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Going to an office to write software is absolutely insane. I like going on fridays and leaving early to drink beer with coworkers.

interpol_p 5y ago
Agree. I go in once a week to pick up a shared lunch for everybody and we hang out and play some board games
- hh3k0 5y ago
  Hanging out with coworkers would be my own personal hell, to be frank. And there's nothing wrong with my coworkers, I'd like to emphasize that, but I have friends and family that I'd rather hang out with. Coworkers are just coworkers to me.
  - alecbz 5y ago
    I'm confused, what makes it hell if nothing's wrong with them?
    - hh3k0 5y ago
      Spending time socializing with people that aren't part of my social life by my own (direct) choosing feels like a chore to me, I suppose. A work party, to me, does not resemble actual work in many ways… and yet it does not resemble a party either. I would certainly enjoy to play volleyball on the beach with friends and family but would rather avoid it as a reward or team-building activity.
Trasmatta 5y ago
The absolute absurdity of sitting in an open office, and pretending to program the full 9-5. That's just not how work like this happens. Why do companies pay their developers high salaries, but then tie one hand behind their backs like that. For me? Never again.
- yupper32 5y ago
  Why are you pretending to program the full 9-5? I like the office and am currently working in the office but I just... get up and leave whenever I want. Come back whenever I want. No need to pretend to work 9-5.
  - derekp7 5y ago
    Here's a story that explains this concept. A programmer goes to his manager, presenting a paper with a lengthy problem for the manager to solve. The manager looks over the paper, thinks for a few minutes, then writes down the answer. The employee then tells the manager "What were you doing for the last 5 minutes? It didn't look like you were working at all". The manager responds saying "I was thinking about the problem before coming up with the solution". The programmer then informs the manager that this is what it is like to write code all day. But since programming looks like you are just sitting there not doing anything for much of the time, then you have to pretend to be doing something whenever someone walks by so it doesn't look like you are just goofing off (otherwise they feel that they can interrupt you breaking your train of thought). And that makes programming less efficient. The manager was then enlightened.
    - rizzaxc 5y ago
      every manager worth their salt climbs from being an engineer, so they should already know this
    - changxi_hn 5y ago
      I'm a software manager and this isn't what happens in practice at all. The more comfortable they are, the sloppier and lazy their resulting code as they feel no pressure to take their work seriously. I can, and will, stand behind devs for hours to keep them determined and on-task.
      - Trasmatta 5y ago
        Surely this post is parody, right?
mortenjorck 5y ago
You describe my ideal hybrid schedule. I don’t miss being in the office Monday through Thursday at all, but I really miss Fridays in the office. In my experience, remote work typically has no direct productivity downsides, but team cohesion absolutely can take a hit. I find being in the same room with someone doesn’t help us work any better, but having been in the same room with them at some point (ideally not all that long ago) absolutely does, likely even more so having had a beer with them.
- Hermitian909 5y ago
  > In my experience, remote work typically has no direct productivity downsides, but team cohesion absolutely can take a hit I'm sure this varies based on the type of work you're doing, but I found the hit to team cohesion led to long term productivity losses. At first we were getting more done than ever. As time went on our raw work output day-to-day did not decrease but a lot of unneeded work that previously would have been headed off at planning and discussion stages would get through. This was on a team that is specifically doing speculative high risk/reward work so that might be applicable to a lot fewer people than I imagine.
  - alecbz 5y ago
    > the hit to team cohesion led to long term productivity losses It obviously ought to, right, or else why does (should) anyone care about team cohesion in the first place?
    - Sebb767 5y ago
      Keeping your people happy does not only impact your productivity, but it also impacts motivation (people who love their job are more likely to try and improve beyond their job), the overall churn and, as a second-order effect, even stuff like hiring or wages. Of course, in the end this all affects the company productivity, but it's really not as straight-forward [0] as the productivity of a single team. [0] "straight forward" is a bit of an overstatement for measuring team productivity, but that's a different discussion.
alecbz 5y ago
> Going to an office to write software is absolutely insane. Why? Writing software, especially in a large organization, is often an inherently social job, just like many others. You often need heads down time to actually get into flow and produce code, but that doesn't mean interaction with others isn't a significant part of it as well.
- LAC-Tech 5y ago
  Linux kernel team seems to manage fine. Or maybe they'd all do better if they were in a big open office with Linus Torvalds.
  - alecbz 5y ago
    Managing fine is different than it being insane to go into an office. And I don't know on what basis we can conclude that it wouldn't be better if core Linux devs were working together. I don't know much about the nitty gritty of what kernel deving looks like, but it's possible that the work there looks more like longer stretches of heads down time than average. E.g., I can imagine you could be pretty impactful being heads down for weeks or months at a time micro-optimizing the performance of various components. I think this tends not to be true of most software. One thing I do know about the social dynamics of Linux development is that Linus can be an asshole and flame at people a lot. You could worry that this would be more intense and thus worse in an office, but IME this kind of stuff tends to get better once people can see each other as actual humans and not just text on a screen.
- madeofpalk 5y ago
  I think the overwhelming majority of software that's written does not need that much attention.
  - alecbz 5y ago
    What do you mean by attention? I mean that e.g., software in large organizations often needs to fit in with the rest of the software the organization is writing, and that producing code is only part of the work; there's also working with others to find out what the right code to produce is.
grensley 5y ago
Last Friday I went in and got a good education on some of our physical hardware. This knowledge is only held by people that have been with the company since Spring 2020 or work in that department. I can only imagine the amount of institutional knowledge that is being lost right now. Workers that are low to the ground and sociable who form informal bonds between departments are hurt by being limited to only online interactions, and as a result, the organization suffers too.

interpol_p 5y ago

Agree. I go in once a week to pick up a shared lunch for everybody and we hang out and play some board games

hh3k0 5y ago
Hanging out with coworkers would be my own personal hell, to be frank. And there's nothing wrong with my coworkers, I'd like to emphasize that, but I have friends and family that I'd rather hang out with. Coworkers are just coworkers to me.
- alecbz 5y ago
  I'm confused, what makes it hell if nothing's wrong with them?
  - hh3k0 5y ago
    Spending time socializing with people that aren't part of my social life by my own (direct) choosing feels like a chore to me, I suppose. A work party, to me, does not resemble actual work in many ways… and yet it does not resemble a party either. I would certainly enjoy to play volleyball on the beach with friends and family but would rather avoid it as a reward or team-building activity.

Trasmatta 5y ago

The absolute absurdity of sitting in an open office, and pretending to program the full 9-5. That's just not how work like this happens. Why do companies pay their developers high salaries, but then tie one hand behind their backs like that. For me? Never again.

yupper32 5y ago
Why are you pretending to program the full 9-5? I like the office and am currently working in the office but I just... get up and leave whenever I want. Come back whenever I want. No need to pretend to work 9-5.
- derekp7 5y ago
  Here's a story that explains this concept. A programmer goes to his manager, presenting a paper with a lengthy problem for the manager to solve. The manager looks over the paper, thinks for a few minutes, then writes down the answer. The employee then tells the manager "What were you doing for the last 5 minutes? It didn't look like you were working at all". The manager responds saying "I was thinking about the problem before coming up with the solution". The programmer then informs the manager that this is what it is like to write code all day. But since programming looks like you are just sitting there not doing anything for much of the time, then you have to pretend to be doing something whenever someone walks by so it doesn't look like you are just goofing off (otherwise they feel that they can interrupt you breaking your train of thought). And that makes programming less efficient. The manager was then enlightened.
  - rizzaxc 5y ago
    every manager worth their salt climbs from being an engineer, so they should already know this
  - changxi_hn 5y ago
    I'm a software manager and this isn't what happens in practice at all. The more comfortable they are, the sloppier and lazy their resulting code as they feel no pressure to take their work seriously. I can, and will, stand behind devs for hours to keep them determined and on-task.
    - Trasmatta 5y ago
      Surely this post is parody, right?

mortenjorck 5y ago

You describe my ideal hybrid schedule. I don’t miss being in the office Monday through Thursday at all, but I really miss Fridays in the office. In my experience, remote work typically has no direct productivity downsides, but team cohesion absolutely can take a hit. I find being in the same room with someone doesn’t help us work any better, but having been in the same room with them at some point (ideally not all that long ago) absolutely does, likely even more so having had a beer with them.

Hermitian909 5y ago
> In my experience, remote work typically has no direct productivity downsides, but team cohesion absolutely can take a hit I'm sure this varies based on the type of work you're doing, but I found the hit to team cohesion led to long term productivity losses. At first we were getting more done than ever. As time went on our raw work output day-to-day did not decrease but a lot of unneeded work that previously would have been headed off at planning and discussion stages would get through. This was on a team that is specifically doing speculative high risk/reward work so that might be applicable to a lot fewer people than I imagine.
- alecbz 5y ago
  > the hit to team cohesion led to long term productivity losses It obviously ought to, right, or else why does (should) anyone care about team cohesion in the first place?
  - Sebb767 5y ago
    Keeping your people happy does not only impact your productivity, but it also impacts motivation (people who love their job are more likely to try and improve beyond their job), the overall churn and, as a second-order effect, even stuff like hiring or wages. Of course, in the end this all affects the company productivity, but it's really not as straight-forward [0] as the productivity of a single team. [0] "straight forward" is a bit of an overstatement for measuring team productivity, but that's a different discussion.

alecbz 5y ago

> Going to an office to write software is absolutely insane. Why? Writing software, especially in a large organization, is often an inherently social job, just like many others. You often need heads down time to actually get into flow and produce code, but that doesn't mean interaction with others isn't a significant part of it as well.

LAC-Tech 5y ago
Linux kernel team seems to manage fine. Or maybe they'd all do better if they were in a big open office with Linus Torvalds.
- alecbz 5y ago
  Managing fine is different than it being insane to go into an office. And I don't know on what basis we can conclude that it wouldn't be better if core Linux devs were working together. I don't know much about the nitty gritty of what kernel deving looks like, but it's possible that the work there looks more like longer stretches of heads down time than average. E.g., I can imagine you could be pretty impactful being heads down for weeks or months at a time micro-optimizing the performance of various components. I think this tends not to be true of most software. One thing I do know about the social dynamics of Linux development is that Linus can be an asshole and flame at people a lot. You could worry that this would be more intense and thus worse in an office, but IME this kind of stuff tends to get better once people can see each other as actual humans and not just text on a screen.
madeofpalk 5y ago
I think the overwhelming majority of software that's written does not need that much attention.
- alecbz 5y ago
  What do you mean by attention? I mean that e.g., software in large organizations often needs to fit in with the rest of the software the organization is writing, and that producing code is only part of the work; there's also working with others to find out what the right code to produce is.

grensley 5y ago

Last Friday I went in and got a good education on some of our physical hardware. This knowledge is only held by people that have been with the company since Spring 2020 or work in that department. I can only imagine the amount of institutional knowledge that is being lost right now. Workers that are low to the ground and sociable who form informal bonds between departments are hurt by being limited to only online interactions, and as a result, the organization suffers too.