What changes when you work outside an office?(vinko.substack.com)
vinko.substack.com
What changes when you work outside an office?
https://vinko.substack.com/p/remote-work-1
53 comments
My WFH routine is basically to just sit in the sofa all day watching movies or play videogames, lie about my progress in stand-ups and then pull an all-nighter before deadline to produce the expected results. Not that I was very productive in the office. About the same output but much less time-efficient since I had to sit there for 8 hours.
ADHD?
hell yeah
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You joke, but this was more or less the default behavior we expected from average new hires on remote teams before COVID. I referred to it as the "college schedule" because a lot of new grads just continued their college procrastination habits right into remote work. People treated it like a group project where they know someone else will care enough about their grade to make sure the project succeeds.
It doesn't take long before the high performers on those teams get sick of picking up the slack. The high performers move on to companies that care, while the team's output continues to decline as everyone pushes the boundaries of how little work they can get away with. Eventually management wonders why certain teams have so many people but so little output, "restructuring" occurs to trim the slackers, and the hiring cycle starts again to build the teams back up.
Performance management is more important than ever when leading remote teams.
It doesn't take long before the high performers on those teams get sick of picking up the slack. The high performers move on to companies that care, while the team's output continues to decline as everyone pushes the boundaries of how little work they can get away with. Eventually management wonders why certain teams have so many people but so little output, "restructuring" occurs to trim the slackers, and the hiring cycle starts again to build the teams back up.
Performance management is more important than ever when leading remote teams.
> The high performers move on to companies that care, while the team's output continues to decline as everyone pushes the boundaries of how little work they can get away with.
That's where a good compensation structure comes into play
That's where a good compensation structure comes into play
Wow this really explains why it seemed like people who were at a company for ~7 years seemed like such trash.
The 30 year seniors were pretty good despite their ignorance of the world outside their company.
The newbies have something to prove.
And it takes about 10 years to have a recession... To cut the fat.
Is there any disadvantage to being a "forever newbie" at companies? I learn sooo much when I change jobs. I can't imagine 7 years in 1 position is good for your career outside a chance at management.
The 30 year seniors were pretty good despite their ignorance of the world outside their company.
The newbies have something to prove.
And it takes about 10 years to have a recession... To cut the fat.
Is there any disadvantage to being a "forever newbie" at companies? I learn sooo much when I change jobs. I can't imagine 7 years in 1 position is good for your career outside a chance at management.
Your question about "forever newbie" is really interesting to me, and I'd love input from people with more experience in software development (15+ years).
Personally, I love the idea of jumping around every 18 months or so to experience new domains, new technologies and learn from new people, but I also worry a lot that this will severely limit my career potential after I've done it for 10-15 years.
Personally, I love the idea of jumping around every 18 months or so to experience new domains, new technologies and learn from new people, but I also worry a lot that this will severely limit my career potential after I've done it for 10-15 years.
Basically it boils down to responsibility. You can’t see the effects of your code if you jump around every year. Everyone thinks that they are good at writing code, until they have to maintain their own mess after a couple of years (not a month in production). Cowboy slinging is something we do for fun but as an adult we need to eat our veggies (writing documentation, choosing the language with a stable tooling, proper time estimation and everything else that seem unglamorous and easily dismissed).
>Your question about "forever newbie" is really interesting to me, and I'd love input from people with more experience in software development (15+ years).
I'm 20+ years in and HATE changing jobs. The initial period where I'm Jon Snow (I know nothing) is always annoying and makes me feel like I'm not contributing at a level that supports my role and compensation. I find that it takes 3 months to start to understand conversations, 6 months to contribute to them, and 9-12 months to really be a consistent and effective leader of things.
I'm 20+ years in and HATE changing jobs. The initial period where I'm Jon Snow (I know nothing) is always annoying and makes me feel like I'm not contributing at a level that supports my role and compensation. I find that it takes 3 months to start to understand conversations, 6 months to contribute to them, and 9-12 months to really be a consistent and effective leader of things.
I didn't change jobs but I changed from integrating graphics on the backend to the web team (using Rust).
And the difference is stark. While I could coast and still outperform everyone I now have so much to learn and the progress seems so slow. I'm slowly getting my hunger back and as someone who loves to learn I wonder when did I lose it?
And the difference is stark. While I could coast and still outperform everyone I now have so much to learn and the progress seems so slow. I'm slowly getting my hunger back and as someone who loves to learn I wonder when did I lose it?
> Is there any disadvantage to being a "forever newbie" at companies? I learn sooo much when I change jobs.
Always being in situations where you're learning is a great idea. You should be able to find learning situations as you move up in your career.
Always being in situations where you're a total newbie/beginner is not so great. You should ideally be able to build upon previous experience in some way with each new job. The problem is that your performance will be evaluated relative to some baseline, and constantly being too far on the "total noob" side of that baseline will start to send the wrong impression as you get older.
That's not to say you shouldn't avoid opportunities where you'll need to learn a lot to begin, but you should be evaluating new opportunities with an eye toward career progression at each step. It's easy to hit the reset button multiple times when you're young, but people will have different expectations about baseline competency when you've had a decade of career experience under your belt.
Always being in situations where you're learning is a great idea. You should be able to find learning situations as you move up in your career.
Always being in situations where you're a total newbie/beginner is not so great. You should ideally be able to build upon previous experience in some way with each new job. The problem is that your performance will be evaluated relative to some baseline, and constantly being too far on the "total noob" side of that baseline will start to send the wrong impression as you get older.
That's not to say you shouldn't avoid opportunities where you'll need to learn a lot to begin, but you should be evaluating new opportunities with an eye toward career progression at each step. It's easy to hit the reset button multiple times when you're young, but people will have different expectations about baseline competency when you've had a decade of career experience under your belt.
Companies that promote from within will look within (first) for the senior engineers. To get to the really high pay you need experience in something in depth. Knowing a little about a lot of the same things everyone else knows gets you the mid grade positions, but if you really want to move up you need to grok the details that matter to your company. Very few get to (or want!) these high level positions where you know the complex details of something useful nly to your company, but they go to those who have been around long enough to have experience.
Of course you risk tying yourself to a dead horse that will never go anywhere and now you need to start over from the below the rest: you have experience that nobody needs and none of the general experience everyone else wants for an okay position. Good luck recognizing when/where you need to be to get the good position in 10 years vs a dead end that they don't care about...
Of course you risk tying yourself to a dead horse that will never go anywhere and now you need to start over from the below the rest: you have experience that nobody needs and none of the general experience everyone else wants for an okay position. Good luck recognizing when/where you need to be to get the good position in 10 years vs a dead end that they don't care about...
Not sure if this is satire, but if not, how do you manage code reviews when pulling the all-nighter in order to merge features?
Not every company does code reviews.
How in the world does that work :)
I used to work at web agency that did stuff from APIs to SPAs, no tests and reviews. And honestly it worked decently enough. It works decently the fewer developers are on a single project.
Sometimes I had 5 different projects at once though.
Sometimes I had 5 different projects at once though.
I ask myself this every time I deploy to prod. Then I see all the regressions reported. Then I realize it doesn't work...
On a more serious note, since no one is reviewing my code, I resorted to automated testing. It doesn't catch all the bugs, but at least it's something.
On a more serious note, since no one is reviewing my code, I resorted to automated testing. It doesn't catch all the bugs, but at least it's something.
Every team that I worked on had a lot of visibility into daily commits. Someone doing this would stick out like a sore thumb.
Wouldn't work at my company, as I'm often enough stalled by trivialities (who has password to this third party service? why does this test does not pass today? deployment to k8s seems broken? need to order access to database X etc. etc.) that it's impossible to make much progress in a short timeframe (much less during an all-nighther, when all people who could help are unavailable) so I need to spread my work evenly across the week. A lot of it can be just waiting on a Teams reply, though.
We deliberately work 2 or 3 major tasks in parallel in anticipation of always being blocked by 1 or 2 goofy things like what you suggested.
Try Focusmate.com - It's really helpful to keep accountable. If you find yourself procrastinating, share your screen.
Very useful for me now that I WFH and not a coworking space.
Very useful for me now that I WFH and not a coworking space.
So basically revert to college behavior?
I get a lot more done working from home. No need to get up and get dressed and drive to/from work. I roll out of bed, turn on the computer and start working. Frankly the company is getting a lot more work out of me.
Sometimes I'm stuck on a problem and I just need to get up and walk around and do something to clear my head. But, when I worked in the office I felt like I needed to always be seen either in a meeting or butt in chair. So I would often get stuck and just spin my wheels all day. Then I'd often figure out the solution in my head while walking to my car or driving home or sleeping on it. Now, working from home, I feel free to get up and walk around the block or go unload the dishwasher or whatever while my mind thinks about it. Again, the company gets much more useful work from me than they ever did when I worked in the office.
Sometimes I'm stuck on a problem and I just need to get up and walk around and do something to clear my head. But, when I worked in the office I felt like I needed to always be seen either in a meeting or butt in chair. So I would often get stuck and just spin my wheels all day. Then I'd often figure out the solution in my head while walking to my car or driving home or sleeping on it. Now, working from home, I feel free to get up and walk around the block or go unload the dishwasher or whatever while my mind thinks about it. Again, the company gets much more useful work from me than they ever did when I worked in the office.
"...I felt like I needed to always be seen either in a meeting or butt in chair..."
Yeah, norms. Like the expectation that employees remain signed into instant messaging apps. And the associated values where for example being signed in is construed as a sign of productivity.
I worked as a financial services company like that once where I maxed out my annual bonus and got the highest raises because I was on top of messaging. From messaging in the bathroom, from bars, and for two days a hospital bed.
Yeah, norms. Like the expectation that employees remain signed into instant messaging apps. And the associated values where for example being signed in is construed as a sign of productivity.
I worked as a financial services company like that once where I maxed out my annual bonus and got the highest raises because I was on top of messaging. From messaging in the bathroom, from bars, and for two days a hospital bed.
My employer, a fortune 100, has had a 100% work from home since late February or early March, and it has been a diverse experience for the thousands of us reporting in each day, week, and month.
I consider myself very lucky that my wife, also in IT at another large company, had the same work from home requirement and so although we have been a social island, we haven't been isolated because of each other's company. We share a spare bedroom, already equipped with comfortable tanker desks and large monitors, and as such had already superior workstations than those back at our corporate offices.
We do have timing collisions for stand up, retros, et cetera but in general it's less than 5% of the time so we just try to be quiet when the other is doing a demo.
For work-home balance, I would say the balance is largely lost, but that as an overall, the experience is still improved. I find it is much easier to work earlier, and later, hours, but to take larger spans of downtime during what was previously our core hours. So I might find myself writing code at 10pm, but because that tends to happen only when it is a good fit, it's still an improvement.
But 9 or 10 months is not enough time to really know that it's going to last long-term. If I allow the work-home imbalance to solidify, what longer term effects will I come to regret?
I consider myself very lucky that my wife, also in IT at another large company, had the same work from home requirement and so although we have been a social island, we haven't been isolated because of each other's company. We share a spare bedroom, already equipped with comfortable tanker desks and large monitors, and as such had already superior workstations than those back at our corporate offices.
We do have timing collisions for stand up, retros, et cetera but in general it's less than 5% of the time so we just try to be quiet when the other is doing a demo.
For work-home balance, I would say the balance is largely lost, but that as an overall, the experience is still improved. I find it is much easier to work earlier, and later, hours, but to take larger spans of downtime during what was previously our core hours. So I might find myself writing code at 10pm, but because that tends to happen only when it is a good fit, it's still an improvement.
But 9 or 10 months is not enough time to really know that it's going to last long-term. If I allow the work-home imbalance to solidify, what longer term effects will I come to regret?
>> My employer, a fortune 100, has had a 100% work from home since late February or early March
The experience with my current employer (fortune 500) has been all over the map:
First it was: "Stay home if you don't feel safe, otherwise, you should be at the office."
Then it was: "Yeah, we're going full WFH for a few months."
Then it was: "We going to start transitioning back to the office - we're going to have 2 week shifts. 2 weeks in the office, then 2 weeks out."
nobody showed up anyways, which apparently raised the ire of the executive teams since they were doing badge reports and they reports were really bad
Then it was: "Yeah, you know that 2 two week shift idea? Forget it, we need everybody back in the office, effective immediately."
This came down from the CEO. The middle management and executive teams were not cool with that idea, so they told their team members only come in if you want to, otherwise, stay at home - regardless of what the CEO says.
Right now, with this new surge, there hasn't been any new mandate(s) coming down. People are out of the office full time and nobody I've spoken to has any desire to go back into the office to work or wear a mask the entire time they're working.
The company recently sold two of their buildings to an out of state real estate company. I'm assuming it was a cost cutting decision since the company has about a dozen buildings they own in the city. I would think a lot of companies would start doing this as well. Having a huge overhead for real estate you're not using isn't good for the bottom line.
The experience with my current employer (fortune 500) has been all over the map:
First it was: "Stay home if you don't feel safe, otherwise, you should be at the office."
Then it was: "Yeah, we're going full WFH for a few months."
Then it was: "We going to start transitioning back to the office - we're going to have 2 week shifts. 2 weeks in the office, then 2 weeks out."
nobody showed up anyways, which apparently raised the ire of the executive teams since they were doing badge reports and they reports were really bad
Then it was: "Yeah, you know that 2 two week shift idea? Forget it, we need everybody back in the office, effective immediately."
This came down from the CEO. The middle management and executive teams were not cool with that idea, so they told their team members only come in if you want to, otherwise, stay at home - regardless of what the CEO says.
Right now, with this new surge, there hasn't been any new mandate(s) coming down. People are out of the office full time and nobody I've spoken to has any desire to go back into the office to work or wear a mask the entire time they're working.
The company recently sold two of their buildings to an out of state real estate company. I'm assuming it was a cost cutting decision since the company has about a dozen buildings they own in the city. I would think a lot of companies would start doing this as well. Having a huge overhead for real estate you're not using isn't good for the bottom line.
> But 9 or 10 months is not enough time to really know that it's going to last long-term. If I allow the work-home imbalance to solidify, what longer term effects will I come to regret?
Look at what happened to Yahoo and Intel. After allowing very liberal work for home policies for decades, some people caught on and figured out how to slack off and milk the nice paycheck and benefits.
Then Intel and Yahoo cracked down.
Look at what happened to Yahoo and Intel. After allowing very liberal work for home policies for decades, some people caught on and figured out how to slack off and milk the nice paycheck and benefits.
Then Intel and Yahoo cracked down.
And now they're better than ever, right?
... Wait.
... Wait.
HA! I should have mentioned that in my post where someone was asking why Intel was going downhill.
Worth reading the full thread at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25187136
> I worked for Intel for a few years, 2005-2007. It's hard to put into words what happened to Intel...
Worth reading the full thread at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25187136
> I worked for Intel for a few years, 2005-2007. It's hard to put into words what happened to Intel...
2 well-paying jobs with no kids and no commute, you are living the dream of personal comfort.
For work-home balance, I would say the balance is largely lost, but that as an overall, the experience is still improved. I find it is much easier to work earlier, and later, hours, but to take larger spans of downtime during what was previously our core hours.
Yeah, you need some degree of discipline and that discipline may be to establish fairly fixed working hours. I do up to a point. On the other hand, I don't have any trouble running out to do errands for an hour on the one hand. And checking email or something else relatively quick in the evening on the other.
Yeah, you need some degree of discipline and that discipline may be to establish fairly fixed working hours. I do up to a point. On the other hand, I don't have any trouble running out to do errands for an hour on the one hand. And checking email or something else relatively quick in the evening on the other.
> For work-home balance, I would say the balance is largely lost, but that as an overall, the experience is still improved
You say the balance is lost, but then go on to describe what I'd consider a great work-life balance.
There's never going to be complete equilibrium, but when work and life can both push and pull, then I'd describe that as balance.
Moving away from "this chunk of hours is for work" and "this chunk of hours is for not-work" to "hit a general target of X hours of work over the course of a week" but allowing that time to ebb and flow as work and life demand it seems much more balanced to me.
You say the balance is lost, but then go on to describe what I'd consider a great work-life balance.
There's never going to be complete equilibrium, but when work and life can both push and pull, then I'd describe that as balance.
Moving away from "this chunk of hours is for work" and "this chunk of hours is for not-work" to "hit a general target of X hours of work over the course of a week" but allowing that time to ebb and flow as work and life demand it seems much more balanced to me.
Separation would probably be a better term in my case. "Balance" as I used it doesn't really make sense :-)
I know it sounds silly, but I've started setting timers for 2 hour blocks in the day, and I try to just hit 4-ish of them per day. If I hit 3, that's ok. if I hit 3 3 or 4 days in a row, I need to look into it!
Whatever works for you! Some people absolutely benefit by having more structure. Others are fine without it.
I've heard this sentiment from several friends:
It's not working from home, it's living at work.
It's not working from home, it's living at work.
Over the summer I suddenly found time to work on some exterior projects around the house. It ended up standing in place of the evening commute as providing a physical and psychological barrier between close of business and my personal evening time. Lock my work computer, go outside for a while, come back in.
One of the things that has happened is I've hardly played a computer game in months, because I'd do that at the same desk I work at, and it's easier to lock the computer than to unplug it to plug my personal equipment back in.
As fall progressed I started filling in some gaps in my outerwear and kept going. Now that the sun is down before I finish working, I'm anticipating some trouble.
One of the things that has happened is I've hardly played a computer game in months, because I'd do that at the same desk I work at, and it's easier to lock the computer than to unplug it to plug my personal equipment back in.
As fall progressed I started filling in some gaps in my outerwear and kept going. Now that the sun is down before I finish working, I'm anticipating some trouble.
Agreed, living at work during a pandemic. In my country I can't even go 5km from my home still. I am not loving WFH right now but with freedoms and the ability to see friends, family and get out at the weekend, I think I could.
I'm no longer putting myself at risk of dying or being injured in a statistically-likely automobile accident by commuting regularly.
This article touches on some of the tradeoffs with remote work, which aren't one-size-fits-all. In my (pre-COVID) remote team management experience, the bigger problem was that new remote workers didn't really understand what working style suited them best. What people thought they wanted and what actually made them happy were two often two different things.
For example, infinitely flexible work hours and asynchronous communication sounds like a dream come true to many people, especially introverted engineers. What could be better than doing whatever you want all day, then pulling some tickets out of the queue to work on in your spare time, at your leisure?
Unfortunately, reality is often quite different. Most engineering work doesn't operate like an assembly line with Jira tickets coming out of the Project Management conveyor belt and into the Engineering Department to be quietly transformed into features. This quickly becomes obvious after cumulative months of delays from ping ponging e-mails back and forth over the course of a week for something that could have been settled with a 1-hour video call. So now the work becomes a mix of flexible work hours punctuated by exhausting synchronous calls where everyone tries to compensate for working in different directions for the past few days.
Younger engineers often also struggle with time management. When we had infinitely flexible hours, it was common for younger engineers to trickle in work for the the first part of the week and then scramble to pull late nights into Thursday and Friday to make up for procrastinating all week. I jokingly called it the "college schedule" because we've all been there before. One of the unspoken benefits of fixed, core work hours is that it's more likely to help people avoid procrastination cycles. Obviously not a miracle cure, but it's a step above free-form schedules.
It can be hard to believe, but switching teams in this situation back to pre-determined core working hours can end up making everyone more happy. Few people will tell you that they want fixed working hours up front, but in my experience most people prefer it after trying it both ways. Teams can still be flexible for running errands, picking up kids from school, going to the gym, and so on. But having some core coordination hours will ease key communication issues.
The difficult part as a manager is that you're not going to be able to convince people that they'll actually be better off with 4-6 fixed, overlapping core hours for the team up front. It's one of those things you need to experience both ways before you truly understand it.
For example, infinitely flexible work hours and asynchronous communication sounds like a dream come true to many people, especially introverted engineers. What could be better than doing whatever you want all day, then pulling some tickets out of the queue to work on in your spare time, at your leisure?
Unfortunately, reality is often quite different. Most engineering work doesn't operate like an assembly line with Jira tickets coming out of the Project Management conveyor belt and into the Engineering Department to be quietly transformed into features. This quickly becomes obvious after cumulative months of delays from ping ponging e-mails back and forth over the course of a week for something that could have been settled with a 1-hour video call. So now the work becomes a mix of flexible work hours punctuated by exhausting synchronous calls where everyone tries to compensate for working in different directions for the past few days.
Younger engineers often also struggle with time management. When we had infinitely flexible hours, it was common for younger engineers to trickle in work for the the first part of the week and then scramble to pull late nights into Thursday and Friday to make up for procrastinating all week. I jokingly called it the "college schedule" because we've all been there before. One of the unspoken benefits of fixed, core work hours is that it's more likely to help people avoid procrastination cycles. Obviously not a miracle cure, but it's a step above free-form schedules.
It can be hard to believe, but switching teams in this situation back to pre-determined core working hours can end up making everyone more happy. Few people will tell you that they want fixed working hours up front, but in my experience most people prefer it after trying it both ways. Teams can still be flexible for running errands, picking up kids from school, going to the gym, and so on. But having some core coordination hours will ease key communication issues.
The difficult part as a manager is that you're not going to be able to convince people that they'll actually be better off with 4-6 fixed, overlapping core hours for the team up front. It's one of those things you need to experience both ways before you truly understand it.
I've been working remotely for about 7 years, through 3 different employers. Here's what I've discovered:
1. I can focus better at home vs at the office. 2. Remote work gives me an opportunity to change my scenery (travel or just go to the park) while working to help inspire me. 3. My day-to-day activities are more flexible as long as I'm delivering, which means I can cook healthy meals at home, take a mid-day run, or go walk my dog. 4. No commute, means I can sleep longer and greatly reduces my daily stress level.
Those are the upsides, but there's also downsides:
1. Much harder to build a rapport with people I work with, and I haven't developed any new adult friendships through work the way I did while I was in the office. There's no after-work crew who goes to dinner together or has game nights, like I did when I was in office. 2. Office politics is more difficult and more pointed, without the watercooler / hallway conversations, everything is a lot more pointed and direct and consequently also more difficult. You can't be as soft or subtle when you're remote, because everything necessitates a calendar invite and a video call. 3. I crave socialization outside of work more, while the opportunities to do so consequently dwindle. Traveling while working was a huge help, but COVID-19 killed that. Working actually from home means I'm starved for social interaction with other adults.
Then there's the things that are just a reality of the situation, but could be good or bad depending on the person:
1. I'm responsible for ensuring I get things done and how I spend my time during the day. 2. I'm responsible for making sure my equipment is up to snuff and capable of meeting the rigors of my work cycle. 3. I'm responsible for ensuring that I communicate my progress, needs, and achievements to my boss, peers, and others within the company proactively, because they have less visibility into those things directly otherwise. 4. I have to be a better self-advocate.
I've done some of my best work while remote, but it's all a matter of finding a way to "get into the groove", wherever I'm working. As long as you can stay motivated and focused, that's the environment you need to be working in whether it's at home, in an office, or in a coworking space.
1. I can focus better at home vs at the office. 2. Remote work gives me an opportunity to change my scenery (travel or just go to the park) while working to help inspire me. 3. My day-to-day activities are more flexible as long as I'm delivering, which means I can cook healthy meals at home, take a mid-day run, or go walk my dog. 4. No commute, means I can sleep longer and greatly reduces my daily stress level.
Those are the upsides, but there's also downsides:
1. Much harder to build a rapport with people I work with, and I haven't developed any new adult friendships through work the way I did while I was in the office. There's no after-work crew who goes to dinner together or has game nights, like I did when I was in office. 2. Office politics is more difficult and more pointed, without the watercooler / hallway conversations, everything is a lot more pointed and direct and consequently also more difficult. You can't be as soft or subtle when you're remote, because everything necessitates a calendar invite and a video call. 3. I crave socialization outside of work more, while the opportunities to do so consequently dwindle. Traveling while working was a huge help, but COVID-19 killed that. Working actually from home means I'm starved for social interaction with other adults.
Then there's the things that are just a reality of the situation, but could be good or bad depending on the person:
1. I'm responsible for ensuring I get things done and how I spend my time during the day. 2. I'm responsible for making sure my equipment is up to snuff and capable of meeting the rigors of my work cycle. 3. I'm responsible for ensuring that I communicate my progress, needs, and achievements to my boss, peers, and others within the company proactively, because they have less visibility into those things directly otherwise. 4. I have to be a better self-advocate.
I've done some of my best work while remote, but it's all a matter of finding a way to "get into the groove", wherever I'm working. As long as you can stay motivated and focused, that's the environment you need to be working in whether it's at home, in an office, or in a coworking space.
"softness" is a word I've been using a lot, too. I absolutely miss the little bit of light-hearted conversation that happened when walking between meetings.
Misread this as being about working outside which is completely different (and IMO more interesting). I suspect by now most of us have a pretty good understanding of what happens when we are working remote.
I get both more and less done. More because the line between home and work is blurred and sometimes I find myself checking work email or responding to people on Teams at 8 pm. Less because the temptation to quickly check Facebook/HN/YouTube/News/etc. in between tasks is much higher now that there are zero physical coworkers around that might see my screen.
One thing I noticed is increased disengagement with work as this pandemic goes on. I really do have trouble focusing or caring really about this shapeless virtual world I make my money in click clacking on my laptop on my couch knowing there is a pile of dirty dishes sitting there in the next room.
Decibels. 35 at home, 55-60 at the (open) office.
Before I started working remotely I worked in the same small room as my boss. He, as the only one in the office, had large speakers and liked to blast music all days. And when we had a meeting he turned up the volume.
I tried to counteract this with noise cancelling headphones and music of my own, but sometimes you just have to have quiet to hear your own thoughts.
The difference with having a completely quiet work environment is incredible.
I tried to counteract this with noise cancelling headphones and music of my own, but sometimes you just have to have quiet to hear your own thoughts.
The difference with having a completely quiet work environment is incredible.
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I'm a little more open to taking a break from work to deal with household chores. On the other hand, I'm also a little more open to randomly taking a call outside of when I'd normally be in the office.
Right now working from home is a bit different. For example, almost everyone I work with could also be working from home, so all of our meetings are online. That's a bit of a benefit. On the other hand, it's not possible to do most forms of in-real-life recreation right now (gyms/food/movies/social gatherings) because it's not safe. So stuff gets more stressful and boring than it would normally be.
Right now working from home is a bit different. For example, almost everyone I work with could also be working from home, so all of our meetings are online. That's a bit of a benefit. On the other hand, it's not possible to do most forms of in-real-life recreation right now (gyms/food/movies/social gatherings) because it's not safe. So stuff gets more stressful and boring than it would normally be.
Sometimes the landscapers ask you to move.