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I really hope this doesn't become a bigger trend. Shopify was a company I was seriously considering working at in the future, but this would probably disqualify

I really hope this doesn't become a bigger trend. Shopify was a company I was seriously considering working at in the future, but this would probably disqualify them. Working from home once a week sounds great to me, but doing it full time would drive me insane. Virtual meetings are awful for me, and you miss out on so much of the discussion that happens outside of the meeting - I think most of the important discussions I have with people are informal, either walking to or from meetings or just sitting in the office and talking for a few minutes. Communicating over video is also a lot harder for me since you miss out on a lot of the nonverbal cues that come across a lot better (and with lower latency) in person. Outside of just being harder to communicate virtually, I really need the change of scenery and social interaction that comes with an office. Sure you can get that by joining different social groups outside of work, but that requires lots of intentional effort, and I actually enjoy hanging out at work and going to lunch with my coworkers. And the office has lots of perks like snacks and meals which can't be easily replicated at home (I mean I don't mind cooking, but I get much better lunches at work than the sandwich I would make for myself). I can't think of a working situation much better than going to an office where I have all of the food I need, a properly set up workstation, and coworkers I am able to talk to in person and go to lunch/dinner/social activities with. To me that is far better than sitting in my home alone all day (and I don't even have kids, which would be a whole other set of distractions).

Axsuul 6y ago
Just wondering–would you do a 2 hour commute for this?
- GhostVII 6y ago
  No, but I would do a half hour commute for it. For some people I'm sure remote works great, but it's not for me, and I am fine with paying higher rents in order to live close to the office and have a short commute.
- bytematic 6y ago
  Am I the only one who enjoys my commute? To be fair, I bike or take the bus in the winter, but I listen to audiobooks, podcasts, music, and get a good amount of exercise.
  - pmiller2 6y ago
    I tolerate it. BART is hit or miss. Sometimes it's nice, and sometimes it's hella crowded, and there are those assholes who blast their music without headphones. I do like my reading time, though.
  - bespontovy 6y ago
    My commute (used to be) a 20-minute-long walk, and I did enjoy it as well.
  - nucleardog 6y ago
    I certainly don't. The bus I was taking was a double-long that ran every 3 minutes and I'd still end up standing outside in the rain while a half dozen buses went past before I could get on one because they were all full. And once you get on, you're on a bus that's ass-to-crotch packed for an hour. And that's never mind the actual behaviour of the other people on the bus. And this was after I modified my work hours to take the bus during less-peak time. So now I drive. It's about the same time, but in mostly stop and go traffic. I can listen to podcasts and don't have people literally sitting on top of me, but I also have to deal with being constantly hyper-vigilant because (1) people drive like fuckwads and (2) traffic patterns in a lot of places are really screwed up and being in the wrong lane at the wrong time can wind up easily adding 30% to your commute time and (3) the cyclists have this bad habit of trying to weave through moving traffic instead of using the bike lanes and following the traffic signals and then physically assaulting you if you don't notice them and give way.
emerongi 6y ago
It's possible there will be a shift from offices dedicated to a certain company to offices where anyone can pop in. You still get the social experience, although you do lose the ability to have in-person meetings with your actual coworkers. The upside is that people get more freedom.
- eswat 6y ago
  Yup. It's "digital by default" not "digital at all costs". Seems they'll keep their current offices but reformated as spaces for people that really want to work amongst each other physically, instead of expecting the majority of workers to come in every day.
strig 6y ago
I really couldn't disagree more. While I understand the desire to work with your coworkers in person, the benefits of working from home are huge for me. No commuting, which on its own is reason enough for WFH since it's such a massive waste of time. Commuting would add an extra 10 hours to my workweek, and I don't get paid for it. Add in things like control over your own workspace, no "open office" nonsense, access to your own kitchen/bathroom, together all outweighs the benefits of working from the office. The ideal situation for me would be WFH by default, with the option to work from an office if you want to or for specific situations.
- peruvian 6y ago
  Commuting is the big time saver, but you can also do chores you'd relegate to the weekend or after work while WFH. Not always of course, but chores like a quick grocery trip, laundry, cleaning, errands in your immediate neighborhood no longer crowd your weekend.
  - strig 6y ago
    Exactly. Instead of going out for lunch I can pop over to the grocery store for a few things and grab a sandwich while I'm there.
  - danlugo92 6y ago
    This is a recipe for disaster, at least in my experience, chores pile up and before you know it's 4pm and you still short on hours worked/output emitted..
    - peruvian 6y ago
      Not in my experience. I'm not saying disappear from work for 3 hours to clean the whole house. When I'm in the office, I often take breaks - 20-30 mins. Sometimes a longer walk during lunch time. I'm simply doing the same here but instead of being on my phone I'm maybe doing a quick vacuum sweep, trip to the bodega for some hand soap, or dropping off my laundry somewhere. I do have friends that work for companies that expect them to be "online" all the time so this may not work for them.
joelbluminator 6y ago
Different tastes. With all due respect, for every guy like you who doesn't want to work there, there are 10 that do. I understand that remote first doesn't work for everyone, nothing works for everyone.
- GhostVII 6y ago
  Sure, everyone has different preferences, which is why I think it would be ideal to both have a substantial amount of people working in the office full time, and also have a substantial amount of people working remotely full time. From the tweets I have seen, it does not seem like this will be the case at Shopify, since they said "The future of the office is to act as an on-ramp to the same digital workplace that you can access from your #WFH setup."
  - toomuchtodo 6y ago
    Unfortunately, this creates two classes of workers, with in office workers being better politically connected and preferred over remote workers who are treated akin to contractors. I'm biased as a remote worker; I want more orgs going remote so there are more jobs to choose from, and commutes are soul sucking. If you want an office, rent a coworking space near home (with an employer picking up the tab, with a reasonable ~$300-500/month coworking stipend). A local library near me offers one for free, coffee, desk, wifi, printers, and free parking included.
- evgen 6y ago
  You are quite delusional if you think the ratio is 10:1 in favor of WFH. One thing that the recent lockdown and forced WFH experiment has revealed is that while people are strongly in favor of flexibly WFH the ratio is closer to 10:1 against having no office at all.
  - lazerwalker 6y ago
    It's really not fair to describe the current situation as a "forced WFH experiment". We're trying to work and be even remotely productive during an unprecedented global pandemic, and also happen to be working from home.
rsweeney21 6y ago
I couldn't agree more. Remote meetings are useful, but I would quit if my company made it the default. I've done fully remote for a total of 3 years. I found it stifled communication and limited my ability to develop friendships and personal connections with the people I worked with. Even as an introvert that enjoys my alone time, fully remote would be a deal breaker for me.
geodel 6y ago
Well just like Open office plans became trend without anyone asking employees working in them. If permanently working from home or away from office becomes trend it will be only because people who control payments for office real estate decided that way.
foobiekr 6y ago
I agree completely, but wanted to emphasize something regarding: "and you miss out on so much of the discussion that happens outside of the meeting." IMHO, ALL of the chat services make this problem worse, not better. None of them let you easily and fluidly say "I'm interested in this topic for the next few days" or whatever. They hide, rather than render discoverable, important discussions, either (due to GUI structure pushing people to do it) threads moved to 1:1 chats or just lost in the sheer volume of text scroll. The future of UI is bounded attention: "alert me for xxx _for the next { hour, next few days, this week, through next week, this month, for quarter, as long as ..., forever }" attention filtering. UI right now assumes that the doesn't change and that users actively correct it. But we aren't even at the point where that basic level of automation even exists.
kkcorps 6y ago
I would happily trade-off all the benefits you mentioned for not spending 2 hours daily in commute.
bytematic 6y ago
Yeah, I concentrate a lot better at an office. I hate being in my home all day every day. The little distractions are what make me love a job, some of my best memories are the random interactions and happenings with my coworkers
cmrdporcupine 6y ago
I too am not enjoying the 100% WFH right now. BUT I want the flexibility to WFH 3/5 days a week. I don't mind living within an hour and a half commute, and coming in 2 days a week. Going every day... painful. In theory I could WFH before, but as things weren't really set up for that, I only did it once a week if that. So in that regard, I welcome this kind of thing. If companies can work out the logistics.
- rainyMammoth 6y ago
  The issue I see here is that because of that one day per week you will need to still be in commuting distance from the office which limits where you could live and increases your cost of living dramatically. In other words the company saves on office spaces but you still need to pay a premium to have an office at home. Going full remote with trips to the office once per quarter for example allows you to live wherever you want. That's the way I see this working well in other companies. Remote first and once per quarter everyone gets together for a couple days.
dwild 6y ago
I got a new job right before the pandemic, with a big enough prior notice that pushed my first day into the pandemic. It may be related to the fact that the company I now work for wasn't doing any remote work before, but it now feels so impersonal working. In an office I can easily chit chat, get to know my coworkers, but remotely it seems so hard. I could see it happening more easily in the kind of place that has a casual channel on Slack, but most workplace doesn't push that kind of things. I may try to push some kind of virtual 5@7. I would personally trust Shopify to do it right, to allow that kind of social interaction remotely.
gideon_b 6y ago
The people who like to work in offices will still work in offices. There will be more of them, they will be smaller, and they will be wherever their employees want to live. Some will be official, and some will be coworking spaces.

Axsuul 6y ago

Just wondering–would you do a 2 hour commute for this?

GhostVII 6y ago
No, but I would do a half hour commute for it. For some people I'm sure remote works great, but it's not for me, and I am fine with paying higher rents in order to live close to the office and have a short commute.
bytematic 6y ago
Am I the only one who enjoys my commute? To be fair, I bike or take the bus in the winter, but I listen to audiobooks, podcasts, music, and get a good amount of exercise.
- pmiller2 6y ago
  I tolerate it. BART is hit or miss. Sometimes it's nice, and sometimes it's hella crowded, and there are those assholes who blast their music without headphones. I do like my reading time, though.
- bespontovy 6y ago
  My commute (used to be) a 20-minute-long walk, and I did enjoy it as well.
- nucleardog 6y ago
  I certainly don't. The bus I was taking was a double-long that ran every 3 minutes and I'd still end up standing outside in the rain while a half dozen buses went past before I could get on one because they were all full. And once you get on, you're on a bus that's ass-to-crotch packed for an hour. And that's never mind the actual behaviour of the other people on the bus. And this was after I modified my work hours to take the bus during less-peak time. So now I drive. It's about the same time, but in mostly stop and go traffic. I can listen to podcasts and don't have people literally sitting on top of me, but I also have to deal with being constantly hyper-vigilant because (1) people drive like fuckwads and (2) traffic patterns in a lot of places are really screwed up and being in the wrong lane at the wrong time can wind up easily adding 30% to your commute time and (3) the cyclists have this bad habit of trying to weave through moving traffic instead of using the bike lanes and following the traffic signals and then physically assaulting you if you don't notice them and give way.

emerongi 6y ago

It's possible there will be a shift from offices dedicated to a certain company to offices where anyone can pop in. You still get the social experience, although you do lose the ability to have in-person meetings with your actual coworkers. The upside is that people get more freedom.

eswat 6y ago
Yup. It's "digital by default" not "digital at all costs". Seems they'll keep their current offices but reformated as spaces for people that really want to work amongst each other physically, instead of expecting the majority of workers to come in every day.

strig 6y ago

I really couldn't disagree more. While I understand the desire to work with your coworkers in person, the benefits of working from home are huge for me. No commuting, which on its own is reason enough for WFH since it's such a massive waste of time. Commuting would add an extra 10 hours to my workweek, and I don't get paid for it. Add in things like control over your own workspace, no "open office" nonsense, access to your own kitchen/bathroom, together all outweighs the benefits of working from the office. The ideal situation for me would be WFH by default, with the option to work from an office if you want to or for specific situations.

peruvian 6y ago
Commuting is the big time saver, but you can also do chores you'd relegate to the weekend or after work while WFH. Not always of course, but chores like a quick grocery trip, laundry, cleaning, errands in your immediate neighborhood no longer crowd your weekend.
- strig 6y ago
  Exactly. Instead of going out for lunch I can pop over to the grocery store for a few things and grab a sandwich while I'm there.
- danlugo92 6y ago
  This is a recipe for disaster, at least in my experience, chores pile up and before you know it's 4pm and you still short on hours worked/output emitted..
  - peruvian 6y ago
    Not in my experience. I'm not saying disappear from work for 3 hours to clean the whole house. When I'm in the office, I often take breaks - 20-30 mins. Sometimes a longer walk during lunch time. I'm simply doing the same here but instead of being on my phone I'm maybe doing a quick vacuum sweep, trip to the bodega for some hand soap, or dropping off my laundry somewhere. I do have friends that work for companies that expect them to be "online" all the time so this may not work for them.

joelbluminator 6y ago

Different tastes. With all due respect, for every guy like you who doesn't want to work there, there are 10 that do. I understand that remote first doesn't work for everyone, nothing works for everyone.

GhostVII 6y ago
Sure, everyone has different preferences, which is why I think it would be ideal to both have a substantial amount of people working in the office full time, and also have a substantial amount of people working remotely full time. From the tweets I have seen, it does not seem like this will be the case at Shopify, since they said "The future of the office is to act as an on-ramp to the same digital workplace that you can access from your #WFH setup."
- toomuchtodo 6y ago
  Unfortunately, this creates two classes of workers, with in office workers being better politically connected and preferred over remote workers who are treated akin to contractors. I'm biased as a remote worker; I want more orgs going remote so there are more jobs to choose from, and commutes are soul sucking. If you want an office, rent a coworking space near home (with an employer picking up the tab, with a reasonable ~$300-500/month coworking stipend). A local library near me offers one for free, coffee, desk, wifi, printers, and free parking included.
evgen 6y ago
You are quite delusional if you think the ratio is 10:1 in favor of WFH. One thing that the recent lockdown and forced WFH experiment has revealed is that while people are strongly in favor of flexibly WFH the ratio is closer to 10:1 against having no office at all.
- lazerwalker 6y ago
  It's really not fair to describe the current situation as a "forced WFH experiment". We're trying to work and be even remotely productive during an unprecedented global pandemic, and also happen to be working from home.

rsweeney21 6y ago

I couldn't agree more. Remote meetings are useful, but I would quit if my company made it the default. I've done fully remote for a total of 3 years. I found it stifled communication and limited my ability to develop friendships and personal connections with the people I worked with. Even as an introvert that enjoys my alone time, fully remote would be a deal breaker for me.

geodel 6y ago

Well just like Open office plans became trend without anyone asking employees working in them. If permanently working from home or away from office becomes trend it will be only because people who control payments for office real estate decided that way.

foobiekr 6y ago

I agree completely, but wanted to emphasize something regarding: "and you miss out on so much of the discussion that happens outside of the meeting." IMHO, ALL of the chat services make this problem worse, not better. None of them let you easily and fluidly say "I'm interested in this topic for the next few days" or whatever. They hide, rather than render discoverable, important discussions, either (due to GUI structure pushing people to do it) threads moved to 1:1 chats or just lost in the sheer volume of text scroll. The future of UI is bounded attention: "alert me for xxx _for the next { hour, next few days, this week, through next week, this month, for quarter, as long as ..., forever }" attention filtering. UI right now assumes that the doesn't change and that users actively correct it. But we aren't even at the point where that basic level of automation even exists.

kkcorps 6y ago

I would happily trade-off all the benefits you mentioned for not spending 2 hours daily in commute.

bytematic 6y ago

Yeah, I concentrate a lot better at an office. I hate being in my home all day every day. The little distractions are what make me love a job, some of my best memories are the random interactions and happenings with my coworkers

cmrdporcupine 6y ago

I too am not enjoying the 100% WFH right now. BUT I want the flexibility to WFH 3/5 days a week. I don't mind living within an hour and a half commute, and coming in 2 days a week. Going every day... painful. In theory I could WFH before, but as things weren't really set up for that, I only did it once a week if that. So in that regard, I welcome this kind of thing. If companies can work out the logistics.

rainyMammoth 6y ago
The issue I see here is that because of that one day per week you will need to still be in commuting distance from the office which limits where you could live and increases your cost of living dramatically. In other words the company saves on office spaces but you still need to pay a premium to have an office at home. Going full remote with trips to the office once per quarter for example allows you to live wherever you want. That's the way I see this working well in other companies. Remote first and once per quarter everyone gets together for a couple days.

dwild 6y ago

I got a new job right before the pandemic, with a big enough prior notice that pushed my first day into the pandemic. It may be related to the fact that the company I now work for wasn't doing any remote work before, but it now feels so impersonal working. In an office I can easily chit chat, get to know my coworkers, but remotely it seems so hard. I could see it happening more easily in the kind of place that has a casual channel on Slack, but most workplace doesn't push that kind of things. I may try to push some kind of virtual 5@7. I would personally trust Shopify to do it right, to allow that kind of social interaction remotely.

gideon_b 6y ago

The people who like to work in offices will still work in offices. There will be more of them, they will be smaller, and they will be wherever their employees want to live. Some will be official, and some will be coworking spaces.