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> The only answer can be "it shouldn't matter!", if you work in an industry where you can just as easily work from home as work from your desk. Huh? How many h

> The only answer can be "it shouldn't matter!", if you work in an industry where you can just as easily work from home as work from your desk. Huh? How many hours I work has very little to do with whether I can work from home. If I'm expected to work 60 hours/week and have the option of working from home for all of them, that's definitely still a problem.

nothrabannosir 12y ago
He means that working from home implies quantity of work is less important than quality. Nobody knows how much time you put in, but yourself. One way or another, you will be judged on what you deliver, not how much time it took you. Some managers (or even people hiring contractors) think they can get around this, but, ultimately, you can always do in 4h what they expect you to do in 8h and get paid for 8h. Not saying it's moral, but it is the reality. The conclusion is inescapable: working from home implies that the only important metric is the quality of your work (and the deadline), not how much time you spend on it. Because you can "simulate" one with the other. Some people don't realize this, yet. Doesn't make it not true. EDIT: PS: I'm talking about project where the "deadlines" are reasonably far apart and predictable. Say, no more than a few times a day. If your work includes being on-call and responding to incoming requests, that's a different story.
- copsarebastards 12y ago
  > Some managers (or even people hiring contractors) think they can get around this, but, ultimately, you can always do in 4h what they expect you to do in 8h and get paid for 8h. I can do that, but I won't. I value my integrity. So to me, it definitely does matter if I'm expected to work 8h as opposed to 4h, even if I can work from home.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
cubano 12y ago
The whole point of the article was that, at this particular company, the employees only have to clock 32 hours a week at the place of business. My speculation had to do with believing that most IT employees, given this situation, would "work", at job related tasks, for over 40 hours anyway. Personally, if a job that paid me for 40 hours a week expected me to work 60 for more then perhaps once or twice a year, I would quit instantly, so I've never understood the "mandatory 60-hour" meme. Perhaps this is where our wires were crossing.
- commondream 12y ago
  Just to be clear, a lot of our company logs their hours from home in cities where we have no office. We've about 30 people in Portland, 20 in Orlando, and 30 remote. In all cases folks can work from home unless they absolutely need to be in the office for some reason (like being part of a video shoot).
  - copsarebastards 12y ago
    So what if you work from home? If this is a "nudge nudge wink wink we don't really work 40 hours when we're working from home" kind of thing, then why make the pretense of working 40 hours? I value my integrity. When I say I'm working 40 hours, I work 40 hours. If "working from home" is implicit permission to lie about how many hours you work, then that creates a system where dishonesty is rewarded and honesty is exploited. And if it's a "it's a little nicer to work from home" thing, then I'd say, not really. I would actually rather not work from home--my home is my space, where I can de-stress and do what I want. I currently work at a job where I "work from home" and I actually have an office I rent for myself so that when I go home, I'm actually not working.
    - commondream 12y ago
      I've wink winked at people about it, but never prefixed with a nudge nudge. Arguments like this are always kind of funny to me, because I can't do anything but say our intention and what we do and hope you'll believe me. Believe me or not, I don't wink and nudge people and I work as hard as I can to keep folks within that 4 day work week that we've set up. The battles on extending days we're dealing with are things like getting pinged through HipChat because we're across 5 time zones and avoiding email at night, not forced extra work because you work from home. I'd ask some devs and designers from the team to talk about it but it's Saturday, so they're not working.

nothrabannosir 12y ago

He means that working from home implies quantity of work is less important than quality. Nobody knows how much time you put in, but yourself. One way or another, you will be judged on what you deliver, not how much time it took you. Some managers (or even people hiring contractors) think they can get around this, but, ultimately, you can always do in 4h what they expect you to do in 8h and get paid for 8h. Not saying it's moral, but it is the reality. The conclusion is inescapable: working from home implies that the only important metric is the quality of your work (and the deadline), not how much time you spend on it. Because you can "simulate" one with the other. Some people don't realize this, yet. Doesn't make it not true. EDIT: PS: I'm talking about project where the "deadlines" are reasonably far apart and predictable. Say, no more than a few times a day. If your work includes being on-call and responding to incoming requests, that's a different story.

copsarebastards 12y ago
> Some managers (or even people hiring contractors) think they can get around this, but, ultimately, you can always do in 4h what they expect you to do in 8h and get paid for 8h. I can do that, but I won't. I value my integrity. So to me, it definitely does matter if I'm expected to work 8h as opposed to 4h, even if I can work from home.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]

cubano 12y ago

The whole point of the article was that, at this particular company, the employees only have to clock 32 hours a week at the place of business. My speculation had to do with believing that most IT employees, given this situation, would "work", at job related tasks, for over 40 hours anyway. Personally, if a job that paid me for 40 hours a week expected me to work 60 for more then perhaps once or twice a year, I would quit instantly, so I've never understood the "mandatory 60-hour" meme. Perhaps this is where our wires were crossing.

commondream 12y ago
Just to be clear, a lot of our company logs their hours from home in cities where we have no office. We've about 30 people in Portland, 20 in Orlando, and 30 remote. In all cases folks can work from home unless they absolutely need to be in the office for some reason (like being part of a video shoot).
- copsarebastards 12y ago
  So what if you work from home? If this is a "nudge nudge wink wink we don't really work 40 hours when we're working from home" kind of thing, then why make the pretense of working 40 hours? I value my integrity. When I say I'm working 40 hours, I work 40 hours. If "working from home" is implicit permission to lie about how many hours you work, then that creates a system where dishonesty is rewarded and honesty is exploited. And if it's a "it's a little nicer to work from home" thing, then I'd say, not really. I would actually rather not work from home--my home is my space, where I can de-stress and do what I want. I currently work at a job where I "work from home" and I actually have an office I rent for myself so that when I go home, I'm actually not working.
  - commondream 12y ago
    I've wink winked at people about it, but never prefixed with a nudge nudge. Arguments like this are always kind of funny to me, because I can't do anything but say our intention and what we do and hope you'll believe me. Believe me or not, I don't wink and nudge people and I work as hard as I can to keep folks within that 4 day work week that we've set up. The battles on extending days we're dealing with are things like getting pinged through HipChat because we're across 5 time zones and avoiding email at night, not forced extra work because you work from home. I'd ask some devs and designers from the team to talk about it but it's Saturday, so they're not working.