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Comment by return0 | Hacker News Reader

This has been brought up here before: WFH doesnt work for companies that don't have a culture for it. When a large number of employees work remotely, people seem to like it. Someone should do a poll on it.

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From personal experience this is true.

I worked semi-remotely for a mid-sized company with ~100 IT/developers and those that were working from home were less-involved from a workplace perspective.

I now work for a small company (< 60 employees) that's entirely remote and it works wonderfully. Everyone is on a level playing field and all processes are designed to support it.

I would say it also seems to work at companies with many offices. I worked at a company where I was in the Bay Area, half my team was in Seattle, and most of my 'clients' that I worked with were in Boston. People could work from home and it didn't really make a difference because half of people had to video conference regardless

Most of what they were citing were issues you'd have working for a company that doesn't have that culture, and a guy who was at home all day with a two month old. I love my son, but when he was born I quickly found out why older guys were happy to be at work.

But at the same time, I am having zero issues working from home with a 2 year old and a 7 year old. Everyone knows when daddy's office door is shut, he's working and is not to be bothered.

You can't expect to work from home and still interact with everyone who is home.

Exactly. Get an office with a door and hours. If it's before 6pm, I am "at work". I try and get out to the kitchen for lunch, but I can't just hang out on the couch all day.

I have a friend with a ADHD 7-year-old. There's no way this would ever work with that kid: you can tell him over and over to stop bouncing a ball around and he'll just do it again in a couple of minutes. Expecting him to not bother you for hours at a time is a pipe dream.

I'd assume that if you were to not be disturbed for 8 hours for work, someone else would be there to take care of the children, so ummmm, lock the door?

>I'd assume that if you were to not be disturbed for 8 hours for work, someone else would be there to take care of the children, so ummmm, lock the door?

And where is this "someone else" supposed to come from? You have enough money to hire a full-time nanny? For many professionals, both parents work (and the mother taking significant time off to raise kids is a career-killer).

Well, if you're not working from home, but instead an office, where do your kids go?

I think you're just grasping for excuses for why working from home can't work with kids.

Day care, I suppose. But doesn't having to drive your kids to day care remove a big positive in favor of working at home (eliminating the commute)?

I don't think I'm "grasping for excuses" at all. The kids that I've seen and met would be completely impossible for me to work at home and maintain any concentration. I'm honestly befuddled how parents of kids under the age of 10 get any rest at all. I guess some of them are lucky and get kids like me when I was young (I was quiet and liked to sit in my room on my computer, or doing puzzles, etc.), but the kids my friends have aren't like this at all, and from my observation are the norm these days (I was an odd, quiet kid even back in those days).

My wife works, she leaves at 8AM to take our 7 year old to school and our 2 year old to daycare.

At 3:15PM my father-in-law picks up our 7 year old from school and hangs out with her.

At 5PM my wife gets off work and goes and picks up our 7 year old. I go and pick up our 2 year old.

We come home, make dinner, have family time, and put the kids to bed.

My only distraction during the day is my 4 month old lab puppy who needs a little play time and bathroom breaks.

It's not tough. It's about having a consistent schedule.

I did however get lucky as my 2 year old has slept through the night all but 4 nights since she was 2 days old.

My wife goes to bed around 9PM, I go to bed around 11:30PM, she gets up at 6:30AM and I get up at 7:45AM.

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