9 ms·

Work from home is dead, long live work from anywhere

86 points by joeyespo 6y ago

Traster 6y ago
>My colleagues and I published a couple of different views on the future of “work from home” and remote work last Friday — a story that, if analytics is any sign, really struck a nerve with many of you. This has become like Donald Trump or Tesla. Article after article that adds practically nothing on value because the headline drives clicks. This is just yet another "Now we can do anything because I'm a tech journalist, not someone who has spent 10 seconds thinking about any of the implications of what I'm saying*.
- zaptheimpaler 6y ago
  But it all contributes to the "global conversation" lmao
- ErikAugust 6y ago
  I think this is a valid point. Analytics cause a terrible feedback loop where authors just beat a topic to death with quick keyword-laden opinion articles for clicks. A topic that could use seriously exploration like "Work From Home" often just becomes some sort of meme to exploit.
Grustaf 6y ago
Pretty sure work from home always meant work from anywhere.
- clarry 6y ago
  Not really if your office is full of hardware.
  - SketchySeaBeast 6y ago
    That's one thing that blows my mind - how are people productive sitting in a coffee shop typing away on a 15" dell? I don't know how effective I'd be with only one monitor and a trackpad.
    - uncheckederror 6y ago
      Yeah, my productivity would take a hit if I didn't have a quiet space and a good monitor setup. I've always assumed that coffee shops were more for meeting people than actually getting work done.
      - themarkn 6y ago
        I have a very different experience. I’ve often found sitting in a coffee shop helps things click and helps me get into a flow when doing development. It’s the right level of background noise for me and the little bit of public observation helps me get less distracted. A few hours of focused work can go by in a flash. When I worked in an open office I would sometimes spend an hour or two at the coffee shop knocking out some development tasks so that a big chunk of my days work was done, then when in the office I could focus more on collaboration, helping others, socializing a bit, without the big struggle to regain focus after the natural interruptions that happen at work.
    - the_svd_doctor 6y ago
      Maybe for some people, having other people around means they're somehow more happy/fulfilled/something like that, and that increases their productivity more than the poor setup decreases it.
    - aripickar 6y ago
      I normally have a 42” widescreen monitor at my office, but I still use the laptop keyboard and trackpad under it. Using the laptop alone isn’t that different
      - SketchySeaBeast 6y ago
        It would be for me. I am constantly handling looking at reference material and it's easier to turn my head than alt-tab, but I suppose that's a learned skill, same as changing out a trackpad for a mouse.
- Scarblac 6y ago
  Except right now, when all my favourite working places are closed because of the virus...
- bretpiatt 6y ago
  As an employer anywhere makes it real complicated. Many jurisdictions have a tax on wages earned while there, couple of big examples CA, NY and then even NYC on city income tax. If you choose to work in NYC as an employer I'm obligated to collect and remit tax there. For individuals or on a one off basis this doesn't get tracked or audited much. If it became systematic it would. This doesn't even contemplate the complexity if you choose to work from a different country. As an employer if I allow you to change your permanent address to France am I bound to manage your employment under French labor law? IANAL but I believe I am. What if I knowingly allow you to work from a country where you keep your permanent address in the US and you are on a vacation visa instead of one where work is permitted. As a business am I obligated to report or am I running the risk of penalties from that country too? Anywhere is really complicated.
  - jbn 6y ago
    w.r.t ". As an employer if I allow you to change your permanent address to France am I bound to manage your employment under French labor law?", IANAL either, but I know for a fact that this is the case. The tax man wants his cut, so the employer would have to establish a (subsidiary) company in France, and that becomes the local employer. There's absolutely no way you could be an employee (in the French labor law sense, which is very specific) of any foreign company while working in France (that would be "clandestine labor", see https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travail_dissimul%C3%A9_en_France https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travail_dissimul%C3%A9_en_Fran...). It's not specific to France, either. All countries need their tax base (well not just taxation, there's also retirement/joblessness/healthcare contributions, etc...).
- asdff 6y ago
  unless your equipment is a workstation that weighs 20 lbs all together on the cart and requires plugging in a dozen wires to move it more than three feet
rconti 6y ago
My long term dream has been to live overseas with my wife for a couple of years. Preferably continental europe for travel opportunities. But, she has to work at an english-speaking hospital that will accept her credentials. Other options are sabbaticals, early retirement, whatever. Not many complicating factors other than a house (can rent that out), and our cats. We generally take 1-2 international vacations per year, so my middle-term dream it to tack on work remote to that. Fly to a country, rent an AirBnB, work remote for a week or two, have my wife join me, then do another couple weeks there as a vacation. So I can double my time away without burning through my PTO in no time flat.
- ineedasername 6y ago
  I mean, there's a potential solution here, but I guess it would be a little awkward for you to work from a miscellaneous country while your wife still commuted to the same hospital from your local home.
- mikekchar 6y ago
  I've done this kind of thing. It's OK, but actually significantly less fun than you might imagine (if you are working). The problem is that you are working all day 5 days a week and then you are tired during the evening. Everything is new and so you don't have a rhythm going so it's a bit tiring. You get your weekends, but again, it flies by pretty quickly. It's also really tempting not to travel on the weekends because you are tired and then you finish up your time and discover that you haven't done a quarter of the things you wanted to. My biggest piece of advice is to "practice" first where you live. Empty your refrigerator and pantry. Work during the day and have the adventure of finding food by only going to ethnic supermarkets that you have never been to before. Go out to only restaurants that you've never been to before. Etc, etc. On the weekends, travel -- even if only to the next town over. Don't use your car. Take a bus, train or whatever. Stay over night. Go hiking. Talk to the locals, etc, etc. Don't stay home. If you get good at it and you can maintain your energy it will help you a lot when you travel and work. Before Covid, my wife and I would sometimes hop on a train on a Friday (we live in Japan). I would actually work on the train and then I would finish the day in a hotel. Then we would spend Saturday doing tourist things and come home on the Sunday. That worked pretty well for me. But there is no rest! Also, if you want to work while traveling somewhere (in a car if your wife is driving, on a bus, train, etc) I recommend taking the day off and trying it before you try to do it on a real work day. It's actually quite difficult and requires some setup to get everything working well (good internet connection, setup of a laptop so you can work in a tight space, bright windows shining on your screen, dealing with batteries, etc, etc). Oddly, I'm super productive in some weird spaces: the shinkansen (bullet train), MacDonald's, highway bus, hotel room, car (when I'm charging it -- electric car), sitting outside in summer in the shade at a Shinto Shrine. But I am completely unproductive in others: airport, airplane (can't open the laptop fully!), car (when it is moving), the beach (too bright and there is sand everywhere).
blarglechien 6y ago
I can work remotely since years, I often did. I work for a company with a few offices, none is less than 500 miles aways from where I live. I will likely never go back to those office. But I could not picture myself working "on the road". I did it, it's stressful and leads to less productivity on my side. Have you try an intense and involve pair programing session from a 'normal' coffee shop? It's frustrating. Noises, and lack of secondary monitors make it so. Pretty often, I would have a week or two where I work from somewhere else, but I secure the place in advance , the network connection, and try to work it out with my co-workers if it's imply separate timezone. ( yay for daily stand up at 4AM ! ) I did work from a van from a few weeks. I was actually not working, mostly reacting. ( taking meeting, working on tickets as they are assigned to me... but never taking a deep breath and looking at how makes things better on the long run. ) Edit : my english is broken
- bitL 6y ago
  Change places regularly and rent an apartment one month at a time so that you have some stability for work. AirBnB used to be great for that.
- ganstyles 6y ago
  I've had this same experience, but a perspective from not necessarily working from coffee shops but places like airbnbs. Mostly it's awful and stressful like you mention. Many airbnbs don't have great internet or a comfortable desk to work at. I've had nothing but issues with Airbnb wifi even when the host has, literally, told me things like "we have solid fiber internet 1gbps" after confirming specifically and laying out my use case. My house has a legit 800kbps down over wifi, which speeds up development and increases reliability of connections significantly. I really need a home base with reliable internet and a comfortable spot to work. I have never been able to find this at all on the road, and certainly not consistently.
- WWLink 6y ago
  I could probably count on my hands the number of times I've pair programmed in the last 6 years. I've only ever really used it when triaging a problem. And even then we're usually doing it at our own computers while communicating every now and then.
christiansakai 6y ago
What if the country has sanctions?
ineedasername 6y ago
> from a hotel It always frustrated me that, prior to this whole shutdown, my workplace had a hard "no work from home" policy. But when I had to travel, they were perfectly fine with me working from my hotel room.
- manquer 6y ago
  It was never about security or productivity of the team per se. It was always to do with HR's concerns about the policy being used as workaround for taking unpaid leave - not saying it is right, just how it is. When you are travelling personally - you are already on leave HR don't care whether work happens or not ( your manager might). If it was official travel then in HR's mind you are not using the policy for as a paid leave so they don't care.
  - ineedasername 6y ago
    As a work around for taking unpaid leave-- I see no reason to deny someone pay because they ran out of sick time if they're able to be productive from home.
  - ravenstine 6y ago
    As if it should even matter! (I'm not saying you're wrong, just that the viewpoint you describe is ridiculous and archaic.) If a business can't measure its productivity absent the employees in the office, then it's not a real business. Now a business owner might think "Hey, I paid for those hours, so if they aren't working every minute of every work hour, I'm losing money!" That might make sense in a "production heavy" environment, like factory labor, construction, fire fighting, etc., but there is a growing number of businesses that can operate asynchronously, and existing businesses should still consider shifting towards asynchronicity because, as much as it might seem more expensive on the surface, said businesses can already operate at lower base overhead, and even if an employee takes hours off their day to travel, run errands, etc., you're still usually paying them a base salary to get X work done by Y deadline. Being worried about an employee "not working" for part of the day because they work remotely is nonsensical for office type jobs where employees tend to work solitarily.
jcfrei 6y ago
Kinda sounds like the vision Adam Neumann had for WeWork.
- ineedasername 6y ago
  Only, you know, without the need for WeWork.
tensor 6y ago
This article misses the fact that there are IP and HR legalities about where work is done. It's not that companies are simply being mean, their hands are often tied on these matters. Changing countries, or working abroad, can affect numerous things including taxes, employee rights, medical benefits, and ip assignments. Even working from different states can have tax implications.
- Kye 6y ago
  Remote-first companies seem to have an edge here since they can handle these situations as they come without a whole structure in the way that assumes everyone works in an office.
  - tensor 6y ago
    Even remote-first companies have limits on where they hire. Usually they hire in a given number of countries for example, but not all countries. Also, when you move countries in these companies you still need to get approval so that the legalities can be taken care of.
    - p_l 6y ago
      Depends on how employment is done. If the company accepts B2B-style contracting, it's quite common for the only issue to be "ok, what timezone you're going to be in?"
odyssey7 6y ago
Correct me if I'm wrong on this. I'm under the impression that if I pay WeWork to be able to work at their tables and drink their coffee, that's tax-deductible and a business expense. But if I buy drinks at a coffee shop to work there, it isn't? [1] This is something that doesn't make a lot of sense to me, as coffee shops are sort of a classic place for a freelancer to find space away from home to focus better. [1] https://www.sapling.com/40999/6-surprising-tax-deductions-for-freelancers https://www.sapling.com/40999/6-surprising-tax-deductions-fo...
- mikekchar 6y ago
  What is allowable as a deduction for taxes is not really based on logic or fairness. We don't have King Solomon sitting there adjudicating what is the reasonable course of action. There are just coarse rules. I'm in Japan, so my rules are likely different than yours. However, if I'm traveling for work, I can expense the cost of a place to work (including a cafe). In fact, my accountant demands it because if the government doesn't see some expenses when I travel, they start to get suspicious that I didn't travel at all. However, if I travel for my own benefit (even down to the corner coffee shop), then it is a personal expense. I can expense it if it is a monthly cost (and hence a necessary business expense of providing a place to work), but not a one-off case (a personal expense because I'm bored of where I'm working). There is (or was -- I haven't checked recently) a cafe in one of the neighbouring towns to me that rents tables by the month for exactly this reason. It's very affordable, because the tables are hot-swappable and they over-subscribe. Before Covid-19 I used to go to me mother in law's for a week ever month or so. I used to work in the hot spring. It's quite cheap: about $10 for the whole day. They have tables and chairs and power and a cafe (terrible, though -- one of the only really bad restaurants I've ever found in Japan). Plus I get to soak in the hot spring a couple of times during the day to relax. I bought a month's worth of tickets in the hope that I could convince my accountant to consider it an expense, but he said it was a no go. Still, it's totally worth it (as long as you can manage working in a very chaotic and noisy environment -- I have no problem with that, personally).
  - em-bee 6y ago
    so you need that coffee subscription
kerng 6y ago
Biggest challenge might be keeping track of locations to pay taxes accordingly
deleted 6y ago
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aSplash0fDerp 6y ago
WFA just needs a cute mascot. https://m.youtube.com/results?search_query=Kei+RV https://m.youtube.com/results?search_query=Kei+RV Without a portable office, WFA is a tough sell. With it, it`s common sense.
zests 6y ago
Working from home, and more importantly the increased likelihood of having a remote position in the future, has inspired me to eventually take on the life of a digital nomad. I want to travel the United States seeing and living in as many places as possible. Unlike several people posting here I wouldn’t mind working out of coffee shops or with just a laptop. I see opportunity for adventure while I am still young. I don’t mind the squalor of living out of my car and showering in gyms if it means I get to experience more from life. What’s the catch? I have no idea what this lifestyle would actually bring. If anyone knows what it is like please share your experiences.
- technothrasher 6y ago
  I have no idea what this lifestyle would actually bring. If anyone knows what it is like please share your experiences. https://www.amazon.com/Road-Jack-Kerouac/dp/0140283293 https://www.amazon.com/Road-Jack-Kerouac/dp/0140283293
  - xyzwave 6y ago
    The only people for me are the mad ones...
  - selimthegrim 6y ago
    Or for a slightly more positive take on the South than that book https://www.amazon.com/Walk-Across-America-Peter-Jenkins/dp/006095955X https://www.amazon.com/Walk-Across-America-Peter-Jenkins/dp/...
- mikekchar 6y ago
  Focussing and getting your work done is virtually impossible if you are travelling every day. It's just too tiring, and everyone needs a little routine in their day. I'm probably as much as a digital nomad as anyone (I usually travel 1 week out of 4 and work on the road a lot), but I limit myself to mostly going to places I already know well and where I can plan my day. The company where I work used to be fairly OK with people going off for 6 months at a time and doing a travel work thing. Almost without exception, the person travelling did not do a good job at work at all. I have one colleague who was quite successful at it, but he always worked that way (I don't think he even has a desk at home -- he just works in random places every day). But he also works probably 12 hours a day and at really strange times. So if he can't get good internet access somewhere, or he runs out of batteries, or if he has to move somewhere, he's completely used to it. If you seriously want to do it, I recommend living that lifestyle for a couple of years without traveling so that you get really good at it. Then add the traveling. Most of the people I know who have done this have really enjoyed the traveling but would not couple it with work again. It's really putting your life in hard mode.
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outlace 6y ago
It seems the preference to work from home is pretty strong amongst software engineers. As a physician who was thrust into trying telemedicine, I couldn’t stand it. I would never voluntarily opt to do telemedicine. Besides delivering much worse care, I love being “in the office” with the camaraderie of being physically at work.
- petra 6y ago
  If given private rooms, and not cubicles, i bet many programmers won't mind going into the office that much.
  - jedberg 6y ago
    I still have to get dressed and drive there.
  - whateveracct 6y ago
    Why spend 8 office hrs + commute when I can spend half that working from home? That's an absurd amount of wasted hours that I can now reap.
hirundo 6y ago
VR is approaching a threshold that I hope will make work-from-anywhere more practical for me. I've tried working on the road but never get near my home productivity. But if I could isolate by plopping on a headset that reproduces my home environment with umpteen floating screens it might work. I know just one dev that works inside of VR. With a bit more resolution and portability I'll probably join him.
- wayoutthere 6y ago
  I can't handle more than an hour at a time inside a VR headset before I start to go cross-eyed. I couldn't imagine trying to work that way.
ulisesrmzroche 6y ago
Who writes this shit? No one expects you to work from the hospital waiting room while your mother is in an ICU.
jedberg 6y ago
"But what about the taxes and legal issues?" There are a bunch of comments in here about that. And it's true, it's a huge pain in the ass. It's why I always prefer to hire people in states I'm already operating, to say nothing of people outside the US. But I also see improvements every year. My payroll provider takes care of more of these issues each year, and there are other startups coming up that help you take care of these things as well. There are companies out there that will deal with everything for you. You pick the person you want and then that company "hires" them and then rents them back out to you, taking a small piece of their salary for their HR services. If work from everywhere becomes pervasive, I suspect two things will happen. One, a bunch of companies will spring up to streamline the process, and two, the big companies with lobbying powers will lobby for tax code and IP law changes to streamline the process.
- cmdshiftf4 6y ago
  >the big companies with lobbying powers will lobby for tax code and IP law changes to streamline the process. There is literally no benefit to a given state, or country, to make it easier for jobs to leave their borders. If we see a larger push by tech firms to let people work remotely, I personally believe we'll see government intervention in the name of the above. I also believe that, in the face of such a push, tech workers should seriously consider unionizing.
  - jedberg 6y ago
    > There is literally no benefit to a given state, or country, to make it easier for jobs to leave their borders. Of course not. But there is benefit for making it easier for people to live within those borders and pay taxes within those borders while working for a foreign company. What if the states stopped requiring businesses to file taxes on their employee's behalf? What if the feds set up a system where I just report my employee's tax ID and how much they made to the Feds, and then the Feds share that with the states and each entity just sends a bill to the employee or to the business owner? What if the feds pass some laws about autofiling of taxes. I just submit my employee's pay and benefits to a national register, maybe send some default amount of money, and everything else is taken care of for me, and they send me a refund if I overpay or send the employee a bill if I underpay? There are lots of ways to streamline the system without losing tax revenue. Most of them involve making the government responsible for collecting taxes instead of businesses.
winrid 6y ago
Did this when I was 19. Lived in my car and wrote code and got paid for it. That's how I ended up in SV from the east coast. Amazing trip!
growlist 6y ago
The last thing many managers want is a flourishing remote workforce because it highlights said managers' superfluousness.

86 points by joeyespo 6y ago

>My colleagues and I published a couple of different views on the future of “work from home” and remote work last Friday — a story that, if analytics is any sign, really struck a nerve with many of you. This has become like Donald Trump or Tesla. Article after article that adds practically nothing on value because the headline drives clicks. This is just yet another "Now we can do anything because I'm a tech journalist, not someone who has spent 10 seconds thinking about any of the implications of what I'm saying*.

zaptheimpaler 6y ago
But it all contributes to the "global conversation" lmao
ErikAugust 6y ago
I think this is a valid point. Analytics cause a terrible feedback loop where authors just beat a topic to death with quick keyword-laden opinion articles for clicks. A topic that could use seriously exploration like "Work From Home" often just becomes some sort of meme to exploit.

Grustaf 6y ago

Pretty sure work from home always meant work from anywhere.

clarry 6y ago
Not really if your office is full of hardware.
- SketchySeaBeast 6y ago
  That's one thing that blows my mind - how are people productive sitting in a coffee shop typing away on a 15" dell? I don't know how effective I'd be with only one monitor and a trackpad.
  - uncheckederror 6y ago
    Yeah, my productivity would take a hit if I didn't have a quiet space and a good monitor setup. I've always assumed that coffee shops were more for meeting people than actually getting work done.
    - themarkn 6y ago
      I have a very different experience. I’ve often found sitting in a coffee shop helps things click and helps me get into a flow when doing development. It’s the right level of background noise for me and the little bit of public observation helps me get less distracted. A few hours of focused work can go by in a flash. When I worked in an open office I would sometimes spend an hour or two at the coffee shop knocking out some development tasks so that a big chunk of my days work was done, then when in the office I could focus more on collaboration, helping others, socializing a bit, without the big struggle to regain focus after the natural interruptions that happen at work.
  - the_svd_doctor 6y ago
    Maybe for some people, having other people around means they're somehow more happy/fulfilled/something like that, and that increases their productivity more than the poor setup decreases it.
  - aripickar 6y ago
    I normally have a 42” widescreen monitor at my office, but I still use the laptop keyboard and trackpad under it. Using the laptop alone isn’t that different
    - SketchySeaBeast 6y ago
      It would be for me. I am constantly handling looking at reference material and it's easier to turn my head than alt-tab, but I suppose that's a learned skill, same as changing out a trackpad for a mouse.
Scarblac 6y ago
Except right now, when all my favourite working places are closed because of the virus...
bretpiatt 6y ago
As an employer anywhere makes it real complicated. Many jurisdictions have a tax on wages earned while there, couple of big examples CA, NY and then even NYC on city income tax. If you choose to work in NYC as an employer I'm obligated to collect and remit tax there. For individuals or on a one off basis this doesn't get tracked or audited much. If it became systematic it would. This doesn't even contemplate the complexity if you choose to work from a different country. As an employer if I allow you to change your permanent address to France am I bound to manage your employment under French labor law? IANAL but I believe I am. What if I knowingly allow you to work from a country where you keep your permanent address in the US and you are on a vacation visa instead of one where work is permitted. As a business am I obligated to report or am I running the risk of penalties from that country too? Anywhere is really complicated.
- jbn 6y ago
  w.r.t ". As an employer if I allow you to change your permanent address to France am I bound to manage your employment under French labor law?", IANAL either, but I know for a fact that this is the case. The tax man wants his cut, so the employer would have to establish a (subsidiary) company in France, and that becomes the local employer. There's absolutely no way you could be an employee (in the French labor law sense, which is very specific) of any foreign company while working in France (that would be "clandestine labor", see https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travail_dissimul%C3%A9_en_France https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travail_dissimul%C3%A9_en_Fran...). It's not specific to France, either. All countries need their tax base (well not just taxation, there's also retirement/joblessness/healthcare contributions, etc...).
asdff 6y ago
unless your equipment is a workstation that weighs 20 lbs all together on the cart and requires plugging in a dozen wires to move it more than three feet

rconti 6y ago

My long term dream has been to live overseas with my wife for a couple of years. Preferably continental europe for travel opportunities. But, she has to work at an english-speaking hospital that will accept her credentials. Other options are sabbaticals, early retirement, whatever. Not many complicating factors other than a house (can rent that out), and our cats. We generally take 1-2 international vacations per year, so my middle-term dream it to tack on work remote to that. Fly to a country, rent an AirBnB, work remote for a week or two, have my wife join me, then do another couple weeks there as a vacation. So I can double my time away without burning through my PTO in no time flat.

ineedasername 6y ago
I mean, there's a potential solution here, but I guess it would be a little awkward for you to work from a miscellaneous country while your wife still commuted to the same hospital from your local home.
mikekchar 6y ago
I've done this kind of thing. It's OK, but actually significantly less fun than you might imagine (if you are working). The problem is that you are working all day 5 days a week and then you are tired during the evening. Everything is new and so you don't have a rhythm going so it's a bit tiring. You get your weekends, but again, it flies by pretty quickly. It's also really tempting not to travel on the weekends because you are tired and then you finish up your time and discover that you haven't done a quarter of the things you wanted to. My biggest piece of advice is to "practice" first where you live. Empty your refrigerator and pantry. Work during the day and have the adventure of finding food by only going to ethnic supermarkets that you have never been to before. Go out to only restaurants that you've never been to before. Etc, etc. On the weekends, travel -- even if only to the next town over. Don't use your car. Take a bus, train or whatever. Stay over night. Go hiking. Talk to the locals, etc, etc. Don't stay home. If you get good at it and you can maintain your energy it will help you a lot when you travel and work. Before Covid, my wife and I would sometimes hop on a train on a Friday (we live in Japan). I would actually work on the train and then I would finish the day in a hotel. Then we would spend Saturday doing tourist things and come home on the Sunday. That worked pretty well for me. But there is no rest! Also, if you want to work while traveling somewhere (in a car if your wife is driving, on a bus, train, etc) I recommend taking the day off and trying it before you try to do it on a real work day. It's actually quite difficult and requires some setup to get everything working well (good internet connection, setup of a laptop so you can work in a tight space, bright windows shining on your screen, dealing with batteries, etc, etc). Oddly, I'm super productive in some weird spaces: the shinkansen (bullet train), MacDonald's, highway bus, hotel room, car (when I'm charging it -- electric car), sitting outside in summer in the shade at a Shinto Shrine. But I am completely unproductive in others: airport, airplane (can't open the laptop fully!), car (when it is moving), the beach (too bright and there is sand everywhere).

blarglechien 6y ago

I can work remotely since years, I often did. I work for a company with a few offices, none is less than 500 miles aways from where I live. I will likely never go back to those office. But I could not picture myself working "on the road". I did it, it's stressful and leads to less productivity on my side. Have you try an intense and involve pair programing session from a 'normal' coffee shop? It's frustrating. Noises, and lack of secondary monitors make it so. Pretty often, I would have a week or two where I work from somewhere else, but I secure the place in advance , the network connection, and try to work it out with my co-workers if it's imply separate timezone. ( yay for daily stand up at 4AM ! ) I did work from a van from a few weeks. I was actually not working, mostly reacting. ( taking meeting, working on tickets as they are assigned to me... but never taking a deep breath and looking at how makes things better on the long run. ) Edit : my english is broken

bitL 6y ago
Change places regularly and rent an apartment one month at a time so that you have some stability for work. AirBnB used to be great for that.
ganstyles 6y ago
I've had this same experience, but a perspective from not necessarily working from coffee shops but places like airbnbs. Mostly it's awful and stressful like you mention. Many airbnbs don't have great internet or a comfortable desk to work at. I've had nothing but issues with Airbnb wifi even when the host has, literally, told me things like "we have solid fiber internet 1gbps" after confirming specifically and laying out my use case. My house has a legit 800kbps down over wifi, which speeds up development and increases reliability of connections significantly. I really need a home base with reliable internet and a comfortable spot to work. I have never been able to find this at all on the road, and certainly not consistently.
WWLink 6y ago
I could probably count on my hands the number of times I've pair programmed in the last 6 years. I've only ever really used it when triaging a problem. And even then we're usually doing it at our own computers while communicating every now and then.

christiansakai 6y ago

What if the country has sanctions?

ineedasername 6y ago

> from a hotel It always frustrated me that, prior to this whole shutdown, my workplace had a hard "no work from home" policy. But when I had to travel, they were perfectly fine with me working from my hotel room.

manquer 6y ago
It was never about security or productivity of the team per se. It was always to do with HR's concerns about the policy being used as workaround for taking unpaid leave - not saying it is right, just how it is. When you are travelling personally - you are already on leave HR don't care whether work happens or not ( your manager might). If it was official travel then in HR's mind you are not using the policy for as a paid leave so they don't care.
- ineedasername 6y ago
  As a work around for taking unpaid leave-- I see no reason to deny someone pay because they ran out of sick time if they're able to be productive from home.
- ravenstine 6y ago
  As if it should even matter! (I'm not saying you're wrong, just that the viewpoint you describe is ridiculous and archaic.) If a business can't measure its productivity absent the employees in the office, then it's not a real business. Now a business owner might think "Hey, I paid for those hours, so if they aren't working every minute of every work hour, I'm losing money!" That might make sense in a "production heavy" environment, like factory labor, construction, fire fighting, etc., but there is a growing number of businesses that can operate asynchronously, and existing businesses should still consider shifting towards asynchronicity because, as much as it might seem more expensive on the surface, said businesses can already operate at lower base overhead, and even if an employee takes hours off their day to travel, run errands, etc., you're still usually paying them a base salary to get X work done by Y deadline. Being worried about an employee "not working" for part of the day because they work remotely is nonsensical for office type jobs where employees tend to work solitarily.

jcfrei 6y ago

Kinda sounds like the vision Adam Neumann had for WeWork.

ineedasername 6y ago
Only, you know, without the need for WeWork.

tensor 6y ago

This article misses the fact that there are IP and HR legalities about where work is done. It's not that companies are simply being mean, their hands are often tied on these matters. Changing countries, or working abroad, can affect numerous things including taxes, employee rights, medical benefits, and ip assignments. Even working from different states can have tax implications.

Kye 6y ago
Remote-first companies seem to have an edge here since they can handle these situations as they come without a whole structure in the way that assumes everyone works in an office.
- tensor 6y ago
  Even remote-first companies have limits on where they hire. Usually they hire in a given number of countries for example, but not all countries. Also, when you move countries in these companies you still need to get approval so that the legalities can be taken care of.
  - p_l 6y ago
    Depends on how employment is done. If the company accepts B2B-style contracting, it's quite common for the only issue to be "ok, what timezone you're going to be in?"

odyssey7 6y ago

Correct me if I'm wrong on this. I'm under the impression that if I pay WeWork to be able to work at their tables and drink their coffee, that's tax-deductible and a business expense. But if I buy drinks at a coffee shop to work there, it isn't? [1] This is something that doesn't make a lot of sense to me, as coffee shops are sort of a classic place for a freelancer to find space away from home to focus better. [1] https://www.sapling.com/40999/6-surprising-tax-deductions-for-freelancers https://www.sapling.com/40999/6-surprising-tax-deductions-fo...

mikekchar 6y ago
What is allowable as a deduction for taxes is not really based on logic or fairness. We don't have King Solomon sitting there adjudicating what is the reasonable course of action. There are just coarse rules. I'm in Japan, so my rules are likely different than yours. However, if I'm traveling for work, I can expense the cost of a place to work (including a cafe). In fact, my accountant demands it because if the government doesn't see some expenses when I travel, they start to get suspicious that I didn't travel at all. However, if I travel for my own benefit (even down to the corner coffee shop), then it is a personal expense. I can expense it if it is a monthly cost (and hence a necessary business expense of providing a place to work), but not a one-off case (a personal expense because I'm bored of where I'm working). There is (or was -- I haven't checked recently) a cafe in one of the neighbouring towns to me that rents tables by the month for exactly this reason. It's very affordable, because the tables are hot-swappable and they over-subscribe. Before Covid-19 I used to go to me mother in law's for a week ever month or so. I used to work in the hot spring. It's quite cheap: about $10 for the whole day. They have tables and chairs and power and a cafe (terrible, though -- one of the only really bad restaurants I've ever found in Japan). Plus I get to soak in the hot spring a couple of times during the day to relax. I bought a month's worth of tickets in the hope that I could convince my accountant to consider it an expense, but he said it was a no go. Still, it's totally worth it (as long as you can manage working in a very chaotic and noisy environment -- I have no problem with that, personally).
- em-bee 6y ago
  so you need that coffee subscription

kerng 6y ago

Biggest challenge might be keeping track of locations to pay taxes accordingly

deleted 6y ago

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aSplash0fDerp 6y ago

WFA just needs a cute mascot. https://m.youtube.com/results?search_query=Kei+RV https://m.youtube.com/results?search_query=Kei+RV Without a portable office, WFA is a tough sell. With it, it`s common sense.

zests 6y ago

Working from home, and more importantly the increased likelihood of having a remote position in the future, has inspired me to eventually take on the life of a digital nomad. I want to travel the United States seeing and living in as many places as possible. Unlike several people posting here I wouldn’t mind working out of coffee shops or with just a laptop. I see opportunity for adventure while I am still young. I don’t mind the squalor of living out of my car and showering in gyms if it means I get to experience more from life. What’s the catch? I have no idea what this lifestyle would actually bring. If anyone knows what it is like please share your experiences.

technothrasher 6y ago
I have no idea what this lifestyle would actually bring. If anyone knows what it is like please share your experiences. https://www.amazon.com/Road-Jack-Kerouac/dp/0140283293 https://www.amazon.com/Road-Jack-Kerouac/dp/0140283293
- xyzwave 6y ago
  The only people for me are the mad ones...
- selimthegrim 6y ago
  Or for a slightly more positive take on the South than that book https://www.amazon.com/Walk-Across-America-Peter-Jenkins/dp/006095955X https://www.amazon.com/Walk-Across-America-Peter-Jenkins/dp/...
mikekchar 6y ago
Focussing and getting your work done is virtually impossible if you are travelling every day. It's just too tiring, and everyone needs a little routine in their day. I'm probably as much as a digital nomad as anyone (I usually travel 1 week out of 4 and work on the road a lot), but I limit myself to mostly going to places I already know well and where I can plan my day. The company where I work used to be fairly OK with people going off for 6 months at a time and doing a travel work thing. Almost without exception, the person travelling did not do a good job at work at all. I have one colleague who was quite successful at it, but he always worked that way (I don't think he even has a desk at home -- he just works in random places every day). But he also works probably 12 hours a day and at really strange times. So if he can't get good internet access somewhere, or he runs out of batteries, or if he has to move somewhere, he's completely used to it. If you seriously want to do it, I recommend living that lifestyle for a couple of years without traveling so that you get really good at it. Then add the traveling. Most of the people I know who have done this have really enjoyed the traveling but would not couple it with work again. It's really putting your life in hard mode.

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outlace 6y ago

It seems the preference to work from home is pretty strong amongst software engineers. As a physician who was thrust into trying telemedicine, I couldn’t stand it. I would never voluntarily opt to do telemedicine. Besides delivering much worse care, I love being “in the office” with the camaraderie of being physically at work.

petra 6y ago
If given private rooms, and not cubicles, i bet many programmers won't mind going into the office that much.
- jedberg 6y ago
  I still have to get dressed and drive there.
- whateveracct 6y ago
  Why spend 8 office hrs + commute when I can spend half that working from home? That's an absurd amount of wasted hours that I can now reap.

hirundo 6y ago

VR is approaching a threshold that I hope will make work-from-anywhere more practical for me. I've tried working on the road but never get near my home productivity. But if I could isolate by plopping on a headset that reproduces my home environment with umpteen floating screens it might work. I know just one dev that works inside of VR. With a bit more resolution and portability I'll probably join him.

wayoutthere 6y ago
I can't handle more than an hour at a time inside a VR headset before I start to go cross-eyed. I couldn't imagine trying to work that way.

ulisesrmzroche 6y ago

Who writes this shit? No one expects you to work from the hospital waiting room while your mother is in an ICU.

jedberg 6y ago

"But what about the taxes and legal issues?" There are a bunch of comments in here about that. And it's true, it's a huge pain in the ass. It's why I always prefer to hire people in states I'm already operating, to say nothing of people outside the US. But I also see improvements every year. My payroll provider takes care of more of these issues each year, and there are other startups coming up that help you take care of these things as well. There are companies out there that will deal with everything for you. You pick the person you want and then that company "hires" them and then rents them back out to you, taking a small piece of their salary for their HR services. If work from everywhere becomes pervasive, I suspect two things will happen. One, a bunch of companies will spring up to streamline the process, and two, the big companies with lobbying powers will lobby for tax code and IP law changes to streamline the process.

cmdshiftf4 6y ago
>the big companies with lobbying powers will lobby for tax code and IP law changes to streamline the process. There is literally no benefit to a given state, or country, to make it easier for jobs to leave their borders. If we see a larger push by tech firms to let people work remotely, I personally believe we'll see government intervention in the name of the above. I also believe that, in the face of such a push, tech workers should seriously consider unionizing.
- jedberg 6y ago
  > There is literally no benefit to a given state, or country, to make it easier for jobs to leave their borders. Of course not. But there is benefit for making it easier for people to live within those borders and pay taxes within those borders while working for a foreign company. What if the states stopped requiring businesses to file taxes on their employee's behalf? What if the feds set up a system where I just report my employee's tax ID and how much they made to the Feds, and then the Feds share that with the states and each entity just sends a bill to the employee or to the business owner? What if the feds pass some laws about autofiling of taxes. I just submit my employee's pay and benefits to a national register, maybe send some default amount of money, and everything else is taken care of for me, and they send me a refund if I overpay or send the employee a bill if I underpay? There are lots of ways to streamline the system without losing tax revenue. Most of them involve making the government responsible for collecting taxes instead of businesses.

winrid 6y ago

Did this when I was 19. Lived in my car and wrote code and got paid for it. That's how I ended up in SV from the east coast. Amazing trip!

growlist 6y ago

The last thing many managers want is a flourishing remote workforce because it highlights said managers' superfluousness.