6 ms·

Adding 2 hours of unpaid commute doesn't do anything but increase burnout. Nor would it prevent slackers from slacking.

tra3 4y ago
Not sure why you’re being downvoted. I have to go into the office occasionally to get my work done. The energy required for commuting is non trivial. I’m not sure why nobody is talking about that. I can parlay that energy into the product I’m building on the days I don’t commute and I feel like I achieve more. Certainly the remote first culture will require more from managers so I get where the push to return is coming from, but that’s something we can deal with together as teams.
- ChrisRR 4y ago
  Because for some people it really does. We have one such example in our team that unless he has people watching over his shoulder, he seems to have spent lockdown twiddling his thumbs
  - ThunderSizzle 4y ago
    If it was up to me, I wouldn't keep him employed. Managers shouldn't be babysitters.
    - ChrisRR 4y ago
      Pro: It's difficult to fire people in the UK Con: It's difficult to fire people in the UK
      - alaricus 4y ago
        As a manager I have access to restricted table our HR keeps for the correct procedures around firing people in all the jurisdictions we operate in. Short version: it's not difficult to fire anyone, all that changes across countries is how much it costs.
opportune 4y ago
It takes away a lot of things a slacker could do (like run errands, do hobbies) instead of work. And makes it more obvious when you’re not working
- Apocryphon 4y ago
  Unless you impose intrusive restrictions or surveillance on internet browsing, it doesn't really do enough to combat slack, and just antagonizes slackers further.
- nowherebeen 4y ago
  If they are delivering, who cares if they run errands or do hobbies? Look at their work and if they don’t meet the bar, let them go. This whole attendance equals work thing is more often than not coming from insecure/micro managers.
  - opportune 4y ago
    I was responding to my parent/gp comment about slackers WFH. I think by definition we can say "slackers" are people who aren't delivering at an adequate level - or at least that's how I interpreted it. I am not sure how much you have been in leadership positions or dealt with hiring in tech, but things aren't as simple as letting people go. For one, a lot of people with performance issues know they have performance issues and want to be better - so if they have trouble concentrating/dealing with the temptation to slack at home, establishing formal work-from-office policies could actually help them. Basically, it's almost always better to try to coach underperforming people or create/find an environment that works for them rather than just let them go (especially for software where it's hard to find people already, it's a bad look to fire someone in under X months, and where as a line manager you actually have little discretion over firing people). Also, once a culture of not delivering gets entrenched, letting people go gets hard. You don't want to let go of 4 out of 6 members of a team at once, even if they aren't doing anything. It's a bad look for the entire management chain and makes other employees scared. Investors may interpret it as a sign of trouble with financials. I don't think there's anything wrong with requiring underperforming employees to work out of an office, as long as their job wasn't advertised as fully remote and the employer never formally told them they were not expected to return the office. I do agree that people who are doing a good job working remotely have every right to continue working remotely though. I just also agree with the GP that remote work enables slackers and can make getting shit done hard/frustrating.
genericacct 4y ago
Commuting also guarantees you will waste what is likely the most productive hour -- the first one -- actually producing nothing but harmful emissions
- Spivak 4y ago
  Damn yeah, I never thought about it that way. The difference between the job I had a 45 min commute to and the one I could walk to in 2 mins was night and day. Now I know why. I’m finally not showing up tired to work.
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y ago
    Was working from home with COVID (second time, yay) this week and having that 1:20 of total commute time back every day was a huge improvement to my mental health. Second biggest was being able to go outside and throw the frisbee with my dog for 5 minutes every once in a while. I dread going back tomorrow.
- Shorel 4y ago
  I commute in an ancient electric train called trolley. =)
- ChrisRR 4y ago
  Unless you cycle in which case you wake yourself up and get some exercise in
thawaya3113 4y ago
And yet all the research showed that people were working longer during the pandemic for the same outcomes. Output didn’t drop but productivity did.
- datashaman 4y ago
  Eh? You measure productivity by output.
  - deaddabe 4y ago
    You measure productivity by output divided by time, eg. 10 items produced by hour. If output was the same during lock down, but worked time increased, then productivity decreased.
    - chii 4y ago
      I'd say that is efficiency, not productivity. Productivity is the total output, not output per unit time.
D13Fd 4y ago
It’s funny how people act as if commute time is completely outside of the control of individuals. Maybe that’s true in some places, but in the majority of places people can choose how long they want their commute to be. It’s usually a trade off between having a big house, a short commute, and saving money.
closeparen 4y ago
The median commute is 27 minutes. Fewer than 10% of commuters have an hour's drive [0]. At a software engineer's income level, a commute like that is a reflection on your personal choice of home and neighborhood, not something inherent to working from an office or something your employer is doing to you. [0] https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2021/acs/acs-47.pdf https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publicatio...
- hiptobecubic 4y ago
  Unless you live in the bay area, which is where a huge number of software engineers live. My commute was over an hour and I still couldn't afford to buy anything.
- neverminder 4y ago
  Average commute in London is 74 minutes. Average commute in the world is 40 minutes.

tra3 4y ago

Not sure why you’re being downvoted. I have to go into the office occasionally to get my work done. The energy required for commuting is non trivial. I’m not sure why nobody is talking about that. I can parlay that energy into the product I’m building on the days I don’t commute and I feel like I achieve more. Certainly the remote first culture will require more from managers so I get where the push to return is coming from, but that’s something we can deal with together as teams.

ChrisRR 4y ago
Because for some people it really does. We have one such example in our team that unless he has people watching over his shoulder, he seems to have spent lockdown twiddling his thumbs
- ThunderSizzle 4y ago
  If it was up to me, I wouldn't keep him employed. Managers shouldn't be babysitters.
  - ChrisRR 4y ago
    Pro: It's difficult to fire people in the UK Con: It's difficult to fire people in the UK
    - alaricus 4y ago
      As a manager I have access to restricted table our HR keeps for the correct procedures around firing people in all the jurisdictions we operate in. Short version: it's not difficult to fire anyone, all that changes across countries is how much it costs.

opportune 4y ago

It takes away a lot of things a slacker could do (like run errands, do hobbies) instead of work. And makes it more obvious when you’re not working

Apocryphon 4y ago
Unless you impose intrusive restrictions or surveillance on internet browsing, it doesn't really do enough to combat slack, and just antagonizes slackers further.
nowherebeen 4y ago
If they are delivering, who cares if they run errands or do hobbies? Look at their work and if they don’t meet the bar, let them go. This whole attendance equals work thing is more often than not coming from insecure/micro managers.
- opportune 4y ago
  I was responding to my parent/gp comment about slackers WFH. I think by definition we can say "slackers" are people who aren't delivering at an adequate level - or at least that's how I interpreted it. I am not sure how much you have been in leadership positions or dealt with hiring in tech, but things aren't as simple as letting people go. For one, a lot of people with performance issues know they have performance issues and want to be better - so if they have trouble concentrating/dealing with the temptation to slack at home, establishing formal work-from-office policies could actually help them. Basically, it's almost always better to try to coach underperforming people or create/find an environment that works for them rather than just let them go (especially for software where it's hard to find people already, it's a bad look to fire someone in under X months, and where as a line manager you actually have little discretion over firing people). Also, once a culture of not delivering gets entrenched, letting people go gets hard. You don't want to let go of 4 out of 6 members of a team at once, even if they aren't doing anything. It's a bad look for the entire management chain and makes other employees scared. Investors may interpret it as a sign of trouble with financials. I don't think there's anything wrong with requiring underperforming employees to work out of an office, as long as their job wasn't advertised as fully remote and the employer never formally told them they were not expected to return the office. I do agree that people who are doing a good job working remotely have every right to continue working remotely though. I just also agree with the GP that remote work enables slackers and can make getting shit done hard/frustrating.

genericacct 4y ago

Commuting also guarantees you will waste what is likely the most productive hour -- the first one -- actually producing nothing but harmful emissions

Spivak 4y ago
Damn yeah, I never thought about it that way. The difference between the job I had a 45 min commute to and the one I could walk to in 2 mins was night and day. Now I know why. I’m finally not showing up tired to work.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y ago
  Was working from home with COVID (second time, yay) this week and having that 1:20 of total commute time back every day was a huge improvement to my mental health. Second biggest was being able to go outside and throw the frisbee with my dog for 5 minutes every once in a while. I dread going back tomorrow.
Shorel 4y ago
I commute in an ancient electric train called trolley. =)
ChrisRR 4y ago
Unless you cycle in which case you wake yourself up and get some exercise in

thawaya3113 4y ago

And yet all the research showed that people were working longer during the pandemic for the same outcomes. Output didn’t drop but productivity did.

datashaman 4y ago
Eh? You measure productivity by output.
- deaddabe 4y ago
  You measure productivity by output divided by time, eg. 10 items produced by hour. If output was the same during lock down, but worked time increased, then productivity decreased.
  - chii 4y ago
    I'd say that is efficiency, not productivity. Productivity is the total output, not output per unit time.

D13Fd 4y ago

It’s funny how people act as if commute time is completely outside of the control of individuals. Maybe that’s true in some places, but in the majority of places people can choose how long they want their commute to be. It’s usually a trade off between having a big house, a short commute, and saving money.

closeparen 4y ago

The median commute is 27 minutes. Fewer than 10% of commuters have an hour's drive [0]. At a software engineer's income level, a commute like that is a reflection on your personal choice of home and neighborhood, not something inherent to working from an office or something your employer is doing to you. [0] https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2021/acs/acs-47.pdf https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publicatio...

hiptobecubic 4y ago
Unless you live in the bay area, which is where a huge number of software engineers live. My commute was over an hour and I still couldn't afford to buy anything.
neverminder 4y ago
Average commute in London is 74 minutes. Average commute in the world is 40 minutes.