3 ms·

I think a key point in the 'WFH bad' discourse is that while WFH is great for engineers, the experience is pretty similar for managers. Managers are still in me

by Sevii 3y ago

I think a key point in the 'WFH bad' discourse is that while WFH is great for engineers, the experience is pretty similar for managers. Managers are still in meetings 8-10 hours a day even with WFH. A manager doesn't really see a big benefit from WFH, he is just attending the same meetings remotely.

ghaff 3y ago
It can be pretty similar for ICs too though. Even if everyone came into the office, there's almost no one I regularly work with who is in the office I would go into.
- nightpool 3y ago
  > there's almost no one I regularly work with who is in the office I would go into Then you already fundamentally have a remote job. A non-remote job would organize business units / teams by location so that you're in the same office as people you're working with. And yes, this would require relocations and imply a smaller hiring pool. That's the tradeoff of not having remote work, not just spending more time in the office. You're not comparing remote to non-remote work, you're just comparing two flavors of remote work.
  - ghaff 3y ago
    At large companies, co-location seems to drift over time. My company has long been pretty remote-friendly and I expect most teams are pretty distributed at this point. ADDED: You can force co-location but, as you say, it reduces company options as well as employee options. And may not even be very practical; I work extensively with other teams both in another state and in Europe.
djKianoosh 3y ago
the benefit is great for managers who go between different meetings, and especially if those meetings are at different locations. much less time wasted in between meetings. they definitely also get more done
waynesonfire 3y ago
No..thats what managers signed up for when they took on the role. Do managers not have a daily commute? WFH benefits both.
marcinzm 3y ago
As a manager I love WFH for myself and based on feedback I love it more than many of the ICs at the company. No walking between meeting rooms, no taking notes on a tiny laptop screen, no forgetting someone's name (or role), no sitting in uncomfortable meeting room chairs, no ad-hoc conversations taking up my limited non-meeting time, no juggling being even more late to a meeting versus using the bathroom, etc. The real difference in my experience is that extroverts prefer WFH and those tend to more often become managers however plenty are ICs as well.
- veltas 3y ago
  > no sitting in uncomfortable meeting room chairs Why are meeting room chairs so uncomfortable?

by Sevii 3y ago

ghaff 3y ago

It can be pretty similar for ICs too though. Even if everyone came into the office, there's almost no one I regularly work with who is in the office I would go into.

nightpool 3y ago
> there's almost no one I regularly work with who is in the office I would go into Then you already fundamentally have a remote job. A non-remote job would organize business units / teams by location so that you're in the same office as people you're working with. And yes, this would require relocations and imply a smaller hiring pool. That's the tradeoff of not having remote work, not just spending more time in the office. You're not comparing remote to non-remote work, you're just comparing two flavors of remote work.
- ghaff 3y ago
  At large companies, co-location seems to drift over time. My company has long been pretty remote-friendly and I expect most teams are pretty distributed at this point. ADDED: You can force co-location but, as you say, it reduces company options as well as employee options. And may not even be very practical; I work extensively with other teams both in another state and in Europe.

djKianoosh 3y ago

the benefit is great for managers who go between different meetings, and especially if those meetings are at different locations. much less time wasted in between meetings. they definitely also get more done

waynesonfire 3y ago

No..thats what managers signed up for when they took on the role. Do managers not have a daily commute? WFH benefits both.

marcinzm 3y ago

As a manager I love WFH for myself and based on feedback I love it more than many of the ICs at the company. No walking between meeting rooms, no taking notes on a tiny laptop screen, no forgetting someone's name (or role), no sitting in uncomfortable meeting room chairs, no ad-hoc conversations taking up my limited non-meeting time, no juggling being even more late to a meeting versus using the bathroom, etc. The real difference in my experience is that extroverts prefer WFH and those tend to more often become managers however plenty are ICs as well.

veltas 3y ago
> no sitting in uncomfortable meeting room chairs Why are meeting room chairs so uncomfortable?