4 ms·
I have worked from home for 16 out of 22 years of my professional working life. Some people can hack it, some people can't. My first job out of college was WF
by GiorgioG 2y ago
I have worked from home for 16 out of 22 years of my professional working life. Some people can hack it, some people can't. My first job out of college was WFH because the company I worked for had an office that was full. I spent the first 2 weeks at my boss's house (one of the founders of the company). After that we used Lotus Sametime (think corporate instant messaging for you youngins).
After that job I spent a couple of years working in offices. It was absolutely helpful in some ways (I worked and learned from smarter people (MIT, Dartmouth grads, etc) and less productive in others (employer tried to work us 100+ hours per week for months on end). Looking at the code you wrote at 3am the next morning and wondering what the hell you all were thinking (pair programming) was eye-opening.
I am so much more productive at home and more importantly I'm happier. Sure, it's nice to see people I work with a few times per year. But the fact is we're distributed all over the country (and the world for that matter). My neighbor works at IBM. She's been forced back to the office where she spends her day on Zoom calls. It's madness.
Shame on companies who use RTO and AI to disguise layoffs. Fuck these companies. Man-up and just say you want to save money.
- macrocyclo 2y agoWait lotus sametime as in lotus 1-2-3?
- aqueueaqueue 2y ago100hr a week months on end. So 14 hour days 7 a week? 9am to 12am (assuming some kinda break). Every single day for 100 or so days. The fuck? Add commute time... did it stink? Did people shower? Did they eat? Did anyone die?
- GiorgioG 2y ago~16.5 * 6 days. Most of the time folks didn't work Sundays. One night I was so exhausted, I would park my car in a parking deck (at 3am I was the only car there), I managed to back my VW Golf into a massive pillar (just a bump, but still.)). This was early on in my career - I'd already had 2 years of dev work under my belt. But most of the devs there, this was their first gig out of college. They didn't know this wasn't the norm I guess. Yes the commute was awful (Boston). If I left for work before 6:15am I would get to the office in 15 minutes. After 6:15am, it was a 45 minute traffic jam. They would feed us dinner. Nobody died. They had their own gym, and yes showers at work too. I quit after a few months. They laid everyone off 9 months later. I should have taken the hint right away when I saw they had private nap rooms with beds, alarm clocks and everything. Can't make this shit up. Loved my peers there, but the company (management consulting company trying to turn their "IP" into software) had a shit culture. Our managers were trying to make partner and didn't give a shit who they grinded into the ground to get it.
- sir_eliah 2y agoThis sounds like a labour law horror story. I'm so happy now that I stayed on ordinary 40h/week work contract (no overtime) in the beginning of my career. Otherwise I'd end up with burnout and/or health issues pretty soon.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]