5 ms·

+1 - it’s great for excellent people, it’s horrible for junior engineers, it’s bad for people who have trouble motivating themselves and keeping on task. There

+1 - it’s great for excellent people, it’s horrible for junior engineers, it’s bad for people who have trouble motivating themselves and keeping on task. There is a decent % of people that do close to nothing while working remote. It’s not black and white, there are tradeoffs and it varies based on the person imo.

SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
I find this strange. If someone wasn't able to get work done in the office the solution wouldn't be "OK, we all need to work from home because Gary can't get stuff done otherwise".
- gonehome 4y ago
  That’s only one factor, though it’s not just “Gary” IME many people are in this category, the very effective remote people are less common. The junior engineer issue and the comms issue affects everyone. Companies are teams of people and you want to make the collaboration as low effort and fast as possible. In person is very good for that and I suspect better on net. It’s why companies with the leverage to push for it (Apple and Amazon, Elon Musk companies) do so - they believe it to be an advantage.
  - SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
    How many people do you believe were "very effective" in office? The truth of the matter is most people are "effective enough". I honestly don't know if it's actually better or it just appears better. Sure, there are times when fast communication is important, but as we see with Twitter lately it's obvious that rapid fire decisions sometimes aren't the best and while things seem very active and dynamic maybe it'd be better if communication was more considered and thoughtful. Isn't that why that whole "this meeting could have been an email" meme exists? I agree the companies believe it's an advantage, but I don't know that it is. I don't know that they know it is. Leadership definitely thinks so, and there's a ton of institutional momentum that still hasn't shifted after the last few years, but I don't that it's actually empirically better.
    - gonehome 4y ago
      I think we’ll get to see the experiment happen which is cool. If either truly has a decisive advantage in some contexts we should see that materialize in the market.
      - SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
        Maybe - somehow I doubt a plucky underdog will replace Amazon or Apple because of a strategic WFH policy.
        gonehome 4y ago
        Like all startups, it’ll be in a new field. If it’s an advantage some sort of AGI/LLM remote company should be able to out compete non-remote variants. Though I wouldn’t bet on it.
alpos 4y ago
So fix those issues? Working in offices always had issues as well, some of those issues have been addressed over time though effort on the part of employees and managers. Nothing is without trade-offs and side effects. The real question there is: Are the minor issues associated with working remotely so bad that it is better to force everyone to risk their lives on the roads every day (including in snow and other bad weather which exacerbates road death rates 100% purely because of employer demands to come in anyway) destroy the environment with all of that unnecessary exhaust, give asthma to their neighbor's kids, harm parent/child relationships due to work schedules being out of sync with school schedules and work/commute demands leaving little time for parents to properly interact with their kids, pass flu and cvoid around to everyone, cause unnecessary deaths among their parents and grandparents, drive up housing costs in specific areas causing homelessness as well, and otherwise add layers of stress and unhappiness to every person's daily existence? Put the other way around: Are all of the personal, professional, societal, and environmental negatives that directly result from people being forced to commute to and work in an office every day actually worth the supposed productivity and/or collaboration gains due to office related friction points having already been solved over time? (btw they really haven't been solved for many people either, see: the ongoing harassment and diversity issues at most companies) Or might it be better to just solve the few issues with collaborating in a remote work setup like we already did for the office?
- gonehome 4y ago
  The only thing I’m focused on is: are companies with an in office working environment at a competitive advantage to those that are not. I don’t care about the other stuff, imo it’s not relevant (putting aside I don’t really agree with your characterization). That said, I also think some of the issues are not so minor (remote is a lot harder for junior people starting out in their career).
  - alpos 4y ago
    Well, at least you are honest about not really caring about anything other than profit. I'd love to see what makes you think think almost everything that matters to most people for most of their lives is irrelevant to the question of how people live and work on a daily basis. Please elaborate if you will. Since you disagree with my characterization, I'd also be happy to consider what you think I have misattributed there. Overall the point is simply that you are not working with a steady state system here. Whether one mode of working confers a competitive advantage probably has more to do with how much effort has been put behind streamlining that process. If that is indeed the case, then you might find yourself saying this about any change to any process that doesn't just wipe the market and create a whole new competition environment. There's no good reason to throw our hands up and say there's nothing we can do to make one or the other situation work better, especially when the benefits are great, numerous, and include increased productivity overall.

SketchySeaBeast 4y ago

I find this strange. If someone wasn't able to get work done in the office the solution wouldn't be "OK, we all need to work from home because Gary can't get stuff done otherwise".

gonehome 4y ago
That’s only one factor, though it’s not just “Gary” IME many people are in this category, the very effective remote people are less common. The junior engineer issue and the comms issue affects everyone. Companies are teams of people and you want to make the collaboration as low effort and fast as possible. In person is very good for that and I suspect better on net. It’s why companies with the leverage to push for it (Apple and Amazon, Elon Musk companies) do so - they believe it to be an advantage.
- SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
  How many people do you believe were "very effective" in office? The truth of the matter is most people are "effective enough". I honestly don't know if it's actually better or it just appears better. Sure, there are times when fast communication is important, but as we see with Twitter lately it's obvious that rapid fire decisions sometimes aren't the best and while things seem very active and dynamic maybe it'd be better if communication was more considered and thoughtful. Isn't that why that whole "this meeting could have been an email" meme exists? I agree the companies believe it's an advantage, but I don't know that it is. I don't know that they know it is. Leadership definitely thinks so, and there's a ton of institutional momentum that still hasn't shifted after the last few years, but I don't that it's actually empirically better.
  - gonehome 4y ago
    I think we’ll get to see the experiment happen which is cool. If either truly has a decisive advantage in some contexts we should see that materialize in the market.
    - SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
      Maybe - somehow I doubt a plucky underdog will replace Amazon or Apple because of a strategic WFH policy.
      - gonehome 4y ago
        Like all startups, it’ll be in a new field. If it’s an advantage some sort of AGI/LLM remote company should be able to out compete non-remote variants. Though I wouldn’t bet on it.

alpos 4y ago

So fix those issues? Working in offices always had issues as well, some of those issues have been addressed over time though effort on the part of employees and managers. Nothing is without trade-offs and side effects. The real question there is: Are the minor issues associated with working remotely so bad that it is better to force everyone to risk their lives on the roads every day (including in snow and other bad weather which exacerbates road death rates 100% purely because of employer demands to come in anyway) destroy the environment with all of that unnecessary exhaust, give asthma to their neighbor's kids, harm parent/child relationships due to work schedules being out of sync with school schedules and work/commute demands leaving little time for parents to properly interact with their kids, pass flu and cvoid around to everyone, cause unnecessary deaths among their parents and grandparents, drive up housing costs in specific areas causing homelessness as well, and otherwise add layers of stress and unhappiness to every person's daily existence? Put the other way around: Are all of the personal, professional, societal, and environmental negatives that directly result from people being forced to commute to and work in an office every day actually worth the supposed productivity and/or collaboration gains due to office related friction points having already been solved over time? (btw they really haven't been solved for many people either, see: the ongoing harassment and diversity issues at most companies) Or might it be better to just solve the few issues with collaborating in a remote work setup like we already did for the office?

gonehome 4y ago
The only thing I’m focused on is: are companies with an in office working environment at a competitive advantage to those that are not. I don’t care about the other stuff, imo it’s not relevant (putting aside I don’t really agree with your characterization). That said, I also think some of the issues are not so minor (remote is a lot harder for junior people starting out in their career).
- alpos 4y ago
  Well, at least you are honest about not really caring about anything other than profit. I'd love to see what makes you think think almost everything that matters to most people for most of their lives is irrelevant to the question of how people live and work on a daily basis. Please elaborate if you will. Since you disagree with my characterization, I'd also be happy to consider what you think I have misattributed there. Overall the point is simply that you are not working with a steady state system here. Whether one mode of working confers a competitive advantage probably has more to do with how much effort has been put behind streamlining that process. If that is indeed the case, then you might find yourself saying this about any change to any process that doesn't just wipe the market and create a whole new competition environment. There's no good reason to throw our hands up and say there's nothing we can do to make one or the other situation work better, especially when the benefits are great, numerous, and include increased productivity overall.