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> What's the problem if they get the tasks required of them done? At least in Software Engineering, tasks are rarely that clear-cut and specific. Yes, as a re
by tgma 3y ago
> What's the problem if they get the tasks required of them done?
At least in Software Engineering, tasks are rarely that clear-cut and specific. Yes, as a remote employee you will have enough data to justify "I did what was expected of me," and the employer have no specific performance concerns, but at the same time, I posit that you would have likely done more stuff that was not particularly written handed down to you had you been in the office.
> they might not respond to that urgent request immediately
It is not just your boss that you'd respond to immediately if you were in office. It is also the random questions, code review requests, etc. from everyone else that would be prioritized and the other party would get unblocked much more quickly if done synchronously, which would lead to more work done across the team.
- fullshark 3y agoThen perhaps we should be more honest about what the concern is and the requirements of our jobs. Employers are paying for you to be on call for 8 hours a day (minimum) not just for your output. You need to be responsive and attentive as part of your job, not complying immediately can result in demerits.
- tgma 3y agoI have a friend who was quick to respond to Slack messages as he napped close to his phone most of the time while WFH, but in between the responses he did very little work. 100% true story. You make an interesting point. I think in the office, what you wrote is the unwritten rule and people understand it automatically. At home it needs to be explicitly written down and it appears the employer is particularly abusive if they say you are expected to sit down at your VC and leave video on. Just demanding RTO is much easier and better PR for the HR.
- fullshark 3y agoI'm not surprised, part of the lessons of this great experiment imo is a lot of jobs aren't actually important and are just part of empire building efforts and HEADCOUNT. Real actual work gets done by a few people, and a lot of these organizations have absolutely no idea who those people are, in office or not. Agreed on your last paragraph, no one wants to say that, and just making everyone RTO seems to be the less offensive way to accomplish the goal: control of an employee's time. The alternative that they will go with next is probably employee spyware, in fact I imagine it's already in use at many companies.
- erik_seaberg 3y agoAt all times we have an teammate on call for emergencies, but we acknowledge he’s getting few opportunities for deep work, and we rotate weekly because that role really sucks. From “The Joel Test”: > Noise, phone calls, going out for lunch, having to drive 5 minutes to Starbucks for coffee, and interruptions by coworkers—especially interruptions by coworkers—all knock you out of the zone. If a coworker asks you a question, causing a 1 minute interruption, but this knocks you out of the zone badly enough that it takes you half an hour to get productive again, your overall productivity is in serious trouble.