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One of the primary reasons that remote work improves productivity is that it allows employees to tailor their environment to their needs, rather than be forced

One of the primary reasons that remote work improves productivity is that it allows employees to tailor their environment to their needs, rather than be forced into a hostile office space that requires kafkaesque bureaucratic bullshit to make even minor changes. I once had a former employer force me to take an espresso machine home that I had brought to work because it created a situation where a different shift was coming to our teams area to use it when we weren’t there and they were concerned by the liability. Very non-specific concerns, I might add. So rather than ensure teams had access to real coffee they banned employees having their own coffee equipment so we can all commiserate together over the bottom dollar filth in the break room. This is the type of basic shit most companies can’t get right, much less the far more complicated challenges involved in creating positive team dynamics. I have no faith that any sufficiently large company can make an inviting office environment, and this is a major reason why I am a staunch remote work advocate.

AlexandrB 3y ago
I think this is correct. It's why, before the pandemic normalized remote work, offices were popular. What's disheartening is that a lot of "return to office" plans I've heard of from friends involve conditions even worse than what was there before. For example, hot-desking replacing the previous (also terrible) open office. I'm too young to have lived through the golden age of engineers actually having an office to work in. But my best experience (besides WFH) was at my first job out of school, in a cube farm - at least you had a little bit of privacy and space to put your stuff. Every office trend since then has been for the worse.
- vladvasiliu 3y ago
  > For example, hot-desking replacing the previous (also terrible) open office. I doesn't actually replace it. It's an additional horror on top of all the old ones.
- ericbarrett 3y ago
  I keep saying—if you want me to return to the office, give me an office. Or even a cubicle. Why even enforce a hot-desking setup when the space is 20% full? It makes no sense at all!
  - Pet_Ant 3y ago
    For all the memes about cubicles the one time I had it was actually pleasant. You could have a small meeting in the cubicle. The walls were tall enough to hang up reference diagrams. Those same walls meant that sound didn't travel when your PM was on yet another call. Not being able to see a window was a downside. As was there oppressive grey-beige monotony, but I imagine with the Google colour palette they'd be much more bearable. Here, however, I can make more working remotely than I can in office for one of the few local companies. I mean it's an obvious choice.
    - lawlessone 3y ago
      Compared to open plan, cubicles are pleasant.
    - dylan604 3y ago
      A coworker took one of his scenic photos from a weekend trip and printed it out in quadrants. This was done as a cheap way of enlarging the print, but it also gave the sense of looking out a four pane window. It was later upgraded to have an actual frame to complete the look. He was the only one to have a window in his cubicle.
    - jwells89 3y ago
      The walls have another benefit: they act like noise canceling headphones for your eyes. That’s one of the issues I have with open floor plan offices: people buzzing around in my peripheral vision can be incredibly distracting and detrimental to productivity depending on the day and my mental state, and there’s almost nothing that can be done to mitigate that.
      - macNchz 3y ago
        In the same vein, I also find it distracting to have people sitting or walking behind me–like my brain tries to maintain some awareness of them, which in turn makes me cognizant that people can see my screen, which itself is kind of distracting. In an open office this is largely a no-win situation as well: if you get a position with your back to the wall, you see people milling about everywhere, and if you face a wall, the whole office sees your screen.
- foooorsyth 3y ago
  I loved my cube at my first job. We even had a biometric door that separated engineering from the rest of the company. Only engineers behind the door. Juniors and mid levels working in cubes. A few tenured engineers, the primary engineering manager, VP of engineering, and CTO working in offices. Only two meetings per week — all other time was head down programming and ad hoc discussions. The median volume of the room was silence. I was in focus heaven and I didn’t even know it. Miss that job.
  - freedomben 3y ago
    Indeed, I loved my cube too. Many people complained about the sea of cubicles, but they don't realize how much worse it could get lol.
- lawlessone 3y ago
  Another issue I think is that pre-covid there were people that had been working from home for years.. a decade even. Now I think those people are getting the same back to office spiel.
- dopidopHN 3y ago
  My first job I was in medium sized room. With an individual desk. A handful of other peoples, and a door that close. The team was large. Like 50+ devs easily. All scatter in different rooms. Bliss
- yesdocs 3y ago
  I am old enough to remember when cubicles and offices were the norm. Cubicle companies studied and improved the cubicles spaces to make them more efficient using science. Yes they actually studied what would make us happier and more proficient at work. Then came the stupid trend of organic seating. Cubicle’s ? Thing of the past they said, yet our productivity suffered. Great for sprints but quickly diminished due to constant distractions forcing engineers to invest in noise canceling headphones. The WFH movement is because water flows downhill. We learned that we made the office an incredibly inefficient place to work, because we didn’t follow the science and threw away decades of research because of a new ‘fad’ that the CEO’s liked. Too bad CEO’s, I have been WFH ever since corporate America thought organic seating was cool. I will never go back, in fact us programmers should unite and unionize to solidify this benefit before they try and take this away for good and make our jobs more difficult.
  - jimmydddd 3y ago
    Re: "'fad' that CEO's liked." My previous CEO: "We all have to be in an open office every day to enhance productivity." Also my previous CEO: "I'll be working from my house in the Hamptons during July and August." :-)
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    > Yes they actually studied what would make us happier and more proficient at work. And they utterly failed. But I'm willing to put up with cubes for the right job. There is no job that would be worth putting up with an open office layout or, worse, hot-desking. I would think that if companies want people back in the office so badly, they would be willing to do something to make working in the office pleasant and productive. But I guess that's not how they think.
Galanwe 3y ago
> remote work [...] allows employees to tailor their environment to their needs, rather than be forced into a hostile office space Some office spaces being bad doesn't imply we should get rid of office spaces overall. If the company you're working for is so crazy on its office requirements, it could be as crazy with its remote work requirements. Seems like this is a company specific issue, not an office vs remote issue. Seems like you've been at a fair share of bad companies, but that's doesn't generalize to a broader picture of all office spaces. I would oppose you _my_ office experience (which ofc doesn't generalize either), which is overwhelmingly positive. Yet I won't argue that because my experience is good, everyone should feel the same.
- 2023throwawayy 3y ago
  If you are in a positive office space, you need to understand that you are incredibly lucky and part of a tiny minority.
  - Galanwe 3y ago
    > you are incredibly lucky Says who? There's no more reason for an office space to be bad rather than good. And there's no reason to think that having a good one is based on luck. If office space dynamics and setup are important to you, then put it in your job search mental list and find a job that matches that.
    - tristor 3y ago
      >> you are incredibly lucky > Says who? Says anyone who has spent more than a decade in the workforce. > There's no more reason for an office space to be bad rather than good. And there's no reason to think that having a good one is based on luck. By “no reason”, you mean no logical reason. That might be true. Unfortunately a crafted reality controlled by sociopaths isn’t required to be logically consistent at every layer. Hence our current reality, where this is very much a case of luck. > If office space dynamics and setup are important to you, then put it in your job search mental list and find a job that matches that. Thanks for the advice. That’s /exactly/ what all the folks working remotely have done. That’s also why we are agitated by shitty management trying to take it away.
sircastor 3y ago
My last job had pinball machines in the breakroom. We also had folks coming over from the UK who thought those pinball machines were awesome. The pinball got taken away because it was seen as “unfair” to all the offices that didn’t have something like that.
- twh270 3y ago
  Notice how shi*y companies always seem to find that "unfairness" needs to be "fixed" by removing the benefit?
  - runamuck 3y ago
    *Every company
  - _moof 3y ago
    Similar to how the solution to work/life imbalance is never less work.
    - konschubert 3y ago
      What else is it?
      - some_random 3y ago
        Pizza parties of course /s
      - Arrath 3y ago
        Letting the staff go absolutely ape-shit on the latest MFC that just refuses to print or scan correctly, once per quarter.
  - toast0 3y ago
    It's not just companies. I've seen lots of people say why do they get X? rather than how can we get X? As an example, Pinball and arcade games are often very easy to source. Where I've seen them at my workplace, they were brought in and maintained by employees. Some space needs to be allocated, and maybe needs a bit of electrical work if a high density arcade forms, but otherwise... May be different if there's no collectors in the employee base, or in countries where machines are scarce.
starcraft2wol 3y ago
That's certainly an argument but it's just one bullet point in a supportive 5 paragraph essay. How many employees actually have better equipment and spaces at home? Is your espresso machine improving your productivity, or is it a hobby to fiddle with throughout the day? What other distractions are at home that aren't at the office?
- tristor 3y ago
  Imagine referring to good coffee, the substance that built modern America and industrialized the world, as a “distraction” and arguing that it doesn’t improve productivity. Can you imagine?
  - starcraft2wol 3y ago
    That's not what I said.
    - tristor 3y ago
      > Is your espresso machine improving your productivity, or is it a hobby to fiddle with throughout the day? What other distractions are at home that aren't at the office? This is what you said. Spot the differences. Trick question, there aren’t any.
- SteveNuts 3y ago
  How dare a human being be granted a small reprieve from the monotony of their day to do something they enjoy for a few minutes, huh?
  - starcraft2wol 3y ago
    Please respond to a particular point in my comment.
    - hirako2000 3y ago
      Let me respond fully to your comment. Full disclosure: remote for 8y, on the same and different tz. in office for 5y, The espresso makes most people more productive. Absolutely. If not the espresso, some other thing one might enjoy degusting daily. For the espresso case. Your office is likely too far for one sitting at his desk to suddenly head over 20 mins a few blocks away to appreciate a delicious sip for 5 minutes. What if on Thursday what I really need is a delicous espresso but in total peace with nobody interrupting that moment between me and my cup? Maybe I'm going too far with what espresso might mean to people but Your office shaping the way I want to live my life without a doubt is going way too far. It makes me far less productive to have to adapt my life to the office schedule, location, and the many uncontrollable distractions taking place throughout the day. It's on me to make my work environment most productive and if I'm unable to do that then just fire me. You will likely object, so let me introduce to you, Bud, the pug. See Bud needs to go out for a walk even more than I do. I love my dog so I take him out 4 times each day. It makes me less productive to have to run at 5pm everyday to take the dog out the least late I possibly can. I have to stop whatever I'm doing and get back into the zone. It also makes me less productive to go home at 5 o'clock. See, I don't have much respect for people requiring butts on seats to appease their own insecurities. You can be damn sure that I won't give them a minute of my time unless I have to. Also, I'm best to do work from morning to midnight in bursts. I gladly do extra hours that way, because: productivity. I could go on and on, air is to dry as office buildings would not consider people's health unless illegal if they can save a few hundred bucks on the monthly energy bill. Lights are too blue/white/cold they hurt my eyes after a couple of hours. All that being said, it depends on the job, for most jobs my arguments would stand the productivity tests with everyone once they've adapted to remote settings. Wouldn't apply to members of a music band, circus jugglers working in duo, dolphin trainers, nor salsa dancers. People who do these jobs are more productive on site, and the reason they never complain like me and my kind do is simple: they don't actually work in an office.
0_____0 3y ago
was it a big a company ? where I used to work, the micro kitchens all had their own foodservice licenses, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they’d balked at employees bringing their own equipment small companies don’t give a shit about stuff like that ime
dboreham 3y ago
I've been remote working since 2000 but as an EE I agree with your employer: they have a duty to remove unauthorized electrical appliances from their premises since they present a fire risk. In addition an espresso machine obviously presents a risk of injury and associated lawsuits from numbskulls who don't know how to use it.
- benhurmarcel 3y ago
  And that's how you get kettles hidden behind books in the archive room.
- ooterness 3y ago
  My office requires equipment to be tested by a recognized laboratory (UL/ETL/etc). Fire safety requirements are reasonable and easy to satisfy. What you describe is nonspecific reactionary FUD.
- cachapa 3y ago
  And that's how I once got a "tested for electrical safety" company socket on my personal phone charger once.
xhkkffbf 3y ago
At one recent gig, everything was fun until the company got big enough to need an HR scold. Ugh. We were told that a ping pong table was forbidden because of "health and safety issues". Needless to say, I left soon after.
turtlebits 3y ago
Why can't you store it at your desk? My biggest pet peeve in the office was the people storing personal items in the kitchen. I don't need to see your machine with (don't use) stickies on it or the random assortment of blender bases. I also don't need to see your dirty tupperware in the sink.
- tristor 3y ago
  To be clear, it was not just for my personal use. I brought it in at the request of my team and it was available for anyone to use. The team had a collection jar and we all pitched in for maintenance and supplies, just like we did with our team’s foosball table (also later removed by management for poorly specified reasons).
- TheCleric 3y ago
  Yeah you leave something for longer than a day in communal space, it should be community property.
wormius 3y ago
Jordan Schlansky is that you? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6A8W77m-ZTw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6A8W77m-ZTw
gamblor956 3y ago
The espresso machine bit makes sense. Espresso machines need constant cleaning and maintenance, which are ongoing costs in addition to the potential liability concerns from someone getting injured using the machine.

AlexandrB 3y ago

I think this is correct. It's why, before the pandemic normalized remote work, offices were popular. What's disheartening is that a lot of "return to office" plans I've heard of from friends involve conditions even worse than what was there before. For example, hot-desking replacing the previous (also terrible) open office. I'm too young to have lived through the golden age of engineers actually having an office to work in. But my best experience (besides WFH) was at my first job out of school, in a cube farm - at least you had a little bit of privacy and space to put your stuff. Every office trend since then has been for the worse.

vladvasiliu 3y ago
> For example, hot-desking replacing the previous (also terrible) open office. I doesn't actually replace it. It's an additional horror on top of all the old ones.
ericbarrett 3y ago
I keep saying—if you want me to return to the office, give me an office. Or even a cubicle. Why even enforce a hot-desking setup when the space is 20% full? It makes no sense at all!
- Pet_Ant 3y ago
  For all the memes about cubicles the one time I had it was actually pleasant. You could have a small meeting in the cubicle. The walls were tall enough to hang up reference diagrams. Those same walls meant that sound didn't travel when your PM was on yet another call. Not being able to see a window was a downside. As was there oppressive grey-beige monotony, but I imagine with the Google colour palette they'd be much more bearable. Here, however, I can make more working remotely than I can in office for one of the few local companies. I mean it's an obvious choice.
  - lawlessone 3y ago
    Compared to open plan, cubicles are pleasant.
  - dylan604 3y ago
    A coworker took one of his scenic photos from a weekend trip and printed it out in quadrants. This was done as a cheap way of enlarging the print, but it also gave the sense of looking out a four pane window. It was later upgraded to have an actual frame to complete the look. He was the only one to have a window in his cubicle.
  - jwells89 3y ago
    The walls have another benefit: they act like noise canceling headphones for your eyes. That’s one of the issues I have with open floor plan offices: people buzzing around in my peripheral vision can be incredibly distracting and detrimental to productivity depending on the day and my mental state, and there’s almost nothing that can be done to mitigate that.
    - macNchz 3y ago
      In the same vein, I also find it distracting to have people sitting or walking behind me–like my brain tries to maintain some awareness of them, which in turn makes me cognizant that people can see my screen, which itself is kind of distracting. In an open office this is largely a no-win situation as well: if you get a position with your back to the wall, you see people milling about everywhere, and if you face a wall, the whole office sees your screen.
foooorsyth 3y ago
I loved my cube at my first job. We even had a biometric door that separated engineering from the rest of the company. Only engineers behind the door. Juniors and mid levels working in cubes. A few tenured engineers, the primary engineering manager, VP of engineering, and CTO working in offices. Only two meetings per week — all other time was head down programming and ad hoc discussions. The median volume of the room was silence. I was in focus heaven and I didn’t even know it. Miss that job.
- freedomben 3y ago
  Indeed, I loved my cube too. Many people complained about the sea of cubicles, but they don't realize how much worse it could get lol.
lawlessone 3y ago
Another issue I think is that pre-covid there were people that had been working from home for years.. a decade even. Now I think those people are getting the same back to office spiel.
dopidopHN 3y ago
My first job I was in medium sized room. With an individual desk. A handful of other peoples, and a door that close. The team was large. Like 50+ devs easily. All scatter in different rooms. Bliss
yesdocs 3y ago
I am old enough to remember when cubicles and offices were the norm. Cubicle companies studied and improved the cubicles spaces to make them more efficient using science. Yes they actually studied what would make us happier and more proficient at work. Then came the stupid trend of organic seating. Cubicle’s ? Thing of the past they said, yet our productivity suffered. Great for sprints but quickly diminished due to constant distractions forcing engineers to invest in noise canceling headphones. The WFH movement is because water flows downhill. We learned that we made the office an incredibly inefficient place to work, because we didn’t follow the science and threw away decades of research because of a new ‘fad’ that the CEO’s liked. Too bad CEO’s, I have been WFH ever since corporate America thought organic seating was cool. I will never go back, in fact us programmers should unite and unionize to solidify this benefit before they try and take this away for good and make our jobs more difficult.
- jimmydddd 3y ago
  Re: "'fad' that CEO's liked." My previous CEO: "We all have to be in an open office every day to enhance productivity." Also my previous CEO: "I'll be working from my house in the Hamptons during July and August." :-)
- JohnFen 3y ago
  > Yes they actually studied what would make us happier and more proficient at work. And they utterly failed. But I'm willing to put up with cubes for the right job. There is no job that would be worth putting up with an open office layout or, worse, hot-desking. I would think that if companies want people back in the office so badly, they would be willing to do something to make working in the office pleasant and productive. But I guess that's not how they think.

Galanwe 3y ago

> remote work [...] allows employees to tailor their environment to their needs, rather than be forced into a hostile office space Some office spaces being bad doesn't imply we should get rid of office spaces overall. If the company you're working for is so crazy on its office requirements, it could be as crazy with its remote work requirements. Seems like this is a company specific issue, not an office vs remote issue. Seems like you've been at a fair share of bad companies, but that's doesn't generalize to a broader picture of all office spaces. I would oppose you _my_ office experience (which ofc doesn't generalize either), which is overwhelmingly positive. Yet I won't argue that because my experience is good, everyone should feel the same.

2023throwawayy 3y ago
If you are in a positive office space, you need to understand that you are incredibly lucky and part of a tiny minority.
- Galanwe 3y ago
  > you are incredibly lucky Says who? There's no more reason for an office space to be bad rather than good. And there's no reason to think that having a good one is based on luck. If office space dynamics and setup are important to you, then put it in your job search mental list and find a job that matches that.
  - tristor 3y ago
    >> you are incredibly lucky > Says who? Says anyone who has spent more than a decade in the workforce. > There's no more reason for an office space to be bad rather than good. And there's no reason to think that having a good one is based on luck. By “no reason”, you mean no logical reason. That might be true. Unfortunately a crafted reality controlled by sociopaths isn’t required to be logically consistent at every layer. Hence our current reality, where this is very much a case of luck. > If office space dynamics and setup are important to you, then put it in your job search mental list and find a job that matches that. Thanks for the advice. That’s /exactly/ what all the folks working remotely have done. That’s also why we are agitated by shitty management trying to take it away.

sircastor 3y ago

My last job had pinball machines in the breakroom. We also had folks coming over from the UK who thought those pinball machines were awesome. The pinball got taken away because it was seen as “unfair” to all the offices that didn’t have something like that.

twh270 3y ago
Notice how shi*y companies always seem to find that "unfairness" needs to be "fixed" by removing the benefit?
- runamuck 3y ago
  *Every company
- _moof 3y ago
  Similar to how the solution to work/life imbalance is never less work.
  - konschubert 3y ago
    What else is it?
    - some_random 3y ago
      Pizza parties of course /s
    - Arrath 3y ago
      Letting the staff go absolutely ape-shit on the latest MFC that just refuses to print or scan correctly, once per quarter.
- toast0 3y ago
  It's not just companies. I've seen lots of people say why do they get X? rather than how can we get X? As an example, Pinball and arcade games are often very easy to source. Where I've seen them at my workplace, they were brought in and maintained by employees. Some space needs to be allocated, and maybe needs a bit of electrical work if a high density arcade forms, but otherwise... May be different if there's no collectors in the employee base, or in countries where machines are scarce.

starcraft2wol 3y ago

That's certainly an argument but it's just one bullet point in a supportive 5 paragraph essay. How many employees actually have better equipment and spaces at home? Is your espresso machine improving your productivity, or is it a hobby to fiddle with throughout the day? What other distractions are at home that aren't at the office?

tristor 3y ago
Imagine referring to good coffee, the substance that built modern America and industrialized the world, as a “distraction” and arguing that it doesn’t improve productivity. Can you imagine?
- starcraft2wol 3y ago
  That's not what I said.
  - tristor 3y ago
    > Is your espresso machine improving your productivity, or is it a hobby to fiddle with throughout the day? What other distractions are at home that aren't at the office? This is what you said. Spot the differences. Trick question, there aren’t any.
SteveNuts 3y ago
How dare a human being be granted a small reprieve from the monotony of their day to do something they enjoy for a few minutes, huh?
- starcraft2wol 3y ago
  Please respond to a particular point in my comment.
  - hirako2000 3y ago
    Let me respond fully to your comment. Full disclosure: remote for 8y, on the same and different tz. in office for 5y, The espresso makes most people more productive. Absolutely. If not the espresso, some other thing one might enjoy degusting daily. For the espresso case. Your office is likely too far for one sitting at his desk to suddenly head over 20 mins a few blocks away to appreciate a delicious sip for 5 minutes. What if on Thursday what I really need is a delicous espresso but in total peace with nobody interrupting that moment between me and my cup? Maybe I'm going too far with what espresso might mean to people but Your office shaping the way I want to live my life without a doubt is going way too far. It makes me far less productive to have to adapt my life to the office schedule, location, and the many uncontrollable distractions taking place throughout the day. It's on me to make my work environment most productive and if I'm unable to do that then just fire me. You will likely object, so let me introduce to you, Bud, the pug. See Bud needs to go out for a walk even more than I do. I love my dog so I take him out 4 times each day. It makes me less productive to have to run at 5pm everyday to take the dog out the least late I possibly can. I have to stop whatever I'm doing and get back into the zone. It also makes me less productive to go home at 5 o'clock. See, I don't have much respect for people requiring butts on seats to appease their own insecurities. You can be damn sure that I won't give them a minute of my time unless I have to. Also, I'm best to do work from morning to midnight in bursts. I gladly do extra hours that way, because: productivity. I could go on and on, air is to dry as office buildings would not consider people's health unless illegal if they can save a few hundred bucks on the monthly energy bill. Lights are too blue/white/cold they hurt my eyes after a couple of hours. All that being said, it depends on the job, for most jobs my arguments would stand the productivity tests with everyone once they've adapted to remote settings. Wouldn't apply to members of a music band, circus jugglers working in duo, dolphin trainers, nor salsa dancers. People who do these jobs are more productive on site, and the reason they never complain like me and my kind do is simple: they don't actually work in an office.

0_____0 3y ago

was it a big a company ? where I used to work, the micro kitchens all had their own foodservice licenses, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they’d balked at employees bringing their own equipment small companies don’t give a shit about stuff like that ime

dboreham 3y ago

I've been remote working since 2000 but as an EE I agree with your employer: they have a duty to remove unauthorized electrical appliances from their premises since they present a fire risk. In addition an espresso machine obviously presents a risk of injury and associated lawsuits from numbskulls who don't know how to use it.

benhurmarcel 3y ago
And that's how you get kettles hidden behind books in the archive room.
ooterness 3y ago
My office requires equipment to be tested by a recognized laboratory (UL/ETL/etc). Fire safety requirements are reasonable and easy to satisfy. What you describe is nonspecific reactionary FUD.
cachapa 3y ago
And that's how I once got a "tested for electrical safety" company socket on my personal phone charger once.

xhkkffbf 3y ago

At one recent gig, everything was fun until the company got big enough to need an HR scold. Ugh. We were told that a ping pong table was forbidden because of "health and safety issues". Needless to say, I left soon after.

turtlebits 3y ago

Why can't you store it at your desk? My biggest pet peeve in the office was the people storing personal items in the kitchen. I don't need to see your machine with (don't use) stickies on it or the random assortment of blender bases. I also don't need to see your dirty tupperware in the sink.

tristor 3y ago
To be clear, it was not just for my personal use. I brought it in at the request of my team and it was available for anyone to use. The team had a collection jar and we all pitched in for maintenance and supplies, just like we did with our team’s foosball table (also later removed by management for poorly specified reasons).
TheCleric 3y ago
Yeah you leave something for longer than a day in communal space, it should be community property.

wormius 3y ago

Jordan Schlansky is that you? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6A8W77m-ZTw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6A8W77m-ZTw

gamblor956 3y ago

The espresso machine bit makes sense. Espresso machines need constant cleaning and maintenance, which are ongoing costs in addition to the potential liability concerns from someone getting injured using the machine.