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Comment by outcoldman | Hacker News Reader

I know some people are very excited about that, and some think that is going to be a new norm. I have not worked for the corps for at least 4-5 years, but before that I always assumed there are only small amount of people who can really work for company remotely.

I definitely saw people calling that they are going to work from home, but saw very little work to be done that day. Which probably means that people used that as excuse, as they had some business to do outside work, and they did not want to take PTO.

I have very little believe that a majority of people can work from home, especially when travel. You are at new place, you going to work like 4-6 hours instead of 8-9 hours. So I do understand why airbnb is telling their employees to do so, but curious how long it is going to last, and curious how real it is going to be (considering that it could be up to management approval as well). But I doubt that other companies will follow that.

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> I definitely saw people calling that they are going to work from home, but saw very little work to be done that day. Which probably means that people used that as excuse, as they had some business to do outside work, and they did not want to take PTO.

Remote manager here. This is definitely a huge problem with people new to remote work.

I actually don't care at all if people are doing something else during the day and getting their work done at night or whatever they want to do. However, a significant number of people really struggle to get work done at all when they first go remote and lack a repeatable schedule and the feeling of social pressure to be working like their peers. It takes a lot of coaching and mentoring to get these people back on track with their remote-ready peers.

Many other people have no problems working remote, though. IMO, the key to success of a remote team is to coach and mentor all new remote workers very intensely in the first months or year, but then also to be willing to remove people from the team if they just can't get work done remotely. You absolutely don't want a few bad apples to ruin remote work for everyone else.

>You are at new place, you going to work like 4-6 hours instead of 8-9 hours.

I remember some studies mentioning that the real productive time in a daily 8 hr shiFt was 4-6 hours. If that's so, then it's completely doable.

Hopefully someone has a fresh link to one of those studies.

Just a heads up, I think you may have typoed "shift"...

Haha thanks, gives a whole different meaning.

Thanks for the chuckle!

>the real productive time in a daily 8 hr shit

I used to take my PowerBook into the bathroom stall at work when I needed some alone time to concentrate, but it was embarrassing to get busted when it crashed and made that reboot sound so everybody else in the bathroom knew what I was up to.

Pretty sure 6 hours is even more productive, at least for experienced people.

I also think this is easier to test and the more realistic change. You can be available to clients/meetings from monday to friday....

And that would allow me to see the sunset the whole year. Would try to go to the park with my kid at 4pm every day.

Oh, 4-6 hours is the Zoom meetings. Anything productive is in addition to that.

I've done some work-cation. Like instead of 1week off I'll take 2 and work the second. If I'm in a different time zone, I've felt even more productive. Work with out distraction for a few hours show up for a meeting or answer slack when people start working. My mood might even be better because I'm doing something cool on vacation before or after work.

The only people doing 8 hours of "work" are the people scheduling back to back meetings all day

I think even that is probably an over-estimation. I suspect most folks can work productively (as in, being intensely focused on an activity) only for 2-4 hours a day, and the rest of the time is just "fluff" (which may or may not be necessary for staying productive). From that perspective, regular 9-5 in an office really "steals" our time, because we can't use it on more productive things.

If anything I’ve been seeing lots of articles lately saying that because there are fewer boundaries between life and work when you’re remote lots of people are working far more than they did when they were in person. Idk the numbers but that’s definitely what happened to me.

I think it's less that people do 4-6 hours of work per day, and more that people spend ~50% of the workday productively.

In other words, a 4-6 hour workday means 2-3 hours of work getting done.

Just to clarify the hours of productivity. I meant the person will allocate only 4-6 hours instead of 8-9 hours, and most of the time will be on FB, reading news, and spending time in chats. And whatever is left going to use for some work :)

>You are at new place, you going to work like 4-6 hours instead of 8-9 hours.

Literally nobody is productive for 9 hours straight. You end up doing low-value make-work projects because in a culture that values "time in seat" the work expands to fill the available time.

“I saw very little work being done”

That’s an incentive problem not a “be in the office” problem. Or you’ve hired lazy bums. Or the work isn’t interesting enough.

If the people are screwing around then fire them. More than likely the job is dull or not challenging or not rewarding enough. That’s a call for the company to step up their game and bring in A level talent.

Or don’t and keep on getting the C team that’s only doing busy work as a boss is looking over their shoulder.

> If the people are screwing around then fire them

You try firing someone in markets like NZ, Aus, lots of parts of Europe etc. Some people have for sure identified remote work as a meal ticket for life, it's frustrating.

I don’t think this necessarily true. I can work just fine remote for weeks on end, but after a month of that I need a day in the office to recalibrate my focus.

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