less time than a commute. YouTube is packed full of easy, tasty recipes if looking for somewhere to start.
bentcorner 7y ago
> I tried to reduce my screen time by not having external monitors at home, and now I code on a small 13-inch laptop display. Unblock yourself maybe? Pitch to your management that your productivity is bad and get them to either: a) let you bring hardware home, or b) expense your monitors for WFH.
smallfry 7y ago
Have you tried instant coffee https://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-instant-coffee/ https://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-instant-coffee/
xxpor 7y ago
Just FYI, you're being (deservedly) mocked on Twitter about this https://twitter.com/MikeIsaac/status/1237577750480740353?s=19 https://twitter.com/MikeIsaac/status/1237577750480740353?s=1...
- kccqzy 7y ago
  Thanks for the heads up. I honestly don't see why people see a need to mock me, when I'm pointing out the fact that at my home I don't have the amenities that I enjoy at the office. I'm not even complaining about anything. If someone else had posted a similar comment, I certainly wouldn't have mocked them. But then again, it is sad that these days, mockery is the default way of discourse on the internet.
  - retsibsi 7y ago
    For what it's worth, the mockery seems weird and dumb to me. It's pretty clear that you were just engaging in a discussion about whether working from home increased or decreased productivity. But everyone seems to be finding a 'woe is me' tone somewhere between the lines. I wonder if it's mostly a bandwagon effect or if people would tend to read it that way independently. On the bright side, maybe it will do some good overall, because working from home is (IMO) clearly a good idea at the moment, and now people have a strawman villain they can fight against by supporting WFH policies.
  - sophware 7y ago
    Poor you, again, lol. Seriously, though, I hear you both for what you were actually doing (not really whining) and for how you are taking it. I personally have never been able to just let things roll off me,either (or, better yet, turn them into humor).
  - KKKKkkkk1 7y ago
    In college I used to work tech support for $8/hour and we had free coffee. My mom used to work at a factory, and the factory-line workers would eat lunch at a subsidized cafeteria provided by the company. People just hate tech workers and are looking for every reason to represent them as being entitled and out of touch.
jsolson 7y ago
Folgers crystals can address your caffeine addiction. They taste like shit, but you'll live and it'll address the chemical needs, speaking from experience. Alternatively, you can buy and freeze pounds of ground coffee and use a filter and hot water for a similar (but vastly better tasting) effect. So sorry about the dishes, but perhaps your dish washing efficiency will improve? If it's directly impactful to your productivity now for a single individual's daily calories it suggests you've got a lot to learn here! Perhaps a G2G course once normal business returns? In terms of the monitor I can't help you, my most productive years were on an 11" MacBook air with a single tmux session. A 13" laptop sounds heavy. (Disclaimer: I work at Google)
arminius2 7y ago
You’re bad at living life.
etxm 7y ago
I don’t know how you hang in there.
TeMPOraL 7y ago
So buy a coffee machine! A quality one, if you care about your coffee that much. We bought one (my wife loves her morning latte) and it turned out to be the best QoL expense in the last few years. And it isn't even all that expensive!
Johnny555 7y ago
(a) There are any number of brew-at-home solutions, I really like my aeropress as it's simple to use and easy to clean. I grind my own coffee, but you can pick up a bag of beans at Starbucks and they'll grind it any way you like. Or if you don't want the trouble of brewing your own, there are some decent (but not great) instant coffees. I really like the Starbucks Via coffees but they are relatively expensive. Mt Hagen is supposed to be good for an instant coffee. (b) If you're really unable or unwilling to cook or do the dishes, food delivery services are still running and the restaurants they deliver from will be happy to have your order. Order hot food and re-heat it on arrival if you're worried about getting infected from your food. Or maybe look at once of the box-meal delivery services, you still need to cook, but most of the prep work is done. (c) buy a cheap monitor for now and sell or donate it after you go back to work. You can get a refurb 22" monitor for $50 or so which must be better than a 13" laptop display.
martinbean 7y ago
Wow. First world problems much…?
clownpenis_fart 7y ago
Working from home and now it turns out I have to shit in my own toilet. This is an outrage. Hoping I can expense the tp at least.
- retpirato 7y ago
  This is the funniest comment I've read in a long time. I wish I could come up with a comment like that.
qbx100 7y ago
Starbucks does not sell anything that deserves the name "coffee". Buy coffee filters, ground coffee, and the result is 10x better than the horrible water with a taste resembling asphalt that Starbucks sells as "coffee".
catacombs 7y ago
Oh, no! Who will think of the Googlers?
fragmede 7y ago
re: C; Does Google WFH policy (esp in this specific case) not cover expensing or taking a full-size monitor home with you?
- username90 7y ago
  It does allow both of those.

troydavis 7y ago

For anyone who is working remotely or managing a remote team for the first time: find a friend or ex-coworker who has done it and thrived. Ask them to be your sounding board - ideally daily given the situation. Whether it's amazing or terrible depends on execution (and obviously other things), and transitioning in a week makes it even harder. Lean on someone experienced.

bitL 7y ago
"Trust your team".
hsod 7y ago
Im in the same boat as OP and this advice just seems totally alien to me. i don’t optimize my productivity like this, I’m just a guy that understands how computers work. I think there are a lot of people like me
- troydavis 7y ago
  My comment wasn’t about optimizing productivity, just being fairly productive and happy. If you’re unhappy or unproductive working remotely, someone who has thrived can suggest some changes — there’s a a good chance they experienced or witnessed the same thing.

m0zg 7y ago

I just think you notice how unproductive you are more when working alone. If you were in the office, you could go get a coffee or spend an hour or two bullshitting with someone near a watercooler, or have a longer lunch, or sit in some pointless meeting. I've been working from home for the last year and a half, and as a consultant I only charge for the time when I'm working, and let me tell you, to work for 8 hours a day _for real_ is a pretty difficult thing. It's something people never actually do on a consistent basis as FTEs. In any given day in the office _at most_ half a day, if not less, is spent doing something productive. And that's in a hard-charging company like Google. Other companies are worse: ~13 years ago I worked at Microsoft and we had a period where the team just didn't do any work at all, for like 2 months. Everyone still showed up and pretended to be busy AF, but nothing got done. Lots of meetings and watercooler conversations got done though. Lots of status reporting as well. By any traditional metric people appeared to be "productive". But nothing got done all the same.

Kiro 7y ago
I'm watching TV as we speak when I should be working. Pretty sure I will do 0 hours today. It has nothing to do with "noticing" anything. I simply can't work from home while I'm very productive in the office.
- m0zg 7y ago
  You can. Just turn off TV and start working. Require of yourself that at the end of each week you write a report of what you've done ("snippets" if you work at Google) and send it to your boss. I also track the time (per client), and so could you. It does require some discipline, but it's doable. If you're so disinterested in your work, you'll find a million ways to goof off in the office also. Just because you're there doesn't mean you'll be productive.
  - Kiro 7y ago
    I don't have the will power or motivation. I can't just lie down in the sofa and watch TV at the office. Everyone sees my screen and that's what makes me work. Again, this is a forced WFH.

huehehue 7y ago

My company's moving towards WFH and my productivity is suffering, even though I've worked remotely for years with no problem. Many employees are new to remote work, and are now distracted by the virus, changes in the workplace, etc. This leads to bottlenecks for anyone relying on upstream work, and there's a chain reaction. I'm waiting a lot longer for work correspondence and code reviews. It's reasonable to be distracted right now -- doesn't seem too bad yet, but it's impossible to work at capacity with these factors.

deleted 7y ago

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