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It seems false to assume that people work less when working remotely. That is far from obvious. I personally think it is false, and have not seen any justificat

It seems false to assume that people work less when working remotely. That is far from obvious. I personally think it is false, and have not seen any justification of it. I understand arguments about people not eating business lunch near the office. Although it looks like home delivery and extra home office snacks, coffee, etc. would also cause spend, just in different areas as before. Additionally, in places where the state pays for healthcare, having less stressed workers, having less traffic accidents (I assume, since less commutes) might overall decrease the amount of money spent on health and save some money for the state too. It is not an easy thing to model IMO.

lynx23 4y ago
I recently listened to a casual conversation between two women talking about their husbands WFH behaviour. The general undertone was: "Yes, he can now do this or that time-consuming hobby because he can claim WFH while actually driving from A to B". Just an anecdote, I know, but this is not the first time I overheard people cheering over the personal advantages of WFH.
- sw104 4y ago
  Those gentlemen would probably also waste time in an office environment. You're just substituting wasting time at work with wasting time at work (from home). In the office I work in, walking past anybody's desk you see procrastination window and tabs quickly disappear. Either that, or people don't even bother hiding it (except from management). If people working from home didn't manage the same workload at home, it would hopefully be noticed in a competently run company. If those gents can fit in a few more hobbies in that time as well, power to them. If the company is run so incompetently that they don't notice you're not meeting goals/project deadlines, or providing low quality work, then that's the managements fault. Remote or in-person work isn't the main argument I think. There's more to it, which makes remote/in-person a good start for improving things. Working 9-5 (if you're lucky to work that) 5 days a week is insane, even for something you're passionate about (which most aren't). Our views on employment, notably:- - The amount of time it takes out of our days and lives (70%+ of your adult life) - The mundanity and pointlessness of (let's face it) most jobs - The additional time lost to commuting to an office to sit amongst a 50/50 cast of people you like/dislike. - The damage many jobs do to your health, both physical (back, eyes) and mentally from lack of stimulation or burnout. When you take a step back to analyse it all, to accept this is like a form of mental illness. If I took my favourite hobby and treated it the same way that a job is treated, after a couple of years it wouldn't even be a hobby anymore.
  - treis 4y ago
    >Those gentlemen would probably also waste time in an office environment. You're just substituting wasting time at work with wasting time at work (from home). There's way more distractions at home and not everyone can handle it. It's just wild what people find appropriate to do during meetings that they're supposed to be paying attention to. In office yeah maybe someone would read emails but you wouldn't be fully immersed in doing something else like cooking a full meal. It's hard to say how much my coworkers actually work. But I strongly suspect that it's much less than in office. Yeah people would pop over to Reddit or whatever. But that's far less engaging then going anywhere you want or doing anything you want. Feel like for most people if you're stuck in the office you might as well do some work.
    - manfre 4y ago
      > Feel like for most people if you're stuck in the office you might as well do some work. The biggest distractions in the office are the coworkers. Random hallway conversations, loud talkers in neighboring cubes/offices, people walking up to your desk with a question that should've been an email/chat (but really they are too lazy to check the ticket system/wiki/doc store for the answer). The level of distraction varies with each type of job, but for many quiet focus time is important. Working from home provides that quiet focus time.
      - treis 4y ago
        But that quiet focus time is all for naught if people use it to pursue their time consuming hobby instead of working. Which is the point that kicked off this thread.
      - bluGill 4y ago
        The whole point of the office is the random hallway conversations, the conversations you should be in on that you know about only because you overhear it from the cube next to you, people walking up to your desk to ask a question. 20 years ago my boss ordered me to work from home one day when I had an urgent task to get done. Most of the time though I was better off in the office - while I couldn't get as much high concentration work done, I was doing more useful work because I was in sync with the office. The above assumes that a significant number of people are in the office everyday. A pure work from home environment works because people figure out how to use other means to communicate important things. However communication is much harder, and thus takes more effort. As a shy person I would be much better off in the office all the time as I don't put enough effort into communication.

lynx23 4y ago

I recently listened to a casual conversation between two women talking about their husbands WFH behaviour. The general undertone was: "Yes, he can now do this or that time-consuming hobby because he can claim WFH while actually driving from A to B". Just an anecdote, I know, but this is not the first time I overheard people cheering over the personal advantages of WFH.

sw104 4y ago
Those gentlemen would probably also waste time in an office environment. You're just substituting wasting time at work with wasting time at work (from home). In the office I work in, walking past anybody's desk you see procrastination window and tabs quickly disappear. Either that, or people don't even bother hiding it (except from management). If people working from home didn't manage the same workload at home, it would hopefully be noticed in a competently run company. If those gents can fit in a few more hobbies in that time as well, power to them. If the company is run so incompetently that they don't notice you're not meeting goals/project deadlines, or providing low quality work, then that's the managements fault. Remote or in-person work isn't the main argument I think. There's more to it, which makes remote/in-person a good start for improving things. Working 9-5 (if you're lucky to work that) 5 days a week is insane, even for something you're passionate about (which most aren't). Our views on employment, notably:- - The amount of time it takes out of our days and lives (70%+ of your adult life) - The mundanity and pointlessness of (let's face it) most jobs - The additional time lost to commuting to an office to sit amongst a 50/50 cast of people you like/dislike. - The damage many jobs do to your health, both physical (back, eyes) and mentally from lack of stimulation or burnout. When you take a step back to analyse it all, to accept this is like a form of mental illness. If I took my favourite hobby and treated it the same way that a job is treated, after a couple of years it wouldn't even be a hobby anymore.
- treis 4y ago
  >Those gentlemen would probably also waste time in an office environment. You're just substituting wasting time at work with wasting time at work (from home). There's way more distractions at home and not everyone can handle it. It's just wild what people find appropriate to do during meetings that they're supposed to be paying attention to. In office yeah maybe someone would read emails but you wouldn't be fully immersed in doing something else like cooking a full meal. It's hard to say how much my coworkers actually work. But I strongly suspect that it's much less than in office. Yeah people would pop over to Reddit or whatever. But that's far less engaging then going anywhere you want or doing anything you want. Feel like for most people if you're stuck in the office you might as well do some work.
  - manfre 4y ago
    > Feel like for most people if you're stuck in the office you might as well do some work. The biggest distractions in the office are the coworkers. Random hallway conversations, loud talkers in neighboring cubes/offices, people walking up to your desk with a question that should've been an email/chat (but really they are too lazy to check the ticket system/wiki/doc store for the answer). The level of distraction varies with each type of job, but for many quiet focus time is important. Working from home provides that quiet focus time.
    - treis 4y ago
      But that quiet focus time is all for naught if people use it to pursue their time consuming hobby instead of working. Which is the point that kicked off this thread.
    - bluGill 4y ago
      The whole point of the office is the random hallway conversations, the conversations you should be in on that you know about only because you overhear it from the cube next to you, people walking up to your desk to ask a question. 20 years ago my boss ordered me to work from home one day when I had an urgent task to get done. Most of the time though I was better off in the office - while I couldn't get as much high concentration work done, I was doing more useful work because I was in sync with the office. The above assumes that a significant number of people are in the office everyday. A pure work from home environment works because people figure out how to use other means to communicate important things. However communication is much harder, and thus takes more effort. As a shy person I would be much better off in the office all the time as I don't put enough effort into communication.