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I work at a large tech company on a young team (average age is late twenties). In my experience many don't view working from home regularly as a benefit. I unde

by dddbbb 6y ago

I work at a large tech company on a young team (average age is late twenties). In my experience many don't view working from home regularly as a benefit. I understand that must change drastically when you're middle aged, have a family to live around and a spacious house in the suburbs. But most younger people want to live in the middle of the city (i.e. small, often shared apartments but a short commute) and have no responsibilities outside of work, in this situation WFH loses a lot of its lustre.

Ididntdothis 6y ago
This makes sense. In my team it’s the same: the young guys like going out together after work and also often don’t have the space at home to set up a good workplace. They also need the most handholding. I remember some discussions a while ago where the conclusion was that it’s hard to onboard juniors remotely and remote is more suitable for experienced people.
- mikeappell 6y ago
  This was my experience as well. When I started as a developer, my team was fully remote (I was the only developer in NYC, most of the rest were in Portugal or elsewhere in the US.) I found it very difficult to ask questions remotely for several reasons: I never knew if I was intruding on somebody else's time, and explaining things over Slack isn't as effective (in retrospect, I should have made more use of video and voice chat). YMMV: some people are probably more bold in asking questions remotely. For newer developers, this is important. You really can't overstate how useful it is to just plunk your laptop down in front of another developer and ask questions while staring at the same screen. At my current company, I'm usually co-located with our other developer, which made the process of clarifying things for both of us a lot easier. As I've gained experience, I've found it a lot easier to ask questions remotely: we've made great use of various voice/video/screensharing functionality for this purpose.
  - CodeCube 6y ago
    This is why assigning an "onboarding buddy" is so important (even on-site) ... a new team member isn't going to feel empowered to ask questions and interrupt people right off the bat usually. Their more-senior onboarding buddy can make the introductions and get their questions answered by the right person without feeling awkward about it. This isn't really a remote-only problem
  - nogabebop23 6y ago
    I'm sure people will respond with the obvious need for an onboarding guide or helper, but even this is harder to do remote. When I onboard in-person I can watch the new hire, judge their mental state or know if they're busy, check in with them often - at the right time and get to know them personally. All do-able remote but much harder.
    - lonelappde 6y ago
      It's only harder if you have a 20th century notion of privacy and aren't willing to be on videoconference all day to emulate copresennce.
  - bluntfang 6y ago
    >I never knew if I was intruding on somebody else's time is this just a lack of understanding that (or a lack of your company embracing) chat/email is asynchronous communication? I work remote, and all of the people who don't want to be disturbed have snoozed notifications and I understand that they'll get back to me when they're ready.
    - SubuSS 6y ago
      At least in my company, many folks leave it on snooze always - with a status requesting for an override if there's something urgent. Else the intrusion is very real. I personally used to get a ding from groups or PMs every other min or so. muted groups, still got one every 5 mins or so - very painful. I prefer the onboard buddy / mentor approach: I just tell my mentee to override this.
- freepor 6y ago
  If the seniors are remote who will onboard the juniors in person?
  - Ididntdothis 6y ago
    Good question that as far as I know nobody has solved so far.
  - joelbluminator 6y ago
    I don't know that in person always works better, lots of people in tech aren't good in person actually or hate it when you approach them. Could be that in writing they'd have better patience.
  - lonelappde 6y ago
    When I was a junior my mentor was remote. It worked fine.
ghaff 6y ago
Before the current situation, I've had this discussion with various people in the context of space getting tight in some offices. Basically, I was told that a lot of the younger people (mostly not developers in this case) would be looking for another job if they could no longer come into an office. I do know I would probably have hated being forced to work out of my apartment right out of school.
nsnick 6y ago
Except that a lot of tech companies are out in the suburbs...
- CodeCube 6y ago
  lol, imagine wanting to have a 2 hour public transit commute (one way) from SF to the googleplex
  - cameronbrown 6y ago
    I did that journey twice. Was the first time I ever saw San Francisco so I didn't mind how long it took, but I'd hate doing that daily.
  - SirZimzim 6y ago
    Yes, it's considered a want because you want to live in SF while working somewhere far. What is stopping you from finding a job in SF or moving down?
    - CodeCube 6y ago
      I completely respect wanting to live in SF ... I have personal reasons why I can't move away from where I'm at, but I also have a full time job with a company headquartered literally as far as possible from me in the continental united states. So I get to live where I have to live and make a good salary to support my family, and they get to use my talents as long as they continue to feel I bring them value. That's the thing ... this discussion isn't saying everyone has to move away from SF, that's ludicrous. But if you want to live in SF, my point is why would you want to have to be on public transit for four hours every single day? It takes time you could use for living your life, and contributes to pollution. In an ideal world, you could live in SF, work for google remotely, and maybe pop into campus every few days or even weeks, as needed. And then google can also hire from the millions of developers that live elsewhere as well. That way: you could live on the beach, live in socal, live in norcal, live on a farm in Iowa, live in Hawaii, live in New Jersey ... whatever kind of life you want to build, would not have to be linked to whether there is a company you want to work for in that place.
deeblering4 6y ago
Why would people fitting this description not prefer the flexibility of working remotely? As an aside -- I prefer not to use the term "work from home", as the ideal (for me) is the ability to work from anywhere at my option. Also, for what it's worth, co-working spaces can be a workable alternative to a traditional office.
- Barrin92 6y ago
  I am of that age and I can say I have hated the last few weeks working from home. I feel isolated and I like talking at work, I also have an easier time actually doing work at a workplace rather than sitting at home, also I just like going out grabbing a few drinks after work. Of course the latter is more an issue of the pandemic right now than just remote work in principle but I have the sense that remote working also leads to less spontaneous interaction.
- crocodiletears 6y ago
  The workplace is one of the last places where you're forced to interact face-to-face with a diverse range of people multiple times, on a regular basis. If you're young, and from out of town, you get a lot from that. Certainly, there are different clubs and groups out there, but the people they attract are fairly homogenous, and monofocused on their topic of interest. There are coffee-houses and bars, but you'd be lucky to interact with anyone there repeatedly in such a way as to form any durable social bond. The only other quick option for gaining automatic access to a well-rounded social environment that I can think of is a church, but educated young people tend to enter the workforce with a contempt of organized religion that ranges from passive to visceral.
  - lonelappde 6y ago
    > diverse range of people At a tech company?
    - roflulz 6y ago
      lets say you can usually interact with 5-10 people closely everyday. Even a tech company is going to be more diverse than the average person's 10 closest friends/family members.
ram_rar 6y ago
I perfectly fit the profile you described. I live in SF in a small apt. I can easily afford a much bigger place for the same amount. But working with collegues @ office is a soo much fun. if the company gets fully remote, its really hard to connect with coworkers and hangout.
- amiga_500 6y ago
  What about if all of society did this, and you all had a great webcam, and for lunch you went out locally with your local friends, then when you knock off at 5pm you have all agreed to play soccer down the local park at 5:10pm ? We can have a nice local life that flourishes, once the utterly stupid situation of having everyone converge at the same time on a fixed point is forever slain.
  - lonelappde 6y ago
    Why would I have local friends? I spent half my day at work, obviously most people I know are at work. half of my home awake time is with my online friends.
    - amiga_500 6y ago
      My god, this has to be the most depressing forum on the interwebs. A downvote to zero for the suggestion of living locally and playing soccer ten minutes after work. You are right. Why would you guys have friends?
      - jawilson2 6y ago
        > You are right. Why would you guys have friends? This is hilarious
  - thelean12 6y ago
    It's much harder to make friends as an adult. Work colleagues end up being much easier friendships to make. 90% of my current friends were made through work.
Aeolun 6y ago
Why would work from home in the suburbs be better than work from home in the city?
- Frost1x 6y ago
  Average commute travel time per day?
- neutronicus 6y ago
  Bigger place with a home office. Also generally if you live in the suburbs you probably co-habit with your family and probably spend your commuting life wishing you could see more of them (this is orthogonal to the city / suburb question really - it has more to do with the older / younger split).
- colatkinson 6y ago
  I'm pretty much the demographic described above: on the younger side, and optimized for central location in housing. I have a fairly small 1BR. I don't really have a proper work environment set up--what's the point of cramming a desk in if I'm going into the office every day? I have no yard, so at the moment fresh air is limited. I work, cook, eat, and sleep within the same three rooms. That's not even touching on people who paid out the ass to get studios in trendier neighborhoods. Personally, I'd lose my mind. Contrast this with my parents in the suburbs. It's normally a longer commute, but there's a dedicated office, a back yard, and just generally more breathing room. I think a lot of this is less WFH-related, and more, y'know, apocalypse-related. I could work from a coffee shop or coworking space. Go to the park. Go out for dinner/drinks in the evening. Hell, I could've gotten a bigger, cheaper place if commute time wasn't an issue. But for the time being, the sprawl of suburban living seems to have its perks.
throwaway713 6y ago
If I could keep my current compensation and move to the low cost of living area where my family is located, I would reach financial independence 10-15 years ahead of my current trajectory with Bay Area rents/costs. I'll settle for the minor inconveniences of WFH any day in order to get a decade of my life to spend with family or to work on my own projects.
- almost_usual 6y ago
  Or even have the funds to start your own company rather than spend it on rent / housing.
- lhorie 6y ago
  My understanding is that this has big tax implications (since presumably said low cost of living areas are outside of California). I would love to understand better what sorts of complications WFH bring to the table for those cases (and how they can be mitigated).
  - ghaff 6y ago
    The company needs to do payroll in a different state and you, as an individual, now pay taxes in your state of residence which isn't where company HQ is. From a tax perspective it's mostly no different than if they had a small office in that state. For big companies, in particular, it's not that big a deal as they're probably using a payroll service like ADP anyway. There may be some paperwork--and certainly more so if other countries are involved.
    - SkyPuncher 6y ago
      > The company needs to do payroll in a different state and you, as an individual, now pay taxes in your state of residence which isn't where company HQ is. This is not always true. I'm remote. I pay my state and CA taxes for my CA based company even though I have never set foot in CA for this job.
      - 6y ago
youeseh 6y ago
WFH also works for those young people that don't quite live in the middle of the city - say, they would like to live closer to where they play (the ocean, the mountains, on the road, etc).
lhorie 6y ago
As I understand, you're allowed to (but not required to) work from home. So it seems like a win-win for both groups?
- nogabebop23 6y ago
  The tools and processes for remote work are completely different than co-located though. This will force the in-office folks to essentially adopt all of the remote protocols. IME blended teams are by far the hardest to make work.
  - lhorie 6y ago
    If by "adopting remote protocols" we mean "writing things down instead of verbal tribal knowledge", I think I'm actually ok with that.
    - mjevans 6y ago
      Now that everything's written down, what was the point of the meeting again? It makes a lot more sense to have an asynchronous process for problem exploration and decision making with one or more deadlines for statements about a given topic and then a final vote (possibly just one individual deciding on a given topic).
      - nsxwolf 6y ago
        Everything's never written down. New knowledge comes out of meetings, then you write that down.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
dubcanada 6y ago
Have you told them (or have they been told) that they can work from somewhere besides there home? Obviously there is an exception right now, but normally "working from home" means you can work from anywhere you want (different country, parents cottage, coffee shop, outside, where ever). I work for a tech company and we have people who regularly go to Europe/other places for months and work from there just getting up/working later depending on timezone. Most people assume that working from home or working remotely means sitting at home at a desk and working the exact same as you would an office. In which case you lose the office communication. But that's wrong.
- acheron9383 6y ago
  Working from a separate country isn't usually allowed based on the labor laws of that country, since you are still paying your taxes to your home country while using the infrastructure of another. You can certainly do it, but your company may not want to know you are doing it.
- ElysianEagle 6y ago
  Exactly this! I'm not sure why people assume WFH must mean you're literally confined to your home/apartment for the entire duration of the work day. Unless you have to frequently get on calls requiring a quiet space, you should be fine working from cafes, co-working spaces and yes - even other countries if you so choose to (for short periods of time at least). I've been doing this at my current workplace as have a number of others I know.
bitwize 6y ago
I still remember being such a young programmer -- and I much preferred WFH. I have no car and commuting on foot and via public transport, only to turn up at a noisy, productivity-sapping open-plan office, is tiring. I would rather save that hour and a half each day and just work from home.
Dumblydorr 6y ago
Where is your evidence to back up the idea that most younger people want to live in the middle of the city? That is anecdotal as far as I can tell.
lordCarbonFiber 6y ago
Im firmly in that demographic. Working from home has been pretty awful; don't have space for a secondary office in my 500sqft of nyc apartment, and have found the whole experience to be terribly isolating. Maybe it's different for people with families, but I'd never give up the perks of city living and office connections to be so alone (regardless on how much extra money I'd be saving).
- iso947 6y ago
  How much of a pay cut are you willing to take for your company to furnish you with an office in central New York?
  - lordCarbonFiber 6y ago
    That assumes my compensation is already at the upper bound of my cost/benefit axis for the company instead of close to the minimum bound to keep me from looking to advance elsewhere. Better question is how much more would I be looking for to move to a full remote workplace.
pthomas551 6y ago
Maybe this is true if you are stuck with roommates, but given how terrible most open offices are now the bar is pretty low for home to be better. My home office in my small 2br city center apartment has a better monitor than the one at my open office workstation, I can listen to whatever music I want, no BS small talk, and I don't feel like there are eyes on me constantly. Plus, commuting sucks no matter where you live, most city dwellers don't live within walking distance of their offices. I do like the opportunity to socialize w/ coworkers from time to time but 2-3 days/week in office is more than enough for me.
nathan_long 6y ago
> I work at a large tech company on a young team (average age is late twenties). In my experience many don't view working from home regularly as a benefit. I understand that must change drastically when you're middle aged Yes, and there is some correlation between age and seniority. If companies are so eager to hire senior developers, they might consider the preferences of candidates who have been working long enough to fit that description.
pimterry 6y ago
In part, I think some of the young there are on to something. I love working remote now, but one thing remote is bad at is training, especially the intensive training you want at a junior level. I would've had a much harder time learning core work skills (how to do actual work, but also time management, communication, ...) without the super close contact you get in person. Imo, remote is a big perk once you have a couple of years of professional work under your belt, but a real challenge before that point.
ccktlmazeltov 6y ago
I'm one of these people and I want to be able to do both. Work used to be 10min subway from my place, yet I want to be able to stay home when I don't want to be disturbed at work.
kabacha 6y ago
I feel the opposite. It's hard to focus on work with family at home. If your young and single then remote work is a perfect fit.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
massysett 6y ago
I am middle aged, have a family to be around, and a long commute (60 mins morning, 40 mins evening). I have a spacious house and room for a separate office. Yet even I do not like work from home. I don’t like assigning space in my home for my employer’s use. I don’t like having work in my house. It’s probably actually more bearable due to current circumstance-I watch my daughter in mornings, and my wife is here too. If this were normal circumstances and I were here alone all day and connected only through phone and video, I would like this even less. No way I want to keep doing this if I don’t have to. And some of my staff can’t even do phone calls if their roommate has one at the same time because they have small apartments. I don’t even have that problem. Not interested in providing rent-free space to my employer.
- fortylove 6y ago
  Presumably, your employer could provide a stipend to you for WFH space. Perhaps that would cost them less than a seat for you in a building in a city.
thorwasdfasdf 6y ago
that will quickly change once you have kids/family. also, you'll see things quite differently when faced with the COL of CA.

by dddbbb 6y ago

Ididntdothis 6y ago

This makes sense. In my team it’s the same: the young guys like going out together after work and also often don’t have the space at home to set up a good workplace. They also need the most handholding. I remember some discussions a while ago where the conclusion was that it’s hard to onboard juniors remotely and remote is more suitable for experienced people.

mikeappell 6y ago
This was my experience as well. When I started as a developer, my team was fully remote (I was the only developer in NYC, most of the rest were in Portugal or elsewhere in the US.) I found it very difficult to ask questions remotely for several reasons: I never knew if I was intruding on somebody else's time, and explaining things over Slack isn't as effective (in retrospect, I should have made more use of video and voice chat). YMMV: some people are probably more bold in asking questions remotely. For newer developers, this is important. You really can't overstate how useful it is to just plunk your laptop down in front of another developer and ask questions while staring at the same screen. At my current company, I'm usually co-located with our other developer, which made the process of clarifying things for both of us a lot easier. As I've gained experience, I've found it a lot easier to ask questions remotely: we've made great use of various voice/video/screensharing functionality for this purpose.
- CodeCube 6y ago
  This is why assigning an "onboarding buddy" is so important (even on-site) ... a new team member isn't going to feel empowered to ask questions and interrupt people right off the bat usually. Their more-senior onboarding buddy can make the introductions and get their questions answered by the right person without feeling awkward about it. This isn't really a remote-only problem
- nogabebop23 6y ago
  I'm sure people will respond with the obvious need for an onboarding guide or helper, but even this is harder to do remote. When I onboard in-person I can watch the new hire, judge their mental state or know if they're busy, check in with them often - at the right time and get to know them personally. All do-able remote but much harder.
  - lonelappde 6y ago
    It's only harder if you have a 20th century notion of privacy and aren't willing to be on videoconference all day to emulate copresennce.
- bluntfang 6y ago
  >I never knew if I was intruding on somebody else's time is this just a lack of understanding that (or a lack of your company embracing) chat/email is asynchronous communication? I work remote, and all of the people who don't want to be disturbed have snoozed notifications and I understand that they'll get back to me when they're ready.
  - SubuSS 6y ago
    At least in my company, many folks leave it on snooze always - with a status requesting for an override if there's something urgent. Else the intrusion is very real. I personally used to get a ding from groups or PMs every other min or so. muted groups, still got one every 5 mins or so - very painful. I prefer the onboard buddy / mentor approach: I just tell my mentee to override this.
freepor 6y ago
If the seniors are remote who will onboard the juniors in person?
- Ididntdothis 6y ago
  Good question that as far as I know nobody has solved so far.
- joelbluminator 6y ago
  I don't know that in person always works better, lots of people in tech aren't good in person actually or hate it when you approach them. Could be that in writing they'd have better patience.
- lonelappde 6y ago
  When I was a junior my mentor was remote. It worked fine.

ghaff 6y ago

Before the current situation, I've had this discussion with various people in the context of space getting tight in some offices. Basically, I was told that a lot of the younger people (mostly not developers in this case) would be looking for another job if they could no longer come into an office. I do know I would probably have hated being forced to work out of my apartment right out of school.

nsnick 6y ago

Except that a lot of tech companies are out in the suburbs...

CodeCube 6y ago
lol, imagine wanting to have a 2 hour public transit commute (one way) from SF to the googleplex
- cameronbrown 6y ago
  I did that journey twice. Was the first time I ever saw San Francisco so I didn't mind how long it took, but I'd hate doing that daily.
- SirZimzim 6y ago
  Yes, it's considered a want because you want to live in SF while working somewhere far. What is stopping you from finding a job in SF or moving down?
  - CodeCube 6y ago
    I completely respect wanting to live in SF ... I have personal reasons why I can't move away from where I'm at, but I also have a full time job with a company headquartered literally as far as possible from me in the continental united states. So I get to live where I have to live and make a good salary to support my family, and they get to use my talents as long as they continue to feel I bring them value. That's the thing ... this discussion isn't saying everyone has to move away from SF, that's ludicrous. But if you want to live in SF, my point is why would you want to have to be on public transit for four hours every single day? It takes time you could use for living your life, and contributes to pollution. In an ideal world, you could live in SF, work for google remotely, and maybe pop into campus every few days or even weeks, as needed. And then google can also hire from the millions of developers that live elsewhere as well. That way: you could live on the beach, live in socal, live in norcal, live on a farm in Iowa, live in Hawaii, live in New Jersey ... whatever kind of life you want to build, would not have to be linked to whether there is a company you want to work for in that place.

deeblering4 6y ago

Why would people fitting this description not prefer the flexibility of working remotely? As an aside -- I prefer not to use the term "work from home", as the ideal (for me) is the ability to work from anywhere at my option. Also, for what it's worth, co-working spaces can be a workable alternative to a traditional office.

Barrin92 6y ago
I am of that age and I can say I have hated the last few weeks working from home. I feel isolated and I like talking at work, I also have an easier time actually doing work at a workplace rather than sitting at home, also I just like going out grabbing a few drinks after work. Of course the latter is more an issue of the pandemic right now than just remote work in principle but I have the sense that remote working also leads to less spontaneous interaction.
crocodiletears 6y ago
The workplace is one of the last places where you're forced to interact face-to-face with a diverse range of people multiple times, on a regular basis. If you're young, and from out of town, you get a lot from that. Certainly, there are different clubs and groups out there, but the people they attract are fairly homogenous, and monofocused on their topic of interest. There are coffee-houses and bars, but you'd be lucky to interact with anyone there repeatedly in such a way as to form any durable social bond. The only other quick option for gaining automatic access to a well-rounded social environment that I can think of is a church, but educated young people tend to enter the workforce with a contempt of organized religion that ranges from passive to visceral.
- lonelappde 6y ago
  > diverse range of people At a tech company?
  - roflulz 6y ago
    lets say you can usually interact with 5-10 people closely everyday. Even a tech company is going to be more diverse than the average person's 10 closest friends/family members.

ram_rar 6y ago

I perfectly fit the profile you described. I live in SF in a small apt. I can easily afford a much bigger place for the same amount. But working with collegues @ office is a soo much fun. if the company gets fully remote, its really hard to connect with coworkers and hangout.

amiga_500 6y ago
What about if all of society did this, and you all had a great webcam, and for lunch you went out locally with your local friends, then when you knock off at 5pm you have all agreed to play soccer down the local park at 5:10pm ? We can have a nice local life that flourishes, once the utterly stupid situation of having everyone converge at the same time on a fixed point is forever slain.
- lonelappde 6y ago
  Why would I have local friends? I spent half my day at work, obviously most people I know are at work. half of my home awake time is with my online friends.
  - amiga_500 6y ago
    My god, this has to be the most depressing forum on the interwebs. A downvote to zero for the suggestion of living locally and playing soccer ten minutes after work. You are right. Why would you guys have friends?
    - jawilson2 6y ago
      > You are right. Why would you guys have friends? This is hilarious
- thelean12 6y ago
  It's much harder to make friends as an adult. Work colleagues end up being much easier friendships to make. 90% of my current friends were made through work.

Aeolun 6y ago

Why would work from home in the suburbs be better than work from home in the city?

Frost1x 6y ago
Average commute travel time per day?
neutronicus 6y ago
Bigger place with a home office. Also generally if you live in the suburbs you probably co-habit with your family and probably spend your commuting life wishing you could see more of them (this is orthogonal to the city / suburb question really - it has more to do with the older / younger split).
colatkinson 6y ago
I'm pretty much the demographic described above: on the younger side, and optimized for central location in housing. I have a fairly small 1BR. I don't really have a proper work environment set up--what's the point of cramming a desk in if I'm going into the office every day? I have no yard, so at the moment fresh air is limited. I work, cook, eat, and sleep within the same three rooms. That's not even touching on people who paid out the ass to get studios in trendier neighborhoods. Personally, I'd lose my mind. Contrast this with my parents in the suburbs. It's normally a longer commute, but there's a dedicated office, a back yard, and just generally more breathing room. I think a lot of this is less WFH-related, and more, y'know, apocalypse-related. I could work from a coffee shop or coworking space. Go to the park. Go out for dinner/drinks in the evening. Hell, I could've gotten a bigger, cheaper place if commute time wasn't an issue. But for the time being, the sprawl of suburban living seems to have its perks.

throwaway713 6y ago

If I could keep my current compensation and move to the low cost of living area where my family is located, I would reach financial independence 10-15 years ahead of my current trajectory with Bay Area rents/costs. I'll settle for the minor inconveniences of WFH any day in order to get a decade of my life to spend with family or to work on my own projects.

almost_usual 6y ago
Or even have the funds to start your own company rather than spend it on rent / housing.
lhorie 6y ago
My understanding is that this has big tax implications (since presumably said low cost of living areas are outside of California). I would love to understand better what sorts of complications WFH bring to the table for those cases (and how they can be mitigated).
- ghaff 6y ago
  The company needs to do payroll in a different state and you, as an individual, now pay taxes in your state of residence which isn't where company HQ is. From a tax perspective it's mostly no different than if they had a small office in that state. For big companies, in particular, it's not that big a deal as they're probably using a payroll service like ADP anyway. There may be some paperwork--and certainly more so if other countries are involved.
  - SkyPuncher 6y ago
    > The company needs to do payroll in a different state and you, as an individual, now pay taxes in your state of residence which isn't where company HQ is. This is not always true. I'm remote. I pay my state and CA taxes for my CA based company even though I have never set foot in CA for this job.
    - 6y ago

youeseh 6y ago

WFH also works for those young people that don't quite live in the middle of the city - say, they would like to live closer to where they play (the ocean, the mountains, on the road, etc).

lhorie 6y ago

As I understand, you're allowed to (but not required to) work from home. So it seems like a win-win for both groups?

nogabebop23 6y ago
The tools and processes for remote work are completely different than co-located though. This will force the in-office folks to essentially adopt all of the remote protocols. IME blended teams are by far the hardest to make work.
- lhorie 6y ago
  If by "adopting remote protocols" we mean "writing things down instead of verbal tribal knowledge", I think I'm actually ok with that.
  - mjevans 6y ago
    Now that everything's written down, what was the point of the meeting again? It makes a lot more sense to have an asynchronous process for problem exploration and decision making with one or more deadlines for statements about a given topic and then a final vote (possibly just one individual deciding on a given topic).
    - nsxwolf 6y ago
      Everything's never written down. New knowledge comes out of meetings, then you write that down.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

dubcanada 6y ago

Have you told them (or have they been told) that they can work from somewhere besides there home? Obviously there is an exception right now, but normally "working from home" means you can work from anywhere you want (different country, parents cottage, coffee shop, outside, where ever). I work for a tech company and we have people who regularly go to Europe/other places for months and work from there just getting up/working later depending on timezone. Most people assume that working from home or working remotely means sitting at home at a desk and working the exact same as you would an office. In which case you lose the office communication. But that's wrong.

acheron9383 6y ago
Working from a separate country isn't usually allowed based on the labor laws of that country, since you are still paying your taxes to your home country while using the infrastructure of another. You can certainly do it, but your company may not want to know you are doing it.
ElysianEagle 6y ago
Exactly this! I'm not sure why people assume WFH must mean you're literally confined to your home/apartment for the entire duration of the work day. Unless you have to frequently get on calls requiring a quiet space, you should be fine working from cafes, co-working spaces and yes - even other countries if you so choose to (for short periods of time at least). I've been doing this at my current workplace as have a number of others I know.

bitwize 6y ago

I still remember being such a young programmer -- and I much preferred WFH. I have no car and commuting on foot and via public transport, only to turn up at a noisy, productivity-sapping open-plan office, is tiring. I would rather save that hour and a half each day and just work from home.

Dumblydorr 6y ago

Where is your evidence to back up the idea that most younger people want to live in the middle of the city? That is anecdotal as far as I can tell.

lordCarbonFiber 6y ago

Im firmly in that demographic. Working from home has been pretty awful; don't have space for a secondary office in my 500sqft of nyc apartment, and have found the whole experience to be terribly isolating. Maybe it's different for people with families, but I'd never give up the perks of city living and office connections to be so alone (regardless on how much extra money I'd be saving).

iso947 6y ago
How much of a pay cut are you willing to take for your company to furnish you with an office in central New York?
- lordCarbonFiber 6y ago
  That assumes my compensation is already at the upper bound of my cost/benefit axis for the company instead of close to the minimum bound to keep me from looking to advance elsewhere. Better question is how much more would I be looking for to move to a full remote workplace.

pthomas551 6y ago

Maybe this is true if you are stuck with roommates, but given how terrible most open offices are now the bar is pretty low for home to be better. My home office in my small 2br city center apartment has a better monitor than the one at my open office workstation, I can listen to whatever music I want, no BS small talk, and I don't feel like there are eyes on me constantly. Plus, commuting sucks no matter where you live, most city dwellers don't live within walking distance of their offices. I do like the opportunity to socialize w/ coworkers from time to time but 2-3 days/week in office is more than enough for me.

nathan_long 6y ago

> I work at a large tech company on a young team (average age is late twenties). In my experience many don't view working from home regularly as a benefit. I understand that must change drastically when you're middle aged Yes, and there is some correlation between age and seniority. If companies are so eager to hire senior developers, they might consider the preferences of candidates who have been working long enough to fit that description.

pimterry 6y ago

In part, I think some of the young there are on to something. I love working remote now, but one thing remote is bad at is training, especially the intensive training you want at a junior level. I would've had a much harder time learning core work skills (how to do actual work, but also time management, communication, ...) without the super close contact you get in person. Imo, remote is a big perk once you have a couple of years of professional work under your belt, but a real challenge before that point.

ccktlmazeltov 6y ago

I'm one of these people and I want to be able to do both. Work used to be 10min subway from my place, yet I want to be able to stay home when I don't want to be disturbed at work.

kabacha 6y ago

I feel the opposite. It's hard to focus on work with family at home. If your young and single then remote work is a perfect fit.

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massysett 6y ago

I am middle aged, have a family to be around, and a long commute (60 mins morning, 40 mins evening). I have a spacious house and room for a separate office. Yet even I do not like work from home. I don’t like assigning space in my home for my employer’s use. I don’t like having work in my house. It’s probably actually more bearable due to current circumstance-I watch my daughter in mornings, and my wife is here too. If this were normal circumstances and I were here alone all day and connected only through phone and video, I would like this even less. No way I want to keep doing this if I don’t have to. And some of my staff can’t even do phone calls if their roommate has one at the same time because they have small apartments. I don’t even have that problem. Not interested in providing rent-free space to my employer.

fortylove 6y ago
Presumably, your employer could provide a stipend to you for WFH space. Perhaps that would cost them less than a seat for you in a building in a city.

thorwasdfasdf 6y ago

that will quickly change once you have kids/family. also, you'll see things quite differently when faced with the COL of CA.