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Comment by wffurr | Hacker News Reader

Does the original study attempt to account for the once-a-century pandemic occurring at the same time?

Seems like one should be careful drawing conclusions about remote work from the last year's data.

This was probably the best environment for remote work. There was nothing else to do but work and eat for many.

As people start going to sports games, vacation, concerts, fairs, dinning, bars, clubs, etc. the number of hours they’ll work will go down.

Except most workers and organizations where unused to the environment so many one time training and setup costs got averaged in. Not to mention kids being in school/daycare.

This was really a terrible introduction to remote work and it ended up going surprisingly well.

They may work fewer hours, but they won't be miserable and burned out from being stuck at home all week.

This really doesn't compute. I am far more burned out by the stress of commuting and the social energy expended going into the office than from working from my home.

Remote work doesn't mean 'stuck at home.' It means freedom to have control over your own work environment.

It does in this context, since half of the study was conducted during the pandemic.

However, their kids will be at school or daycare, they will be able to run errands in half the time (service slowed way down during the pandemic due to safety protocols), and people at just happier with their social connections without a twinge of boding anxiety over every interaction.

During the covid pandemic. Many just shopped online for all their errands.

And their social interactions were limited to zoom happy hours.

> There was nothing else to do but work and eat for many.

Though it's entirely possible that hurts efficiency.

> the number of hours they’ll work will go down

and it's possible that can improve efficiency.

By that reasoning the productivity of people in prison should be through the roof, at least for those in low security prisons that only hold people who are there for white collar crimes.

I've been remote for well before the pandemic and no, it was really not a good environment. It was stressful and the cities were up in arms and the weather was insane and there was no daycare and going to the grocery was stressful and there was no toilet paper and all kind of calamities conspired to prevent me from thinking straight. And when work stopped, there was nowhere to go and no one to hangout with.

Really the worse time to be productive. I was way more productive as a pre-pandemic remote.

Yeah, especially when we don't really know what we're even measuring in the first place. Attempts to measure the output of knowledge workers have always been more art than science, and biased by the viewpoint of whoever's paying for the measurement. Virtually all measurements depend on "all other things being equal." Which they weren't.

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