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Comment by JshWright | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

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...

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

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.

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.

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