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I do ask myself how long the WFH trend is going to last. My hypothesis is that at some point in the next 5 years we're going to starting seeing articles on HN p
by bvanderveen 4y ago
I do ask myself how long the WFH trend is going to last. My hypothesis is that at some point in the next 5 years we're going to starting seeing articles on HN promoting the productivity and well-being benefits of in-person interaction with your co-workers.
From where I'm standing, productivity doesn't look so great. It's an open secret in my remote-heavy, North American west-coast social circle that everyone knocks off at 1-2pm when the east coast people are definitely logged off. Probably the east coast people are doing the same thing, but in the morning. Lots of happily phoning it in.
And many of these same folks have a propensity to being shut-ins. A few of the more outdoorsy types are out there living their best lives.
But from a large-scale, long-term economic competitivity standpoint, this arrangement doesn't feel sustainable. I pose myself the question: What will be the confluence of circumstances that will demand that we take our jobs more seriously?
Edit: speling
- anthonybsd 4y ago>From where I'm standing, productivity doesn't look so great. It's an open secret in my remote-heavy, North American west-coast social circle that everyone knocks off at 1-2pm when the east coast people are definitely logged off. Probably the east coast people are doing the same thing, but in the morning. Lots of happily phoning it in. That hasn't been my experience at all. I work for a multinational company with teams spread across the globe - daily meetings with West Coast, London, and Mumbai and productivity has been fantastic in the past 2 years across all R&D teams (can't speak for others). Are you sure this isn't just an issue with your internal culture?
- bvanderveen 4y agoTo be sure, my (observationally biased) sample set includes ~3x more "friends working in tech for multinationals" than coworkers.
- hahaxdxd123 4y agoCan confirm like 80% of my Google friends are 3 hour/day types. But then again, it was only 5-6 hours/day before COVID anyway.
- nebula8804 4y agoThey are living The American Dream that Homer Simpson made us all aspire to. It may not last but at least they were fortunate enough to experience it for now. (I wanna be there :/ )
- Apocryphon 4y agoHomer was kind of a nuclear reactor SRE if you think about it.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- kyleee 4y agohas anyone moved US nuclear infrastructure to kubernetes yet?
- nebula8804 4y agoHe was ahead of the curve in so many ways including quiet quitting. [1]:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYXzHjbfMDk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYXzHjbfMDk
- anthonybsd 4y agoI mean it all depends on what they do. 3 hours a day of coding is huge amount of work. 3 hours a day of zoom meetings is meh.
- axxto 4y ago> What will be the confluence of circumstances that will demand that we take our jobs more seriously? I can think of one "confluence of circumstances" that would make me take my job more seriously: Higher salaries
- throwaway675309 4y agoI can only add my own anecdotal data but this is certainly not been the situation at my midsized tech company. We were already starting to transition to a permanent work from home situation well before Covid struck so maybe that had something to do with it, but our metrics in terms of deliverables for our projects have never looked better and the engineering department is certainly a lot happier being able to work comfortably from home and without the drudge of a commute.
- kansface 4y agoEh, some people are working way way more. It was always easy enough to only work an hour or two in a office anyway.
- mderazon 4y agoPeople were "working but not working" when we were all in offices as well. WFH just made it easier / more efficient I guess.
- strikelaserclaw 4y agoI'm pretty sure a lot of people zone out at work too. Office breaks, lunches, and general chit chat probably take a lot of time away from work too. We are after all, not machines.