Remote work is the best thing to happen to families in decades
erikhoel.substack.com
erikhoel.substack.com
commute: So my "commute" is only 5 minutes, yes a short walk from home. But still, I work 240 days a year, so that's 240 * 5 min * 2 = 2400 minutes saved, or 40 hours a year. A full workweek! Imagine if my commute was 30 minutes each way? That would come to 240 hours / year, or 6 full workweeks - just getting to and from work. After just over 8 years, you've spent a full year on travel. Insane.
transportation: I walk or bike to work, so no big deal for me - but my collogue has a 1 hour commute each way, around 44 miles. That's 88 miles of driving every day. When he switched form gas to EV vehicle, he saved a bit over $5k in fuel, as he could charge for free at work. But you still have repairs, maintenance and what not. Those that drive ICE vehicles can save tens of thousands in fuel costs by working remote from home.
chores and housework: I was amazed how much I got done at home during lunch. Spent 5-10 mins eating, then do whatever needs to be done in the house. The weekends got much more freed up.
I'm probably forgetting some points.
It really depends though on what type of role and personalities are coming together and I'm hopeful there will be a more innovative culture going forward.
Hard disagree. You state it like it's a fact, but it's not. It's an opinion.
Especially for programmers a remote meeting is often better. For example, 6 engineers can meet for an impromptu meeting, someone shares their screen, all 6 people can see the shared screen clearly, all 6 people can point at things on the person's screen, all 6 people can interactively sketch ideas at the same time on the same virtual whiteboard, everyone can keep their own copy of the code open and readable while seeing the shared screen right next to it, etc. There's a lot of good things about this that cannot be replicated in person.
Remote is ok, but as an introvert I sometimes find it harder to get a word in edgewise, and I already sometimes struggle with that during in person meetings. That and I feel like IRL conversations are somehow better for unstructured/lateral/creative thinking
I get that many people use the office as a primary source of socialization, others aren't able to communicate online effectively, and yet others like wasting time in meetings instead of working.
It's obnoxious that those folk get priority, and the rest of us are forced to lose hours and hours our lives to needless commuting, and forced to have much worse working environments - the many varying approaches to "employees are livestock"/"open plan" have been demonstrated in every single study to be aggressively bad for productivity.
Finally, by not having to go to the office I'm not being exposed constantly to asshole coworkers who come into the office while sick, or when they have clearly sick family members. One of the greatest things in the work from home experience of the few years is not catching various plagues from coworkers. I went multiple years without so much as a cold.
Now I get to have forced exposure to those same coworkers that came in while sick in the past, so I have no trust that those who get covid won't come to the office to spread that plague around either.
Seriously I'm fine if you want to waste time commuting and getting sick if you need the office to socialize, or if you aren't able to communicate effectively online. I just don't understand why everyone else should have their lives made worse just to support you.
This turns into a form of self torture though, since the office is ripe with distractions that they have to power through to get their tasks done. But because they're not afforded the luxury of getting distracted by things they'd like, and they hate the office distractions, they'd rather be doing work. The overall experience is shitty in the end but at least they're getting some work done.
It sucks for the rest of us though, because now the self flagellation needs to be extended and we're all victims of presumption. "Since I can't get work done at home, then surely others can't as well! They're just sitting at home doing nothing, like I would be doing! Everyone needs to come back to the office now!"
Other than that, WFH was genuinely sucky for people with small children, because daycares were also closed during peak covid.
Not even saying those diagnoses are wrong. It’s just the additional self-discipline requirements imposed by WFH exposed what was already there.
Seriously: every person I have learned has ADHD recently, I have learned because the DEA screwing with the availability of their prescribed medication.
If offices surround people with distractions that pull them away from their work, isn't that the fault of the office?
People shouldn't have to have monk-like discipline to focus on a task while everyone around them is trying to pull them away from it.
It's not a discipline failure that offices are not set up to be productive in.
Whereas now, I find it a challenge to produce a consistent amount of work. So I have been practicing this and controlling my environment to help with it. Also my social time is now intentional, so I am not constantly pulling others from their work.
So for some, I imagine remote work is beneficial for productivity as well! Just requires some time to adjust and learn how to be better.
It is awesome.