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Why and when do you think it will end? Did you see how quickly the networks were upgraded? Within weeks around my way... So, infrastructure was upgraded quic

Why and when do you think it will end? Did you see how quickly the networks were upgraded? Within weeks around my way... So, infrastructure was upgraded quickly. You are probably aware of what's going on in Australia - where lockdowns are returning, with certain tower blocks in Melbourne locked in, and the army making house to house calls.

arcticbull 6y ago
It will end because many people derive a good portion of their day-to-day socialization from work. This is especially true of people new to cities, younger folks without immediate family in the area, and so on. Here's why I'll head back to the office the first chance I get: 1. I don't want to live my entire life within a 750 square foot allotment. 2. I find my ability to balance work and life enhanced by going somewhere to work. The physical separation between the two creates a mental / emotional separation. 3. Socializing with a bunch of people. 4. Enhanced impact: much of the truly innovative and impactful stuff I've done in my career originated from ad-hoc conversations with people around me. It's not the same over Slack. 5. Someone on my team announced on Friday they were leaving the team and expressed how much they enjoyed working with us over the last 6 months. My immediate reaction was... wait, we worked together? for 6 months? I don't really know who you are. The only people I actually feel connected to at work are the ones I worked with before this madness kicked off. Humans are fundamentally social animals. That's why it will end. As for when? Once herd immunity is established, either the American way by throwing old folks and the immunocompromised under the bus until nobody's left, or a vaccine, which will likely be available in global quantities by EOY 2021 -- according to manufacturers in late-stage trials. That's when it will end. IMO, of course.
- emptysongglass 6y ago
  Counterpoint: I'm loving the increased time I have with my wife at home and flexible scheduling . I invested years of my life making friends outside of an office; I'm going out with them more, inviting them to galleries, playing board games with them a bunch. The mistake was turning our workplace into our everything. Hail the new era, where we find our friends some other way.
  - arcticbull 6y ago
    I don't disagree with you, but there's a hidden third dynamic here. If we agree some people want to work in offices and some people don't, we'll need to accommodate both. We'll have offices for some and remote for others. However, now there's two groups -- and I'll dig up some studies, but I believe remote workers are passed over for promotions and raises since they're out-of-sight, out-of-mind for the in-office crowd. This is going to pressure a return to the status quo IMO.
    - csa 6y ago
      I think that there are four groups who will really embrace going back to the office, and I think it will gradually change the underlying narrative about what it means for someone to prefer to be in the office: 1. People who are fantastic team players in an organization that does a good job of facilitating group work. I hate the term “team player”, and I think most teams are a farce, but watching an effective team work is like magic to me. This is the best outcome, imho, but I think that this will be a tiny percentage of the folks who embrace going back in (mainly due to workplace structure and incentives, but that’s a slightly different issue). 2. Extroverts. These folks just need to be around other people if you want them to be productive. This group is a push — neither good nor bad imho. 3. The office politicians. My guess is that this will be the vast majority of people who rush back to work. They look busy, but they don’t do very much, yet they know how to work the system. These folks are a tax on mid- and large-sized companies, and I think that folks who prefer being in the office will be perceived as being this type of person, rightly or wrongly. 4. Folks who have tight living quarters or some sort of taxing home restraints. This could be a small living space that is common in a large city, a family who is not particularly accommodating (e.g., kids or a demanding spouse), etc. I have a friend for whom going to the office and working feels like a break for him and his wife due to having three young kids at home — I totally understand. Part of the potential stigmatization of being a politico who goes in all the time or someone who prefers WFH can be mitigated by having office time be limited to one or two days a week. This puts everyone on equal footing, while reducing a lot of the burden of working in an office. One issue with this is that it still means that people need to live somewhat in the same area as their workplace, but I think that this type of arrangement increases the radius of reasonable living places as related to distance from workplace by quite a bit. Note that I am shooting from the hip here. I personally think that a large percentage of the innovative and disruptive companies moving forward will be some form of remote-first work. I think this mainly due to the incredible flexibility in hiring that remote-first provides. That said, it will only happen with folks who are comfortable with the format, and I think that is mostly (although definitely not exclusively) people who are (spitballing here) in their 20s or younger.
- scarface74 6y ago
  Hopefully I never have to set foot inside a noisy distracting open office again. My current role was always designed to be remote. I live in the suburbs of a major metropolitan city where we just bought a 3100 square foot house, brand new build, great school system in 2016. Total cost - $2200/month with around an $11K down payment. Any average SAAS CRUD developer making the average pay with 5 years of experience could afford it. I balance my work and home by closing the door to my office.
- dayvid 6y ago
  I think WFH will be very different when there isn’t a global pandemic going on. You can have more working environment flexibility with public or coworking spaces and it will be much easier to have a more social life. In between jobs, I enjoyed freelancing at a coworking place for people in programming fields called Code & Supply in Pittsburgh. I also enjoyed a Makerspace in Miami called Moonlighter makespace which had coworking tables, 3D printers, a CNC machine and other items. I image more niche type spaces may grow if WFH continues after COVID.
- bregma 6y ago
  > It will end because many people derive a good portion of their day-to-day socialization from work. People did this because it was the easiest thing. When you work from home, you still derive a goodly portion of social interaction from work, using appropriate media. What else happens is you discover a whole world of life outside the office too, and that life is vastly more expansive and valuable in the long term. You're not a job. You're not even a career. The cow orkers you see from time to time at the office are ephemeral friends at best as you move on to different jobs. Your family, spouse, kids, neighbours, religious or sports community, or local pub are all better and more appropriate lonog-term social commitments than your workplace.
- cwilkes 6y ago
  Being socially isolated might end then but it doesn’t have to be by going into an office. Perhaps now people will start to socialize with their friends more often during normal working hours. Now you can drive whenever you want to see people meaning that rush hour traffic won’t kill off meeting people that are 15 miles away as it will take forever to get there. Just go at 11am for lunch.

arcticbull 6y ago

It will end because many people derive a good portion of their day-to-day socialization from work. This is especially true of people new to cities, younger folks without immediate family in the area, and so on. Here's why I'll head back to the office the first chance I get: 1. I don't want to live my entire life within a 750 square foot allotment. 2. I find my ability to balance work and life enhanced by going somewhere to work. The physical separation between the two creates a mental / emotional separation. 3. Socializing with a bunch of people. 4. Enhanced impact: much of the truly innovative and impactful stuff I've done in my career originated from ad-hoc conversations with people around me. It's not the same over Slack. 5. Someone on my team announced on Friday they were leaving the team and expressed how much they enjoyed working with us over the last 6 months. My immediate reaction was... wait, we worked together? for 6 months? I don't really know who you are. The only people I actually feel connected to at work are the ones I worked with before this madness kicked off. Humans are fundamentally social animals. That's why it will end. As for when? Once herd immunity is established, either the American way by throwing old folks and the immunocompromised under the bus until nobody's left, or a vaccine, which will likely be available in global quantities by EOY 2021 -- according to manufacturers in late-stage trials. That's when it will end. IMO, of course.

emptysongglass 6y ago
Counterpoint: I'm loving the increased time I have with my wife at home and flexible scheduling . I invested years of my life making friends outside of an office; I'm going out with them more, inviting them to galleries, playing board games with them a bunch. The mistake was turning our workplace into our everything. Hail the new era, where we find our friends some other way.
- arcticbull 6y ago
  I don't disagree with you, but there's a hidden third dynamic here. If we agree some people want to work in offices and some people don't, we'll need to accommodate both. We'll have offices for some and remote for others. However, now there's two groups -- and I'll dig up some studies, but I believe remote workers are passed over for promotions and raises since they're out-of-sight, out-of-mind for the in-office crowd. This is going to pressure a return to the status quo IMO.
  - csa 6y ago
    I think that there are four groups who will really embrace going back to the office, and I think it will gradually change the underlying narrative about what it means for someone to prefer to be in the office: 1. People who are fantastic team players in an organization that does a good job of facilitating group work. I hate the term “team player”, and I think most teams are a farce, but watching an effective team work is like magic to me. This is the best outcome, imho, but I think that this will be a tiny percentage of the folks who embrace going back in (mainly due to workplace structure and incentives, but that’s a slightly different issue). 2. Extroverts. These folks just need to be around other people if you want them to be productive. This group is a push — neither good nor bad imho. 3. The office politicians. My guess is that this will be the vast majority of people who rush back to work. They look busy, but they don’t do very much, yet they know how to work the system. These folks are a tax on mid- and large-sized companies, and I think that folks who prefer being in the office will be perceived as being this type of person, rightly or wrongly. 4. Folks who have tight living quarters or some sort of taxing home restraints. This could be a small living space that is common in a large city, a family who is not particularly accommodating (e.g., kids or a demanding spouse), etc. I have a friend for whom going to the office and working feels like a break for him and his wife due to having three young kids at home — I totally understand. Part of the potential stigmatization of being a politico who goes in all the time or someone who prefers WFH can be mitigated by having office time be limited to one or two days a week. This puts everyone on equal footing, while reducing a lot of the burden of working in an office. One issue with this is that it still means that people need to live somewhat in the same area as their workplace, but I think that this type of arrangement increases the radius of reasonable living places as related to distance from workplace by quite a bit. Note that I am shooting from the hip here. I personally think that a large percentage of the innovative and disruptive companies moving forward will be some form of remote-first work. I think this mainly due to the incredible flexibility in hiring that remote-first provides. That said, it will only happen with folks who are comfortable with the format, and I think that is mostly (although definitely not exclusively) people who are (spitballing here) in their 20s or younger.
scarface74 6y ago
Hopefully I never have to set foot inside a noisy distracting open office again. My current role was always designed to be remote. I live in the suburbs of a major metropolitan city where we just bought a 3100 square foot house, brand new build, great school system in 2016. Total cost - $2200/month with around an $11K down payment. Any average SAAS CRUD developer making the average pay with 5 years of experience could afford it. I balance my work and home by closing the door to my office.
dayvid 6y ago
I think WFH will be very different when there isn’t a global pandemic going on. You can have more working environment flexibility with public or coworking spaces and it will be much easier to have a more social life. In between jobs, I enjoyed freelancing at a coworking place for people in programming fields called Code & Supply in Pittsburgh. I also enjoyed a Makerspace in Miami called Moonlighter makespace which had coworking tables, 3D printers, a CNC machine and other items. I image more niche type spaces may grow if WFH continues after COVID.
bregma 6y ago
> It will end because many people derive a good portion of their day-to-day socialization from work. People did this because it was the easiest thing. When you work from home, you still derive a goodly portion of social interaction from work, using appropriate media. What else happens is you discover a whole world of life outside the office too, and that life is vastly more expansive and valuable in the long term. You're not a job. You're not even a career. The cow orkers you see from time to time at the office are ephemeral friends at best as you move on to different jobs. Your family, spouse, kids, neighbours, religious or sports community, or local pub are all better and more appropriate lonog-term social commitments than your workplace.
cwilkes 6y ago
Being socially isolated might end then but it doesn’t have to be by going into an office. Perhaps now people will start to socialize with their friends more often during normal working hours. Now you can drive whenever you want to see people meaning that rush hour traffic won’t kill off meeting people that are 15 miles away as it will take forever to get there. Just go at 11am for lunch.