6 ms·

Why should the people preferring to work from home get preference, either? At the end of the day, like it or not, the majority of people working for a company

Why should the people preferring to work from home get preference, either? At the end of the day, like it or not, the majority of people working for a company of beyond a small size are going to be in some level of a collaborative environment. Logistically, it's easier to accomplish that in person. No dropped calls or poor connections or VPN drops or whatever. As an engineer, I sympathize with the poster. When I need to focus and get something done, I'm generally happier at home with either fewer distractions or more of the distractions under my control. I also like my privacy and loathe the feeling of someone. looking over my shoulder. I'm so very sensitive to motion in my periphery and find movement around me distracting, too. But, I also value the in person communication and collaboration I get in person. Personally, I'm looking forward to heading back part time, especially considering that the "new normal" appears to be about a 50/50 split between home and office. Of course, everyone is going to have their own preference, but the company you work for (and your coworkers) will have theirs as well. But, if someone's attitude is "my way or the highway" they as well start looking for a new job, because they'll need one regardless...

RHSeeger 5y ago
> At the end of the day, like it or not, the majority of people working for a company of beyond a small size are going to be in some level of a collaborative environment. Logistically, it's easier to accomplish that in person. You say this like it's a foregone conclusion, a fact. I disagree with it completely. It's far easier to collaborate remotely. You don't need find a meeting room, you don't need to worry about making too much noise, you don't need to worry about adding one person from another location suddenly changing the entire dynamic. It's nice to work together in person occasionally, but I'd much rather collaborate remotely... and get together for lunch now and again.
- tshaddox 5y ago
  > You don't need find a meeting room You have to pay for your own. > you don't need to worry about making too much noise Unless other people live in your home. > you don't need to worry about adding one person from another location suddenly changing the entire dynamic. That’s comparing all-remote to some-remote, which is a different comparison than all-remote to all-in-office.
  - bpye 5y ago
    If you have a company with more than one office I think having some meetings with remote participants is an unavoidable truth. Perhaps not every meeting - but anything requiring collaboration between teams or features groups could require it.
  - watwut 5y ago
    > You have to pay for your own. You have to do it anyway. The rent did not went up due you being at home during day.
    - tshaddox 5y ago
      Either you paid for more space or you lost space at your home during the 8 hours you were previously working at an office.
      - Dylan16807 5y ago
        > you lost space at your home during the 8 hours I guess that's true, but I'm not sure why I would care about my home getting slightly smaller when I'm at work. It will affect some people, but I don't know if it's many.
        RHSeeger 5y ago
        I would expect it impacts a large number of people that work primarily remotely. A lot of us have a home office because working from the kitchen or other shared space just isn't effective. The cost of an extra room (even if a bonus room, not a full bedroom) can increase the cost of a house by a dramatic amount; and then you also have to consider utilities and the like. Every time I've done the math, working from home costs more (for the worker) than going into the office; usually my many thousands of dollars a year.
        Dylan16807 5y ago
        Needing a dedicated home office room for various reasons is a big issue but it is not the issue I was responding to. In "Either you paid for more space or you lost space at your home during the 8 hours", a dedicated office is the "paid for more space" side, and I was talking about the "lost space" alternative.
- bryanrasmussen 5y ago
  >You don't need find a meeting room, maybe it's just because I've never been the meeting room finding person but in most places I've worked it hasn't been a big problem. >you don't need to worry about making too much noise, I've never had the problem that a meeting was being too noisy for the people outside a meeting, but I have had the problem that kids in the house were being too noisy for the online meeting and everyone has to laugh and talk about how wonderful having the kids is. >you don't need to worry about adding one person from another location suddenly changing the entire dynamic. Why wouldn't this affect remote meetings? Obviously there are any number of things that can affect remote meeting quality. I would think for meeting quality an in person one is likely to work better as a meeting, although people might prefer the remote one for all sorts of other reasons.
  - RHSeeger 5y ago
    > in most places I've worked it hasn't been a big problem In every place I've worked, there's been a limited number of meeting rooms and you needed to plan ahead to get one. And if your meeting ran over, it wasn't uncommon to have a group of people standing outside waiting for you to vacate. > I've never had the problem that a meeting was being too noisy for the people outside a meeting Fair. I was really thinking about the impromptu meetings of 3-4 people around a desk (because getting a meeting room takes too much time). Those almost infallibly annoy other people in the area, even if they don't say anything. > Why wouldn't this affect remote meetings? Suddenly adding a remote person to a meeting that was planned to be in person is difficult at best. It's common for the people on location to just not "play well" with the remote person. When meetings are "remote first", adding one more remote person doesn't wind up with that person being an afterthought. This is a fairly well known issue, honestly. > I would think for meeting quality an in person one is likely to work better as a meeting Under optimal circumstances, the in person meeting does tend to be best. However, there are so many different variations from optimal, it's my experience that remote-first meetings wind up being better in nearly every _actual_ case.
    - bryanrasmussen 5y ago
      >And if your meeting ran over, it wasn't uncommon to have a group of people standing outside waiting for you to vacate. having a meeting run over is a problem, having someone waiting to get into that room is a solution to the problem.
- dragonsky67 5y ago
  Our experience following the covid lockdowns and everybody working from home is that even if a majority of us are in the office, we still have meetings over Teams. It allows far better control, easier background chat, sharing ideas that can be raised in the verbal meeting and people to get on with real work if the topic under conversation is not important to them, but keeping them in the loop. Win win.
neolog 5y ago
Don't forget the hours of commute time lost daily. Compared to a few minutes lost by a few people in Zoom, commute is everybody every day.
corty 5y ago
Even before the pandemic, in the office, most of the collaboration was remote. Even with people in the same building, because lack of meeting rooms, noisy open-space office and loong looong walks down endless hallways we'd all rather do a quick telephone conference. My direct colleagues were just a table away of course, but collaboration isn't just with them. On the other hand, teams were also spread out across half the world, so lots of things could only be done remotely. Working from home wasn't much of a change there. In total, 90% of communication wasn't done in person but by some kind of remote com. And since the current trend in our company (and I guess a lot of others) is "hotdesking", where you pull a ticket when entering the building which tells you what desk might be free. Well, no sitting near direct colleagues anymore. So the last advantage of the office is gone as well. Unfortunately it doesn't stop management from hallucinating the great back-in-the-office future after the pandemic... Yes, I'll also be looking for a new job.

RHSeeger 5y ago

> At the end of the day, like it or not, the majority of people working for a company of beyond a small size are going to be in some level of a collaborative environment. Logistically, it's easier to accomplish that in person. You say this like it's a foregone conclusion, a fact. I disagree with it completely. It's far easier to collaborate remotely. You don't need find a meeting room, you don't need to worry about making too much noise, you don't need to worry about adding one person from another location suddenly changing the entire dynamic. It's nice to work together in person occasionally, but I'd much rather collaborate remotely... and get together for lunch now and again.

tshaddox 5y ago
> You don't need find a meeting room You have to pay for your own. > you don't need to worry about making too much noise Unless other people live in your home. > you don't need to worry about adding one person from another location suddenly changing the entire dynamic. That’s comparing all-remote to some-remote, which is a different comparison than all-remote to all-in-office.
- bpye 5y ago
  If you have a company with more than one office I think having some meetings with remote participants is an unavoidable truth. Perhaps not every meeting - but anything requiring collaboration between teams or features groups could require it.
- watwut 5y ago
  > You have to pay for your own. You have to do it anyway. The rent did not went up due you being at home during day.
  - tshaddox 5y ago
    Either you paid for more space or you lost space at your home during the 8 hours you were previously working at an office.
    - Dylan16807 5y ago
      > you lost space at your home during the 8 hours I guess that's true, but I'm not sure why I would care about my home getting slightly smaller when I'm at work. It will affect some people, but I don't know if it's many.
      - RHSeeger 5y ago
        I would expect it impacts a large number of people that work primarily remotely. A lot of us have a home office because working from the kitchen or other shared space just isn't effective. The cost of an extra room (even if a bonus room, not a full bedroom) can increase the cost of a house by a dramatic amount; and then you also have to consider utilities and the like. Every time I've done the math, working from home costs more (for the worker) than going into the office; usually my many thousands of dollars a year.
        Dylan16807 5y ago
        Needing a dedicated home office room for various reasons is a big issue but it is not the issue I was responding to. In "Either you paid for more space or you lost space at your home during the 8 hours", a dedicated office is the "paid for more space" side, and I was talking about the "lost space" alternative.
bryanrasmussen 5y ago
>You don't need find a meeting room, maybe it's just because I've never been the meeting room finding person but in most places I've worked it hasn't been a big problem. >you don't need to worry about making too much noise, I've never had the problem that a meeting was being too noisy for the people outside a meeting, but I have had the problem that kids in the house were being too noisy for the online meeting and everyone has to laugh and talk about how wonderful having the kids is. >you don't need to worry about adding one person from another location suddenly changing the entire dynamic. Why wouldn't this affect remote meetings? Obviously there are any number of things that can affect remote meeting quality. I would think for meeting quality an in person one is likely to work better as a meeting, although people might prefer the remote one for all sorts of other reasons.
- RHSeeger 5y ago
  > in most places I've worked it hasn't been a big problem In every place I've worked, there's been a limited number of meeting rooms and you needed to plan ahead to get one. And if your meeting ran over, it wasn't uncommon to have a group of people standing outside waiting for you to vacate. > I've never had the problem that a meeting was being too noisy for the people outside a meeting Fair. I was really thinking about the impromptu meetings of 3-4 people around a desk (because getting a meeting room takes too much time). Those almost infallibly annoy other people in the area, even if they don't say anything. > Why wouldn't this affect remote meetings? Suddenly adding a remote person to a meeting that was planned to be in person is difficult at best. It's common for the people on location to just not "play well" with the remote person. When meetings are "remote first", adding one more remote person doesn't wind up with that person being an afterthought. This is a fairly well known issue, honestly. > I would think for meeting quality an in person one is likely to work better as a meeting Under optimal circumstances, the in person meeting does tend to be best. However, there are so many different variations from optimal, it's my experience that remote-first meetings wind up being better in nearly every _actual_ case.
  - bryanrasmussen 5y ago
    >And if your meeting ran over, it wasn't uncommon to have a group of people standing outside waiting for you to vacate. having a meeting run over is a problem, having someone waiting to get into that room is a solution to the problem.
dragonsky67 5y ago
Our experience following the covid lockdowns and everybody working from home is that even if a majority of us are in the office, we still have meetings over Teams. It allows far better control, easier background chat, sharing ideas that can be raised in the verbal meeting and people to get on with real work if the topic under conversation is not important to them, but keeping them in the loop. Win win.

neolog 5y ago

Don't forget the hours of commute time lost daily. Compared to a few minutes lost by a few people in Zoom, commute is everybody every day.

corty 5y ago

Even before the pandemic, in the office, most of the collaboration was remote. Even with people in the same building, because lack of meeting rooms, noisy open-space office and loong looong walks down endless hallways we'd all rather do a quick telephone conference. My direct colleagues were just a table away of course, but collaboration isn't just with them. On the other hand, teams were also spread out across half the world, so lots of things could only be done remotely. Working from home wasn't much of a change there. In total, 90% of communication wasn't done in person but by some kind of remote com. And since the current trend in our company (and I guess a lot of others) is "hotdesking", where you pull a ticket when entering the building which tells you what desk might be free. Well, no sitting near direct colleagues anymore. So the last advantage of the office is gone as well. Unfortunately it doesn't stop management from hallucinating the great back-in-the-office future after the pandemic... Yes, I'll also be looking for a new job.