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- Be really really good at your job - You don't need to be told what to do all the time. - You have proven that you can WFH and deliver great results - You h

- Be really really good at your job - You don't need to be told what to do all the time. - You have proven that you can WFH and deliver great results - You have proven that you have integrity and are available when needed for important discussions, meetings etc. If you have most of these, you have "leverage". Otherwise it may be tough if your manager doesn't want you to WFH post-pandemic.

tinus_hn 5y ago
If you can check all these boxes, you can probably also just look for a job where you can work from home.
- codegeek 5y ago
  Good point.
- toast0 5y ago
  Sometimes it's nice to keep the job you have and just change the venue. I was able to move and keep my job because I had the first two boxes, and showed the second two. Being 'indespensible' helped, although they also did fine when I eventually left (but I left later than expected, because of flexibility)
  - Buttons840 5y ago
    If a developer is truly good, and thus truly indespensable, they can leave and barely be missed.
    - water8 5y ago
      Until the entropy in their wake catches up with everyone else
      - Buttons840 5y ago
        What do you mean? I meant that the best developers work well with others, coordinate with others, write maintainable code and document that code. All of this makes things easy to maintain if the developer leaves. These are rare traits and thus make an indespensable developer.
        water8 5y ago
        The developer leaves and it starts with having to ask a co-worker how to configure something simple. Then suddenly the code isn't as well documented or the documents all issues that cause things not to go smoothly. Things slowly get harder to maintain because that person isn't there fighting entropy to keep order.
decafninja 5y ago
Pre-covid story, but we had two people in a sister team that had arranged WFH, other than occasional trips to the office for important meetings etc. They were both very good at their jobs, and also had a lot of knowledge on how certain systems worked, etc. New CTO comes in, immediately mandates there will be no more of this WFH nonsense anymore. Short while later, both of the aforementioned people hand in their resignation. A lot of knowledge was lost. These were people that had been there a long time, so while they did their best to hand off knowledge, such things are always imperfect. Covid comes along, and we're forced to WFH. But the CTO (same person) is making sure that once we're back to a safe level, WFH will again no longer be an option. In a town hall, some people dared to question the decision, but all she would say was that it was "scientifically proven by data that WFH is not productive". Nevermind that the company had just spent a year WFH with little to no loss in productivity. Asked if that data could be shown, she said "it's out there for anyone to find".
- yellow_lead 5y ago
  Have witnessed similar types of answers to questions at town halls. Love the contrast between the openness of "we do town halls!" and the closed-ness of "trust me" / "anyone can look it up" responses.
- AnimalMuppet 5y ago
  So now you know it's time to go, whether or not you care about WFH.
  - sitkack 5y ago
    I love it when an org can be so transparent.
- mewpmewp2 5y ago
  I would like to see this situation playing out when someone uber confident would keep going at the topic questioning her and bringing good counter-examples, data examples. Also bringing out those 2 folks they lost as an argument for example. Ask her that you tried to Google, but only found data pointing at WFH being more productive, and whether she could help them out by pointing out to the "correct" study that was done. Make sure to bring out all the cons of not allowing WFH very eloquently. https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/15259-working-from-home-more-productive.html#:~:text=Working%20From%20Home%20Increases%20Productivity&text=According%20to%20one%20study%2C%20remote,weeks%20of%20work%20per%20year https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/15259-working-from-home-mo.... One of my weird "fantasies" is to be at a level of net worth where I don't care at all about firing and have confidence to question bad attitudes or practices of the authority and see how they would handle it when I know that I'm in the right. Not out of maliciousness, but for the benefit of the company and everyone working there. Anyway this is a big motivator for me to save a lot of my net worth and also develop as strong debate skills as I possibly can with a charismatic and witty personality. I'm far from there, but I'm training myself. Although in this case, looking deeper at the topic, I should also be sure that studies would be by my side since for instance this study done before Covid 19 https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/atus.pdf https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/atus.pdf prefers working from office. So in conclusion the situation is probably not as black and white and may end up in her favour still.
muzani 5y ago
I do all of these but it doesn't help. Part of the problem is that some colleagues can't work from home and to be "fair", everyone has to go into the office.

tinus_hn 5y ago

If you can check all these boxes, you can probably also just look for a job where you can work from home.

codegeek 5y ago
Good point.
toast0 5y ago
Sometimes it's nice to keep the job you have and just change the venue. I was able to move and keep my job because I had the first two boxes, and showed the second two. Being 'indespensible' helped, although they also did fine when I eventually left (but I left later than expected, because of flexibility)
- Buttons840 5y ago
  If a developer is truly good, and thus truly indespensable, they can leave and barely be missed.
  - water8 5y ago
    Until the entropy in their wake catches up with everyone else
    - Buttons840 5y ago
      What do you mean? I meant that the best developers work well with others, coordinate with others, write maintainable code and document that code. All of this makes things easy to maintain if the developer leaves. These are rare traits and thus make an indespensable developer.
      - water8 5y ago
        The developer leaves and it starts with having to ask a co-worker how to configure something simple. Then suddenly the code isn't as well documented or the documents all issues that cause things not to go smoothly. Things slowly get harder to maintain because that person isn't there fighting entropy to keep order.

decafninja 5y ago

Pre-covid story, but we had two people in a sister team that had arranged WFH, other than occasional trips to the office for important meetings etc. They were both very good at their jobs, and also had a lot of knowledge on how certain systems worked, etc. New CTO comes in, immediately mandates there will be no more of this WFH nonsense anymore. Short while later, both of the aforementioned people hand in their resignation. A lot of knowledge was lost. These were people that had been there a long time, so while they did their best to hand off knowledge, such things are always imperfect. Covid comes along, and we're forced to WFH. But the CTO (same person) is making sure that once we're back to a safe level, WFH will again no longer be an option. In a town hall, some people dared to question the decision, but all she would say was that it was "scientifically proven by data that WFH is not productive". Nevermind that the company had just spent a year WFH with little to no loss in productivity. Asked if that data could be shown, she said "it's out there for anyone to find".

yellow_lead 5y ago
Have witnessed similar types of answers to questions at town halls. Love the contrast between the openness of "we do town halls!" and the closed-ness of "trust me" / "anyone can look it up" responses.
AnimalMuppet 5y ago
So now you know it's time to go, whether or not you care about WFH.
- sitkack 5y ago
  I love it when an org can be so transparent.
mewpmewp2 5y ago
I would like to see this situation playing out when someone uber confident would keep going at the topic questioning her and bringing good counter-examples, data examples. Also bringing out those 2 folks they lost as an argument for example. Ask her that you tried to Google, but only found data pointing at WFH being more productive, and whether she could help them out by pointing out to the "correct" study that was done. Make sure to bring out all the cons of not allowing WFH very eloquently. https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/15259-working-from-home-more-productive.html#:~:text=Working%20From%20Home%20Increases%20Productivity&text=According%20to%20one%20study%2C%20remote,weeks%20of%20work%20per%20year https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/15259-working-from-home-mo.... One of my weird "fantasies" is to be at a level of net worth where I don't care at all about firing and have confidence to question bad attitudes or practices of the authority and see how they would handle it when I know that I'm in the right. Not out of maliciousness, but for the benefit of the company and everyone working there. Anyway this is a big motivator for me to save a lot of my net worth and also develop as strong debate skills as I possibly can with a charismatic and witty personality. I'm far from there, but I'm training myself. Although in this case, looking deeper at the topic, I should also be sure that studies would be by my side since for instance this study done before Covid 19 https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/atus.pdf https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/atus.pdf prefers working from office. So in conclusion the situation is probably not as black and white and may end up in her favour still.

muzani 5y ago

I do all of these but it doesn't help. Part of the problem is that some colleagues can't work from home and to be "fair", everyone has to go into the office.