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I feel compelled to point out that WFH in the midst of a pandemic-inspired social media freakout, does not make for a productive state of mind (although I don't

I feel compelled to point out that WFH in the midst of a pandemic-inspired social media freakout, does not make for a productive state of mind (although I don't know if the social media situation is as bad in Japan as in the U.S. where I live). So it could be that WFH productivity would be better in non-pandemic times. Nonetheless, and I say this as someone who is by no means opposed to WFH (I have often done it, depending on the contract), the results are not surprising. More work gets done in a dedicated space for work, surrounded by other people engaged in related work, and this is especially true if some of the team members are young and inexperienced. It's the same reason we have gyms for exercise, yoga studios for yoga, art studios for painting, and so on. I'm glad that these researchers tried to measure it, but the results are not at all surprising.

Guest42 6y ago
For me, I think it depends on the office layout/vibe vs. the home layout/vibe. I feel much more productive at home as I don't have to listen to all the conversations surrounding me and if a manager stopped by they would often feel compelled to say something. Communicating via email is much more deliberate. Also, it seems as though the places I've worked have opted to silo projects and give them to individuals in a way that minimizes collaboration. It's also nice for people that are invited to a number of meetings for things that don't directly affect them to be able to multi-task at those times. I also think that being watched produces a certain level of anxiety that is counter-productive.
- epr 6y ago
  > I feel much more productive at home as I don't have to listen to all the conversations surrounding me I know this isn't a problem for most people, but this is such a huge issue for me. If you are talking in my vicinity, my brain locks on to your speech and prevents me from thinking about anything else. Unless I am listening to someone else speaking that is closer to me / louder there is no way to mentally block this out. If I'm trying to program and someone is talking near me, my productivity drops by maybe 80%. I either put on noise cancelling headphones, ask people to talk elsewhere (which irritates people who don't understand), or get nothing done.
  - Guest42 6y ago
    Exactly, it makes it particularly difficult to do something new that requires creativity or intense thought.
  - tra3 6y ago
    I dont think you’re alone in this at all, as evidenced by the prevalence of headphones in open plan areas.
- orzig 6y ago
  Yes, and I think that so many internet conversations would benefit from an explicit reminder that "People are different", and "Groups of people (teams) are even more different", so we should bear in mind that any average has a wide standard deviation, likely spanning the positive and negative domains
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
jahewson 6y ago
Funny I just said last week to my wife that I doubt I’d ever go back to a yoga studio and probably not a gym. It’s just so much more convenient and comfortable to do these things at home. Especially with kids around.
- jeffbee 6y ago
  The reason to go to the gym is because my kids are not there.
  - rossdavidh 6y ago
    I love my daughter, and did just as much when she was a youngster, but I think many dedicated spaces are a benefit because they allow for greater focus, because the kids (or spouse or parent or...) are not there. I have seen no data on it, but I have the impression that experienced workers with no dependents do better in a WFH environment, than either new hires or people with family at home.
    - pdimitar 6y ago
      As a 41 y/o guy without kids I very much agree. I have my bad days when I can't focus well even if I am surrounded by complete silence but I am very grateful for no persistent distractions like kids when I can. Plus many acquaintances of mine reported that they had to resort to making a small room in their apartment a dedicated home office which they had to lock in order to prevent distractions from their kids.
- reader_mode 6y ago
  If you have the luxury of space to load up a rack and some dumbbells - but it doesn't sound realistic for most people. Plus gyms are everywhere these days - it's easy to slide them into work commute so you don't have the time overhead of going there/back.
- hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
  To each their own, but I'd point out that a huge reason people go to gyms/studios to work out is for the social and structured aspect of it, and there is a ton of evidence that working out with others or gym partners leads to much more consistent progress, statistically speaking. That is a big reason all of the recent Peloton and Peloton-esque programs fundamentally include a group social aspect. I've always had the ability to work out from home, and during the pandemic I've pretty much had to, but I greatly prefer going to the gym. I'm really not social at all, but I just feel like I can get much more "in the zone" at a gym than my house.
thaumasiotes 6y ago
> More work gets done in a dedicated space for work, surrounded by other people engaged in related work I don't think that first part ("dedicated space for work") is so significant. In my experience working remotely answering bug bounty reports, what most helped with working was the presence of a chat channel containing the rest of the team. It was used, in part, to discuss or ask for help with difficult reports, but primarily for making fun of stupid reports. (One of my favorites in this category being "If I zoom in too far on your mobile app, the text starts to become blurry.") That might not sound especially productive, but you can't do it if you're not looking at the reports. You could view the channel more abstractly as providing irregular notifications of the form "I just did some work" -- participating requires you to do some work, and that helps you keep working.
- lupire 6y ago
  Why is it stupid? Vector fonts should render smoothly at all scales.
  - thaumasiotes 6y ago
    It might legitimately be a bug in the app, if you're on the UI team. It's stupid because it was reported to the security team, and it has no security implications whatever. Nobody pays UI bounties.
    - jrockway 6y ago
      Users are going to use whatever mechanism to provide feedback that they find first. They don't know what's a security issue, what's a bug, what's a sales request, and what's a support request. All I can say is that I hope whatever system you use for collecting security reports is shared by those other teams, and you just change the "security" tag to "ui" and move on. Because if you don't do that, you know whoever is reading that "ui bug" queue also has a slack channel where they make fun of people filing security reports as ui bugs, and then proceed to drop them on the floor. Always be careful about shipping your org chart.
    - yunohn 6y ago
bluefirebrand 6y ago
> More work gets done in a dedicated space for work, surrounded by other people engaged in related work, and this is especially true if some of the team members are young and inexperienced. More work gets done when you're tired from being up early for your commute, then the commute itself, and surrounded by distracting coworkers? Not for me, not ever again if I can help it.
- tmpz22 6y ago
  Don’t forget the 5 coffee breaks, multi hour conference room meetings, lunch meetings, etc, that can take up half your work week if you give in to that sort of stuff.
  - anticristi 6y ago
    Call me weird but it feels like those 5 coffee breaks gave me enough situational awareness to avoid 5 hours of meeting.
    - bluepizza 6y ago
      Most times it's out of your control, though. Someone else booked the meeting, a higher uo decided you should go, and those hours are lost.
  - mavelikara 6y ago
    How do you stay caffeinated at home?
    - astrange 6y ago
      Caffeine isn't really beneficial for work, right? Most of its effect is because it's addictive and you need to prevent the withdrawal. The point of a break is that it's an excuse to stand up and walk around.
      - yorwba 6y ago
superflit 6y ago
Sorry. *We* are not going back. Not going back to long commutes. Open office plans and office politics. Not going back to cheap lunch in a plastic/cardboard box that costs a lot. Not going back to paying high rent in bad cities without any quality. Not going back to frivolous meeting. Now after almost 2 years we have proved that yes the company can be run remotely, several things that were "not possible" are and the ultimate thing: We can choose where we want to live and with whom. We are not going back as same we are not going back to cable anymore.
- closeparen 6y ago
  Not going back to paying developed-country wages.
  - charlesu 6y ago
    Speak for yourself. I’m in no way concerned about remote work depressing wages. Competition has always been global.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - bluepizza 6y ago
    Which started happening some 15 years ago when outsourcing development to India started getting traction.
    - refurb 6y ago
      But now add US developers in Ohio to the mix.
  - pdimitar 6y ago
    I work remotely for 10 full years now and this has always been specific to the employer and nothing else.
- 6y ago
anticristi 6y ago
> I feel compelled to point out that WFH in the midst of a pandemic-inspired social media freakout, does not make for a productive state of mind Not to mention the constant "we lock / we don't lock", "kids go to school / kids don't go to school".
UncleOxidant 6y ago
> So it could be that WFH productivity would be better in non-pandemic times. I tend to think this is likely true. I also tend to think that WFH productivity is improving as people adjust to it. A lot of people who found themselves suddenly WFH had to setup a workspace, buy a decent chair,desk, etc. There were also mental adjustments. Now people are pretty used to it and it's become the new normal. Going back to an office (if we do that) is also going to mean a performance hit as well because people will have to adjust to that change. Any kind of major change is going to lead to a performance hit for a period of time as people adjust to it.
ineedasername 6y ago
That's not a universally accurate assessment. It all depends on the nature of the work, the nature of the on-site work environment, and the nature of the at-home work environment. (among other factors). I have significantly less wasted time working from home. At work, if I have 2 or 3 meetings in a day, that day is practically wasted for other work between walking to the meeting (I work on a large multi-building site), waiting for everyone to arrive, etc. Then it seems like people never want to end a meeting until its scheduled stop time even if we're done after 20 minutes. Then I have to get back to my office... Zoom has changed all of that. Zero time wasted at the beginning or end, and people don't seem to have as much of a problem saying "all right that's all we have, see you later" and ending a meeting early. I can also get a bit more sleep in the mornings because I don't have to get ready to leave the house, commute, park, get to my office, etc. When the end of the day comes, I'm already home, giving me an automatic hour of extra time each day. You can do a lot with 5 more hours of free time each week. I get to see my kids for more time, especially my youngest, who I watch, as my wife oversees distance learning for the other two. Even with the added distractions of working with at home with kids present, This past year has been one of the most productive in my entire career. I'm sure that mine is neither a unique experience, but also not how it works for everyone else. But the mindset that says it's mostly more productive to work on-site is why some places ban WFH, as mine did before the pandemic. I do, however, agree that WFH is least likely to result in the same or higher level of productivity for junior staff.
briandear 6y ago
> It's the same reason we have gyms for exercise, yoga studios for yoga, art studios for painting No. We have gyms for exercise because there is an economy of scale. Who wants to buy a rowing machine, weight machines, stair machines, etc. Yoga studios are because people go there to have a class led by an instructor. And most artists don’t “go” to a studio, they have a place in their house. For typing on a computer, there’s really not much requirement for an external place unless your house is such that you don’t have a desk in which to work.
didibus 6y ago
> and this is especially true if some of the team members are young and inexperienced I think this is the big one for me, at least with the experience of WFH for Covid, it is so much harder for people to ramp up and learn in a WFH situation, you can't just ask your neighbor about a weird compile issue, or why the IDE isn't able to run your tests and be helped promptly with them just showing you right away. Instead you ask in a Slack, get a slow churn of reponse, nothing helpful enough, so you then schedule an actual short meeting with someone else to walk you over it, etc. And this support doesn't naturally distribute like it would at the office, it seems it's always the same more senior person remotely who has to now help new members in these more formal ways. I've also seen so much more just confusion around like, what to do, who's doing what, when to do it, etc. Getting everyone aligned and in-sync is much harder. And that adds a lot of overhead and creates a lot more churn I feel to projects. On the flip side, when you have a clear task to do and you know what needs to be done and it doesn't depend on others, you can really crush through it. And you save a lot of time from commute, launches are faster, etc. I've also found, appart from Covid, remote work is pretty nice in terms of work/life balance. You can make laundry while you work for example, saving you time in your day. So I'm still a bit mixed feelings about WFH, I like some aspect of it, mostly no commute, convenience of being at home so I can easily cook my launches at launch time, do some laundry or have the oven repair person show up and manage them while I work and all that. But I also feel doing the actual day to day work is harder, the coordination overhead is pretty high, and everyone is more siloed, so anything that involves collaboration has more friction.
throwaway53453 6y ago
I want the option, because one day my mind might change if I have a family, but right now I absolutely hate WFH as a new-grad. I feel like I've learned almost nothing since March (or if I have, it's taken way too long).
- pdimitar 6y ago
  For junior positions WFH can definitely be sub-optimal but in my eyes it also trains the juniors to over-communicate when they are stuck or are in a need of a coaching session. It's a way to distinguish the people who are way too shy for their own career good.
  - throwaway53453 6y ago
    It's less about communication, and more about not hating my job. I'm slowly coming to the conclusion I'd rather work in a bakery or something than WFH as a programmer, because I'd at least be around people.
    - pdimitar 6y ago
      Well, that's a separate thing though, right? To be fair, I too could use some more socialization but not sure that work is the ideal vector for me. I'd rather have a less stressful job on my terms (in my home office) and/or with less hours and then just proceed and make my free time more pleasant around other people.
emptysongglass 6y ago
I've never been more productive at work than during this pandemic. I don't want to be surrounded by an audio mælstrom thanks to open office (who actually thought this was a good idea?) Coworkers and bosses ambling over to my desk for a "quick" interruption? Meetings that only make the meeting makers feel like they've accomplished something? No thanks. I create a space of discipline at home with discipline. If the only thing keeping you from indulging in whatever Clubhouse-flavor-of-the-week distraction is the enforcement of order from above, you need to take a strong look at what is motivating you to work your job in the first place. I specifically exempt parents: my condolences for the chaos that must be to your peace. We need to stop treating employees like automatons to be filled by the directives of middle management and start trusting them to produce.
- sharken 6y ago
  I feel the opposite, productivity is poor or at best unpredictable when working from home. There is a strong truth in looking at what motivates you though, for me it is just as much the interaction with colleagues working towards a common goal that is key. That goal is so much harder to accomplish in a WFH setting. Other than that i very much agree that too many meetings is one of the biggest productivity killers.
  - pdimitar 6y ago
    I don't think any reasonable person will claim that office or WFH is universally better. Different strokes for different folks. But IMO working from home did outline some inefficiencies in the office work that finally started getting more closely inspected (like the needless meetings).
mbrodersen 6y ago
Not my experience at all. I am a lot more productive working from home.
threatofrain 6y ago
There are multiple opportunities to lose and win in WFH, and it’s the sum of all things which we see; while sharing a physical space may come with productivity boosts, having a large amount of people travel or drive every day is also a negative for productivity. We only have so much time in a day, and I’m not sure that the balance of productivity factors will continue to weigh obviously in the direction of in-office work.

Guest42 6y ago

For me, I think it depends on the office layout/vibe vs. the home layout/vibe. I feel much more productive at home as I don't have to listen to all the conversations surrounding me and if a manager stopped by they would often feel compelled to say something. Communicating via email is much more deliberate. Also, it seems as though the places I've worked have opted to silo projects and give them to individuals in a way that minimizes collaboration. It's also nice for people that are invited to a number of meetings for things that don't directly affect them to be able to multi-task at those times. I also think that being watched produces a certain level of anxiety that is counter-productive.

epr 6y ago
> I feel much more productive at home as I don't have to listen to all the conversations surrounding me I know this isn't a problem for most people, but this is such a huge issue for me. If you are talking in my vicinity, my brain locks on to your speech and prevents me from thinking about anything else. Unless I am listening to someone else speaking that is closer to me / louder there is no way to mentally block this out. If I'm trying to program and someone is talking near me, my productivity drops by maybe 80%. I either put on noise cancelling headphones, ask people to talk elsewhere (which irritates people who don't understand), or get nothing done.
- Guest42 6y ago
  Exactly, it makes it particularly difficult to do something new that requires creativity or intense thought.
- tra3 6y ago
  I dont think you’re alone in this at all, as evidenced by the prevalence of headphones in open plan areas.
orzig 6y ago
Yes, and I think that so many internet conversations would benefit from an explicit reminder that "People are different", and "Groups of people (teams) are even more different", so we should bear in mind that any average has a wide standard deviation, likely spanning the positive and negative domains
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

jahewson 6y ago

Funny I just said last week to my wife that I doubt I’d ever go back to a yoga studio and probably not a gym. It’s just so much more convenient and comfortable to do these things at home. Especially with kids around.

jeffbee 6y ago
The reason to go to the gym is because my kids are not there.
- rossdavidh 6y ago
  I love my daughter, and did just as much when she was a youngster, but I think many dedicated spaces are a benefit because they allow for greater focus, because the kids (or spouse or parent or...) are not there. I have seen no data on it, but I have the impression that experienced workers with no dependents do better in a WFH environment, than either new hires or people with family at home.
  - pdimitar 6y ago
    As a 41 y/o guy without kids I very much agree. I have my bad days when I can't focus well even if I am surrounded by complete silence but I am very grateful for no persistent distractions like kids when I can. Plus many acquaintances of mine reported that they had to resort to making a small room in their apartment a dedicated home office which they had to lock in order to prevent distractions from their kids.
reader_mode 6y ago
If you have the luxury of space to load up a rack and some dumbbells - but it doesn't sound realistic for most people. Plus gyms are everywhere these days - it's easy to slide them into work commute so you don't have the time overhead of going there/back.
hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
To each their own, but I'd point out that a huge reason people go to gyms/studios to work out is for the social and structured aspect of it, and there is a ton of evidence that working out with others or gym partners leads to much more consistent progress, statistically speaking. That is a big reason all of the recent Peloton and Peloton-esque programs fundamentally include a group social aspect. I've always had the ability to work out from home, and during the pandemic I've pretty much had to, but I greatly prefer going to the gym. I'm really not social at all, but I just feel like I can get much more "in the zone" at a gym than my house.

thaumasiotes 6y ago

> More work gets done in a dedicated space for work, surrounded by other people engaged in related work I don't think that first part ("dedicated space for work") is so significant. In my experience working remotely answering bug bounty reports, what most helped with working was the presence of a chat channel containing the rest of the team. It was used, in part, to discuss or ask for help with difficult reports, but primarily for making fun of stupid reports. (One of my favorites in this category being "If I zoom in too far on your mobile app, the text starts to become blurry.") That might not sound especially productive, but you can't do it if you're not looking at the reports. You could view the channel more abstractly as providing irregular notifications of the form "I just did some work" -- participating requires you to do some work, and that helps you keep working.

lupire 6y ago
Why is it stupid? Vector fonts should render smoothly at all scales.
- thaumasiotes 6y ago
  It might legitimately be a bug in the app, if you're on the UI team. It's stupid because it was reported to the security team, and it has no security implications whatever. Nobody pays UI bounties.
  - jrockway 6y ago
    Users are going to use whatever mechanism to provide feedback that they find first. They don't know what's a security issue, what's a bug, what's a sales request, and what's a support request. All I can say is that I hope whatever system you use for collecting security reports is shared by those other teams, and you just change the "security" tag to "ui" and move on. Because if you don't do that, you know whoever is reading that "ui bug" queue also has a slack channel where they make fun of people filing security reports as ui bugs, and then proceed to drop them on the floor. Always be careful about shipping your org chart.
  - yunohn 6y ago

bluefirebrand 6y ago

> More work gets done in a dedicated space for work, surrounded by other people engaged in related work, and this is especially true if some of the team members are young and inexperienced. More work gets done when you're tired from being up early for your commute, then the commute itself, and surrounded by distracting coworkers? Not for me, not ever again if I can help it.

tmpz22 6y ago
Don’t forget the 5 coffee breaks, multi hour conference room meetings, lunch meetings, etc, that can take up half your work week if you give in to that sort of stuff.
- anticristi 6y ago
  Call me weird but it feels like those 5 coffee breaks gave me enough situational awareness to avoid 5 hours of meeting.
  - bluepizza 6y ago
    Most times it's out of your control, though. Someone else booked the meeting, a higher uo decided you should go, and those hours are lost.
- mavelikara 6y ago
  How do you stay caffeinated at home?
  - astrange 6y ago
    Caffeine isn't really beneficial for work, right? Most of its effect is because it's addictive and you need to prevent the withdrawal. The point of a break is that it's an excuse to stand up and walk around.
    - yorwba 6y ago

superflit 6y ago

Sorry. *We* are not going back. Not going back to long commutes. Open office plans and office politics. Not going back to cheap lunch in a plastic/cardboard box that costs a lot. Not going back to paying high rent in bad cities without any quality. Not going back to frivolous meeting. Now after almost 2 years we have proved that yes the company can be run remotely, several things that were "not possible" are and the ultimate thing: We can choose where we want to live and with whom. We are not going back as same we are not going back to cable anymore.

closeparen 6y ago
Not going back to paying developed-country wages.
- charlesu 6y ago
  Speak for yourself. I’m in no way concerned about remote work depressing wages. Competition has always been global.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- bluepizza 6y ago
  Which started happening some 15 years ago when outsourcing development to India started getting traction.
  - refurb 6y ago
    But now add US developers in Ohio to the mix.
- pdimitar 6y ago
  I work remotely for 10 full years now and this has always been specific to the employer and nothing else.
6y ago

anticristi 6y ago

> I feel compelled to point out that WFH in the midst of a pandemic-inspired social media freakout, does not make for a productive state of mind Not to mention the constant "we lock / we don't lock", "kids go to school / kids don't go to school".

UncleOxidant 6y ago

> So it could be that WFH productivity would be better in non-pandemic times. I tend to think this is likely true. I also tend to think that WFH productivity is improving as people adjust to it. A lot of people who found themselves suddenly WFH had to setup a workspace, buy a decent chair,desk, etc. There were also mental adjustments. Now people are pretty used to it and it's become the new normal. Going back to an office (if we do that) is also going to mean a performance hit as well because people will have to adjust to that change. Any kind of major change is going to lead to a performance hit for a period of time as people adjust to it.

ineedasername 6y ago

That's not a universally accurate assessment. It all depends on the nature of the work, the nature of the on-site work environment, and the nature of the at-home work environment. (among other factors). I have significantly less wasted time working from home. At work, if I have 2 or 3 meetings in a day, that day is practically wasted for other work between walking to the meeting (I work on a large multi-building site), waiting for everyone to arrive, etc. Then it seems like people never want to end a meeting until its scheduled stop time even if we're done after 20 minutes. Then I have to get back to my office... Zoom has changed all of that. Zero time wasted at the beginning or end, and people don't seem to have as much of a problem saying "all right that's all we have, see you later" and ending a meeting early. I can also get a bit more sleep in the mornings because I don't have to get ready to leave the house, commute, park, get to my office, etc. When the end of the day comes, I'm already home, giving me an automatic hour of extra time each day. You can do a lot with 5 more hours of free time each week. I get to see my kids for more time, especially my youngest, who I watch, as my wife oversees distance learning for the other two. Even with the added distractions of working with at home with kids present, This past year has been one of the most productive in my entire career. I'm sure that mine is neither a unique experience, but also not how it works for everyone else. But the mindset that says it's mostly more productive to work on-site is why some places ban WFH, as mine did before the pandemic. I do, however, agree that WFH is least likely to result in the same or higher level of productivity for junior staff.

briandear 6y ago

> It's the same reason we have gyms for exercise, yoga studios for yoga, art studios for painting No. We have gyms for exercise because there is an economy of scale. Who wants to buy a rowing machine, weight machines, stair machines, etc. Yoga studios are because people go there to have a class led by an instructor. And most artists don’t “go” to a studio, they have a place in their house. For typing on a computer, there’s really not much requirement for an external place unless your house is such that you don’t have a desk in which to work.

didibus 6y ago

> and this is especially true if some of the team members are young and inexperienced I think this is the big one for me, at least with the experience of WFH for Covid, it is so much harder for people to ramp up and learn in a WFH situation, you can't just ask your neighbor about a weird compile issue, or why the IDE isn't able to run your tests and be helped promptly with them just showing you right away. Instead you ask in a Slack, get a slow churn of reponse, nothing helpful enough, so you then schedule an actual short meeting with someone else to walk you over it, etc. And this support doesn't naturally distribute like it would at the office, it seems it's always the same more senior person remotely who has to now help new members in these more formal ways. I've also seen so much more just confusion around like, what to do, who's doing what, when to do it, etc. Getting everyone aligned and in-sync is much harder. And that adds a lot of overhead and creates a lot more churn I feel to projects. On the flip side, when you have a clear task to do and you know what needs to be done and it doesn't depend on others, you can really crush through it. And you save a lot of time from commute, launches are faster, etc. I've also found, appart from Covid, remote work is pretty nice in terms of work/life balance. You can make laundry while you work for example, saving you time in your day. So I'm still a bit mixed feelings about WFH, I like some aspect of it, mostly no commute, convenience of being at home so I can easily cook my launches at launch time, do some laundry or have the oven repair person show up and manage them while I work and all that. But I also feel doing the actual day to day work is harder, the coordination overhead is pretty high, and everyone is more siloed, so anything that involves collaboration has more friction.

throwaway53453 6y ago

I want the option, because one day my mind might change if I have a family, but right now I absolutely hate WFH as a new-grad. I feel like I've learned almost nothing since March (or if I have, it's taken way too long).

pdimitar 6y ago
For junior positions WFH can definitely be sub-optimal but in my eyes it also trains the juniors to over-communicate when they are stuck or are in a need of a coaching session. It's a way to distinguish the people who are way too shy for their own career good.
- throwaway53453 6y ago
  It's less about communication, and more about not hating my job. I'm slowly coming to the conclusion I'd rather work in a bakery or something than WFH as a programmer, because I'd at least be around people.
  - pdimitar 6y ago
    Well, that's a separate thing though, right? To be fair, I too could use some more socialization but not sure that work is the ideal vector for me. I'd rather have a less stressful job on my terms (in my home office) and/or with less hours and then just proceed and make my free time more pleasant around other people.

emptysongglass 6y ago

I've never been more productive at work than during this pandemic. I don't want to be surrounded by an audio mælstrom thanks to open office (who actually thought this was a good idea?) Coworkers and bosses ambling over to my desk for a "quick" interruption? Meetings that only make the meeting makers feel like they've accomplished something? No thanks. I create a space of discipline at home with discipline. If the only thing keeping you from indulging in whatever Clubhouse-flavor-of-the-week distraction is the enforcement of order from above, you need to take a strong look at what is motivating you to work your job in the first place. I specifically exempt parents: my condolences for the chaos that must be to your peace. We need to stop treating employees like automatons to be filled by the directives of middle management and start trusting them to produce.

sharken 6y ago
I feel the opposite, productivity is poor or at best unpredictable when working from home. There is a strong truth in looking at what motivates you though, for me it is just as much the interaction with colleagues working towards a common goal that is key. That goal is so much harder to accomplish in a WFH setting. Other than that i very much agree that too many meetings is one of the biggest productivity killers.
- pdimitar 6y ago
  I don't think any reasonable person will claim that office or WFH is universally better. Different strokes for different folks. But IMO working from home did outline some inefficiencies in the office work that finally started getting more closely inspected (like the needless meetings).

mbrodersen 6y ago

Not my experience at all. I am a lot more productive working from home.

threatofrain 6y ago

There are multiple opportunities to lose and win in WFH, and it’s the sum of all things which we see; while sharing a physical space may come with productivity boosts, having a large amount of people travel or drive every day is also a negative for productivity. We only have so much time in a day, and I’m not sure that the balance of productivity factors will continue to weigh obviously in the direction of in-office work.