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Comment by cushychicken | Hacker News Reader

What if, at the tail end of all this, a bunch of people find that they've tried remote work and decided: "Hey - this fucking rules!" In part because they've realized that they can complete their core work duties in less time, with less distractions, and zero commuting.

Maybe - just maybe - this could be the unplug that helps people prioritize the things that they enjoy over their work.

I recognize that's a viewpoint that represents immense privilege. I'm in a job where I'm capable of working remotely. But it'd be a neat thing for people like me to be able to leverage.

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I think it's likely the exact opposite will happen. People are being thrown into seriously sub-optimal remote working experiences, and their productivity is likely to suffer for it. This will result in companies being less likely to consider remote working a viable path.

Forced working from home while during a pandemic. It's nothing like working from home under more normal circumstances.

If productivity turns out to be similar (or better) despite this handicap, I'd be genuinely curious to see how companies respond!

I'm personally very pro-remote (have worked remote at corporate gigs before) and it'd be great to see more companies adopting it. There are some seriously big benefits and, if the tooling keeps improving, I think it could be a real competitive advantage for companies.

> If productivity turns out to be similar (or better) despite this handicap, I'd be genuinely curious to see how companies respond!

It won't. That's the problem. Being forced to do WFH unprepaerd + kids suddenly home + being in an actual pandemic, worried about the future, your family and yourself = productivity disaster. And it unfortunately will end up emotionally associated with WFH.

Also, I suspect many companies are going to see reduced turnover, and as a result are likely to shy away from anything that may have contributed, including WFH.

I live in one of the COVID-19 infection centers and I have to say I'm a little distracted by all of it. It's hard to focus when I'm worried about where I'm going to be able to get food and not being able to relax on the weekends because I can't go outside.

I tend to agree unfortunately. I've spent 10+ years working remotely and the past two weeks have been brutal productivity wise now that my wife is working from home and both kids are home too. As a self-employed individual, it's worrying to me what the next 6 months of this will do to my output.

edit: and I feel bad for worrying because we're in a much better position than many others.

Having no kids, I can say I've got more done in less time in the last two weeks than any other two week period in the last two years...

You can't overstate quite how sub-optimal.

I work almost completely remotely; my colleagues are as a result of this situation, and many of them having to try to work a daycare job at the same time with nurseries/schools closed.

I'm sure they don't think their experience is representative of normal remote working, but it certainly won't make anyone in a similar position think 'hey this is great'.

A lot of people are stuck in homes with no dedicated home office, with their kids running around since schools are closed.

It's funny, I've been working remotely for the past 4 years and now more than ever, I miss going to an office and being around more people. Working remote has some amazing benefits, and I've certainly taken advantage of them, but eventually I've realized that decreased social interaction is something to consider. That said, I'll probably keep working remote.

I dream of a small office with a few people near to my home within cycling distance. If I have to choose between a big office and home I will choose home.

Yeah I think I'm in agreement with you... That's why I'm working on my own project, hoping to get it off the ground so I can set my own rules and do something like you describe :)

Same, would love to live in a community with businesses interspersed with homes and be able to bicycle/walk everywhere and let kids roam around without risk of being hit by a car.

I used to have a membership to this small co-working space. I could walk there in 5 min from my apartment, had 24/7 access, free snacks and drinks, etc. Sadly, they ended up renting the whole space to one company.

I wonder how hard it would be to start a small, community co-working space.

Then I'm living your dream - my office is right-next-to-my-house. I use the door in my garden to cross over. More often I take the main front yard door just so I get to walk a bit (<100m door to door).

Right now, nobody is coming in, everyone's remote. I prefer to go to the office now. Tho it's only six of us developers (company is 17 people) sharing a pretty nice office in a modern building owned by the company, I prefer to work over the wire. Unusual, huh? I realized for me it's about flexibility, not distance.

I wish you get to live the way you want. Good luck, sir.

We have a remote worker who's been doing it for 10 years now.

We hire an office in a building with other remote workers and small companies. So he goes to lunch etc with those people rather than us, but at least he gets a clear work/home boundary and social interaction when he feels like.

Startup idea: The Virtual Water Cooler

I think it’s called Slack.

True, however, sometimes Slack is like if someone put the water cooler in your office, and then started having meetings around the water cooler in your office while you were working and then expected you to be even more productive.

> In part because they've realized that they can complete their core work duties in less time, with less distractions, and zero commuting.

The first two depend _very_ heavily on both your home and office environments. It is certainly not true for myself.

Yes, but at the same time, it is absolutely, immensely true for me, and I doubt I'm in a minority small enough for OP's point to not have some merit.

Absolutely, I'm getting very tired of the constant hacker news posts telling me that working from home is the future, that I'm getting twice as much done in half the time. I'll tell you what I have, I have chronic back pain from my uncomfortable dining room chairs and chronic anger at the fact I can't get timely answers to my quesitons.

Some people like working from home, fine, but for many of us it's just not right.

Maybe just buy a decent chair?

I picked up a liquidation sale Aeron on Craigslist - totally worth it.

Also I’ve found it easier and faster to zoom since everyone is remote (don’t have to try and find an open meeting room).

Better yet, switch to standing!

I tried that - really didn't like it.

I've been happy with the Aeron chair and getting up pretty often to wander around a bit.

For real, I also have chronic hip pain and bad ergonomics make it worse. I also bought an aeron for home and it's a life-changing chair. My company provides me with a high end steelcase leap in the office, which is another great choice if you can find a cheap one.

You need to put some real money into good home office furniture, if you work there permanently.

Getting a good home-office setup is critical here. In my previous house I had a separate office and enjoyed working from home. In my current house we do not have a separate room (adding it now) and I can't get anything done there (doesn't help that the kids are home from school).

On the response times, if your office is one of constant interruption for that, then you can simply just have video conferencing on all day rather than just for meetings. This helps with "Hey Bob, what's the answer to this?". It has the same level of distraction as being in the office and just interrupting each other all the time. (which is awful for some, and useful for others)

Peculiar world view this. A good chair costs $300, and is tax-deductible. And you can pick one that fits you perfectly. Why are you under the delusion that your co-workers are there to service your query queue ? Figure out how to help yourself. Avoiding interrupting pesky colleagues is a major reason working from home is such a pleasure.

People defend this self-serving behaviour in the name of 'teamwork' and it needs to be called out.

> A good chair costs $300, and is tax-deductible.

No, if it's for remote W-2 work, it's not. If it's used exclusively for your own business, it is. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act eliminated home office deductions for people who are not self-employed.

Dang, that's correct. Man that sucks.

Still able to deduct those in Canada tho: https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/tax/individ...

I’ve said to numerous people over the last three weeks that the world is just not going back to the way it was after this is over. Nobody has really listened to or believed me. I’m glad I’m starting to hear more people saying the same thing.

Alternatively - what if we come out of this with a positive view of Medicare for All and labour unions to empower workers to reclaim their lives.

I hope this time at home "spoils" workers as to what they're missing out on in life due to working themselves to the bone so that they can reject calls to return to our prior broken society.

I agree. This is an opportunity to reshape society for the better.

It seems that remote and office work both have their pros and cons, and they are complementary. So how about a world where you can go back and forth? I've worked from home about once a week before the crisis, and I might make that twice in the future. At the same time I'm missing the ability to do sessions at a whiteboard and just learn what others are doing by just walking around, or simply having lunch with colleagues.

Once jobs can be sourced to anyone who can work from anywhere and businesses get it down to a "science", guess what: your job can now be replaced by anyone working from anywhere. In any country, with much lower wages.

No-one's skillset is that unique.

Including CEO's, boards and companies themselves. Once we get it down to a science we will just do it ourselves and not need a company to provide that service in the first place. Refrigeration put many companies that gathered ice from the Artic or Antarctic out of business. Interesting the Queen still gets her water this way.

My company threw in the towel as soon as this whole thing started and has since adopted a "remote first" ideology. This means a block for meetings from 12 to 1pm PDT with no meetings to accommodate folks with kids needing to feed them and allowing children in zoom meetings. It hasn't been exactly smooth sailing, but it's starting to work.

I'm sure the guys with the spreadsheets in the back would love to knock off that expensive SF office space as a line item.

This is doomed by the fact that children also stay at home :P

Not during normal times. ;)

Yeah, but I mean people (with children) don't get to experience what a normal time working from home looks like.

Interestingly enough, there is also now, with the explosion of co-working spaces, services for that part of the market that wants to work "in town" but without a commute to the "big smoke" (so to speak)

I wonder how WeWork will fare when an entire 2 generations of people realise they can work close to home and be more productive...

That's assuming people live "in town." Many don't and work out of a suburban/ex-urban/rural apartment/house where they admittedly tend to have more room.

Seriously hope you're right. But given that we're clearly in a distressed timeline, I doubt this will happen.

> "In part because they've realized that they can complete their core work duties in less time, with less distractions, and zero commuting."

Not me. I actually want to go back to the office, despite the hassle of commuting. Working from a jury-rigged home office is incredibly inconvenient.

virtual reality helmets could also have cameras to see outside and breathing filters.

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