22 ms·

I’m a lot closer to the end of my career than the beginning and am hoping to ride this WFH thing out as long as possible. But if I were younger I personally wo

I’m a lot closer to the end of my career than the beginning and am hoping to ride this WFH thing out as long as possible. But if I were younger I personally would be kind of bummed out for a couple of reasons: 1. It’s just a totally different vibe working with close colleagues in person. Work was just a fun place to be when I was young (and single.) 2. Getting a feel for what else is going on in the company and who might be good to work with seems a lot more difficult. Just prior to the whole COVID shutdown I had been temporarily shifted to a team to work out some specific issues. That has changed and I’m sort of stuck on this team for a bit. Working on a less interesting thing I feel less connection to my team and much more like a contractor. Finding other opportunities within the same company, where you want to have a feel for the personalities involved just feels tougher. It will be interesting to see how this shakes out if it keeps up for a lot longer. It just feels like some places will suffer from a lack of cross-pollination.

err4nt 6y ago
I've been self-employed working remotely from my clients since 2011 so I can hopefully answer some of these fears :D 1. It is a different vibe compared to working with co-workers, so instead you find collaborators who may not work for the same company, or perhaps you code with your friends that aren't working on the same project. I had a membership at a workspace filled with other go-getting, fun-loving entrepreneurial mostly young professionals and it was that same amazing social + work setting, but 100% divorced from my employment/client. If I lost a client that wonderful work community and environment wouldn't have gone anywhere. 2. It is harder to overhear things at the watercooler if there's no watercooler - if you're remote in a non-remote company you will be missing out, but in a remote-first company you're forced to find other ways to communicate. It's up to each person to open those channels and pursue it, but in 100% distributed teams this happens naturally (when there is no office). You do have to be a little proactive sending some emails though "So I hear you like cats" "So I heard in the meeting you're travelling to South America now, how is that?", etc. I think what we'll see is the idea that your employer must get all your butts into chairs under the same roof is not the best way to do things for a few reasons: - it's costly to the employer to shelter and provide for employees in real estate and so many other ways if they simply don't need to have a building - it limits the talent pool they can hire from geographically for little good reason - a distributed team can hire anybody anywhere in the world and that definitely gives you a competitive advantage at finding talent! After going this work-from-my-own-setting for almost a decade I feel like it's inevitable, and I think companies who don't use a 100% distributed model today will be competing harder than they need to and paying more than they should to do it. I'm glad COVID has accelerated the schedule for all this happening, but I really hope most offices don't go back. Here are some tips I've found for making the most of working from your own surroundings: - DO customize the environment to your comfort: lights, sounds, smells, privacy, seating - if you could design the perfect environment for being at your best in that moment, take those liberties. It pays off in productivity - DO get up and move around often throughout the day, or move from place to place. It seems sometimes you get into a funk and all you have to do to leave that dim cloud is just physically relocate and you'll be refreshed mentally. Get up and go make a coffee, go water the lawn as a break, go check the mail. These little breaks will help you keep up the pace and give you stamina. - DO get out of the house (COVID-willing), if there are cafés or outdoor places with electricity and bathrooms and tables and chairs it can be good and here's a secret -> set goals when you leave the house for what you must accomplish before you return home. If a café has hours and closes down for the night you have tricked yourself with a very real deadline and sense of urgency that otherwise wouldn't be there. By setting goals for myself and using real time deadlines like this I can stay focused on what I'm supposed to be doing In short, I envision that in 10+ years and for a long time we it will be normal for us to design offices at home, or share rent of work studios with our family and friends, and what used to be coworkers and office drama will just be the people you choose to live and work with, and you can get hired and lose your job and this social group of people you work around doesn't need to change. Overall I think it will be better!
- anpago 6y ago
  All very good but we got to hope us all sitting at home popping out now and then. Provides enough of an economy to employ us all. A lot of the people who consume and therefore pay for the work we do. Work in those facilities management, building security, shop worker, cafe and restaurant workers, public transportation etc. If there is no demand or it dramatically reduces possibly a lot of us remote workers will find we also are no longer needed or far worse compensated. We all need to look at the chain that feeds us. What is going to replace the busy cities, airports, offices and all the infrastructure and it's supply chain? A lot of IT roles will disappear also.
  - kwere 6y ago
    overall is a positive thing to consume less and produce more with the time saved by transportation. We should not work jobs only to keep the GDP machine busy.
DEADBEEFC0FFEE 6y ago
I agree. I'm also in the later stages of my career (30 years of work), but still have a way to go. I like WFH a lot more than I like commuting and working in the office. As a youngster though I loved the cut and thrust of a metropolis. Especially the adventures after work. I hope the current situation creates a permanent inflection in companies attitudes, which enables me to perhaps move out if this big city and find remote work for my last 10-15 years of work.
- doopy-loopy2 6y ago
  The truth is nothing has changed for the younger generation. They still want to live and work in downtown cities. They still want to go to the office and mingle/network. HN is an echo chamber.
  - spydum 6y ago
    An echo chamber? I find one of the more compelling reasons for being on HN is the strange cross-over and variety of posters (age, industry, geography, etc).
    - mahaganapati 6y ago
      In my experience that's a less than frequent occurrence. I.e. I agree that there is a predominant voice here on HN (echo chamber) that lives to shut down (vote) other views
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
  - thebradbain 6y ago
    As someone who is part of this generation of young professionals, I don't think it's so clear cut. I've got a pretty active social life, my own circle of close friends, a robust professional network, and I live in an urban, walkable neighborhood in a large city. Yet I, and most of my friends, acquaintances, and classmates fresh out of college (< 5 years) have no interest in centering our lives around the workplace, and many (me included) have taken or been searching for fully/part-remote jobs (and not just in tech) even pre-covid. I enjoy my colleagues and work environment (and wouldn't trade it for the world now that I'm mostly remote!), love to chat with them and keep in touch, but at the end of the day I already have my own friends with whom I have stronger bonds than the workplace, and I'd rather spend my free time with them rather than endless happy hours with work colleagues who are, in the grand scheme of things, really only present in my life for the duration of a job. Coincidentally, some of my favorite coworkers have this same outlook. I concede this is all anecdotal, yes, but so is your generalization. I personally believe much of this youngest generation of professionals, of which I am part, already has relatively established social networks due to social media that someone even 10 years ago entering a new job in a new city would not have, hence the less need to rely on the workplace for a social life. If you ask me, the future of the workplace isn't fully-remote or fully in-person, it's an office where everyone comes in 2-3 days a week, as necessary, and working remote or at-home the rest of the time.
anonunivgrad 6y ago
Work is no longer a fun place to be. No jokes, no personal stories, no candid sharing of perspectives. Definitely no going for drinks with coworkers. One wrong word and you’re cancelled. The less time you have to spend in a coastal corporation with a modern HR department, the better.
- lwhalen 6y ago
  All of my agreements.
- cma 6y ago
  Are you talking about Kaepernick?
- mcpherrinm 6y ago
  This is a pretty absurd take in my opinion. I've worked in "coastal corporations with a modern HR department" without issue. Of course I share jokes, personal stories, and perspectives. Well, with covid-induced lockdown now I go for drinks virtually instead of in-person. If you can't be kind or professional enough to have an enjoyable working relationship to have drinks with your coworkers, I don't think it's the corporation or HR department that's to blame.
  - asciident 6y ago
    You don't have to be unprofessional to get in trouble. It might just be a misinterpretation of your joke by the quiet intern, or you react unexpectedly to some politically-charged story because your mind was elsewhere, or you forget about a sensitive demographic of people when proposing an idea. Not everyone can keep a professional demeanor all the time, and always say the right things on the spot, especially if you just spent 6 hours debugging a race condition or something. I think you're overgeneralizing perhaps your strong ability to do so.
    - adamsea 6y ago
      > It might just be a misinterpretation of your joke by the quiet intern > or you forget about a sensitive demographic of people when proposing an idea. Both of those can be true, I imagine. I think the general idea is, though, in America, people who weren't white guys always have had to deal with those same concerns. My privilege as white dude has included, until relatively recently, _not_ having to worry about those things because my "norm" was the norm society enforced over the norms of people different than myself.

err4nt 6y ago

I've been self-employed working remotely from my clients since 2011 so I can hopefully answer some of these fears :D 1. It is a different vibe compared to working with co-workers, so instead you find collaborators who may not work for the same company, or perhaps you code with your friends that aren't working on the same project. I had a membership at a workspace filled with other go-getting, fun-loving entrepreneurial mostly young professionals and it was that same amazing social + work setting, but 100% divorced from my employment/client. If I lost a client that wonderful work community and environment wouldn't have gone anywhere. 2. It is harder to overhear things at the watercooler if there's no watercooler - if you're remote in a non-remote company you will be missing out, but in a remote-first company you're forced to find other ways to communicate. It's up to each person to open those channels and pursue it, but in 100% distributed teams this happens naturally (when there is no office). You do have to be a little proactive sending some emails though "So I hear you like cats" "So I heard in the meeting you're travelling to South America now, how is that?", etc. I think what we'll see is the idea that your employer must get all your butts into chairs under the same roof is not the best way to do things for a few reasons: - it's costly to the employer to shelter and provide for employees in real estate and so many other ways if they simply don't need to have a building - it limits the talent pool they can hire from geographically for little good reason - a distributed team can hire anybody anywhere in the world and that definitely gives you a competitive advantage at finding talent! After going this work-from-my-own-setting for almost a decade I feel like it's inevitable, and I think companies who don't use a 100% distributed model today will be competing harder than they need to and paying more than they should to do it. I'm glad COVID has accelerated the schedule for all this happening, but I really hope most offices don't go back. Here are some tips I've found for making the most of working from your own surroundings: - DO customize the environment to your comfort: lights, sounds, smells, privacy, seating - if you could design the perfect environment for being at your best in that moment, take those liberties. It pays off in productivity - DO get up and move around often throughout the day, or move from place to place. It seems sometimes you get into a funk and all you have to do to leave that dim cloud is just physically relocate and you'll be refreshed mentally. Get up and go make a coffee, go water the lawn as a break, go check the mail. These little breaks will help you keep up the pace and give you stamina. - DO get out of the house (COVID-willing), if there are cafés or outdoor places with electricity and bathrooms and tables and chairs it can be good and here's a secret -> set goals when you leave the house for what you must accomplish before you return home. If a café has hours and closes down for the night you have tricked yourself with a very real deadline and sense of urgency that otherwise wouldn't be there. By setting goals for myself and using real time deadlines like this I can stay focused on what I'm supposed to be doing In short, I envision that in 10+ years and for a long time we it will be normal for us to design offices at home, or share rent of work studios with our family and friends, and what used to be coworkers and office drama will just be the people you choose to live and work with, and you can get hired and lose your job and this social group of people you work around doesn't need to change. Overall I think it will be better!

anpago 6y ago
All very good but we got to hope us all sitting at home popping out now and then. Provides enough of an economy to employ us all. A lot of the people who consume and therefore pay for the work we do. Work in those facilities management, building security, shop worker, cafe and restaurant workers, public transportation etc. If there is no demand or it dramatically reduces possibly a lot of us remote workers will find we also are no longer needed or far worse compensated. We all need to look at the chain that feeds us. What is going to replace the busy cities, airports, offices and all the infrastructure and it's supply chain? A lot of IT roles will disappear also.
- kwere 6y ago
  overall is a positive thing to consume less and produce more with the time saved by transportation. We should not work jobs only to keep the GDP machine busy.

DEADBEEFC0FFEE 6y ago

I agree. I'm also in the later stages of my career (30 years of work), but still have a way to go. I like WFH a lot more than I like commuting and working in the office. As a youngster though I loved the cut and thrust of a metropolis. Especially the adventures after work. I hope the current situation creates a permanent inflection in companies attitudes, which enables me to perhaps move out if this big city and find remote work for my last 10-15 years of work.

doopy-loopy2 6y ago
The truth is nothing has changed for the younger generation. They still want to live and work in downtown cities. They still want to go to the office and mingle/network. HN is an echo chamber.
- spydum 6y ago
  An echo chamber? I find one of the more compelling reasons for being on HN is the strange cross-over and variety of posters (age, industry, geography, etc).
  - mahaganapati 6y ago
    In my experience that's a less than frequent occurrence. I.e. I agree that there is a predominant voice here on HN (echo chamber) that lives to shut down (vote) other views
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
- thebradbain 6y ago
  As someone who is part of this generation of young professionals, I don't think it's so clear cut. I've got a pretty active social life, my own circle of close friends, a robust professional network, and I live in an urban, walkable neighborhood in a large city. Yet I, and most of my friends, acquaintances, and classmates fresh out of college (< 5 years) have no interest in centering our lives around the workplace, and many (me included) have taken or been searching for fully/part-remote jobs (and not just in tech) even pre-covid. I enjoy my colleagues and work environment (and wouldn't trade it for the world now that I'm mostly remote!), love to chat with them and keep in touch, but at the end of the day I already have my own friends with whom I have stronger bonds than the workplace, and I'd rather spend my free time with them rather than endless happy hours with work colleagues who are, in the grand scheme of things, really only present in my life for the duration of a job. Coincidentally, some of my favorite coworkers have this same outlook. I concede this is all anecdotal, yes, but so is your generalization. I personally believe much of this youngest generation of professionals, of which I am part, already has relatively established social networks due to social media that someone even 10 years ago entering a new job in a new city would not have, hence the less need to rely on the workplace for a social life. If you ask me, the future of the workplace isn't fully-remote or fully in-person, it's an office where everyone comes in 2-3 days a week, as necessary, and working remote or at-home the rest of the time.

anonunivgrad 6y ago

Work is no longer a fun place to be. No jokes, no personal stories, no candid sharing of perspectives. Definitely no going for drinks with coworkers. One wrong word and you’re cancelled. The less time you have to spend in a coastal corporation with a modern HR department, the better.

lwhalen 6y ago
All of my agreements.
cma 6y ago
Are you talking about Kaepernick?
mcpherrinm 6y ago
This is a pretty absurd take in my opinion. I've worked in "coastal corporations with a modern HR department" without issue. Of course I share jokes, personal stories, and perspectives. Well, with covid-induced lockdown now I go for drinks virtually instead of in-person. If you can't be kind or professional enough to have an enjoyable working relationship to have drinks with your coworkers, I don't think it's the corporation or HR department that's to blame.
- asciident 6y ago
  You don't have to be unprofessional to get in trouble. It might just be a misinterpretation of your joke by the quiet intern, or you react unexpectedly to some politically-charged story because your mind was elsewhere, or you forget about a sensitive demographic of people when proposing an idea. Not everyone can keep a professional demeanor all the time, and always say the right things on the spot, especially if you just spent 6 hours debugging a race condition or something. I think you're overgeneralizing perhaps your strong ability to do so.
  - adamsea 6y ago
    > It might just be a misinterpretation of your joke by the quiet intern > or you forget about a sensitive demographic of people when proposing an idea. Both of those can be true, I imagine. I think the general idea is, though, in America, people who weren't white guys always have had to deal with those same concerns. My privilege as white dude has included, until relatively recently, _not_ having to worry about those things because my "norm" was the norm society enforced over the norms of people different than myself.