4 ms·

1. communication and collaboration is just much harder work remote: you are probably used to an office culture where communication happens in person and nothin

1. communication and collaboration is just much harder work remote: you are probably used to an office culture where communication happens in person and nothing is ever documented. That's understandable. in a remote culture, the written world rules, communication would be much better (asynchronous, no more pointless meetings) 2. Work was already flexible enough such that if you wanted to WFH you could: could you WFH permanently or 99% of the days in a year? 3. the meals and snacks -> if you can't cook, now is a good time to learn. save money 4. Many people who work at these companies live in big cities where they don't have huge amounts of space -> in a normal period of time, you could just relocate to somewhere better. We are not doing normal WFH 5. Those of you who are claiming this will be some form of revolution I think are naive -> I agree but I also think that you are naive if you think remote working is not superior for information workers 6. If you need an office anyway you don't really save anything -> Wrong. Water, electricity, internet, coffee, amenities, cleaning equipment, toiletries, cleaning services. And of course, the office itself. For workers: they get absolute freedom to shape their home space as they see fit. Oh and the MOST important time, you save everyone their commute (which will get you well rested employees). 7. I just don't think a company with 50,000+ employees: do you HAVE to join a 50k company?

borski 6y ago
Re: “move somewhere better”; this is a flawed argument I’ve seen repeated a bunch. Some people just like where they live and don’t want to move to a bigger place. Bigger does not necessarily mean better. Cities provide more options for entertainment, more people to socially interact with, more unique opportunities (by the draw of the city population for these opportunities), etc. “Move somewhere better” is naive, because where they live isn’t necessarily bad; just may not be conducive to full-time remote work.
- pmiller2 6y ago
  I agree, but my counterpoint would be this: I like having _access_ to the Bay Area, but I don't like how much it costs to live somewhere accessible to SF. If I could live somewhere a little further out to save money, but still be able to visit the City and other places when I wanted or needed, that would be theoretically ideal for me. In practical terms, I'll let you know after I get a chance to try it out. ;-)
oblio 6y ago
Not OP, but: 1. Ok. 2. I leave that to OP to answer. 3. What if I don't like cooking and can afford to eat out? 4. What's better? Maybe I like living in a big city. Not everyone wants a house with a backyard. 5. We shall see. "Information workers" like to think they're superior to everyone else but people are ultimately social. Work is social. Companies build stuff by having people collaborate and so far there's no collaboration better than face-to-face. That's how you break down silos, for example, in many cases. 6. That's assuming that the company redirects the money they pay on offices to help employees pay for their home offices. I really doubt that. 7. Big companies pay better. Big companies have big projects small companies can't even dream of. There are many reasons to join a big company.

borski 6y ago

Re: “move somewhere better”; this is a flawed argument I’ve seen repeated a bunch. Some people just like where they live and don’t want to move to a bigger place. Bigger does not necessarily mean better. Cities provide more options for entertainment, more people to socially interact with, more unique opportunities (by the draw of the city population for these opportunities), etc. “Move somewhere better” is naive, because where they live isn’t necessarily bad; just may not be conducive to full-time remote work.

pmiller2 6y ago
I agree, but my counterpoint would be this: I like having _access_ to the Bay Area, but I don't like how much it costs to live somewhere accessible to SF. If I could live somewhere a little further out to save money, but still be able to visit the City and other places when I wanted or needed, that would be theoretically ideal for me. In practical terms, I'll let you know after I get a chance to try it out. ;-)

oblio 6y ago

Not OP, but: 1. Ok. 2. I leave that to OP to answer. 3. What if I don't like cooking and can afford to eat out? 4. What's better? Maybe I like living in a big city. Not everyone wants a house with a backyard. 5. We shall see. "Information workers" like to think they're superior to everyone else but people are ultimately social. Work is social. Companies build stuff by having people collaborate and so far there's no collaboration better than face-to-face. That's how you break down silos, for example, in many cases. 6. That's assuming that the company redirects the money they pay on offices to help employees pay for their home offices. I really doubt that. 7. Big companies pay better. Big companies have big projects small companies can't even dream of. There are many reasons to join a big company.