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Offices make me spend 4+ extra hours a day on work with 0 benefit. That's 20 hours/week I could be spending with my wife & cats, caring for my home, developing

Offices make me spend 4+ extra hours a day on work with 0 benefit. That's 20 hours/week I could be spending with my wife & cats, caring for my home, developing skills and software that makes me money instead of some corporation. That's an entire mini-lifetime I'd be giving my employer. And I don't think I ever will have to - I can force myself to be remote the rest of my working life. And that mini-lifetime is mine..and that's priceless. I've had 1 or 2 coworkers out of hundreds I became any level of "friends" with, and the closest of whom I didn't even work directly with. Actually, one of the coworkers I'm friends with, I met in a remote team with us living across the country from each other.

brianwawok 6y ago
I am glad that is your experience.There is no single answer for all people. I think you as an employee are making a wise choice. If you can get paid a full salary for 20 hours of work, it is in your best interest to keep that alive! As a business owner, I am not sure you would hire on the same axis. I would personally not hire someone that can only work for 20 hours a week, there is too much to do.
- whateveracct 6y ago
  I've worked at many remote companies by now. None have asked how many hours they're getting out of me. And they all got more or less the amount of time mentioned. And they were all plenty happy with my output! Why would they care if the output was the result of fewer hours? If they wanted to pay me by the hour, they could have negotiated that. At-will salaried employment cuts both ways :) and in this case, everyone is happy. Anyone wanting more hours out of me is just trying to exploit my labor. I'm already getting paid fair value for what I'm producing.
- nemothekid 6y ago
  >As a business owner, I am not sure you would hire on the same axis If you are hiring salaried individuals on the basis on how many hours they put in a week, then you might be focusing on the wrong metrics. There were plenty of people in tech doing 20 hours of work a week, and spending the remaining 20 hours on hacker news. I bemoan WFH, but not because of work output.
- heavyset_go 6y ago
  > As a business owner, I am not sure you would hire on the same axis. I would personally not hire someone that can only work for 20 hours a week, there is too much to do. When you're hiring make this known so people can do their own filtering on their end, as well.
  - brianwawok 6y ago
    Yup, we make it known. Plenty of companies in the world that you can coast at, it can’t be a company with <5 developers fighting well funded competitors.
    - solosoyokaze 6y ago
      This is only true if you assume 40 hours a week produces better software than 20 hours a week. I’ve not found that to be the case. Software productivity is in large part a function of developer happiness. Plenty of people are happier and more productive with less hours. That’s not even getting into burnout and cost of replacing people.
- kasey_junk 6y ago
  I get the feeling they were talking about the commute/lunch/break overhead not slagging off for an extra 20 hours per week because they weren’t supervised. I know I get a lot of benefit from not commuting, from being able to make a healthy lunch out of my fridge & from doing laundry when I would have been walking to the coffee shop. If anything I “work” more remote than I ever did in the office.
bradlys 6y ago
The issue is that almost no workplace in the US is going to work like this knowingly for salaried employees. I really doubt your current workplace is okay with you working 20hrs/week, you just likely don’t tell them that’s the case. Maybe consider contracting instead? Just because you haven’t made friends doesn’t mean the rest of us haven’t. On top of this, work friendships can just be that. Work friendships. Ones that last as long as you’re at that job, not all of them have to go outside of it. And that’s okay.
- whateveracct 6y ago
  Why contract when I can work as if I'm full-time & salaried (with benefits) for 5+ years? Just seems like added risk and a lower effective wage to me. Also - it's springtime which means it's review season - the results are in and the entity paying me for my output is very happy with my output!

brianwawok 6y ago

I am glad that is your experience.There is no single answer for all people. I think you as an employee are making a wise choice. If you can get paid a full salary for 20 hours of work, it is in your best interest to keep that alive! As a business owner, I am not sure you would hire on the same axis. I would personally not hire someone that can only work for 20 hours a week, there is too much to do.

whateveracct 6y ago
I've worked at many remote companies by now. None have asked how many hours they're getting out of me. And they all got more or less the amount of time mentioned. And they were all plenty happy with my output! Why would they care if the output was the result of fewer hours? If they wanted to pay me by the hour, they could have negotiated that. At-will salaried employment cuts both ways :) and in this case, everyone is happy. Anyone wanting more hours out of me is just trying to exploit my labor. I'm already getting paid fair value for what I'm producing.
nemothekid 6y ago
>As a business owner, I am not sure you would hire on the same axis If you are hiring salaried individuals on the basis on how many hours they put in a week, then you might be focusing on the wrong metrics. There were plenty of people in tech doing 20 hours of work a week, and spending the remaining 20 hours on hacker news. I bemoan WFH, but not because of work output.
heavyset_go 6y ago
> As a business owner, I am not sure you would hire on the same axis. I would personally not hire someone that can only work for 20 hours a week, there is too much to do. When you're hiring make this known so people can do their own filtering on their end, as well.
- brianwawok 6y ago
  Yup, we make it known. Plenty of companies in the world that you can coast at, it can’t be a company with <5 developers fighting well funded competitors.
  - solosoyokaze 6y ago
    This is only true if you assume 40 hours a week produces better software than 20 hours a week. I’ve not found that to be the case. Software productivity is in large part a function of developer happiness. Plenty of people are happier and more productive with less hours. That’s not even getting into burnout and cost of replacing people.
kasey_junk 6y ago
I get the feeling they were talking about the commute/lunch/break overhead not slagging off for an extra 20 hours per week because they weren’t supervised. I know I get a lot of benefit from not commuting, from being able to make a healthy lunch out of my fridge & from doing laundry when I would have been walking to the coffee shop. If anything I “work” more remote than I ever did in the office.

bradlys 6y ago

The issue is that almost no workplace in the US is going to work like this knowingly for salaried employees. I really doubt your current workplace is okay with you working 20hrs/week, you just likely don’t tell them that’s the case. Maybe consider contracting instead? Just because you haven’t made friends doesn’t mean the rest of us haven’t. On top of this, work friendships can just be that. Work friendships. Ones that last as long as you’re at that job, not all of them have to go outside of it. And that’s okay.

whateveracct 6y ago
Why contract when I can work as if I'm full-time & salaried (with benefits) for 5+ years? Just seems like added risk and a lower effective wage to me. Also - it's springtime which means it's review season - the results are in and the entity paying me for my output is very happy with my output!