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The Rise, Fall, and Rise of the Home Office
- ghaff 6y agoI'd never given a lot of thought to it but even the fairly large house I grew up in during the 60s/70s didn't have a dedicated office although there were large bedrooms with desks. I was fortunate enough to have a nice dedicated office before the current situation hit. One does see a huge contrast on video calls between people in seemingly offices (or, if bedrooms/living rooms, sufficiently stage managed and lit to appear as such) and those obviously balancing laptops in a bedroom or kitchen table.
- flukus 6y agoWhat makes something a dedicated office though? The only two things I can think of would be a phone line (not so much these days) and maybe being somewhat separated/distanced from the rest of the bedrooms and maybe near the front door. That's how I deduced I was an aberration to the family planning from my "bedroom" anyway.
- learn_more 6y agoGood acoustics (low echo) is high on my list, and one of the first things I improve when setting up my home offices.
- ghaff 6y agoFor my situation, it's not even so much about having a door. But having a separated work space/bookshelves (though there are plenty of others throughout the house), lights/audio gear, and generally a separated space that can be pretty messy. In times past, that would be about having lots of paper. Now it's more about having a bunch of computers/cables/etc. isolated from the rest of the house--even if, in practice, I often work elsewhere with a laptop.
- mc32 6y agoWhat makes it an office? A separate room (or at least separated area, dedicated desk and chair, necessary peripherals and paraphernalia, sufficient electrical outlets and opportunity to not be interrupted.
- ashtonkem 6y agoA desk, and being set aside for only work related activities.
- heeen2 6y ago> What makes something a dedicated office though? The only two things I can think of would be a phone line (not so much these days) and maybe being somewhat separated/distanced from the rest of the bedrooms and maybe near the front door. Some work requires an actual workstation with many cores, memory and beefy GPU. Some people work on prototype devices with jigs, serial connections power supplies etc. For some people WiFi does not cut it and you want a nice networking setup. Other people may work with physical documents so there will be a printer, scanner, mail supplies involved.
- madcaptenor 6y agoI think "near the front door" only matters if you're seeing other people in the office. My office is near the front door but I don't actually need it to be. It's actually kind of inconvenient in our present work-from-home reality because my kid hears me on calls and doesn't understand that I can't play right now; in the long term I might set up an office in the basement, far from everything.
- boromi 6y agoInteresting article. I'm personanly struggling to find a home office chair, without being able to try them in store. unfortunately, all the reccomendations are in the 500$+ range that I simply cannot afford.
- aclavelle 6y agoI have this one for $370: https://www.autonomous.ai/office-chairs/ergonomic-chair?option20=56 https://www.autonomous.ai/office-chairs/ergonomic-chair?opti... The cushion is nice and thick and it has lots of adjustments. If you work from home, ask if your company will reimburse you. This is a business expense.
- ghaff 6y agoI'm guessing that's unlikely. Some are giving a small no-strings-attached stipend for WFH expenses but I'd be surprised if there was any widespread reimbursement for outfitting home offices. (Which is TBH less of a big deal in a world where most people are using laptops.)
- ponker 6y agoMy boss at a FAANG told his org (100 people) to spend whatever it took on home office equipment and that he'd figure it out on the backend. Asked us to run anything by him if we were planning on more than $2000.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- ghaff 6y agoI'd guess that's pretty atypical.
- ponker 6y agoWe are in a team that saw increased demand during COVID. I expect that he thought it would be a lot easier to ask his management to come up with $200K in expense than have the core services start to fall over under load if people weren't working effectively.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- mrits 6y agoI have a very well planned home office. I've gone through countless chairs over the year trying to fix back issues. I introduced more weight lifting into my exercise (deadlift in particular) and I haven't had back issues in a couple years. I sit on my couch or bed for work most of the time -- which I've been told is supposed to be the worst for you.
- stevewodil 6y agoI recently bought a lounge chair specifically for working in because I found myself preferring the couch over my desk due to knee discomfort. Lounge chair and a pillow for my lower back and I'm much happier than at a desk
- ulisesrmzroche 6y agoPull-ups are better than deadlifts. Deadlifts actually have a really bad risk-reward ratio
- steffan 6y agoThose work completely different muscle groups and are not at all comparable
- ulisesrmzroche 6y agoThey're both hitting the back. That's not a different muscle group. One is literally hitting the uppers and the other the lower
- kinkrtyavimoodh 6y agoThey have little to do with each other. The lats are the primary movers in pull-ups, while they are only a supporting muscle in deadlifts. Also if you are having general back troubles due to sitting, deadlifts are more likely to fix them.
- ulisesrmzroche 6y ago