4 ms·

It's about a whole list of things and many shades of gray between them: control, social needs, the need to be seen, crappy home life, unprepared for a home offi

It's about a whole list of things and many shades of gray between them: control, social needs, the need to be seen, crappy home life, unprepared for a home office, etc. My managers at work (I'm a software engineer) tend to not have a dedicated office. They have kids running around being noisy and nosy. They STILL dress up wearing nice clothes. And I swear some of them talk about their gorgeous cars for the sake of talking about their cars, especially now nobody sees them drive or park those cars anymore. They are also very verbose in any sort of meeting and dislike it when people turn off their cameras. I blame their extroverted social needs for this. They got to become a manager because of that social skill and need, and they are working with software engineers who are more toward the introverted side of the spectrum. I don't want to wake up early, drive my car in traffic jams, find a parking spot, see that someone stole my favourite (but still bad) office chair, sit in an open office full of noisy people, working on shared & dirty keyboards, looking at small budget screens, on desks that can't be adjusted. At home I have a dedicated office with a sofa. Height-adjustable desk. Herman Miller Aeron chair all to myself. Mechanical keyboard (that doesn't drive other people nuts with its sound) and expensive mouse. Two 27" 1440p 144Hz screens on desk mounted arms. Both of my cats to keep me company. My own toilet all to myself. A fully stocked kitchen. A place to work out. A very nice 55" OLED screen. My coffee machine is all mine (Gaggia Babila) with freshly roasted beans delivered every week. And my office has a view over a park and a large body of water. Best of all: no office small talk. No interruptions at my desk. And if I realise, during a meeting, that I could just be a fly on the wall and continue working instead? Then I do exactly that, whereas in an office situation I couldn't do that.

UnpossibleJim 4y ago
You had me at "My own toilet all to myself". I understand not everyone in the world is loathe to use a public restroom, but Jesus H. Christ, people use public restrooms like apes in a zoo. Not to mention, My loud, clickity-clackity mechanical keyboard (which isn't allowed to leave my office on punishment of death from my wife - I have the silent one for the living room gaming rig). I can run a couple of rigs at the same time, and work when the meeting I'm in doesn't particularly pertain to me, even though I lead a small team - which means I'm invited to meetings, but only have to listen to a quarter of what gets said and still have to get work done. My team generally had their heads in the screen all day, anyway. We're fairly socially awkward and loud talkers/laughers, which means we annoy everyone when we don't communicate via Slack... which is almost every team I've worked on (I'm the worst offender, yes). I understand remote doesn't work great for every team, but for A LOT of software teams... and we work with an accounting and ops team, it works great for all of us =/
- antoniuschan99 4y ago
  Totally forgot about the toilet haha!
- jamessb 4y ago
  > You had me at "My own toilet all to myself". I understand not everyone in the world is loathe to use a public restroom, but Jesus H. Christ, people use public restrooms like apes in a zoo. It's not just cleanlines: I've also encountered issues like the hand-soap or toilet paper having run out and not been replaced, toilets not working due to plumbing issues (in one office they installed a fancy new rainwater recycling system that didn't initially work, so toilets wouldn't flush), a toilet on the top floor of a building where the flush was very weak and the cistern would take minutes to slowly refill before you could flush a second time, poorly designed sinks that look pretty but splash water everywhere when you turn on the tap, or a building only having a single cubicle so that I'd need to walk to another building if it was in use. These seem minor, but are irritating nonetheless.
  - sedawk 4y ago
    And air circulation, or lack thereof! Yes, the one in my building has crappy air circulation (no pun intended!) and the facilities people know this, but they "won't" fix it (too expensive for FANG company to fix a toilet). The solution: they put those fruit-smelly things in every corner of the toilet. Not only does this NOT solve the problem, The only thing, IMHO, this does is make you hate fruits :-(
- quesog 4y ago
  Not just the toilet - but also the toilet paper. Every office I've ever worked in has used the same cheap and awful single-ply mega-rolls that I like to call "John Wayne toilet paper." It's rough and tough and doesn't take sh*t off nobody.
- Something1234 4y ago
  The hardest thing for me when traveling for work is going without my bidet. It's a true game changer.
jayd16 4y ago
They might dislike the low participation in the meeting (camera off) because people just tune out and do work when they're supposed to be paying attention. I much preferred when people were clearly in or out of a meeting (myself included).
- jen20 4y ago
  The idea that people don't do that in in person meetings is pretty fantastical.
  - jayd16 4y ago
    What's your point exactly? You see it way more now and, at least to me, the culture accepted quietly excusing yourself more than silently dropping out of a call.
    - jen20 4y ago
      The point is that low participation is a symptom of pointless poorly organized meetings (often that should have been emails), not lack of engagement. The rudeness of it is on the part of the organizer not the attendee.
      - jayd16 4y ago
        Agreed. My point is it seems worse now.
- pc86 4y ago
  I'm an EM and I would say 30-40% of the meetings I'm in I have to be there in case I'm needed for something, but do not need to actively participate day to day. Some I just need to know for my reporting, but I'm definitely not asking anyone to take notes for me, so I just listen. Some I might be needed every third or fourth time and it's easier to just be there rather than have someone get me if something comes up. The rest I'm actively contributing to (at least somewhat regularly). If it were in person I'd still have to be there, except I'd only really be able to check email or maybe take half-assed notes rather than actually get work done.
rfergie 4y ago
> some of them talk about their gorgeous cars for the sake of talking about their cars > My coffee machine is all mine (Gaggia Babila)
- nh23423fefe 4y ago
  lol, projection and attribution error all in one
- 734129837261 4y ago
  Ah, you got me. At least I'm not dependent on other people seeing my material things in real life nearly as much as my hypersocial managers ;)
sherilm 4y ago
The "open office" concept is not as cool as it's often perceived to be.
- more_corn 4y ago
  The open office is the bane of my existence. I have helping disorder (made up) and it makes me 100% interruptible. Meaning I do 5x as much deep work in the office after hours or on a holiday. Imagine the productivity I could gain if I could simply close my office door.
  - peterangular 4y ago
    I've often had to wait until Friday afternoon when everyone's mentally checked out to get work done. There's a magical period between Friday at 3pm to late night Sunday where no distractions means I can actually coherently focus for hours at a time. Also it's typically enough time to get to a MVP if I need to prove a point. Just sucks that this magical productivity time also happens to be "the weekend" =(
kanbara 4y ago
this sounds great, and i wish everyone else could have this luxury and privilege, but that's not the case for millions of people. i wish the focus of the convo wouldn't be on "waaah my employer wants me to come back" and more "waah society is fundamentally broken and we are lucky to have such options though our cities need huge reforms" i mean seriously, i would like to be 100% flex and choose when i go in and not (i virtually do that already) but i know what i signed up for, i enjoy going in to the office, and the mix is good enough for me because i care about my work deeply. techies don't realise just how abnormal their situation is, and they want society to do for them what it should do for every other person, so i don't really care much for the constant arguments about wfh. just go find a place that lets you do it and then maybe fight for unskilled labour to also have 55" OLED TVs, a fancy coffee machine and the ability to work from home or choose their own hours.
- mahastore 4y ago
  Though downvoted it does have a valid point. But hey we should try to better the living conditions , right? And also do what is good for the planet?
- kkfx 4y ago
  If I have a good home and a job that can be done from it why not profit? That "luxury" and "privilege" does not touch others, instead some who can potentially have better homes that can't because working in a specific expensive location they can't buy nor rent something as good, but potentially can in another far cheaper location? 100% flexibility is simply unsustainable: a company can't keep offices for some only or people keep moving gears from home to office and vice versa or having double gears in both location. A call center operator can work from home and perhaps instead of a cubicle in a city can afford a larger home in the countryside having a better life WFH, banking, assurances, various tertiary sector jobs can be done from remote, not just techies, skilled and rich.
mahastore 4y ago
And you are fully productive all the time and maybe even producing more than what is expected of you at any given time .... yet for some there is something wrong with the picture. Not withstanding the fact that indeed a two hour commute does not help the planet and continuous gossip and the open office space does not help to focus , unfortunately even with clear logic like that the primal part of our brain makes it hard to accept change to something new. However the fact is that technology has evolved to the point that many of the white collar work is entirely possible to be done remotely and therefore companies that embrace and adapt to these changes will do better in the future.
- mahastore 4y ago
  Oh BTW the overlords have taken note of your "audacity" and now they are going to strike fear into thy hearts via stock market crash and recession followed by mass layoffs. I read somewhere that Uber CEO mentioned job as a "privilege" for you. How dare you even question anything at all let alone how you spend majority of your day? /s
  - subsubzero 4y ago
    It cuts both ways Dara(Uber CEO)! Taking a rideshare is also a privilege and one that I shall not be indulging in after idiotic comments like that from its leadership.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
subsubzero 4y ago
Sounds like my home office somewhat :) I think the biggest takeway for me in respect to an office or wfh is something that is the most important commodity that always decreases and never replenishes - time. I used to spend sometimes 3-4 hours daily commuting in extremely stressful commutes. I will never get that time back and the stress it inflicted upon me probably aged me along with the environmental damage(exhaust) me and millions like me did while doing similar commutes.
ctvo 4y ago
> I don't want to wake up early, drive my car in traffic jams, find a parking spot, see that someone stole my favourite (but still bad) office chair, sit in an open office full of noisy people, working on shared & dirty keyboards, looking at small budget screens, on desks that can't be adjusted. What... where do you work? Budget screens? Bad office chairs? We're quite spoiled in the US with big tech. Everyone gets giant monitors and Herman Miller chairs sprinkled with freedom.
- greedo 4y ago
  I hope you're being sarcastic, since this isn't the case with my office. We do have some Aeron chairs, but those were bought over a decade ago, and new chairs are decidedly non-ergonomic. And monitors? Nothing 4k (much less 5K for the Apple guys), just generic 24" screens that are terrible.
  - ctvo 4y ago
    Only a little bit. I've worked primarily with big tech and startups. We've always had top of the line equipment. No one blinked at the fully spec'd Macbook Pros, 34" monitors, standing desks, and 2,000 USD ergonomic chairs.
- 734129837261 4y ago
  20+ Years of experience, most chairs are budget, most screens are budget Dell, most keyboards came packaged with the Dell offer. It's unimpressive 9 times out of 10. In the rare case you do find a good setup you tend to also see people hijacking your stuff when they get to the office before you do.
- theandrewbailey 4y ago
  (American here) Only 1 of the dozen or so offices I've worked at gave everyone Herman Millers. At least each one had dual budget screens instead of 1, or we could bring our own. No hotdesking.

UnpossibleJim 4y ago

You had me at "My own toilet all to myself". I understand not everyone in the world is loathe to use a public restroom, but Jesus H. Christ, people use public restrooms like apes in a zoo. Not to mention, My loud, clickity-clackity mechanical keyboard (which isn't allowed to leave my office on punishment of death from my wife - I have the silent one for the living room gaming rig). I can run a couple of rigs at the same time, and work when the meeting I'm in doesn't particularly pertain to me, even though I lead a small team - which means I'm invited to meetings, but only have to listen to a quarter of what gets said and still have to get work done. My team generally had their heads in the screen all day, anyway. We're fairly socially awkward and loud talkers/laughers, which means we annoy everyone when we don't communicate via Slack... which is almost every team I've worked on (I'm the worst offender, yes). I understand remote doesn't work great for every team, but for A LOT of software teams... and we work with an accounting and ops team, it works great for all of us =/

antoniuschan99 4y ago
Totally forgot about the toilet haha!
jamessb 4y ago
> You had me at "My own toilet all to myself". I understand not everyone in the world is loathe to use a public restroom, but Jesus H. Christ, people use public restrooms like apes in a zoo. It's not just cleanlines: I've also encountered issues like the hand-soap or toilet paper having run out and not been replaced, toilets not working due to plumbing issues (in one office they installed a fancy new rainwater recycling system that didn't initially work, so toilets wouldn't flush), a toilet on the top floor of a building where the flush was very weak and the cistern would take minutes to slowly refill before you could flush a second time, poorly designed sinks that look pretty but splash water everywhere when you turn on the tap, or a building only having a single cubicle so that I'd need to walk to another building if it was in use. These seem minor, but are irritating nonetheless.
- sedawk 4y ago
  And air circulation, or lack thereof! Yes, the one in my building has crappy air circulation (no pun intended!) and the facilities people know this, but they "won't" fix it (too expensive for FANG company to fix a toilet). The solution: they put those fruit-smelly things in every corner of the toilet. Not only does this NOT solve the problem, The only thing, IMHO, this does is make you hate fruits :-(
quesog 4y ago
Not just the toilet - but also the toilet paper. Every office I've ever worked in has used the same cheap and awful single-ply mega-rolls that I like to call "John Wayne toilet paper." It's rough and tough and doesn't take sh*t off nobody.
Something1234 4y ago
The hardest thing for me when traveling for work is going without my bidet. It's a true game changer.

jayd16 4y ago

They might dislike the low participation in the meeting (camera off) because people just tune out and do work when they're supposed to be paying attention. I much preferred when people were clearly in or out of a meeting (myself included).

jen20 4y ago
The idea that people don't do that in in person meetings is pretty fantastical.
- jayd16 4y ago
  What's your point exactly? You see it way more now and, at least to me, the culture accepted quietly excusing yourself more than silently dropping out of a call.
  - jen20 4y ago
    The point is that low participation is a symptom of pointless poorly organized meetings (often that should have been emails), not lack of engagement. The rudeness of it is on the part of the organizer not the attendee.
    - jayd16 4y ago
      Agreed. My point is it seems worse now.
pc86 4y ago
I'm an EM and I would say 30-40% of the meetings I'm in I have to be there in case I'm needed for something, but do not need to actively participate day to day. Some I just need to know for my reporting, but I'm definitely not asking anyone to take notes for me, so I just listen. Some I might be needed every third or fourth time and it's easier to just be there rather than have someone get me if something comes up. The rest I'm actively contributing to (at least somewhat regularly). If it were in person I'd still have to be there, except I'd only really be able to check email or maybe take half-assed notes rather than actually get work done.

rfergie 4y ago

> some of them talk about their gorgeous cars for the sake of talking about their cars > My coffee machine is all mine (Gaggia Babila)

nh23423fefe 4y ago
lol, projection and attribution error all in one
734129837261 4y ago
Ah, you got me. At least I'm not dependent on other people seeing my material things in real life nearly as much as my hypersocial managers ;)

sherilm 4y ago

The "open office" concept is not as cool as it's often perceived to be.

more_corn 4y ago
The open office is the bane of my existence. I have helping disorder (made up) and it makes me 100% interruptible. Meaning I do 5x as much deep work in the office after hours or on a holiday. Imagine the productivity I could gain if I could simply close my office door.
- peterangular 4y ago
  I've often had to wait until Friday afternoon when everyone's mentally checked out to get work done. There's a magical period between Friday at 3pm to late night Sunday where no distractions means I can actually coherently focus for hours at a time. Also it's typically enough time to get to a MVP if I need to prove a point. Just sucks that this magical productivity time also happens to be "the weekend" =(

kanbara 4y ago

this sounds great, and i wish everyone else could have this luxury and privilege, but that's not the case for millions of people. i wish the focus of the convo wouldn't be on "waaah my employer wants me to come back" and more "waah society is fundamentally broken and we are lucky to have such options though our cities need huge reforms" i mean seriously, i would like to be 100% flex and choose when i go in and not (i virtually do that already) but i know what i signed up for, i enjoy going in to the office, and the mix is good enough for me because i care about my work deeply. techies don't realise just how abnormal their situation is, and they want society to do for them what it should do for every other person, so i don't really care much for the constant arguments about wfh. just go find a place that lets you do it and then maybe fight for unskilled labour to also have 55" OLED TVs, a fancy coffee machine and the ability to work from home or choose their own hours.

mahastore 4y ago
Though downvoted it does have a valid point. But hey we should try to better the living conditions , right? And also do what is good for the planet?
kkfx 4y ago
If I have a good home and a job that can be done from it why not profit? That "luxury" and "privilege" does not touch others, instead some who can potentially have better homes that can't because working in a specific expensive location they can't buy nor rent something as good, but potentially can in another far cheaper location? 100% flexibility is simply unsustainable: a company can't keep offices for some only or people keep moving gears from home to office and vice versa or having double gears in both location. A call center operator can work from home and perhaps instead of a cubicle in a city can afford a larger home in the countryside having a better life WFH, banking, assurances, various tertiary sector jobs can be done from remote, not just techies, skilled and rich.

mahastore 4y ago

And you are fully productive all the time and maybe even producing more than what is expected of you at any given time .... yet for some there is something wrong with the picture. Not withstanding the fact that indeed a two hour commute does not help the planet and continuous gossip and the open office space does not help to focus , unfortunately even with clear logic like that the primal part of our brain makes it hard to accept change to something new. However the fact is that technology has evolved to the point that many of the white collar work is entirely possible to be done remotely and therefore companies that embrace and adapt to these changes will do better in the future.

mahastore 4y ago
Oh BTW the overlords have taken note of your "audacity" and now they are going to strike fear into thy hearts via stock market crash and recession followed by mass layoffs. I read somewhere that Uber CEO mentioned job as a "privilege" for you. How dare you even question anything at all let alone how you spend majority of your day? /s
- subsubzero 4y ago
  It cuts both ways Dara(Uber CEO)! Taking a rideshare is also a privilege and one that I shall not be indulging in after idiotic comments like that from its leadership.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

subsubzero 4y ago

Sounds like my home office somewhat :) I think the biggest takeway for me in respect to an office or wfh is something that is the most important commodity that always decreases and never replenishes - time. I used to spend sometimes 3-4 hours daily commuting in extremely stressful commutes. I will never get that time back and the stress it inflicted upon me probably aged me along with the environmental damage(exhaust) me and millions like me did while doing similar commutes.

ctvo 4y ago

> I don't want to wake up early, drive my car in traffic jams, find a parking spot, see that someone stole my favourite (but still bad) office chair, sit in an open office full of noisy people, working on shared & dirty keyboards, looking at small budget screens, on desks that can't be adjusted. What... where do you work? Budget screens? Bad office chairs? We're quite spoiled in the US with big tech. Everyone gets giant monitors and Herman Miller chairs sprinkled with freedom.

greedo 4y ago
I hope you're being sarcastic, since this isn't the case with my office. We do have some Aeron chairs, but those were bought over a decade ago, and new chairs are decidedly non-ergonomic. And monitors? Nothing 4k (much less 5K for the Apple guys), just generic 24" screens that are terrible.
- ctvo 4y ago
  Only a little bit. I've worked primarily with big tech and startups. We've always had top of the line equipment. No one blinked at the fully spec'd Macbook Pros, 34" monitors, standing desks, and 2,000 USD ergonomic chairs.
734129837261 4y ago
20+ Years of experience, most chairs are budget, most screens are budget Dell, most keyboards came packaged with the Dell offer. It's unimpressive 9 times out of 10. In the rare case you do find a good setup you tend to also see people hijacking your stuff when they get to the office before you do.
theandrewbailey 4y ago
(American here) Only 1 of the dozen or so offices I've worked at gave everyone Herman Millers. At least each one had dual budget screens instead of 1, or we could bring our own. No hotdesking.