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IMHO no even if I've been working from home since 2006 when I became self employed. What's broken is having to go to the office every single day. In my experie

IMHO no even if I've been working from home since 2006 when I became self employed. What's broken is having to go to the office every single day. In my experience before and after starting to work from home there is an absolute need to work face to face either to create some bonds between the team members or with a customer or in those rare phases when you have to create something and you need to go full speed with brainstorming sessions, talk to people etc. In those cases a physical presence is much more efficient that remote communications.

notyourwork 5y ago
Our team has started monthly in-person get togethers. We recently went kayaking and had dinner after. Each month we pick someone to plan the next month's activities and use this as a way to bond and realize we are people, not just online aliases. It's worked pretty well now that vaccines and such are readily available and people are becoming more comfortable with in person stuff.
marcusverus 5y ago
Someone is going to pay for that increased efficiency--either your Employer will pay in dollars, or you will pay some opportunity cost. Why should you pay? After all, there are plenty of things that you could do in your spare time that would make you a more efficient employee. But you wouldn't let your employer tell you to work unpaid for an hour each Monday, preparing for the week. Nor would you let them require that you spend an unpaid hour of your free time reading or doing professional development each week. The only difference between those things and commuting is that we've all been conditioned (not in any nefarious way, just by the reality of work in the past) to consider a commute a hard requirement to have a job. But it's not anymore. Your time is a commodity. Why give it away?
- KronisLV 5y ago
  > Nor would you let them require that you spend an unpaid hour of your free time reading or doing professional development each week. Depending on how you look at things, this may or may not be necessary to be done on your own accord in your free time to avoid your skills getting dated and irrelevant. Essentially, you do have to keep up with at least some of the new developments within the industry to remain employable, especially if you don't have any of the FAANG companies on your resume. While your employer might not necessarily expect you to do it, you might have to do that in your own interest, without getting paid for it.
  - marcusverus 5y ago
    We're in total agreement--that was probably not a great example.
    - KronisLV 5y ago
      Apart from that, this is a really nice way to put it: > Your time is a commodity. Why give it away? These things aren't even considered most of the time in regards to commute or other practices in the corporate world, just because they're "the normal".
  - alchemism 5y ago
    I do that reading and skill-training for unrelated tech things on the company’s dime, not mine. They are paying me highly to be a professional.
    - KronisLV 5y ago
      If your company pays for that, then that's cool! Whereas with my workload and circumstances within the company, that's not realistic. In the past 2 weeks, i've: - worked on migrating large enterprise apps from Java 8 to Java 11 - worked on migrating those apps from Spring to Spring Boot - worked on containerizing them and carrying over configuration parameters - edited a whole lot of legacy code that was needed for all of that to happen and documented the process - helped people deal with external integrations and PKI related configuration and Ansible - helped onboard a person on the project and consulted other junior devs - got called in to work on a PHP project even though i'm technically a Java dev - consulted a person on how to use Figma to create designs for the app (even though i'll just have to develop it?) - realized that the app has literally no onboarding instructions or documentation whatsoever, so set out to create those - developed some scripts to seed the DB with test users and data, otherwise the app won't even allow logging in locally - consulted with the clients about all of these things, waiting for additional feedback on that - fixed a few bugs here and there, did the usual meetings, sprint estimation, architecture stuff etc. As for how well i'm paid, i wouldn't necessarily use the word "highly": https://blog.kronis.dev/articles/on-finances-and-savings https://blog.kronis.dev/articles/on-finances-and-savings Regardless, that probably shows that there is a world of difference in both compensation and the workloads of people. While having the time to learn new tech on company time would be good, it simply isn't my current reality, nor is it the reality for many out there. Thus, if i don't want to have my skills become obsolete, i spend the occasional morning/evening/weekend working on pet projects. That needs to be taken into account. Curiously enough, i've heard some people voice the opinion that their workloads actually lessened in larger companies where they also happened to be more highly paid.
codegeek 5y ago
"What's broken is having to go to the office every single day." Exactly. The whole remote thing has become kinda like a zero sum game and has 2 sides to it. One that believes it should be remote anywhere for anyone vs the other that is very rigid and wants people in office all the time. The answer is somewhere in the middle and hybrid. Flexibility to work from home 2-3 days a week would be awesome while you can still come to office if you want to meet/collaborate in person. yes, this rules out people who are not in the same state/country (I have a lot to say about that) but I am ok with that.
- dboreham 5y ago
  I worked for a couple of years in an organization where we all worked remotely but met up for 2-3 days in some convenient city (e.g. where one or two team members already lived) for brain storming sessions 2-3 times a year; and also at trade shows/conferences, where we sent probably more team members than was necessary but it was justifiable because the event doubled as a f2f team session.
jseban 5y ago
What is broken is the open floor plan and the "put everyone in the same room" as a workaround for a disorganised and dysfunctional workplace.

notyourwork 5y ago

Our team has started monthly in-person get togethers. We recently went kayaking and had dinner after. Each month we pick someone to plan the next month's activities and use this as a way to bond and realize we are people, not just online aliases. It's worked pretty well now that vaccines and such are readily available and people are becoming more comfortable with in person stuff.

marcusverus 5y ago

Someone is going to pay for that increased efficiency--either your Employer will pay in dollars, or you will pay some opportunity cost. Why should you pay? After all, there are plenty of things that you could do in your spare time that would make you a more efficient employee. But you wouldn't let your employer tell you to work unpaid for an hour each Monday, preparing for the week. Nor would you let them require that you spend an unpaid hour of your free time reading or doing professional development each week. The only difference between those things and commuting is that we've all been conditioned (not in any nefarious way, just by the reality of work in the past) to consider a commute a hard requirement to have a job. But it's not anymore. Your time is a commodity. Why give it away?

KronisLV 5y ago
> Nor would you let them require that you spend an unpaid hour of your free time reading or doing professional development each week. Depending on how you look at things, this may or may not be necessary to be done on your own accord in your free time to avoid your skills getting dated and irrelevant. Essentially, you do have to keep up with at least some of the new developments within the industry to remain employable, especially if you don't have any of the FAANG companies on your resume. While your employer might not necessarily expect you to do it, you might have to do that in your own interest, without getting paid for it.
- marcusverus 5y ago
  We're in total agreement--that was probably not a great example.
  - KronisLV 5y ago
    Apart from that, this is a really nice way to put it: > Your time is a commodity. Why give it away? These things aren't even considered most of the time in regards to commute or other practices in the corporate world, just because they're "the normal".
- alchemism 5y ago
  I do that reading and skill-training for unrelated tech things on the company’s dime, not mine. They are paying me highly to be a professional.
  - KronisLV 5y ago
    If your company pays for that, then that's cool! Whereas with my workload and circumstances within the company, that's not realistic. In the past 2 weeks, i've: - worked on migrating large enterprise apps from Java 8 to Java 11 - worked on migrating those apps from Spring to Spring Boot - worked on containerizing them and carrying over configuration parameters - edited a whole lot of legacy code that was needed for all of that to happen and documented the process - helped people deal with external integrations and PKI related configuration and Ansible - helped onboard a person on the project and consulted other junior devs - got called in to work on a PHP project even though i'm technically a Java dev - consulted a person on how to use Figma to create designs for the app (even though i'll just have to develop it?) - realized that the app has literally no onboarding instructions or documentation whatsoever, so set out to create those - developed some scripts to seed the DB with test users and data, otherwise the app won't even allow logging in locally - consulted with the clients about all of these things, waiting for additional feedback on that - fixed a few bugs here and there, did the usual meetings, sprint estimation, architecture stuff etc. As for how well i'm paid, i wouldn't necessarily use the word "highly": https://blog.kronis.dev/articles/on-finances-and-savings https://blog.kronis.dev/articles/on-finances-and-savings Regardless, that probably shows that there is a world of difference in both compensation and the workloads of people. While having the time to learn new tech on company time would be good, it simply isn't my current reality, nor is it the reality for many out there. Thus, if i don't want to have my skills become obsolete, i spend the occasional morning/evening/weekend working on pet projects. That needs to be taken into account. Curiously enough, i've heard some people voice the opinion that their workloads actually lessened in larger companies where they also happened to be more highly paid.

codegeek 5y ago

"What's broken is having to go to the office every single day." Exactly. The whole remote thing has become kinda like a zero sum game and has 2 sides to it. One that believes it should be remote anywhere for anyone vs the other that is very rigid and wants people in office all the time. The answer is somewhere in the middle and hybrid. Flexibility to work from home 2-3 days a week would be awesome while you can still come to office if you want to meet/collaborate in person. yes, this rules out people who are not in the same state/country (I have a lot to say about that) but I am ok with that.

dboreham 5y ago
I worked for a couple of years in an organization where we all worked remotely but met up for 2-3 days in some convenient city (e.g. where one or two team members already lived) for brain storming sessions 2-3 times a year; and also at trade shows/conferences, where we sent probably more team members than was necessary but it was justifiable because the event doubled as a f2f team session.

jseban 5y ago

What is broken is the open floor plan and the "put everyone in the same room" as a workaround for a disorganised and dysfunctional workplace.