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> For policymakers: Make laws to support folks who have to self-isolate/quarantine. I live in NYC, and this is something that still feels like a gaping hole.

> For policymakers: Make laws to support folks who have to self-isolate/quarantine. I live in NYC, and this is something that still feels like a gaping hole. My wife has been job hunting since before we were on lockdown in February, and its been truly horrifying how many businesses COVID-19 hiring plans have been along the lines of "work from home until the very fist day the governor says we can go back to office". These aren't just "old school" BigCorps either, most have been small tech firms. Even worse, she finally ended up with a "offer" from a government agency I won't name that refuses to give her a start date yet because, even though the rest of the office workers are WFH, they refuse to hire remote because of "taxpayers" (who are ironically funding her to not work via NYS unemployment benefits). It's become quite clear to me that we can't trust businesses to do the right thing here. The desire for "butt in seat at office" from folks making decisions at employers here is going to end up flooding our subways with commuters who have no choice but to come in because they don't want to lose their jobs. Theres no reason office workers successfully working from home shouldn't stay there as long as they feel comfortable, and not make it terrible for folks who truly do need to commute (retail, food service, medical, etc). Maybe I'm just biased because I work for a remote company already, but I'm seriously worried what the big cities in America will look like once the initial restrictions are lifted.

dahfizz 6y ago
> its been truly horrifying how many businesses COVID-19 hiring plans have been along the lines of "work from home until the very fist day the governor says we can go back to office". Are you sure you're not reading too much into this? If I was running a company, new hires would be among the first people I would want in the office. Traning them and getting them up to speed would be so much faster in person, whereas most other employees are already set up to WFH. Just because they want new hires to come in asap doesn't mean all employees have to come in asap.
- dbattaglia 6y ago
  > Training them and getting them up to speed would be so much faster in person I'm curious why this is the case. Is it because of existing processes? Any sort of onboarding that involves pairing / sitting over the other persons shoulder / breaking social distancing sounds risky anyways. As I said earlier, I'm probably just biased due to my current employer being remote where I onboarded just fine; even my in-office "training" was like 6 weeks after I started and batched with 3 months of other new hires, and not at all helpful for my day to day work. I can't remember a single in-office job where I felt like I was onboarded fast, most of them I sat around reading code and docs while everyone else was busy doing their normal job. Btw, I regret any mention of the rest of the country in my original comment. The thing that really scares the hell out of me is the mass transit / subway system here in NYC and opening that back up to office workers (many commuting from outside NYC), new hires or otherwise. I think its an extraordinary situation compared to the majority of the driving to work US and should force companies to adapt in ways others might not have to.

dahfizz 6y ago

> its been truly horrifying how many businesses COVID-19 hiring plans have been along the lines of "work from home until the very fist day the governor says we can go back to office". Are you sure you're not reading too much into this? If I was running a company, new hires would be among the first people I would want in the office. Traning them and getting them up to speed would be so much faster in person, whereas most other employees are already set up to WFH. Just because they want new hires to come in asap doesn't mean all employees have to come in asap.

dbattaglia 6y ago
> Training them and getting them up to speed would be so much faster in person I'm curious why this is the case. Is it because of existing processes? Any sort of onboarding that involves pairing / sitting over the other persons shoulder / breaking social distancing sounds risky anyways. As I said earlier, I'm probably just biased due to my current employer being remote where I onboarded just fine; even my in-office "training" was like 6 weeks after I started and batched with 3 months of other new hires, and not at all helpful for my day to day work. I can't remember a single in-office job where I felt like I was onboarded fast, most of them I sat around reading code and docs while everyone else was busy doing their normal job. Btw, I regret any mention of the rest of the country in my original comment. The thing that really scares the hell out of me is the mass transit / subway system here in NYC and opening that back up to office workers (many commuting from outside NYC), new hires or otherwise. I think its an extraordinary situation compared to the majority of the driving to work US and should force companies to adapt in ways others might not have to.