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That's a very good point, I'm really enjoying working from home and I attributed it mostly to not having to do the one hour commute each way, but there's so man

That's a very good point, I'm really enjoying working from home and I attributed it mostly to not having to do the one hour commute each way, but there's so many more things that add up: - At home I have the most comfortable chair I could find on the market that fits me perfectly. At work there are very basic adjustable chairs and they use some slippery fabric. - At home I have an ergonomic mechanical keyboard vs. a cheap rubber dome keyboard that kept running out of batteries at work. - An ergonomic mouse, vs. a tiny mouse that doesn't even have a back button. - Two 27" 4k monitors, vs. a single 24" monitor. - Always a nice room temperature, vs. often being too hot or too cold. - Bathroom always available, vs. sometimes having to wait to use the bathroom. - No interruptions, vs. occasional interruptions. - Working in silence, vs. having to use noise cancelling headphone and listening to music when I don't want to. To me the only drawbacks are that Zoom meetings are worse than in-person and not being able to have hallway discussions, but the many gains in quality of life easily make up for that. But the situation could easily reverse for someone who only has a tiny laptop and no room for a home office.

michaelcampbell 6y ago
I always bring in my own KB and mouse. Life's too short to be dicking with supplied sub-par operating equipment.
diarrhea 6y ago
Your work just sounds very subpar. Crippling developers with that sort of equipment and environment is a poor move and also an awful trade-off, business-wise.
- ensiferum 6y ago
  Common at businesses where devs work at a "cost center" and not everyone gets to work at a FAANG shop unfortunately.
  - throwaway99283 6y ago
    Even at FAANGs you get to work on cramped desks in a noisy environment, trust me.
- benhurmarcel 6y ago
  It seems pretty standard to me. Typical open-office setup, with one 24" screen and $5 keyboard and mouse that come with the PC, and a basic 10-years-old office chair. I've seen quite a few mid to large size industrial/engineering companies and it's a standard setup. Actually the ones having a 24" screen are lucky, most people get a 20". That's why people commonly bring their personal headphones, keyboard and mouse. And sometimes their own larger screen even.
  - bluedino 6y ago
    I’ve brought my own SSD and RAM to jobs that give you a bog-standard issue PC. Shhh.
    - sharken 6y ago
      This is the part that I don’t get, why must it be so hard to get proper tools for the job. Having a fast NVMe disk, 16/32 GB of ram and a current generation (or previous generation) CPU should be the standard for a developer. Apart from that there is the crappy office keyboard, mouse and all too small mousepad. Fortunately those things can be replaced without much issue.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - sokoloff 6y ago
        Because many companies are run with a mix of cost and profit centers. If you run IT as a cost-center and allow bean-counters to “optimize” things, you can easily get outcomes like that. Making a computer faster for a worker who isn’t on the critical path and who is almost never waiting on their computer doesn’t make sense. Most of accounting falls into one or both of those tests, so they could rightly decide to optimize for cost. They can then wrongly conclude that they’ve already solved that question universally and apply that solution to devs. Even a lot of IT employees don’t care or don’t know. Some want to just order something that users won’t revolt over and make the deployment and warranty support a first consideration.
- Xevi 6y ago
  Yet it feels very common to see employers buy subpar equipment, because they either don't understand how much of a difference it makes, or it "costs too much" to give every developer higher quality tools. I'm also in the camp of preferring to work from home with my triple high-res monitor setup, good chair, height adjustable table, ergonomic keyboard/mouse, and so on. I dread the day I'll have to go back to the office.
  - petra 6y ago
    Why is it so hard to explain to employers the value of using 2 displays ?
    - falcolas 6y ago
      I’ve found that it’s because it’s all-but-impossible to quantify in numbers. Secondarily, it’s because the person doing the signoff doesn’t agree with you. You know that person, the one who prefers to work from his laptop on a conference table.
    - krzyk 6y ago
      My company provides 2 displays. But I'm the only dev that doesn't use the second display. I tried it for a month and it was tiresome. I had to move my head to often, I also always maximize my windows so maybe it is useful to those that don't. I would much more prefer a big screen (30 inch?) instead of two 24 inch. But unfortunately my Corp doesn't have such options. I would much more prefer
      - ghaff 6y ago
        I have a dual monitor setup at home--one landscape (iMac) and one portrait. This is basically the same setup I've used for more than a decade. (I tried 3 monitors once and it was too much.) However, if I were starting over without a built-in monitor, I would seriously look at one of the big/wide curved screen monitors. A number of people I know prefer those to dual monitors. On the flip side, it is nice to have one screen with video conferencing set up to be as near the camera as possible. But I actually tend to do notes and so forth on a laptop while I'm conferencing because my mechanical keyboard on my desktop is very loud.
- eplanit 6y ago
  I think you mean that the workplace sounds subpar... or do you think it makes the commenter's work product of poor quality, too?
  - diarrhea 6y ago
    Yes of course, the workplace.
- tristor 6y ago
  Agreed that good equipment is a worthwhile investment, but unfortunately most companies don't see it that way. I'm now in management and get issued a standard option 13" Macbook Pro or Dell XPS13 as my system at both my current and prior company, both of which I'm permanently remote. That honestly does the trick because other than how shitty Electron is for memory consumption, I don't do the things as a manager that require extra equipment and I'm at home anyway so have my entire array of personal equipment as well. Prior to that, I was an engineer, and it was a struggle to get a proper setup. One company, several employers back, I brought my own equipment in and nobody said anything. I had my own desktop PC, monitors, mouse, keyboard, and chair in the office and other than the unplugged PC asset tag assigned to me sitting in the corner, I returned everything else to the supply closet. I eventually (after 3 years of using my own) was forced to use company issued equipment. Here was the contrast, the box I brought in to use was a quad-core proc with hyperthreading and had 32GB of RAM, and four SSDs in RAID10 w/ a decentish GPU driving 4 24" 1920x1200 IPS displays. The box I was assigned (3 years later) was a dual-core proc w/ HT, 8GB of RAM, and a 500GB 5200rpm HDD, with onboard video that only supported two displays. The two displays provided were 19" TN panels. I invest in quality equipment at home, but many, if not most, employers do not. They may think they do, but they don't. It's 2020, I consider 64GB of RAM in a engineer's system a good target, 32GB a minimum. Most developer systems I see are lucky to have 16GB of RAM these days (often the maximum offered in laptops issued). Meanwhile, at home I have a max spec desktop PC less than 3 years old, multiple 4K displays, Herman Miller chair, an electric drive sit/stand desk, split ergonomic mechanical keyboard, an ergonomic mouse, a mini-split AC/heater in a separate room in a house with a door I can close, and in my closet a small rack of servers I can use w/ distcc to accelerate builds. The great irony is that box I used at the office many years ago (8 or 9 years old), is still superior to what's issued as normal engineer equipment at most companies in the US, and I've since moved on to better systems at home, again. The poster you're replying to is largely correct. I love working from home partly because of no commute, but also because I can equip myself to my standards, which are much higher than the standards of a corporate IT department with accounting looking over their shoulder.
  - CydeWeys 6y ago
    Most companies don't allow you to do work on non-corporate computers, for intellectual property/security reasons. They might not figure out anything is amiss if you merely add some parts to the computer they provide you, but that's about it. Our corporate network is locked down and you can't add random computers to it -- if something unexpected does get plugged in, someone in IT will be by eventually to see what the hell it is (and in the mean time, that computer is only getting guest network access).
- sfteus 6y ago
  My last job was like this, but they didn't care if people brought in their own equipment. I brought in an inexpensive mechanical keyboard, a nice mouse, some decent speakers and a headset, then requisitioned a second monitor from the surplus room. Granted, I had my own office so the noise bothering other people wasn't an issue. I would wager many places wouldn't allow bringing in your own equipment, but unless it's explicitly prohibited, I would happily spend a few hundred for a day to day quality of life improvement. Software is another big thing overlooked by a lot of companies, in my experience. I've bought a Jetbrains account to use for my development because the effective $12.50/month I spend on it is nothing in comparison to the productivity benefit I get from it.
- m463 6y ago
  I have to say employees are just as silly sometimes. All my life I've always just bought the stuff I need and took it to work. No matter where I've worked it was 1/100th the hassle to do that rather than figure out how to go through channels. I've also tried stuff and ditched it a few weeks later and tried something else. this applies to lots of things at work -- who cares if the office pens are free - they suck.
  - FalconSensei 6y ago
    I have to agree with you. I mean, I won't buy a computer to use at work, but if I don't like the office mouse and keyboard, I'll just order on Amazon and be done with that.
  - conanbatt 6y ago
    This is a pet peeve of mine. Engineers make 100k+ a year and wouldn't pay for 10$ a month for a productivity tool unless they could expense it.
  - CydeWeys 6y ago
    Expense reports aren't that difficult. I will buy something using my own money if necessary, but I'll try expensing it first. Usually that goes through, and it's saved me thousands of dollars over the years.
  - ghaff 6y ago
    Ditto. Sometimes I'll expense things if they're not too expensive and it's clearly something I need rather than I want--and is directly connected to my job. But I'm paid well enough that I really don't care if I spend money over the course of a year that makes me more productive/comfortable. Frankly, that money probably comes back to me in various ways.
  - leipert 6y ago
    Well. I don’t expect doctors to bring their own scalpel, construction workers their own hammers, firefighters their own hoses. If you want to employ me, please provide me with the tools to do the job properly. An ergonomic keyboard, mouse, chair and desk are a given. A nice display is a bonus. Especially when it comes to ergonomics I don’t understand employers, an engineer going on leave for a week because of RSI / back pains, is way more expensive.
Symbiote 6y ago
Why not take a keyboard and mouse into the office? That issue at least is easy to fix. (I have a couple of colleagues who brought their own keyboards. We'd buy a decent keyboard for anyone who wants one, but they already had them from previous jobs with people who wouldn't do this.)
- sharken 6y ago
  Indeed, bringing your own keyboard and mouse if necessary should be a nobrainer. Though having the employer pay for those things would be even better, but it’s not always the case.
  - kuzimoto 6y ago
    I've been bringing my own keyboard and mouse for years. My current employer would buy at least an ergonomic keyboard for those that want it, but they aren't going to drop $200 on my mechanical keyboard for everyone, and I think that's pretty fair.
    - Aeolun 6y ago
      Given what they’re paying in salaries it seems like a silly thing to try and save on.
  - FalconSensei 6y ago
    Like, everyone has their own preferences, so besides getting some that are not shitty, it's hard to choose something that everyone will like. I, for example, absolutely hate mechanical keyboards with those tall keys, as I get hand/wrist/elbow pain from using them. And the mouse has to be as weightless as possible. Considering companies usually have to decide on only 1 or 2 options to negotiate buying in bulk, it's hard to offer multiple options. Unless they give you like $100 when you start to buy whatever you want.
benbristow 6y ago
> Working in silence Nice if you have a detached house in a quiet neighbourhood. Try an apartment in a busy area, you'll be wearing noise cancelling headphones too!
- romanovcode 6y ago
  When this whole COVID home-office thing started my apartment building started construction on building two more floors. It's been miserable 3 months of home office to tell the least
  - rorykoehler 6y ago
    My company had the same next to the head office for over a year. New building going in next door. Jack hammers 24/7/365. Can happen anywhere urban.
- balfirevic 6y ago
  I'm in an apartment near a busy street and it's pretty quiet when the windows are closed.
  - bradlys 6y ago
    Single pane life over here. It’s never quiet. And I don’t live on a busy street. I live in a relatively quiet suburb in the bay. However, there is a war being raged by crows and squirrels right now. It’s quite obnoxious. Cheap landlords...
    - FalconSensei 6y ago
      I'll trade that for my upstairs neighbours that walk on their heels. I can feel them walking
      - bradlys 6y ago
        I made the similar trade. It is better. Just saying it isn’t perfect. I’m in a horrible in-law unit that used to be a small workshop.
partisan 6y ago
It’s the exact opposite for me. At work, we had 3 monitors, standing desks, great chairs, a gym, free breakfast and lunch, full private bathrooms with showers and towels and toiletries, amazing views, etc. Now I compete for space with some children, a spouse who also works from home, and I work on a 14 inch laptop screen from a couch. It’s a downgrade and I would work from the office if it were practical. We can go in, but some of these amenities are no longer available to us. Since working from home, we’ve had many more meetings than we used to, which is a drain, mentally. Still, I am almost as productive as I was before, but no thanks to the environment at home.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- afandian 6y ago
  Maybe the competiton is unavoidable, but working from a couch? Doesn't your employer have legal workplace safety obligations?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- sfteus 6y ago
  From my experience, w/r/t meetings, I've worked from home going on 6 years now. A few years back we were acquired by a large company that had several divisions that worked entirely in office. When everyone started working from home, those divisions would initiate meetings significantly more often. I'm not sure if it's like a subconscious desire for more human interaction for those people that would usually get a bunch throughout the day, or a need to micromanage from some people, or just them thinking that they needed extra communication to make up for the remote working, but it was significantly jarring on our team for the first few months until everyone else sort of found their groove. That's counter to our team, where we basically have the "policy" of less disruptions is better. Any discussion item is pushed into an e-mail or chat unless absolutely necessary. If there are items that are deemed to need a voice meeting that are remotely similar then we'll move them up or push them back to combine them to reduce the need to be on a call. 99% of our communication is done via e-mail or a group chat room, and the expectation is that an e-mail can go without a response for 24 hours, and a chat room message can go without a response for at least 1 hour. Anything urgent goes through a direct message, and the expectation is that you check the receivers status to make sure they're aren't in a "do-not-disturb" status before hand. Only time that is ignored is if something mission critical is occurring, like a systems outage. When you can limit 99% of your distractions to something you can check real quick once every hour or so, your productivity goes way up. I can also say from experience that having your own space, and good equipment, is severely overlooked by people. I used to work entirely in my office, but we rescued a Belgian Malinois a few months before the lockdowns started so I had been working from a chair in my living room since the office is where our cats hang out for most of the day, and I wanted to give them time to adjust to the puppy as well. Even outside of the new puppy distraction, it's really easy to just sink into your "comfort" area and get distracted or stop working. Once she was housebroken, I started working out of our dining room instead so I could keep an eye on her but still not invade the office until she was better trained, and I noticed a significant productivity boost. GCP Grey has a great video on this ("Lockdown Productivity: Spaceship You"), and the idea is that even though the dining room isn't a dedicated office, it's still a place that you don't subconsciously associate with relaxing, so you still treat it like an office. I don't have kids or a work from home spouse, so I don't have any advice there.
Swizec 6y ago
> - At home I have an ergonomic mechanical keyboard vs. a cheap rubber dome keyboard that kept running out of batteries at work. > - An ergonomic mouse, vs. a tiny mouse that doesn't even have a back button. This might be surprising, but you can bring your own keyboard and mouse to the office. Perhaps even get your employer to pay for them. I've done this with every office I ever worked at. Dear employer I love you but my hands are my bread-and-butter and they trump your office standards. My hands, my peripherals. You're welcome to pitch in. If you have a problem with me using custom gear, bye.
- m463 6y ago
  At one place I worked at years ago, I think ergonomics was the magic keyword to unlock a nice work environment. I know this because one of my coworkers went from a shitty pc104 keyboard to a dedicated keyboard tray an expensive kinesis keyboard and a trackball mouse. I suspect there must have been RSI problems they had to pay out on.
- zikzak 6y ago
  I have no doubt this is true and has been for me at every place I worked since I got into this field in the 90s. Except when I did an on-site contract for a government department. They would not allow this. I had to make a spreadsheet to show the stakeholder that the computer they had provided was costing them $x a day for me to just sit there watching a build. They did replace the computer.
coliveira 6y ago
I think big point is that, even if you have a very good office, this means that you employer just shifted the office costs from themselves to you. Depending on where you live, this might add up to several hundreds of dollars per month. This might be OK with some people, but it is definitely an additional cost for workers.
FalconSensei 6y ago
For me, I had 2 external monitors at the office vs 1 at home. Snacks, fruits, beverages, espresso machine at work vs buy and prepare what I want at home (which has a cost, and demands time) Ironically also, office was quieter. I can always hear (and feel) the upstairs neighbour walking around, even with noise cancelling headphones. The little noise at the office was way easier to ignore. And using the bathroom at home, means I have to clean the bathroom more often.

michaelcampbell 6y ago

I always bring in my own KB and mouse. Life's too short to be dicking with supplied sub-par operating equipment.

diarrhea 6y ago

Your work just sounds very subpar. Crippling developers with that sort of equipment and environment is a poor move and also an awful trade-off, business-wise.

ensiferum 6y ago
Common at businesses where devs work at a "cost center" and not everyone gets to work at a FAANG shop unfortunately.
- throwaway99283 6y ago
  Even at FAANGs you get to work on cramped desks in a noisy environment, trust me.
benhurmarcel 6y ago
It seems pretty standard to me. Typical open-office setup, with one 24" screen and $5 keyboard and mouse that come with the PC, and a basic 10-years-old office chair. I've seen quite a few mid to large size industrial/engineering companies and it's a standard setup. Actually the ones having a 24" screen are lucky, most people get a 20". That's why people commonly bring their personal headphones, keyboard and mouse. And sometimes their own larger screen even.
- bluedino 6y ago
  I’ve brought my own SSD and RAM to jobs that give you a bog-standard issue PC. Shhh.
  - sharken 6y ago
    This is the part that I don’t get, why must it be so hard to get proper tools for the job. Having a fast NVMe disk, 16/32 GB of ram and a current generation (or previous generation) CPU should be the standard for a developer. Apart from that there is the crappy office keyboard, mouse and all too small mousepad. Fortunately those things can be replaced without much issue.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - sokoloff 6y ago
      Because many companies are run with a mix of cost and profit centers. If you run IT as a cost-center and allow bean-counters to “optimize” things, you can easily get outcomes like that. Making a computer faster for a worker who isn’t on the critical path and who is almost never waiting on their computer doesn’t make sense. Most of accounting falls into one or both of those tests, so they could rightly decide to optimize for cost. They can then wrongly conclude that they’ve already solved that question universally and apply that solution to devs. Even a lot of IT employees don’t care or don’t know. Some want to just order something that users won’t revolt over and make the deployment and warranty support a first consideration.
Xevi 6y ago
Yet it feels very common to see employers buy subpar equipment, because they either don't understand how much of a difference it makes, or it "costs too much" to give every developer higher quality tools. I'm also in the camp of preferring to work from home with my triple high-res monitor setup, good chair, height adjustable table, ergonomic keyboard/mouse, and so on. I dread the day I'll have to go back to the office.
- petra 6y ago
  Why is it so hard to explain to employers the value of using 2 displays ?
  - falcolas 6y ago
    I’ve found that it’s because it’s all-but-impossible to quantify in numbers. Secondarily, it’s because the person doing the signoff doesn’t agree with you. You know that person, the one who prefers to work from his laptop on a conference table.
  - krzyk 6y ago
    My company provides 2 displays. But I'm the only dev that doesn't use the second display. I tried it for a month and it was tiresome. I had to move my head to often, I also always maximize my windows so maybe it is useful to those that don't. I would much more prefer a big screen (30 inch?) instead of two 24 inch. But unfortunately my Corp doesn't have such options. I would much more prefer
    - ghaff 6y ago
      I have a dual monitor setup at home--one landscape (iMac) and one portrait. This is basically the same setup I've used for more than a decade. (I tried 3 monitors once and it was too much.) However, if I were starting over without a built-in monitor, I would seriously look at one of the big/wide curved screen monitors. A number of people I know prefer those to dual monitors. On the flip side, it is nice to have one screen with video conferencing set up to be as near the camera as possible. But I actually tend to do notes and so forth on a laptop while I'm conferencing because my mechanical keyboard on my desktop is very loud.
eplanit 6y ago
I think you mean that the workplace sounds subpar... or do you think it makes the commenter's work product of poor quality, too?
- diarrhea 6y ago
  Yes of course, the workplace.
tristor 6y ago
Agreed that good equipment is a worthwhile investment, but unfortunately most companies don't see it that way. I'm now in management and get issued a standard option 13" Macbook Pro or Dell XPS13 as my system at both my current and prior company, both of which I'm permanently remote. That honestly does the trick because other than how shitty Electron is for memory consumption, I don't do the things as a manager that require extra equipment and I'm at home anyway so have my entire array of personal equipment as well. Prior to that, I was an engineer, and it was a struggle to get a proper setup. One company, several employers back, I brought my own equipment in and nobody said anything. I had my own desktop PC, monitors, mouse, keyboard, and chair in the office and other than the unplugged PC asset tag assigned to me sitting in the corner, I returned everything else to the supply closet. I eventually (after 3 years of using my own) was forced to use company issued equipment. Here was the contrast, the box I brought in to use was a quad-core proc with hyperthreading and had 32GB of RAM, and four SSDs in RAID10 w/ a decentish GPU driving 4 24" 1920x1200 IPS displays. The box I was assigned (3 years later) was a dual-core proc w/ HT, 8GB of RAM, and a 500GB 5200rpm HDD, with onboard video that only supported two displays. The two displays provided were 19" TN panels. I invest in quality equipment at home, but many, if not most, employers do not. They may think they do, but they don't. It's 2020, I consider 64GB of RAM in a engineer's system a good target, 32GB a minimum. Most developer systems I see are lucky to have 16GB of RAM these days (often the maximum offered in laptops issued). Meanwhile, at home I have a max spec desktop PC less than 3 years old, multiple 4K displays, Herman Miller chair, an electric drive sit/stand desk, split ergonomic mechanical keyboard, an ergonomic mouse, a mini-split AC/heater in a separate room in a house with a door I can close, and in my closet a small rack of servers I can use w/ distcc to accelerate builds. The great irony is that box I used at the office many years ago (8 or 9 years old), is still superior to what's issued as normal engineer equipment at most companies in the US, and I've since moved on to better systems at home, again. The poster you're replying to is largely correct. I love working from home partly because of no commute, but also because I can equip myself to my standards, which are much higher than the standards of a corporate IT department with accounting looking over their shoulder.
- CydeWeys 6y ago
  Most companies don't allow you to do work on non-corporate computers, for intellectual property/security reasons. They might not figure out anything is amiss if you merely add some parts to the computer they provide you, but that's about it. Our corporate network is locked down and you can't add random computers to it -- if something unexpected does get plugged in, someone in IT will be by eventually to see what the hell it is (and in the mean time, that computer is only getting guest network access).
sfteus 6y ago
My last job was like this, but they didn't care if people brought in their own equipment. I brought in an inexpensive mechanical keyboard, a nice mouse, some decent speakers and a headset, then requisitioned a second monitor from the surplus room. Granted, I had my own office so the noise bothering other people wasn't an issue. I would wager many places wouldn't allow bringing in your own equipment, but unless it's explicitly prohibited, I would happily spend a few hundred for a day to day quality of life improvement. Software is another big thing overlooked by a lot of companies, in my experience. I've bought a Jetbrains account to use for my development because the effective $12.50/month I spend on it is nothing in comparison to the productivity benefit I get from it.
m463 6y ago
I have to say employees are just as silly sometimes. All my life I've always just bought the stuff I need and took it to work. No matter where I've worked it was 1/100th the hassle to do that rather than figure out how to go through channels. I've also tried stuff and ditched it a few weeks later and tried something else. this applies to lots of things at work -- who cares if the office pens are free - they suck.
- FalconSensei 6y ago
  I have to agree with you. I mean, I won't buy a computer to use at work, but if I don't like the office mouse and keyboard, I'll just order on Amazon and be done with that.
- conanbatt 6y ago
  This is a pet peeve of mine. Engineers make 100k+ a year and wouldn't pay for 10$ a month for a productivity tool unless they could expense it.
- CydeWeys 6y ago
  Expense reports aren't that difficult. I will buy something using my own money if necessary, but I'll try expensing it first. Usually that goes through, and it's saved me thousands of dollars over the years.
- ghaff 6y ago
  Ditto. Sometimes I'll expense things if they're not too expensive and it's clearly something I need rather than I want--and is directly connected to my job. But I'm paid well enough that I really don't care if I spend money over the course of a year that makes me more productive/comfortable. Frankly, that money probably comes back to me in various ways.
- leipert 6y ago
  Well. I don’t expect doctors to bring their own scalpel, construction workers their own hammers, firefighters their own hoses. If you want to employ me, please provide me with the tools to do the job properly. An ergonomic keyboard, mouse, chair and desk are a given. A nice display is a bonus. Especially when it comes to ergonomics I don’t understand employers, an engineer going on leave for a week because of RSI / back pains, is way more expensive.

Symbiote 6y ago

Why not take a keyboard and mouse into the office? That issue at least is easy to fix. (I have a couple of colleagues who brought their own keyboards. We'd buy a decent keyboard for anyone who wants one, but they already had them from previous jobs with people who wouldn't do this.)

sharken 6y ago
Indeed, bringing your own keyboard and mouse if necessary should be a nobrainer. Though having the employer pay for those things would be even better, but it’s not always the case.
- kuzimoto 6y ago
  I've been bringing my own keyboard and mouse for years. My current employer would buy at least an ergonomic keyboard for those that want it, but they aren't going to drop $200 on my mechanical keyboard for everyone, and I think that's pretty fair.
  - Aeolun 6y ago
    Given what they’re paying in salaries it seems like a silly thing to try and save on.
- FalconSensei 6y ago
  Like, everyone has their own preferences, so besides getting some that are not shitty, it's hard to choose something that everyone will like. I, for example, absolutely hate mechanical keyboards with those tall keys, as I get hand/wrist/elbow pain from using them. And the mouse has to be as weightless as possible. Considering companies usually have to decide on only 1 or 2 options to negotiate buying in bulk, it's hard to offer multiple options. Unless they give you like $100 when you start to buy whatever you want.

benbristow 6y ago

> Working in silence Nice if you have a detached house in a quiet neighbourhood. Try an apartment in a busy area, you'll be wearing noise cancelling headphones too!

romanovcode 6y ago
When this whole COVID home-office thing started my apartment building started construction on building two more floors. It's been miserable 3 months of home office to tell the least
- rorykoehler 6y ago
  My company had the same next to the head office for over a year. New building going in next door. Jack hammers 24/7/365. Can happen anywhere urban.
balfirevic 6y ago
I'm in an apartment near a busy street and it's pretty quiet when the windows are closed.
- bradlys 6y ago
  Single pane life over here. It’s never quiet. And I don’t live on a busy street. I live in a relatively quiet suburb in the bay. However, there is a war being raged by crows and squirrels right now. It’s quite obnoxious. Cheap landlords...
  - FalconSensei 6y ago
    I'll trade that for my upstairs neighbours that walk on their heels. I can feel them walking
    - bradlys 6y ago
      I made the similar trade. It is better. Just saying it isn’t perfect. I’m in a horrible in-law unit that used to be a small workshop.

partisan 6y ago

It’s the exact opposite for me. At work, we had 3 monitors, standing desks, great chairs, a gym, free breakfast and lunch, full private bathrooms with showers and towels and toiletries, amazing views, etc. Now I compete for space with some children, a spouse who also works from home, and I work on a 14 inch laptop screen from a couch. It’s a downgrade and I would work from the office if it were practical. We can go in, but some of these amenities are no longer available to us. Since working from home, we’ve had many more meetings than we used to, which is a drain, mentally. Still, I am almost as productive as I was before, but no thanks to the environment at home.

deleted 6y ago
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afandian 6y ago
Maybe the competiton is unavoidable, but working from a couch? Doesn't your employer have legal workplace safety obligations?
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sfteus 6y ago
From my experience, w/r/t meetings, I've worked from home going on 6 years now. A few years back we were acquired by a large company that had several divisions that worked entirely in office. When everyone started working from home, those divisions would initiate meetings significantly more often. I'm not sure if it's like a subconscious desire for more human interaction for those people that would usually get a bunch throughout the day, or a need to micromanage from some people, or just them thinking that they needed extra communication to make up for the remote working, but it was significantly jarring on our team for the first few months until everyone else sort of found their groove. That's counter to our team, where we basically have the "policy" of less disruptions is better. Any discussion item is pushed into an e-mail or chat unless absolutely necessary. If there are items that are deemed to need a voice meeting that are remotely similar then we'll move them up or push them back to combine them to reduce the need to be on a call. 99% of our communication is done via e-mail or a group chat room, and the expectation is that an e-mail can go without a response for 24 hours, and a chat room message can go without a response for at least 1 hour. Anything urgent goes through a direct message, and the expectation is that you check the receivers status to make sure they're aren't in a "do-not-disturb" status before hand. Only time that is ignored is if something mission critical is occurring, like a systems outage. When you can limit 99% of your distractions to something you can check real quick once every hour or so, your productivity goes way up. I can also say from experience that having your own space, and good equipment, is severely overlooked by people. I used to work entirely in my office, but we rescued a Belgian Malinois a few months before the lockdowns started so I had been working from a chair in my living room since the office is where our cats hang out for most of the day, and I wanted to give them time to adjust to the puppy as well. Even outside of the new puppy distraction, it's really easy to just sink into your "comfort" area and get distracted or stop working. Once she was housebroken, I started working out of our dining room instead so I could keep an eye on her but still not invade the office until she was better trained, and I noticed a significant productivity boost. GCP Grey has a great video on this ("Lockdown Productivity: Spaceship You"), and the idea is that even though the dining room isn't a dedicated office, it's still a place that you don't subconsciously associate with relaxing, so you still treat it like an office. I don't have kids or a work from home spouse, so I don't have any advice there.

Swizec 6y ago

> - At home I have an ergonomic mechanical keyboard vs. a cheap rubber dome keyboard that kept running out of batteries at work. > - An ergonomic mouse, vs. a tiny mouse that doesn't even have a back button. This might be surprising, but you can bring your own keyboard and mouse to the office. Perhaps even get your employer to pay for them. I've done this with every office I ever worked at. Dear employer I love you but my hands are my bread-and-butter and they trump your office standards. My hands, my peripherals. You're welcome to pitch in. If you have a problem with me using custom gear, bye.

m463 6y ago
At one place I worked at years ago, I think ergonomics was the magic keyword to unlock a nice work environment. I know this because one of my coworkers went from a shitty pc104 keyboard to a dedicated keyboard tray an expensive kinesis keyboard and a trackball mouse. I suspect there must have been RSI problems they had to pay out on.
zikzak 6y ago
I have no doubt this is true and has been for me at every place I worked since I got into this field in the 90s. Except when I did an on-site contract for a government department. They would not allow this. I had to make a spreadsheet to show the stakeholder that the computer they had provided was costing them $x a day for me to just sit there watching a build. They did replace the computer.

coliveira 6y ago

I think big point is that, even if you have a very good office, this means that you employer just shifted the office costs from themselves to you. Depending on where you live, this might add up to several hundreds of dollars per month. This might be OK with some people, but it is definitely an additional cost for workers.

FalconSensei 6y ago

For me, I had 2 external monitors at the office vs 1 at home. Snacks, fruits, beverages, espresso machine at work vs buy and prepare what I want at home (which has a cost, and demands time) Ironically also, office was quieter. I can always hear (and feel) the upstairs neighbour walking around, even with noise cancelling headphones. The little noise at the office was way easier to ignore. And using the bathroom at home, means I have to clean the bathroom more often.