5 ms·

I really like WFH. But I also enjoy working with people F2F. Discussions around topics happen spontaneously without a meeting and an agenda. Insights created i

by baxtr 4y ago

I really like WFH. But I also enjoy working with people F2F. Discussions around topics happen spontaneously without a meeting and an agenda. Insights created in these type of meetings is very hard to replicate in remote settings. Also, going for lunch with colleagues is something I don’t want to miss. That said, I have been most productive working at home. So for me, the winning model is a mix. 2 days to mingle and have spontaneous encounters, 3 days to work and have scheduled meetings.

xedrac 4y ago
I can appreciate 1-2 days a week in the office. There are certainly some benefits to be had there. But if I consistently come into the office 2 days a week, I know for certain that my company is going to push for 3 days, then 4 etc... And I'd much rather be fully remote than have to come in even 3 days a week. That being said, I tend to work a lot more hours when working remotely.
guessmyname 4y ago
> I really like WFH. But I also enjoy working with people F2F. F2F stands for “Face to Face”, for people in the crowd whose English is not their first language.
_8j50 4y ago
It depends on personality and work I think. The hardesr part of any job for me is the social part. I can get by just fine but meetings after meetings in person, awkward social events and lunches. People forming tribes and playing mind games aginst each other. That's any work place I have seen. Don't care for it one bit. I focus on technical skills since that is what is expected of me and as such a company could best extract value out of me by letting me skip all thay bullshit. But if your job does indeed require you to form personal relationships and manage office politics I think office works out for you best. What is fulfilling to you might be bursensome and mentally taxing on others. This is similar to open office work spaces, some people thrive in that environment while others can barely survive. It is impossible to manage time because of constant interruptions and useless time wasting things. Any productivity is a side effect of being lucky enough to squeeze a few hours in between driving, socializing, meetings and peoppe walking up randomly to talk. I'll be honest 100% here with this regard: covid was the best thing to happen to me for my social, mental and emotional wellbeing. You all need to stop expecting fishes to climb trees. Try seeing things from others' perspective. I would take a significant pay cut and more responsibility and move to a different location to switch jobs if that meant I would get the most wfh time. Balance is good and happy workers are positivr ROI workers. I think once a week mandatory and another day in a week whenever there is a good reason to meet and work with in person is best balance. Speaking of perspective, some people live with families where there is distraction and interruptions there as well so i see their view as well.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
IshKebab 4y ago
The issues I've found with hybrid working are that a) people come in on different days, so it's not really the same as full time, and b) because video conferencing still sucks so much if you have some people in a room and some on Zoom, the ones in the room tend to give up on the zoom people and have side conversations because it's so much easier. Also I can see it from the company's point of view - it sucks paying for a desk for only 3 days a week and everyone hates hotdesking. I think office work is mostly superior for most people except for the commute (and also the ability to naughtily do house chores when you technically should be working). Maybe we should concentrate on making commutes nicer. I think employees should also be given the choice of hot desking vs cold desking for an appropriate pay rise/cut. Nobody likes hot desking but I bet few would be willing to pay the actual cost for a dedicated desk.
- interpol_p 4y ago
  > If you have some people in a room and some on Zoom, the ones in the room tend to give up on the zoom people and have side conversations because it's so much easier. That's really interesting. We have the opposite experience. We use Google Meet and the "collaborator" mode? (Where someone can join from their device without video or audio). People use the hand raise feature even on the in-person side, and it feels like everyone gets a voice. We also don't have many people in these meetings (5 max) > naughtily do house chores when you technically should be working In the office I sometimes sat staring at a screen, achieving nothing except deflating my mood. At home I will go and hang the washing, and come back feeling a little boosted and make far more progress with whatever problem I had. At the office I would often take a walk. If someone thought that was "naughty" I would be seriously concerned about their effect on the company
- CamperBob2 4y ago
  "What no [spouse] of a writer can ever understand is that a writer is working when he's staring out of the window.” – Burton Rascoe That said, while I was familiar with this old saying, I've never heard of Burton Rascoe, and I had to use Google to attribute the quote properly. Maybe keeping one's nose to the proverbial grindstone at the office really is the secret to success. I doubt it, though.
- 4y ago
babypuncher 4y ago
WFH has been utterly depressing for me. I hate being stuck in my house 24/7. Going back to the office on Tuesdays and Thursdays has been great. I wouldn't want to go back to 5 days a week in the office though.
- sattoshi 4y ago
  Why are you stuck in your house 24/7? Don’t you have anything better to do?
  - babypuncher 4y ago
    There are a multitude of factors here, but the big one is that the office provides a space to regularly socialize with peers that I'm not directly related to through blood or marriage. The concept of a "third place"[1] is downright foreign where I live, likely because for most people in my community that role is served by the dominant church.
- bergenty 4y ago
  Are you an automaton? You know you can leave the house if it’s not for work right?
  - theshrike79 4y ago
    Maybe they're stuck in one of the dystopian corporations where not having a green bubble on Teams is cause for a 1 on 1 chat with your manager.
    - babypuncher 4y ago
      Most of my hobbies are indoor activities. Going into the office injects some much needed social stimulation and environmental variety into my daily/weekly routine.
  - babypuncher 4y ago
    And do what exactly? I can take my family out to the movies or a museum, but that is a little expensive to do more than once a week or so. It also does not serve the same social function that time in the office did, namely socialization with peers instead of family.
rdedev 4y ago
I guess hybrid is the one that works for me too. I take some time to get to know people. A fully remote job makes this hard especially if any kind of spontaneous stuff is missing. I've not done any hybrid or fully remote job but have had to take fully remote courses in my college and that semester was pretty depressing. I'm in a new country too so the overall feeling of loneliness can be a real bummer
interpol_p 4y ago
I find discussions and calls happen organically on Slack. I'll often get a message "I'm stuck on this bug, can we huddle?" then we open a voice chat and screen share our way through the problem Strangely, I have far more unscheduled discussions about real work than I do when I go into the office When I go into the office we eat lunch together, we chat about non-work related things. It's fun but they are also the days where I get the least done, and where I feel the least bonding with my colleagues I feel closest with my colleagues and friends when we have a video or voice call and work hard to solve real problems together. There's a shared sense of achievement I go into the office once a fortnight to pick up shared lunch that we eat together. Sometimes I'll arrange a work-from-Cafe morning where we find a great coffee shop and take our laptops for the morning
solarkraft 4y ago
> Discussions around topics happen spontaneously without a meeting and an agenda. Insights created in these type of meetings is very hard to replicate in remote settings. I too find this highly valuable. But there's a solution for that: Regularly catching up with people. It seems silly at first, but works quite well for transferring all those important secondary bits of information.
pwinnski 4y ago
At my last job, I would go into the office one day per month, for the monthly happy hour. Those mornings were easily my least-productive days all month. Nice to talk to people, but very unproductive. My new job is 100% remote, no office in my city AFAIK, so I'm more productive... but I still meet up with my old coworkers for monthly happy hour.

by baxtr 4y ago

xedrac 4y ago

I can appreciate 1-2 days a week in the office. There are certainly some benefits to be had there. But if I consistently come into the office 2 days a week, I know for certain that my company is going to push for 3 days, then 4 etc... And I'd much rather be fully remote than have to come in even 3 days a week. That being said, I tend to work a lot more hours when working remotely.

guessmyname 4y ago

> I really like WFH. But I also enjoy working with people F2F. F2F stands for “Face to Face”, for people in the crowd whose English is not their first language.

_8j50 4y ago

It depends on personality and work I think. The hardesr part of any job for me is the social part. I can get by just fine but meetings after meetings in person, awkward social events and lunches. People forming tribes and playing mind games aginst each other. That's any work place I have seen. Don't care for it one bit. I focus on technical skills since that is what is expected of me and as such a company could best extract value out of me by letting me skip all thay bullshit. But if your job does indeed require you to form personal relationships and manage office politics I think office works out for you best. What is fulfilling to you might be bursensome and mentally taxing on others. This is similar to open office work spaces, some people thrive in that environment while others can barely survive. It is impossible to manage time because of constant interruptions and useless time wasting things. Any productivity is a side effect of being lucky enough to squeeze a few hours in between driving, socializing, meetings and peoppe walking up randomly to talk. I'll be honest 100% here with this regard: covid was the best thing to happen to me for my social, mental and emotional wellbeing. You all need to stop expecting fishes to climb trees. Try seeing things from others' perspective. I would take a significant pay cut and more responsibility and move to a different location to switch jobs if that meant I would get the most wfh time. Balance is good and happy workers are positivr ROI workers. I think once a week mandatory and another day in a week whenever there is a good reason to meet and work with in person is best balance. Speaking of perspective, some people live with families where there is distraction and interruptions there as well so i see their view as well.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

IshKebab 4y ago

The issues I've found with hybrid working are that a) people come in on different days, so it's not really the same as full time, and b) because video conferencing still sucks so much if you have some people in a room and some on Zoom, the ones in the room tend to give up on the zoom people and have side conversations because it's so much easier. Also I can see it from the company's point of view - it sucks paying for a desk for only 3 days a week and everyone hates hotdesking. I think office work is mostly superior for most people except for the commute (and also the ability to naughtily do house chores when you technically should be working). Maybe we should concentrate on making commutes nicer. I think employees should also be given the choice of hot desking vs cold desking for an appropriate pay rise/cut. Nobody likes hot desking but I bet few would be willing to pay the actual cost for a dedicated desk.

interpol_p 4y ago
> If you have some people in a room and some on Zoom, the ones in the room tend to give up on the zoom people and have side conversations because it's so much easier. That's really interesting. We have the opposite experience. We use Google Meet and the "collaborator" mode? (Where someone can join from their device without video or audio). People use the hand raise feature even on the in-person side, and it feels like everyone gets a voice. We also don't have many people in these meetings (5 max) > naughtily do house chores when you technically should be working In the office I sometimes sat staring at a screen, achieving nothing except deflating my mood. At home I will go and hang the washing, and come back feeling a little boosted and make far more progress with whatever problem I had. At the office I would often take a walk. If someone thought that was "naughty" I would be seriously concerned about their effect on the company
CamperBob2 4y ago
"What no [spouse] of a writer can ever understand is that a writer is working when he's staring out of the window.” – Burton Rascoe That said, while I was familiar with this old saying, I've never heard of Burton Rascoe, and I had to use Google to attribute the quote properly. Maybe keeping one's nose to the proverbial grindstone at the office really is the secret to success. I doubt it, though.
4y ago

babypuncher 4y ago

WFH has been utterly depressing for me. I hate being stuck in my house 24/7. Going back to the office on Tuesdays and Thursdays has been great. I wouldn't want to go back to 5 days a week in the office though.

sattoshi 4y ago
Why are you stuck in your house 24/7? Don’t you have anything better to do?
- babypuncher 4y ago
  There are a multitude of factors here, but the big one is that the office provides a space to regularly socialize with peers that I'm not directly related to through blood or marriage. The concept of a "third place"[1] is downright foreign where I live, likely because for most people in my community that role is served by the dominant church.
bergenty 4y ago
Are you an automaton? You know you can leave the house if it’s not for work right?
- theshrike79 4y ago
  Maybe they're stuck in one of the dystopian corporations where not having a green bubble on Teams is cause for a 1 on 1 chat with your manager.
  - babypuncher 4y ago
    Most of my hobbies are indoor activities. Going into the office injects some much needed social stimulation and environmental variety into my daily/weekly routine.
- babypuncher 4y ago
  And do what exactly? I can take my family out to the movies or a museum, but that is a little expensive to do more than once a week or so. It also does not serve the same social function that time in the office did, namely socialization with peers instead of family.

rdedev 4y ago

I guess hybrid is the one that works for me too. I take some time to get to know people. A fully remote job makes this hard especially if any kind of spontaneous stuff is missing. I've not done any hybrid or fully remote job but have had to take fully remote courses in my college and that semester was pretty depressing. I'm in a new country too so the overall feeling of loneliness can be a real bummer

interpol_p 4y ago

I find discussions and calls happen organically on Slack. I'll often get a message "I'm stuck on this bug, can we huddle?" then we open a voice chat and screen share our way through the problem Strangely, I have far more unscheduled discussions about real work than I do when I go into the office When I go into the office we eat lunch together, we chat about non-work related things. It's fun but they are also the days where I get the least done, and where I feel the least bonding with my colleagues I feel closest with my colleagues and friends when we have a video or voice call and work hard to solve real problems together. There's a shared sense of achievement I go into the office once a fortnight to pick up shared lunch that we eat together. Sometimes I'll arrange a work-from-Cafe morning where we find a great coffee shop and take our laptops for the morning

solarkraft 4y ago

> Discussions around topics happen spontaneously without a meeting and an agenda. Insights created in these type of meetings is very hard to replicate in remote settings. I too find this highly valuable. But there's a solution for that: Regularly catching up with people. It seems silly at first, but works quite well for transferring all those important secondary bits of information.

pwinnski 4y ago

At my last job, I would go into the office one day per month, for the monthly happy hour. Those mornings were easily my least-productive days all month. Nice to talk to people, but very unproductive. My new job is 100% remote, no office in my city AFAIK, so I'm more productive... but I still meet up with my old coworkers for monthly happy hour.