7 ms·

Winners and losers of the work-from-home revolution

75 points by chrisaycock 5y ago

theoblank 5y ago
This is an important perspective that I haven’t seen many people explore. Sure, work-from-home is going to be great for some people (and HN is probably the single best enclave of that demographic), but there are also many who will be victims of this “revolution.” Business leaders, and even peers who just care about their co-workers, can help make sure these collateral issues aren’t forgotten.
blakesterz 5y ago
Interesting list of winners and losers here: Winners: High-income workers at highly profitable companies; Work introverts and people who enjoy (or are good at) using online communication tools; Suburban-town-center developers; the how-to-WFH economy Losers: Entry-level workers in less established positions; Downtown landlords and businesses; Political comity The "Political comity" was especially interesting to me.
luffapi 5y ago
I dispute this repeated claim that entry level workers struggle with WFH. They enjoy all of the same benefits everyone else does: increased ability to focus, more freedom of work style and schedule, freedom to live where they want… Mentoring someone remotely is no harder than doing it in person. With WFH entry level people everywhere can gain access to the industry. No longer do they need to move or already live in SF, NY…
- disgruntledphd2 5y ago
  I dunno man, having onboarded people remotely (for many years now, due to distributed working) it's much, much harder for a lot of people. The big problem is that there's a bar to meet for Zoom which is higher than that to ask a question in the office. Rightly or wrongly, lots of people feel this way, and I ended up having to over-schedule meetings to make sure people got support. Additionally, junior people are much, much less likely to have the space to make WFH effective, so they do benefit from having an office. Don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of WFH, but I'm pretty sceptical of it working for junior people as well as it does for senior. And even then, that difference will cause a bunch of problems.
  - luffapi 5y ago
    I’ve also on boarded many people remote and in person. When you work for a fully remote company, on boarding is not difficult. Speaking up on Zoom may have a higher barrier to entry than in an in person meeting (maybe) but asking questions on Slack is much lower. The great thing about remote first, is that a lot of communication is written and can be referenced in the future, which is a great boon to juniors.
    - disgruntledphd2 5y ago
      > When you work for a fully remote company, on boarding is not difficult. This is probably the key, to be honest. The companies where I've done this were not fully remote. I agree with you that conditional on being selected for a fully-remote company, this is fine. My understanding is that these companies tend not to hire as many juniors though, am I incorrect?
      - luffapi 5y ago
        > My understanding is that these companies tend not to hire as many juniors though, am I incorrect? Speaking for myself, I’ve always hired a good mix of jr/sr people. I do always look for devs that have the proven ability to ship (so jr devs with a GitHub project for instance).
  - theoblank 5y ago
    I agree with this general sentiment. Many people have an idealized vision of WFH and aren't paying attention to the challenges. Another factor I haven't seen much discussion of is people with vs without children. WFH with children presents a whole new slew of challenges.
    - chokma 5y ago
      A former colleague of mine has three children and no spare office room in his house, so his work-from-home met with school-from-home. He thought about buying a trailer like those used on construction sites, but those are also not prime office-material. I guess once the children are at school again, he will be happier.
- delecti 5y ago
  I think it's two different things though. Widespread WFH helps people get those entry-level jobs, but make it harder to become proficient once they do. An entry-level worker often won't know which things they should try to work through, and which things they should get help for to get unblocked.
  - luffapi 5y ago
    This is the same for in-person work. Whether you’re face to face or remote, you still need to practice good management. I find it’s much easier to scale as a remote manager as the team’s focus is much more work oriented and much less focused on office drama that requires management participation or intervention. Even something like catching up with everyone after a weekend is much more taxing IRL from a management perspective.
    - delecti 5y ago
      As a senior engineer, I've lost a big signal when one of the more junior engineers on my team needs help: being able to see frustrated faces by just looking around. It's much easier to check in and make sure nobody's blocked for too long when we're in the same place. It's resulting in less disruptions for me, but if the cost is the junior devs staying blocked longer, that may not be a net positive.
- jawns 5y ago
  > They enjoy all of the same benefits everyone else does: increased ability to focus, more freedom of work style and schedule, freedom to live where they want… I think some of the inequality comes not from the demands of the job itself but from where people are in life. I've been working remotely for 10 years, so I bought my house because it had a home office. My WFH setup is very comfortable, and it works well for my family. But early in my career, I was renting a cheap apartment with multiple roommates, and it was not as ideal for remote work. And I likely would have missed out on networking opportunities and just general friendships versus someone doing the same role in-office. Those aren't as important to me at this stage of my career, but they were very important back then.
- dkarl 5y ago
  I'm noticing a bigger spread in the success of onboarding new people. The success cases aren't getting any better, but there are a lot more neglected people and more "failures to launch." It's normal for a senior person to need to show some initiative in getting the lay of the land and establishing themselves in the company, but I'm also seeing more junior people being unintentionally left to do the same, and few of them can handle it. What's sad is that since expectations are lower for junior people, and since the industry has embraced the idea that virtually all traditional management responsibilities in software engineering should be left for engineers to figure out themselves, new employees can hang around for months without anyone caring that nobody has put any effort into making them productive, which stunts their growth and desensitizes them to being helpless and useless. Eventually effective onboarding for fully remote employees will become the norm, but meanwhile, a lot of people are falling through the cracks.
- dfxm12 5y ago
  This is just one data point, but the new college grad we brought in has really hit the ground running. He is not struggling with working from home at all & I'm not having any problems mentoring him.
- ladyattis 5y ago
  I think for some trying to explain how to get setup for the VPN remotely is a nightmare. Why I mention this? Because I've had this exact problem a couple months back. Basically, I wasn't able to access a SQL server on the business' internal network until me and IT had the realization that my IP address at home was conflicting with theirs. So I had to manually update my router settings and all the affected devices (laptop included) to use a different subnet. So it's little things like this that will plague any on-boarding WFH worker among others.
  - coredog64 5y ago
    Outlook stopped working on my corporate laptop, seemingly at random. My choices were to use the web app or to schedule (at least a week out) an in-person appointment, drive into the office only for this, and have someone look at my laptop. I'm at least in the same city: It would be a severe PITA if I had to FedEx my laptop back to the depot.
- jameshart 5y ago
  I do feel like college hires going into remote gigs right now are missing out on an important ritual - the rite of passage of walking into that big office building - a place full of people who are united in a common purpose and whose ranks you've been trusted to join. That sense of 'I'm a professional now, like these people'. It must be hard to have an idea of the scale of the enterprise you're engaged in when you never see more than five or six faces on a Zoom call at a time. But there's nothing natural or ancient about going in to the office as a rite of passage - it's not necessary. It's just something this generation won't get to have, just like my generation didn't have to go through the ritual of getting our first proper business suit, and how direct deposit has taken away the moment of being physically handed a paycheck. But they'll have their own things, I'm sure. Maybe the defining moment will be when that Fedex driver arrives and you sign for your first work laptop? Maybe logging onto the corporate slack and seeing all the channels for the first time imparts some sense of shared purpose? And maybe that means you also don't get artificially seduced by the trappings of the environment. Because the work is done in a serious building with serious glass conference rooms and serious desks, we learn to take the business seriously - maybe more seriously than it deserves. And maybe people who work in offices typing on computers every day do think a bit too much of themselves, because after all they work in an important building full of important people. Perhaps it's a good thing to miss out on that ego-stroking. Harder to take yourself too seriously when you're working on an Ikea desk at the foot of your bed surrounded by your own dirty laundry.
- thomascgalvin 5y ago
  We've hired a couple of entry-level developers during COVID, and they've thrived in a remote work environment. The big reason for this, I think, is that the whole team is remote. Since everyone communicated via zoom, and everything is coordinated online, they can slip into the team seamlessly. I think the upcoming blended teams are going to make this more difficult. My org, like most, is pushing for two days in the office, three days remote, but a few of our hired are geographically distant, so they will always be remote. I'm worried that they're going to start to feel isolated from the team.
- brundolf 5y ago
  As someone who started a job remotely during the pandemic (and I'm not even entry-level), I can unequivocally disagree. It's much harder to get your technical bearings, not to mention your social bearings, over Slack and Zoom.
elzbardico 5y ago
Talking about the landlords, I think that a lot of the current business spaces that exist today will end up being retrofitted as housing. and that will bring back the service economy on those neighborhoods. You'll see more grocery stores, barber shops, schools and less coffees. People will enjoy living on the city not because they hate commute, but because cities will become more enjoyable. Yes, in the short run, as with everything else, from electric light to computers and cell phones, the richer ones will benefit first, but given time I think that a bigger army of WFH persons will lead up to positive societal change.
- throwaway98797 5y ago
  I sooooo want you to be right. However, you are wrong at least for USA. Zoning laws will slow this down and the momentum will be lost. I’d love a taste of europe in america with some mix zone areas. I know not all cities are like the ossified ones. Ie., austin has mixed zones but many cities arent. I want to live in the picture you paint.
  - elzbardico 5y ago
    Landlords have pretty powerful lobbies, once they see the writing in the wall, and that they can chose between writing those assets off or lobbying for mixed zoning, I hope they will lobby for that. Well... a man can always hope
  - iancmceachern 5y ago
    My building did this. They are "live work " units that can either be rented by businesses or people as residences.
  - positr0n 5y ago
    I live in a suburb of a quarter million directly north of Dallas. They are building up some decently dense mixed-use areas along the 4 major highways that bound the city. Mostly on the north-west side (Legacy West) so far, but they are trying to revitalize the strip along the highway to the east as well, including an old mall over there. We just had elections, and several candidates, including for mayor, campaigned very hard on the platform "my opponent is in bed with developers and wants to turn our sleepy suburban town into a dense urban hell hole!" Surprisingly to me, those candidates lost.
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lwigo 5y ago
I have worked more (and harder, quantifiable by sprint points if you must have a number) in the past year from home than in the entire rest of my career combined. My close ones tell me I'm just making "the man" more money, but I really don't mind it for some reason. I feel like I'm accomplishing goals and feel fulfilled in ways that I didn't previously. No signs of burnout, perhaps I am a freak of nature.
- CoastalCoder 5y ago
  (Please don't hear this as a criticism of your point - I'm just not very experienced with scrum.) To what extent are sprint points a good measure of productivity or of effort? My understanding is that they're based on estimates, which seem like a moving target to me depending on the experience and motivations of the estimator.
  - lwigo 5y ago
    They are a moving target, but my org has them pretty closely pinned to 2hrs of "work time" per point, at least ideologically. When you see that go from 12-18ish in person per person to 30+ (~38 average consistently for me), it's pretty straightforward that the org is actually getting closer to its billable 80 hours per sprint, even with 3ish daily Zoom meetings. And to boot, the quality of design, PMing, ticket writing, feature scoping, and everything else around it has increased, which probably helps the productivity.
    - coredog64 5y ago
      > my org has them pretty closely pinned to 2hrs of "work time" per point Off-topic, but isn't this exactly what you're not supposed to do with points? AIUI, they're explicitly disconnected from time so that teams can adjust points to match their reality.
      - lwigo 5y ago
        Explicitly, yes. Implicitly, no.
jcadam 5y ago
I'm an introvert who now loves WFH. I've also been able to move from a city to a rural area. I never want to go back.
- silicon2401 5y ago
  You're what I'm aiming to be in the future. Fully remote, ditch the city, live in peace on some acres I can call my own. I used to get pretty bummed about life because of how long you have to work to retire, but being fully remote during the pandemic has been even better than I had dreamed. Now I can easily imagine a long and happy career, if I can manage to never see an office or coworker in person.
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overkill28 5y ago
> "For years, urban developers have been talking about “15-minute cities”—accessible downtown neighborhoods where residents can satisfy just about every food, drink, beauty, entertainment, and fitness need with a short walk or bike ride. Logically, as more 30-somethings relocate to the suburbs, real-estate developers will chase their needs by pouring money into a constellation of 15-minute suburban town centers. The downtown office building’s loss will be the suburban developer’s gain." Nobody I know who's moving to the suburbs is doing it to buy a loft apartment and bike everywhere. They're all entering or already in child rearing years and buying houses with yards and cars. As much as people talk about wanting to live in dense walkable neighborhoods, and as much as I wish we could build denser suburbs, the American dream of a lush lawn and big comfortable car is very much alive with millennials. And more practically, where are you going to build these walkable suburbs? All the prime space of of the inner ring is already built out, and existing "street car suburbs" have already been popular, affluent and expensive for years.
- andrewclunn 5y ago
  It's because American cities invariably have section 8 housing and other such blight (I say blight because of crime rates and property disrepair that come along with these subsidized housing). What's the point of waling places if I might get mugged? A city that was as exclusive as the suburbs? People would lap that up, but usually the exclusive city areas are at a price level that dwarfs suburban costs. Cities can't or won't provide safe walkable neighborhoods, so people vote with their feet and go elsewhere.
- eie7ehrgdufu 5y ago
  I don't understand why the other reply to this comment is dead. Whatever it might have lacked in nuance, the reality is that the tolerant approach to crime and vagrancy has created neighborhoods and downtowns that only idiots and parents with something to prove would raise a child in. If you care about the outcome of your child more than how well that child advances your social agenda then you move to the closest place that isn't garbage which is usually a suburb.
- luxurytent 5y ago
  Yup. Most of our cities continue to be terrible for walkability despite significant progress in the past decade. Pedestrians are still killed on side streets due to vehicles travelling well beyond 40km/h, for instance. Living in the city with children can be very desirable. You may have a small (or no backyard), but the city is your playground. Public parks, pools, trails, and so much more. But the lack of people-focused planning for generations has put us in a long tail of catchup, leaving the burbs as a preferred choice for many.
remir 5y ago
The reason I like working from home is that I control the environment 100%. Temperature, chair, desk, monitor, computer, etc. At the office, they play music on a Sonos system all day long and this alone prevent me from going there because it saps my focus. I prefer working in silence. Also, there's always someone passing in front of my office looking at what I'm going and this annoys me. So for me to return to the office would mean accepting an inferior environment that saps my productivity. What's the benefit?
- silicon2401 5y ago
  I think, unfortunately, lots of people can't and don't empathize with our predicament. I feel the same way as you. I hate coworkers who come over to chat and stare at my screen (even though it's just whatever I'm working on). I hate the one guy's air purifier or the office AC constantly running. I hate the temperature being too hot or too cold, not having a good way to put up my feet, not having control over lighting or where I sit. These things make day to day life miserable and hopefully the pandemic will let people like us have greater freedom from these gripes.
crypot 5y ago
ICT has totally changed the way people communicate, but offices, until recently, were still structured the same way they were for the last 200 years. It is like when factories first switched over to electrical power. They kept the same layout, just with electricity. It took a while before people realized that they could restructure the factory layout to increase productivity. Maybe there is a better way to structure office workers that will increase productivity.
yboris 5y ago
I moved from New Jersey to Michigan for a calmer pace of life and cheaper housing (lower house price and taxes). Working from home has been the best life improvement since entering the high-paying tech world. I now live 4 blocks away from main street in a small town - I can walk to the library for the first time in my life (suburbs suck for walkability). I hope WFH spreads to as many people as possible as an option they could use if they prefer.
disrael 5y ago
"For extroverts, the office can be an ideal place for getting things done with just the right amount of spontaneous interruption." Yeah and abacus is better than calculators. The media pushing this daft narrative over and over won't make anyone believe this nonsense.
- AnimalMuppet 5y ago
  For people who like that kind of thing, that's the kind of thing they like. There actually are such people. They aren't me, and it sounds like they aren't you, but they exist in greater numbers than you seem to suspect.

75 points by chrisaycock 5y ago

This is an important perspective that I haven’t seen many people explore. Sure, work-from-home is going to be great for some people (and HN is probably the single best enclave of that demographic), but there are also many who will be victims of this “revolution.” Business leaders, and even peers who just care about their co-workers, can help make sure these collateral issues aren’t forgotten.

blakesterz 5y ago

Interesting list of winners and losers here: Winners: High-income workers at highly profitable companies; Work introverts and people who enjoy (or are good at) using online communication tools; Suburban-town-center developers; the how-to-WFH economy Losers: Entry-level workers in less established positions; Downtown landlords and businesses; Political comity The "Political comity" was especially interesting to me.

luffapi 5y ago

I dispute this repeated claim that entry level workers struggle with WFH. They enjoy all of the same benefits everyone else does: increased ability to focus, more freedom of work style and schedule, freedom to live where they want… Mentoring someone remotely is no harder than doing it in person. With WFH entry level people everywhere can gain access to the industry. No longer do they need to move or already live in SF, NY…

disgruntledphd2 5y ago
I dunno man, having onboarded people remotely (for many years now, due to distributed working) it's much, much harder for a lot of people. The big problem is that there's a bar to meet for Zoom which is higher than that to ask a question in the office. Rightly or wrongly, lots of people feel this way, and I ended up having to over-schedule meetings to make sure people got support. Additionally, junior people are much, much less likely to have the space to make WFH effective, so they do benefit from having an office. Don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of WFH, but I'm pretty sceptical of it working for junior people as well as it does for senior. And even then, that difference will cause a bunch of problems.
- luffapi 5y ago
  I’ve also on boarded many people remote and in person. When you work for a fully remote company, on boarding is not difficult. Speaking up on Zoom may have a higher barrier to entry than in an in person meeting (maybe) but asking questions on Slack is much lower. The great thing about remote first, is that a lot of communication is written and can be referenced in the future, which is a great boon to juniors.
  - disgruntledphd2 5y ago
    > When you work for a fully remote company, on boarding is not difficult. This is probably the key, to be honest. The companies where I've done this were not fully remote. I agree with you that conditional on being selected for a fully-remote company, this is fine. My understanding is that these companies tend not to hire as many juniors though, am I incorrect?
    - luffapi 5y ago
      > My understanding is that these companies tend not to hire as many juniors though, am I incorrect? Speaking for myself, I’ve always hired a good mix of jr/sr people. I do always look for devs that have the proven ability to ship (so jr devs with a GitHub project for instance).
- theoblank 5y ago
  I agree with this general sentiment. Many people have an idealized vision of WFH and aren't paying attention to the challenges. Another factor I haven't seen much discussion of is people with vs without children. WFH with children presents a whole new slew of challenges.
  - chokma 5y ago
    A former colleague of mine has three children and no spare office room in his house, so his work-from-home met with school-from-home. He thought about buying a trailer like those used on construction sites, but those are also not prime office-material. I guess once the children are at school again, he will be happier.
delecti 5y ago
I think it's two different things though. Widespread WFH helps people get those entry-level jobs, but make it harder to become proficient once they do. An entry-level worker often won't know which things they should try to work through, and which things they should get help for to get unblocked.
- luffapi 5y ago
  This is the same for in-person work. Whether you’re face to face or remote, you still need to practice good management. I find it’s much easier to scale as a remote manager as the team’s focus is much more work oriented and much less focused on office drama that requires management participation or intervention. Even something like catching up with everyone after a weekend is much more taxing IRL from a management perspective.
  - delecti 5y ago
    As a senior engineer, I've lost a big signal when one of the more junior engineers on my team needs help: being able to see frustrated faces by just looking around. It's much easier to check in and make sure nobody's blocked for too long when we're in the same place. It's resulting in less disruptions for me, but if the cost is the junior devs staying blocked longer, that may not be a net positive.
jawns 5y ago
> They enjoy all of the same benefits everyone else does: increased ability to focus, more freedom of work style and schedule, freedom to live where they want… I think some of the inequality comes not from the demands of the job itself but from where people are in life. I've been working remotely for 10 years, so I bought my house because it had a home office. My WFH setup is very comfortable, and it works well for my family. But early in my career, I was renting a cheap apartment with multiple roommates, and it was not as ideal for remote work. And I likely would have missed out on networking opportunities and just general friendships versus someone doing the same role in-office. Those aren't as important to me at this stage of my career, but they were very important back then.
dkarl 5y ago
I'm noticing a bigger spread in the success of onboarding new people. The success cases aren't getting any better, but there are a lot more neglected people and more "failures to launch." It's normal for a senior person to need to show some initiative in getting the lay of the land and establishing themselves in the company, but I'm also seeing more junior people being unintentionally left to do the same, and few of them can handle it. What's sad is that since expectations are lower for junior people, and since the industry has embraced the idea that virtually all traditional management responsibilities in software engineering should be left for engineers to figure out themselves, new employees can hang around for months without anyone caring that nobody has put any effort into making them productive, which stunts their growth and desensitizes them to being helpless and useless. Eventually effective onboarding for fully remote employees will become the norm, but meanwhile, a lot of people are falling through the cracks.
dfxm12 5y ago
This is just one data point, but the new college grad we brought in has really hit the ground running. He is not struggling with working from home at all & I'm not having any problems mentoring him.
ladyattis 5y ago
I think for some trying to explain how to get setup for the VPN remotely is a nightmare. Why I mention this? Because I've had this exact problem a couple months back. Basically, I wasn't able to access a SQL server on the business' internal network until me and IT had the realization that my IP address at home was conflicting with theirs. So I had to manually update my router settings and all the affected devices (laptop included) to use a different subnet. So it's little things like this that will plague any on-boarding WFH worker among others.
- coredog64 5y ago
  Outlook stopped working on my corporate laptop, seemingly at random. My choices were to use the web app or to schedule (at least a week out) an in-person appointment, drive into the office only for this, and have someone look at my laptop. I'm at least in the same city: It would be a severe PITA if I had to FedEx my laptop back to the depot.
jameshart 5y ago
I do feel like college hires going into remote gigs right now are missing out on an important ritual - the rite of passage of walking into that big office building - a place full of people who are united in a common purpose and whose ranks you've been trusted to join. That sense of 'I'm a professional now, like these people'. It must be hard to have an idea of the scale of the enterprise you're engaged in when you never see more than five or six faces on a Zoom call at a time. But there's nothing natural or ancient about going in to the office as a rite of passage - it's not necessary. It's just something this generation won't get to have, just like my generation didn't have to go through the ritual of getting our first proper business suit, and how direct deposit has taken away the moment of being physically handed a paycheck. But they'll have their own things, I'm sure. Maybe the defining moment will be when that Fedex driver arrives and you sign for your first work laptop? Maybe logging onto the corporate slack and seeing all the channels for the first time imparts some sense of shared purpose? And maybe that means you also don't get artificially seduced by the trappings of the environment. Because the work is done in a serious building with serious glass conference rooms and serious desks, we learn to take the business seriously - maybe more seriously than it deserves. And maybe people who work in offices typing on computers every day do think a bit too much of themselves, because after all they work in an important building full of important people. Perhaps it's a good thing to miss out on that ego-stroking. Harder to take yourself too seriously when you're working on an Ikea desk at the foot of your bed surrounded by your own dirty laundry.
thomascgalvin 5y ago
We've hired a couple of entry-level developers during COVID, and they've thrived in a remote work environment. The big reason for this, I think, is that the whole team is remote. Since everyone communicated via zoom, and everything is coordinated online, they can slip into the team seamlessly. I think the upcoming blended teams are going to make this more difficult. My org, like most, is pushing for two days in the office, three days remote, but a few of our hired are geographically distant, so they will always be remote. I'm worried that they're going to start to feel isolated from the team.
brundolf 5y ago
As someone who started a job remotely during the pandemic (and I'm not even entry-level), I can unequivocally disagree. It's much harder to get your technical bearings, not to mention your social bearings, over Slack and Zoom.

elzbardico 5y ago

Talking about the landlords, I think that a lot of the current business spaces that exist today will end up being retrofitted as housing. and that will bring back the service economy on those neighborhoods. You'll see more grocery stores, barber shops, schools and less coffees. People will enjoy living on the city not because they hate commute, but because cities will become more enjoyable. Yes, in the short run, as with everything else, from electric light to computers and cell phones, the richer ones will benefit first, but given time I think that a bigger army of WFH persons will lead up to positive societal change.

throwaway98797 5y ago
I sooooo want you to be right. However, you are wrong at least for USA. Zoning laws will slow this down and the momentum will be lost. I’d love a taste of europe in america with some mix zone areas. I know not all cities are like the ossified ones. Ie., austin has mixed zones but many cities arent. I want to live in the picture you paint.
- elzbardico 5y ago
  Landlords have pretty powerful lobbies, once they see the writing in the wall, and that they can chose between writing those assets off or lobbying for mixed zoning, I hope they will lobby for that. Well... a man can always hope
- iancmceachern 5y ago
  My building did this. They are "live work " units that can either be rented by businesses or people as residences.
- positr0n 5y ago
  I live in a suburb of a quarter million directly north of Dallas. They are building up some decently dense mixed-use areas along the 4 major highways that bound the city. Mostly on the north-west side (Legacy West) so far, but they are trying to revitalize the strip along the highway to the east as well, including an old mall over there. We just had elections, and several candidates, including for mayor, campaigned very hard on the platform "my opponent is in bed with developers and wants to turn our sleepy suburban town into a dense urban hell hole!" Surprisingly to me, those candidates lost.

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lwigo 5y ago

I have worked more (and harder, quantifiable by sprint points if you must have a number) in the past year from home than in the entire rest of my career combined. My close ones tell me I'm just making "the man" more money, but I really don't mind it for some reason. I feel like I'm accomplishing goals and feel fulfilled in ways that I didn't previously. No signs of burnout, perhaps I am a freak of nature.

CoastalCoder 5y ago
(Please don't hear this as a criticism of your point - I'm just not very experienced with scrum.) To what extent are sprint points a good measure of productivity or of effort? My understanding is that they're based on estimates, which seem like a moving target to me depending on the experience and motivations of the estimator.
- lwigo 5y ago
  They are a moving target, but my org has them pretty closely pinned to 2hrs of "work time" per point, at least ideologically. When you see that go from 12-18ish in person per person to 30+ (~38 average consistently for me), it's pretty straightforward that the org is actually getting closer to its billable 80 hours per sprint, even with 3ish daily Zoom meetings. And to boot, the quality of design, PMing, ticket writing, feature scoping, and everything else around it has increased, which probably helps the productivity.
  - coredog64 5y ago
    > my org has them pretty closely pinned to 2hrs of "work time" per point Off-topic, but isn't this exactly what you're not supposed to do with points? AIUI, they're explicitly disconnected from time so that teams can adjust points to match their reality.
    - lwigo 5y ago
      Explicitly, yes. Implicitly, no.

jcadam 5y ago

I'm an introvert who now loves WFH. I've also been able to move from a city to a rural area. I never want to go back.

silicon2401 5y ago
You're what I'm aiming to be in the future. Fully remote, ditch the city, live in peace on some acres I can call my own. I used to get pretty bummed about life because of how long you have to work to retire, but being fully remote during the pandemic has been even better than I had dreamed. Now I can easily imagine a long and happy career, if I can manage to never see an office or coworker in person.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

overkill28 5y ago

> "For years, urban developers have been talking about “15-minute cities”—accessible downtown neighborhoods where residents can satisfy just about every food, drink, beauty, entertainment, and fitness need with a short walk or bike ride. Logically, as more 30-somethings relocate to the suburbs, real-estate developers will chase their needs by pouring money into a constellation of 15-minute suburban town centers. The downtown office building’s loss will be the suburban developer’s gain." Nobody I know who's moving to the suburbs is doing it to buy a loft apartment and bike everywhere. They're all entering or already in child rearing years and buying houses with yards and cars. As much as people talk about wanting to live in dense walkable neighborhoods, and as much as I wish we could build denser suburbs, the American dream of a lush lawn and big comfortable car is very much alive with millennials. And more practically, where are you going to build these walkable suburbs? All the prime space of of the inner ring is already built out, and existing "street car suburbs" have already been popular, affluent and expensive for years.

andrewclunn 5y ago
It's because American cities invariably have section 8 housing and other such blight (I say blight because of crime rates and property disrepair that come along with these subsidized housing). What's the point of waling places if I might get mugged? A city that was as exclusive as the suburbs? People would lap that up, but usually the exclusive city areas are at a price level that dwarfs suburban costs. Cities can't or won't provide safe walkable neighborhoods, so people vote with their feet and go elsewhere.
eie7ehrgdufu 5y ago
I don't understand why the other reply to this comment is dead. Whatever it might have lacked in nuance, the reality is that the tolerant approach to crime and vagrancy has created neighborhoods and downtowns that only idiots and parents with something to prove would raise a child in. If you care about the outcome of your child more than how well that child advances your social agenda then you move to the closest place that isn't garbage which is usually a suburb.
luxurytent 5y ago
Yup. Most of our cities continue to be terrible for walkability despite significant progress in the past decade. Pedestrians are still killed on side streets due to vehicles travelling well beyond 40km/h, for instance. Living in the city with children can be very desirable. You may have a small (or no backyard), but the city is your playground. Public parks, pools, trails, and so much more. But the lack of people-focused planning for generations has put us in a long tail of catchup, leaving the burbs as a preferred choice for many.

remir 5y ago

The reason I like working from home is that I control the environment 100%. Temperature, chair, desk, monitor, computer, etc. At the office, they play music on a Sonos system all day long and this alone prevent me from going there because it saps my focus. I prefer working in silence. Also, there's always someone passing in front of my office looking at what I'm going and this annoys me. So for me to return to the office would mean accepting an inferior environment that saps my productivity. What's the benefit?

silicon2401 5y ago
I think, unfortunately, lots of people can't and don't empathize with our predicament. I feel the same way as you. I hate coworkers who come over to chat and stare at my screen (even though it's just whatever I'm working on). I hate the one guy's air purifier or the office AC constantly running. I hate the temperature being too hot or too cold, not having a good way to put up my feet, not having control over lighting or where I sit. These things make day to day life miserable and hopefully the pandemic will let people like us have greater freedom from these gripes.

crypot 5y ago

ICT has totally changed the way people communicate, but offices, until recently, were still structured the same way they were for the last 200 years. It is like when factories first switched over to electrical power. They kept the same layout, just with electricity. It took a while before people realized that they could restructure the factory layout to increase productivity. Maybe there is a better way to structure office workers that will increase productivity.

yboris 5y ago

I moved from New Jersey to Michigan for a calmer pace of life and cheaper housing (lower house price and taxes). Working from home has been the best life improvement since entering the high-paying tech world. I now live 4 blocks away from main street in a small town - I can walk to the library for the first time in my life (suburbs suck for walkability). I hope WFH spreads to as many people as possible as an option they could use if they prefer.

disrael 5y ago

"For extroverts, the office can be an ideal place for getting things done with just the right amount of spontaneous interruption." Yeah and abacus is better than calculators. The media pushing this daft narrative over and over won't make anyone believe this nonsense.

AnimalMuppet 5y ago
For people who like that kind of thing, that's the kind of thing they like. There actually are such people. They aren't me, and it sounds like they aren't you, but they exist in greater numbers than you seem to suspect.