4 ms·

Working remote just makes so much more sense. My old routine was - get up, have some coffee, start dreading the one hour commute, then do the one hour commute,

by rcurry 6y ago

Working remote just makes so much more sense. My old routine was - get up, have some coffee, start dreading the one hour commute, then do the one hour commute, then get to work and spend an hour decompressing from the one hour commute... now it’s get up, pour a cup of coffee, start enjoying working on stuff in my bathrobe. And the coffee is way better than what the office was paying for :-)

Lammy 6y ago
I'm sure we'll all come to love the new routine — get up, have some coffee, work until you go to sleep. Even if you personally are capable of enforcing work/life separation there's zero chance an entire company will when so many people already fear the Performance Review looming over their head.
- whateveracct 6y ago
  That's just not gonna happen. I currently work remotely as a software engineer at a BigCo (not a tech company) and the company policy has consistently been to great weekend work & long hours as a team & company failure. I just don't see an every-waking-hour workday dystopia ever happening if the industry goes more remote.
  - Lammy 6y ago
    > not a tech company I think this may be the key. I work in-person in a Tech BigCo main office, and emails/chat/posts/pings are already a constant on any night or weekend. I don't know how it would be possible to avoid when we work with teams on every continent — some external so their working hours are non-negotiable. It's cool if you can be a good enough performer to disconnect at 5PM and never contribute to the problem by reading or responding. Some people have to—or think they have to—do that show of "putting in extra effort" to make it by their next performance review.
  - nathanlied 6y ago
    And even if someone consistently cannot separate work from home life - 'traditional' employment will not vanish. Many companies will have zero WFH (or very little), while others will have a gradient between full-office worker and full-WFH. I'm a "WFH Apologist", really, but I'll readily admit it's not for everyone. Many people genuinely like in-person socialisation at the office, others can't separate 'work' from 'home life', and we could go on forever on potential issues. Which is why no one will ever see me advocate for all tech companies to go as remote as possible normally - that would exclude a pretty wide pool of potential candidates.
- swiley 6y ago
  Where I work there are one or two people that are online outside of normal hours (usually managers who already didn’t have great work life balance) most people seem to be pretty good. Also, as someone who’s worked remotely before: working longer does not mean more work done!!! in fact I think I can safely say you’ll get less done if you start working more than ~7 hours a day because then your workspace and relaxing space start mixing together (and your brain will force you to relax sometimes.)
  - Lammy 6y ago
    I totally agree that working longer does not mean more work gets done. The people I'd need to convince are the hundreds of scared lower-level engineers who have a to earn a promotion within two years or probably get fired.

by rcurry 6y ago

Lammy 6y ago

I'm sure we'll all come to love the new routine — get up, have some coffee, work until you go to sleep. Even if you personally are capable of enforcing work/life separation there's zero chance an entire company will when so many people already fear the Performance Review looming over their head.

whateveracct 6y ago
That's just not gonna happen. I currently work remotely as a software engineer at a BigCo (not a tech company) and the company policy has consistently been to great weekend work & long hours as a team & company failure. I just don't see an every-waking-hour workday dystopia ever happening if the industry goes more remote.
- Lammy 6y ago
  > not a tech company I think this may be the key. I work in-person in a Tech BigCo main office, and emails/chat/posts/pings are already a constant on any night or weekend. I don't know how it would be possible to avoid when we work with teams on every continent — some external so their working hours are non-negotiable. It's cool if you can be a good enough performer to disconnect at 5PM and never contribute to the problem by reading or responding. Some people have to—or think they have to—do that show of "putting in extra effort" to make it by their next performance review.
- nathanlied 6y ago
  And even if someone consistently cannot separate work from home life - 'traditional' employment will not vanish. Many companies will have zero WFH (or very little), while others will have a gradient between full-office worker and full-WFH. I'm a "WFH Apologist", really, but I'll readily admit it's not for everyone. Many people genuinely like in-person socialisation at the office, others can't separate 'work' from 'home life', and we could go on forever on potential issues. Which is why no one will ever see me advocate for all tech companies to go as remote as possible normally - that would exclude a pretty wide pool of potential candidates.
swiley 6y ago
Where I work there are one or two people that are online outside of normal hours (usually managers who already didn’t have great work life balance) most people seem to be pretty good. Also, as someone who’s worked remotely before: working longer does not mean more work done!!! in fact I think I can safely say you’ll get less done if you start working more than ~7 hours a day because then your workspace and relaxing space start mixing together (and your brain will force you to relax sometimes.)
- Lammy 6y ago
  I totally agree that working longer does not mean more work gets done. The people I'd need to convince are the hundreds of scared lower-level engineers who have a to earn a promotion within two years or probably get fired.