Why the Future of Work Is at Home | Hacker News Reader

Why the Future of Work Is at Home

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119 pointsstygiansonic74 comments

Working from home for me was likely slowly sliding into a deep depression with no one to talk to. I understand many people pull it off but I fundamentally believe we are social animals who benefit enormously from being around other humans. I don't think that means you need to work in a dedicated office, but an office / studio / around other hackers (regardless of who they work with) is a huge boon to life style and learning.

I discussed this a bit in a recent article I wrote. Hoping to have time this spring to write extensively about the social aspects of remote work http://w.ryansrich.com/2016/02/16/remote/

I, on the other hand, hate feeling pressure to socialize.

I think everyone has a different optimal balance. I prefer being in the office at least 4 days a week, while my head developer seems to excel at one day per week, with others somewhere in between. I tend to get more distracted at home then most (I have a pretty large property that always has some kind of chore or new project to be worked on), but not everyone has this problem. I think the flexibility to find a happy equilibrium is the key ingredient.

Hearing that some demand it be all-or-nothing is a bit puzzling to me. Though I have my suspicion that recent high profile moves to eliminate telecommuting (Yahoo and Reddit come to mind) were really just stealth layoffs. A way to reduce FTE through self-selection.

This, I think letting individuals/teams figure it out is the best option. Some projects, and even specific times within a project, call for being physically with the team and other times i am more productive being able to just focus on a task at home.

Also I find that my time spent in the office depends on the season. During the Spring and Fall when it is a perfect temperature for being outside i love going into the office and being able to go out for a nice lunch outdoors somewhere with coworkers.

There are definitely some of us whose balance leans toward "leave me the heck alone." I work at home in a rather remote location. I often don't see anyone besides my wife for weeks at a time. (and I love it).

Completely agree. I've worked every WFH arrangement possible: had an office in San Jose I'd visit once a month and worked from Portland the rest of the month, worked from home 50% and traveled 50% for consulting, worked from home 2-3 days a week, and now I technically work from home in the sense that our startup's HQ is in San Jose but I live in Seattle. As I have two kids under 3 1/2 and the home office is mid-conversion to toddler room to make way for the third- working from home is a no-go so I rent an office space in a Regus building (love it BTW and the price was surprisingly competetive to the other options).

I miss the office environment and creative boost that checking into my last employer's office gave me. The employer before that? The space and people in it didn't do anything for me. I missing having some people around for the general BS coverslip a that get your juices flowing again but I wouldn't trade it for having a really nice office in a really nice building that is only 4mi from my house that I can ride my bicycle along a beautiful river bike path to get to.

For me, I think it really boils down to who I'm working with. If the office space sucks or the people don't really do it for me in general, then I could be fine on my own. When I actually get some energy from the people in the office I desire to go in a certain amount because it provides a value, even if only emotional.

This is why one of the possible futures is houses where people live and work. Not uncommon in the SV even today, to my understanding. The only problem in that case is the boss :)

Ugh, lots of more problems. Now the company prescribes what you can do or not do at home. Quit your job? Well, you lose your home as well.

Still it can work well for early stage startups and provided that they won't hire those who have children. They don't anyway (it's a discrimination, a big topic, but a different story here).

Quit your job? Move on to the next one, you will have some buffer time.

As a father, I find that kind of brushing off the needs of people with family decidedly distasteful.

As a father of 3 I even wrote an article about ageism in this industry and especially the so called startup culture. Why are you downvoting me?

That place should be relaxing and should feel like home, because it is. Keeping different levels of authority separated in different houses would be mandatory. Additionally workers living in the same house shouldn't be working on the same project[0] , even if that sounds counter-intuitive. The reason is that it diminishes possible conflicts, because in the case of unsolved argument, there is nowhere you can go, and humans can't always solve them.

[0]: but should certainly work in the same field.

Two things. First, there's a weird genius loci factor in humans. I used to think that not having to switch context would allow for more throughput, but more and more I love splitting things in rooms, places. It allows for single task deep focus, and when you do something else, you're into that other activity. Be it eating, reading whatever. Going to an office can be part of that.

Secondly, isolation can lead to depressive states, but being surrounded by people is also a burden and some times worse. I can remember the feeling of joy when my floor left the workplace as I had to stay longer. I felt my spirit grow and fill the room, ideas, drive and motivation came back strong.

Be careful extrapolating from "I" to "we". You have realized you need to be around other humans to thrive. That doesn't mean everyone needs the same thing.

Indeed. My friend phoned me once "how did you stop going crazy working from home" (I did it for 5 years) and all I could reply was "I'm not sure I did".

I went for days when the only speaking I did was "just these please ... thank you" at the store.

I had to get out in the end. Quit my job (the office 150 miles away and they wouldn't be able to pay for me to move to & live in London).

Saved my life I think.

Yes, but working remote does not mean having no social life.

While it's convenient due to the time spent together, I think enmeshing your personal and work life until they are inseperable is not healthy. Especially since companies fold, etc. It can be very traumatic, and have been through that during dot-com years. I greatly prefer working outside the office now.

this is why the language we use to describe the phenomena is so important: "remote work" is the correct way to describe it in my opinion because the phrase does not exclude the possability of working in a co-working office space.

With remote work it's entirely possible to work from a social business environment or "hacker space". The difference in this situation is that the individuals who you socialize with at work, aren't always working on the same project as you, or employed by the same company.

In other words remote work need not imply a life-style change or a work-style change, so to speak, but the people who blog about this stuff often ignore this and get it wrong. As an aside, in Manhattan there are nice co-working spaces which are not cheap and increasingly what you'll find there are individuals who are working remotely, but who prefer to do so while hanging out around other startup developers. I think this is the kind of thing we're going to see a lot more of rather than the idea of working in pajamas

If you don't have friends you meet with outside work or roommates I imagine that would drive me crazy. I have teleworked with a roommate present, alone and married and the only time I felt depressed was when I was trying to do it alone.

I do agree that completely killing off offices or coworking spaces seems like something that will (hopefully) never happen. It is nice to work in a space where everyone has the same energy and interests. I find myself needing to recharge off that periodically.

I love how the standard practice for people is to think "this is how I am, therefore I intuitively know this is how it must be for everyone"

I find this is true across all humankind, and I find myself doing it a lot. Pretty easy to do.

Great minds think like me.

Doesn't have to be either or.

I now work ~2 day per week from an office and the rest of the time from home & am much happier to cut my time commuting by 3/5th and spend a lot more time with my wife than when I was working from an office every day.

There are also co-working spaces. And plenty of ways to socialize online with co-workers or friends or new people over video chat, text chat, reddit/Hacker News, and other options. And lots of ways to meet up for non-work-related activities with existing or new friends.

Many people aren't doing it right if they aren't regularly interacting with co-workers online.

To me the goal is clusters of living units around a coworking space and a more specialized work space for some business. That way you can freely choose to be at home, get the benefits of an office without physical interruptions from your coworkers, or commute to your employer's cluster to get full coworker immersion. Some vacancy minimum would ensure as your family (or chosen family) shrinks and grows you simply switch to a more appropriate unit. Any extra inventory could be rented.

If a cluster was attached to a bakery for example, ideally it's super baking nerds who want to wake up at the bakery plus people who work in other domains but have a secondary interest in baked goods or eating them.

I enjoy working remotely because I don't have to lie to myself. There's no faking it for a boss who walks by. There's nobody to impress but myself (and my teammates on chat).

I think that actually makes me far more productive. Now the two cumulative hours I spent pretending to be working while in the office, I spend doing things like exercising or running errands. Then when I return, I'm far more rejuvenated than I would have been mindlessly sitting at the office.

I think a balance of being in the office and working from home is key. I am much more productive at home as well, but eventually that becomes a tedium in its own right. It's hard to beat face-to-face collaboration with your colleagues. Plus, putting in some face time at the office is still essential for your career. There's no getting around that for the foreseeable future.

100. I worked from home for the last 8+ years and it's been an interesting ride. My experience: was amazing at first (productivity, independence, no office drama), then got slightly uninspiring, then got downright depressing ("why even bother showering today?"). Now I mostly work in a small office, but with a lot of flexibility and some days at home.

The combo is the way to go. There was a time where I worked from home 4 days out of the week, then spent the entire 5th day in the office with no plans of actually getting work done, just getting in-person face to face meetings and collaboration done. That was an ideal situation for me, as I planned those in-office days accordingly and wasn't busy thinking of all the work I needed to do while in mid convo with a peer.

I know someone where people in their department come into the office 3 days a week and they work from home 2 days a week. That seemed like a good balance.

Seems like most people singing the praises of remote want to use it for cost-of-living arbitrage. I wonder how many still support it when they're still required to live near work?

Haven't we had those articles about 3 times a year over the last 20 years?

I worked from home for two years. The biggest issue for me was not being able to influence decisions and create relationships with the various stake holders. I like to be involved in more than just writing code for some corner, i.e. I don't enjoy just being a cog in the machine. We had one of those funny remote presence robots but that isn't really the same thing.

For me the social aspect was not an issue. My wife and kids are home (homeschooling, the future of school is also home). I would go out for lunch with friends and I have other activities.

Being able to occasionally travel and work from somewhere else was great. Owning my work environment, having a standup desk, an office, my choice of gear, was also great. Not so great was the expectation (mostly self imposed) that you're always available online.

I also managed people from home. Some in the office. Some also remote. That's also very difficult, making sure they didn't feel left out like I sometimes did. Trying to gauge contribution without seeing them working physically and trying to care less about how much time they're putting in and whether they're always available :) I.e. trying to be a good boss.

Now I work from home two days a week. It seems like a reasonable balance. Could probably even do 3 day a week. The office is in the same city vs. a different country so coming in when needed is easy.

In the not so distant future I think you'll be able to put on your VR system and be in the "office" or in a meeting, take it off and be at home. If everyone was in that system I think this could be a good solution.

I work from a remote office right now. Even though it is less isolating than working from home, I've noticed a major communication problem. When you are working with other people in the same office, you can notice unspoken things. You can see when something you said is unpopular. If someone hates something you said, its possible they will just keep quiet and avoid conflict instead of telling you about it. So maybe everyone in the main office is slowly starting to hate you and your ideas, and you don't find out till it has gotten pretty far.

I know HN loves working remotely, and I do too. But you have to accept that even if your office communicates well, no one is going to email you an update of the general vibe in the office as it changes moment-to-moment.

Remote working requires VoIP, imo. I grew up collaborating with teams in online games like WoW and Dota, and I learned that constant communication is the only way to thrive when you can't see other humans face-to-face. It seems ridiculous to be in a voice chat room with your coworkers at first, but it's the best way to ensure everyone is on the same page and communicating. Written communication, be it email, irc, or slack, is not enough for effective remote teams.

Increased working at home seems like it will be a good candidate to replace open office plan workspaces.

I like to think of workplace design as moving back and forth between private and open, each taking advantage of new technology when they become standard.

With good internet speeds and collaborative chat apps being ubiquitous, and real estate costs soaring in the great tech hubs, work from home makes sense.

I work from home, and it requires a lot of discipline especially when you have to wake up for the early morning meeting then wake your kids up for school

Working from home for many years, here's my take: * Discipline to start your day, but also to end it.

* You need to dedicate an area to be your office and come and leave it as if you had to commute to work.

* Go out and socialize! Especially for introverts, it's easy for us to neglect some social balance.

* At the end of the day, make sure you switch into activities which will 'switch' you off work and into something else (working out? Hobby? Kids homework?)

Your first point was too hard for me so I ended up renting an office of my own. It is close enough that I can walk (20 minutes) and that is a great way to switch my work brain on or off.

Socializing for me is usually lunch with friends, though I do have an officemate so there is some general banter there.

Good list. I would also add:

* Door on dedicated space.

* Pants. Or some other work like ritual to convince your brain you are 'going' to work.

The last point sounds interesting. Gonna try that next time I do home office (which I only do when really necessary, e.g. because of craftsmen appointments at my home).

Exactly. Switching between work, family, and personal time became difficuly in the beginning because i literally brought my work home with me.

Luckily i have my wife yo remind me at times. The pants part sounds interesting... ill try that for a week and see how it goes.

I am working on something that should hopefully solve that for people working remotely.

I.e. a way to provide the framework from the discipline in meeting up at work with the freedom from working from home.

Can't wait to share it here soon.

What I loved when I worked from home was...

PROs

- Wake up start working no shower or long drive in traffic

- Can work anywhere I want either sitting or standing

- Can take breaks anytime I want to go to doctor appt, go for a long walk/hike at various parks close by

- With my last two points I kept a healthier lifestyle .. didnt gain weight.. actually lost a little

- Not a plus for me completely, but my output was crazy high and my co-workers randomly gave me kudos for the work completed.

CONs

- Pay was a lot less then say working at govt. office

- Hours I worked due to the above was anytime between 10am & before I slept, but I got things done & more.

The job noted above was great, but I went on a reality TV show and they wouldn't work with me (show or job ... which i work remote so i didnt understand their position.. possible ego thing). Now I am back working at an office, fighting traffic and fighting the unhealthy aspects that come from working at an office. Overall, I love what I am doing at my new job more then the last (the actual work), so it's a trade off.

"a certain numbers of hours in-person to maintain accountability"

At GitLab we think that accountability doesn't require to be in-person. We see the value of regular 1:1 conversations with you manager but those can happen in a video call.

I imagine that the most important part of accountability are well-defined job requirements so that staff know what ought to be doing.

I'm hoping to be able to hire someone in the future and would be interested to know how Gitlab defines job roles so staff know what they should be working on in the short term as well as when downtime inevitably comes about.

We try to measure output of people instead of input. This is hard but we think it is much better than any alternative.

Having a well-defined job definition is important. We're a fast growing startup and our job definitions are by no means done. But you can find them by clicking on titles on our team page https://about.gitlab.com/team/ Each job should be defined. Merge requests are welcome!

Totally agree! The last company I worked for demanded we be in-person, even though I was #1 in every single support metric (number of tickets resolved, fastest response time, most bugs fixed per month, etc). I just don't get it. If the work gets done, who cares if you're there or not?

I find the people who care the most provide the least value beyond showing up themselves.

> Once upon a time, working from home seemed a romantic and highly exclusive option for a luxury creative class.

Even this is not true; working from “home” used to be the norm. I ask you, did a cobbler of old or a general store shopkeeper commute? No, they had their home in the same building. It was only with industrialization that commuting, i.e. not working from home, became the norm.

I've been looking a great deal into technology, progress, change, etc., and when you get down to it, the whole concept of the modern workplace is, well, exceptionally modern.

Computers as a work classification didn't exist as such until the 1970s. Office work was largely a novelty of the 20th century (though there were some "clarks" prior to that). And as you note, manufactories, as places where manufacturing, that is hand-making things, happened, outside the home, was a creation of the 18th and especially 19th centuries.

Before that it was mostly farm and ag labour, some skilled trades, and a very thin set of professional classes: law, medicine, military, clergy, and government work.

Commuting required cars, not commonplace until after WWII. Before then, you might have travelled on a streetcar or commuter rail, but that dates only to the 1880s. Prior to then, it was walking. Horse-drawn conveyance only if you were quite wealthy. Otherwise it was "mind the gunk".

I don't really want to work at home, because that just means sitting at my kitchen table all day long... but I do appreciate working away from the office, or at least having the flexibility to get away from there some days.

People get into these debates about working at home vs working at the office, where some people like to be at home and some people like to be at the office, but my primary desire is just simply to not be in the same place all day every day.

That's what depresses me, not any innate features of either an office or my home. Both are nice enough places. I just want some damn variety and freedom in my day to day life.

I work from home, but I spend half my time at coffee shops. Sometimes it's hard to concentrate at home, but then there are times like this morning where I've been in the zone. Wish I could nail down exactly what makes the difference.

I've come close to trying to nail down the zone issue. Still not certain, but it's related to decisions. The days I don't have to make an actual decision, but to just solve the problems, things move faster.

But sometimes, when I'm uncertain of the design or whatever decision that needs to be made, I fall out of the zone and into procrastination mode to avoid making a decision that I feel might be wrong.

Wow you may be on to something there.

I think that applies to me, especially in a small startup where there is a ton to decide on (versus outlined tasks). I think when a task is already decided on, I move quickly. Depending on my mood I think I get overwhelmed and procrastinate when lots of decisions have to be made.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analysis_paralysis

Do you also find "comfort" in only using Apple products?

3 years working from home. There are pros and cons, but the pros for myself and my company easily win the day. When I think of all the time - productive and personal - that I and other people have wasted commuting, it hurts my head.

Generally I think of working from home in terms of collaborative work and execution. About 10% of what I do is collaborative while 90% is pure execution. For collaborative work, there's no substitute for being in the same room with other people. But when it comes to executing, which is most of what we do, being in a private office at home allows me so much more productivity than I ever have in a typical office. The social isolation that people mention does occur occasionally, but there are ways to mitigate it.

Another thing to consider is that many teams or organizations are naturally distributed across offices or companies already, including teams that work on open source efforts. When it comes to this kind of work, collaboration must be electronic and where you sit doesn't really matter. You may as well get some more out of your day by skipping the commute.

A trick that worked for me is getting a dog. They keep you on schedule and give you breaks along your day (since they have to eat, go potty and go for walks).

Plus they are better than rubber ducks.

I sure hope the future of work is working in a location that balances the needs of the worker and the team. For some teams that's an open office, for some it's cubicles, for some it's completely remote, for some it's some mixture.

But apparemtly, the future of work is claiming your work style is the future of work.

I've worked from home for 6 years (with two years in between when I would come to the office 3 days a week).

I never really had issue with the socialization but then I tend to travel a lot (I travelled 7 months this year), and I tend to like meeting and talking to people I don't know.

One thing is sure though is that it's harder to find the drive when working from home. I'm usually more productive from home but if there's any external event that causes me to be down, it's much easier to have unproductive days. Overall, even with those unproductive days, I'm still more productive than in an office (especially places with open plans).

Sweden has a 6-hour workday, because studies have shown that is optimal.

Now I'm wondering how working at home influences that optimum.

This is a bit of a myth(?) that got out of hand quickly.

For some government employees or agencies/body-shops temporarily trying to get squeeze some free PR out of it for government contracts. Not for private employees, most certainly not S/W engineers.

On fun stuff, I get more done on 12 hours than I do on 6 hours, so not sure what the variables are for the studies in question.

People generally don't get more done in 12 hours days over 40 years when you account for mistakes. That said, in short bursts you can get a lot done, but burnout is real.

12 hours per day is only possible in short bursts, not sustainable in the long term. However, I wonder how would that 6 hour work day compare to working just 3x12 hours per week. So, 3 really long days of work and 4 days of leisure time in between. I know I would really like such schedule.

> Sweden has a 6-hour workday, because studies have shown that is optimal.

Yes, the future of work should be to reduce work hours. Working from home is beside the point if it means working more hours (which seems to be the case).

For me, it's very clear how work/life balance is affected by working at home vs. working at the office. If I work at the office all the time, my home slowly becomes a mess: I'm always running late and I don't have time to clean up and organize my home. I don't eat. I start hating everything. I'm less productive at the office because I didn't eat and probably didn't sleep well. I can't concentrate. Forced socialization makes me miserable. When I go home I get depressed because I find a mess and I don't have energy to clean up. However, if I work at home, I work very happily, ideas start to flow, I concentrate, I take my breakfast when I need to, I take breaks not just to drink coffee and do the small talk thing some like, but to clean up a bit my home, eat, do errands, etc. If I stay at home, I'm happy, my home is clean and organized, I eat, and my balance feels right.

I feel isolated when doing 100% remote work. Noting that isolation cell is a form of prison punishment. For others it is total freedom to be able to work remote from where ever they want which I understand. What I have found out that I like to work with other real human coworkers. Have tried both working in a normal office and 100% remote working and I prefer real colleagues. This takes me to the analogy of the Bluezones where peopole live the longest in the world one of the contributing factors to a long life besides eating healthy is a strong community.

Checkout the concept of Bluezones here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Zone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Zone#/media/File:Vendiagr...

For me a coworking space is so much better than home. As long as they're not talking directly to me, there's an energy I get from being around other people who are intent on their work even if they're not on a team with me. At my space there are other programmers; we can't all show our code toeach other but we have great lunchtime talks, which is something I'd never get at home.

This is a great feature of coworking and definitely isn't just limited to programming - I've had great learning moments in many different areas of my work from talking to people not associated with my business:

1) how and why to set up a development environment

2) why to increase pricing on my product

3) various sales techniques

> Working from home for me was likely slowly sliding into a deep depression with no one to talk to.

      Thats why Working From Home is very productive. You dont get disturbed by others and can get a lot done.

as long as there are managers, there will always be a a high percentage of 'work in the office' situations.

People always talk about the future work environment from a rational point of view. That is not how business works.

I also wonder how this will impact the real estate market in a distant future.

Many trends affect commercial real estate over a sufficiently long time horizon.

It remains to be seen to what degree remote work expands beyond places where it's already common. I didn't find the call center example in the article particularly compelling. There's already a combination of "Work for home and make $XXX a week!" jobs and call centers in less expensive locations (even if still in the US).

If one assumes a marked increase in true remote professional work (i.e. not just work from home a few days a week), I'd expect to seeing some percentage people opt for living in lower cost (and/or more desirable to them) areas and companies potentially having smaller offices in locations less oriented toward commuters.

I noticed a lot of buildings here converting from once commercial to now residential and renting at 2x the price that it once was when commercial (per square foot/month price).

Edit: Here is some info in an older 2013 article: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-06-18/king-of-do...

I love working from home but it makes problem solving some times a lot harder. Issues that can be dealt with by all going into a room for a while now take much longer over other mediums.

the majority of marriages get started in the workplace. a safe place to get to know each other, without the pressure of dating. working together teaches you a lot about a person.

take the social cost into account. not everyone excels in the dating scene.

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