Comment by sigfubar | Hacker News Reader

Comment by sigfubar | Hacker News Reader

There’s only one day per week when I get absolutely nothing done: the day I have to leave home and spend half an hour commuting to work. The sense of dislocation caused by this journey is palpable. I lose context and my thoughts become scattered. I feel overwhelmed and can’t help but watch my worries come to the fore.

By contrast, working from the comfort of my home is pure bliss. I have my standing desk and large monitor. I have natural sunlight filtering in through the window. I see some trees and hear the sounds of my quiet residential street. The rhythmic cadence of my mechanical keyboard soothes me and quietes my nerves. I’m focused and ready to take on a challenge of any size or complexity.

Meetings while WFH are not a major distraction. The other participants are cleanly separated from my world. I have a high-quality headset and microphone, which takes away the stress of being misunderstood. I can easily show my screen, or say nothing at all while tuning out a meeting that isn’t helping me get my job done.

I for one am waiting with bated breath for the world to catch up with the idea that some types of work are best done from home. Offices are the true black holes into which human productivity disappears.

I'm someone that struggles to work from home, and who really likes having the dislocation. It helps me get into work mode, and back out again, it helps me separate my life and my work. I like being in place with everyone working, and much prefer being physically present at a meeting. So basically your opposite.

I think the key take away is that there should be options, what works for one doesn't for others.

>I think the key take away is that there should be options, what works for one doesn't for others.

Pretty much the same for technical interviewing as well IMO. We'd probably like it a bit more if we at least got to choose the format.

Candidates aren't supposed to like interviews. That's like saying you're supposed to like final exams at school. They should be fair, but you have no rights beyond that.

Maybe that's true for junior engineers. I'm at a point in my career where I have no doubt that I'm both highly capable and able to start delivering value quickly. When I'm going into an interview, I'm evaluating the interviewers and the company culture.

If you want to talk about linked lists and Chicago piano tuners and things, fine, I actually remember data structures and algorithms quite well even though I took those classes 15 years ago. If that's the majority of the interview though, well... it's probably not a good cultural fit. I want to make sure that the people I'm working with are human beings I can tolerate being around 40+ hours/week, and that I can trust them to make reasonable decisions.

If you're really at that point in your career, you should find both that tech screens are easy and also that there are fewer of them.

Fair enough, I suppose, depending. Admittedly, it's been a long time since I've done one of those, but that's more to do with the fact that most of the work I've done for a while has been consulting/contracting/call-it-what-you-will, where the presumption has been that I'm coming in specifically to solve specific problems.

Right. You actually stop getting "unfair" interviews once everyone can tell you'd just pass them anyway.

Of course they are. Otherwise why would they come and work for you? Hostile interviews select for candidates without other options.

It's not hostile if you don't fail.

You could also say that people don't have a right to like their job. Yet companies that want to hire and retain top talent try to make the workplace as enjoyable as possible. Can you explain why that is in a way that doesn't also justify tweaking the interview process to make candidates happier?

You're not seeing the candidates who pass "bad" interviews, who aren't complaining, and who like their jobs because the bar is high.

Of course I'm seeing those candidates. They're my coworkers. Many of them are sad that really strong people they've worked with in previous jobs. Others are sad because they have coworkers who are incompetent jerks with good interview skills.

You're assuming that the height of the bar is tied to how good people are at their jobs. You're also assuming that having a high bar has to mean that the interviews must be a bad experience for the candidates. Neither of those are true.

Interviews, like exams, are painful when there's a big mismatch between what they should cover and what they actually cover.

If you want me to do the same sort of work as my last job, I'm naturally prepared - I've been doing it for years! But then if you interview me about unrelated garbage with no warning, I'm going to think less of your process and of your management skills.

I like good interviews for the same reason I liked most of my exams: it was a chance to show off what I've learned in a compressed format.

I prefer work from home, but I agree with you, there should be options. As long as the option chosen has no effect at all on career advancement.

For what it's worth I find largely the opposite. Getting out of the house, the physical break of traveling from point A to point B, entering the "Working Place" with its "Work Computer" and "Work Desk" etc. all gets me focused on work. Home is too full of distractions, everything from chores that should be done, to personal projects on my computer, to that interesting magazine article I've been meaning to read lying on my desk.

The corollary to this is that it makes leaving Work at the end of day a lot easier. Once I leave the physical building where Work is done I am no longer working.

Having Home separated, both physically and mentally, from Work makes both more easy to focus on.

Just to provide a differing opinion, my daily office is the place that I feel most productive. When I'm home, I'm never in work mode because I never (99.9%) work from home.

I like being around lots of people and having face-to-face conversations to work through problems.

I agree with this 100%. I work mostly from home, and at home is the primary place where I am productive.

We meet once a week. That day in the week no work is done. Meetings are somewhat productive, and they are "required", but they don't get work done.

As nice as WFH is, I’m cautious about advocating it. We should be careful what we wish for. I’d be worried about management logic deciding that if my job can truly be done from home, it can be done from India.

Anyone thinking of outsourcing product engineering should try it. American engineers aren't in any danger.

And honestly, why shouldn't it? I work with an organization that has people all over the world – including India – and aside from time zone awkwardness it works pretty well. Advocating against remote work as a means to achieve job security seems incredibly backwards to me.

If your job truly can be done from India, management will have figured that out already or are already close to it. Protectionism doesn't help you, it only delays the inevitable, if you really are worried about your job getting outsourced to India it's time to upskill and do something more valuable to your local team.

Also, India is not that cheap anymore (roughly 1/3 for an engineer), and it's only getting more expensive.

Daylight hours and first-vs-second language communication differences aren't going anywhere anytime soon. These things don't affect all types of work equally, which is something useful to think about when deciding what to focus on.

If the only value you provide as a developer over a low-cost outsourcing agency is your physical presence in a location, then outsourcing your job is probably the right move.

Switching jobs in a couple of weeks and I'll be 100% remote - what headset/microphone do you use?

I just got a Jabra Evolve 75 headset for work a few months ago, and I'm super happy with it. It's got reasonably good ANC, and while it covers the ears, it does not envelop them like most other ANC headsets, so no more sweaty ears for me.

Noice cancellation headset with decent leather muffs will also avoid the sweat problem, I’ve found. These are usually the > $250 models, however.

I use regular Audio Technica headphones with a Mod Mic that I plug/unplug when needed.

I have a HyperX Cloud II - http://a.co/1Uh0q9o - plugged into my USB hub. I like the USB audio thingamajig because it has a hardware kill switch for the mic, which I use all the time instead of on-screen mute controls. The mic and headphones are both optimized for all-day wear & talk by gamers, which works really well for my use case: working remotely.

Well I'm all set then - that's the headset I have (and love) :)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com