4 ms·

Disagree. There are far more reasons for people to not be productive in the office than at home. Making excuses to get coffee, the need to go out for lunch, the

by hbosch 7y ago

Disagree. There are far more reasons for people to not be productive in the office than at home. Making excuses to get coffee, the need to go out for lunch, the drive-bys and time lost walking to/from meetings, moving up and down floors... if the main motivator in your work is the fact that people can swing by and look over your shoulder, then yeah, you're better in an office. At home I wake up and log on at 8am. In the office, my 1.5 hour commute puts me in the office at 10am on a decent day. Because I have a kid and a pregnant wife, I cut out of the office around 4 every day because that's the only reasonable way I can get home and eat dinner with my family before my kid goes to bed... but when I'm WFH, I'm often staying online past 5 and sometimes 6. To me, the difference is literally more time spent working and more time spent seeing my child vs. spending 3-4 hours commuting daily and going day-long stretches without my one year old seeing me with her own two eyes. Working from home, I can stay productive during meetings without bothering anyone -- I can mute myself, if it's one of those meetings, and keep working. I think anyone who fails to be as productive, or more productive, from home is someone that doesn't like their job very much. I'm lucky that I enjoy the product I work on, and I enjoy dressing comfortably and eating lunch with my wife, and drinking my own coffee, and instantly joining/disconnecting from meetings, and physically distancing myself from "drive-bys" that my production is up.

dylan604 7y ago
I think you are greatly ignoring employees with children. It is hard for a 4 year old to understand that when mom & dad are home that it is not a work day. They just want to spend time with mom & dad. In addition, the only thing they know of computers is playing games, so it is hard to see mom & dad on a computer doing "work". Think of the most annoying co-worker you've dealt with constantly coming up to you and asking the least relevant question you could imagine. Multiply that by infinity and you might get close to having small kids at home. Can this be dealt with, of course. But it takes time to get your kids to adjust to this. If you're kids are not used to you working from home, you can't just expect them to be okay with it.
- jdbernard 7y ago
  The best and most effective way I've found to do this is to have a door that you can lock and a partner who can reassure the kids that dad/mom still cares but is just busy when the door is locked. Of course, people who were not already setup for working remotely may not have a door they can lock and partner who can reassure.
  - dylan604 7y ago
    Sure, now what about when both parents are attempting to work from home. It takes a lot more effort to coordinate when both parents need to be on a conference call to attempt to wrangle the kids away/keep quiet enough for the other to make that call. Kids have routines, and having work-from-home parents can become part of that routine. It's not a light switch though, so training has to be given time to take hold. Probably about the time the seclusion orders are lifted if not longer.
    - mc32 7y ago
      When both parents work, it’s going to take a toll on productivity. One of the other or both parents will have to deal with all kinds of issues with small children up to maybe tweens. But even then unless they had home office setups there will be competition for space and resources —kids could be hogging the b/w and if you throttle it, whoever gets throttled is going to be unhappy with their telework or distance learning.
- pbhjpbhj 7y ago
  This, so much. We have a small house, which is fine because I work at the office, they're out at school, it's big enough for the times we need to be there ... oh wait. Our upstairs is big enough for the beds, and a narrow space around each. Downstairs has no dividing walls/doors. Now work expect equal output from me and I'm working in the kitchen with a just a gap between me and the room a toddler and 2 other children are occupying. Perhaps if they weren't my kids, particularly my brain interrupts every time the toddler speaks, because that's how we're wired for young voices. Now add in that the kids are used to running around screaming, literally screaming, to burn off energy .. it's not going well. Meanwhile the bosses in their massive home offices, think everything is perfect and don't see why we shouldn't be _more_ productive than normal. I'm waiting for when we go back wondering how their argument for why we're not allowed to home-work is going to go ...

by hbosch 7y ago

dylan604 7y ago

I think you are greatly ignoring employees with children. It is hard for a 4 year old to understand that when mom & dad are home that it is not a work day. They just want to spend time with mom & dad. In addition, the only thing they know of computers is playing games, so it is hard to see mom & dad on a computer doing "work". Think of the most annoying co-worker you've dealt with constantly coming up to you and asking the least relevant question you could imagine. Multiply that by infinity and you might get close to having small kids at home. Can this be dealt with, of course. But it takes time to get your kids to adjust to this. If you're kids are not used to you working from home, you can't just expect them to be okay with it.

jdbernard 7y ago
The best and most effective way I've found to do this is to have a door that you can lock and a partner who can reassure the kids that dad/mom still cares but is just busy when the door is locked. Of course, people who were not already setup for working remotely may not have a door they can lock and partner who can reassure.
- dylan604 7y ago
  Sure, now what about when both parents are attempting to work from home. It takes a lot more effort to coordinate when both parents need to be on a conference call to attempt to wrangle the kids away/keep quiet enough for the other to make that call. Kids have routines, and having work-from-home parents can become part of that routine. It's not a light switch though, so training has to be given time to take hold. Probably about the time the seclusion orders are lifted if not longer.
  - mc32 7y ago
    When both parents work, it’s going to take a toll on productivity. One of the other or both parents will have to deal with all kinds of issues with small children up to maybe tweens. But even then unless they had home office setups there will be competition for space and resources —kids could be hogging the b/w and if you throttle it, whoever gets throttled is going to be unhappy with their telework or distance learning.
pbhjpbhj 7y ago
This, so much. We have a small house, which is fine because I work at the office, they're out at school, it's big enough for the times we need to be there ... oh wait. Our upstairs is big enough for the beds, and a narrow space around each. Downstairs has no dividing walls/doors. Now work expect equal output from me and I'm working in the kitchen with a just a gap between me and the room a toddler and 2 other children are occupying. Perhaps if they weren't my kids, particularly my brain interrupts every time the toddler speaks, because that's how we're wired for young voices. Now add in that the kids are used to running around screaming, literally screaming, to burn off energy .. it's not going well. Meanwhile the bosses in their massive home offices, think everything is perfect and don't see why we shouldn't be _more_ productive than normal. I'm waiting for when we go back wondering how their argument for why we're not allowed to home-work is going to go ...