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Comment by eqvinox | Hacker News Reader

There is a subset of people who are good at working from home and there is a subset that isn't.

There is a subset of each of these subsets that seems to be completely unaware that the other "side" exists.

This article seems to be written from the perspective of a person unaware of the subset of people that are just straight up bad at working from home.

(The same subsets also exist for companies instead of people.)

P.S.: Of course, by the same logic, forcing people who are bad at working in an office to do so regardless is dumb too.

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How productive one can be working from home also depends on the type of job and level of experience.

As a new grad (hoping that my job offer survives covid), I'm terrified of a transition where WFH is the default. I recognize that I still have a lot to learn, and that I can't do it all on my own. Casual interactions with coworkers and the ability to passively absorb new information in the workplace are essential for entry-level employees like me. Plus, personally, I find the social aspect of work to be crucial to my well-being.

Indeed, there's a whole bunch of other axis that this could be put on, and they might very well change too. If you start a family / have a child, that could very well change it in either direction. Or if the company restructures, or changes its workflows. Etc. pp.

The one thing that probably _doesn't_ affect this is a past pandemic. The COVID-19 pandemic may push some companies to improve their workflows for working from home, but, the workflows are only one thing out of a whole bunch.

I would expect maybe a few more percent of people working from home after the pandemic is over. Hopefully those would be people that are good at working from home but couldn't do so previously for some reason. It'll also happen to some people who are bad at it, but either need time to realize it, or are forced into it since the company thinks it's better or saves money.

But overall... we're still the same people after COVID-19. I don't see the office dying any time soon.

And as someone who is 20 years in, my value comes from facilitating that information flow and bringing people up to speed with the quirks of our domain and process. My slack being up all day doesn't have the same effect as my door being open.

I see this too in the way that older team members often have offices or dedicated spaces within their larger homes that they work from, making it easier to get into work mode.

I work from my small kitchen table that is about four feet from my couch which is about 7-8 feet from my bed. This makes it a lot harder to get into the work zone, as well, it makes it harder to leave it at the end of the day.

Secondly, a lot of my older team members are married or live with a significant other.

I on the other hand live by myself in a new city where the only people I know are the ones that are on my team. Or, were on my team, I should say, before my company internally shuffled roles to avoid layoffs and moved me from my analyst role that I was in for about six months (my first job out of college) down to support. So now the only people I talk to are people calling for help. Or my parents by video call. Other than that it’s just me and my thoughts, which makes it a lot more difficult mentally. I don’t have a spouse or significant other to talk to throughout the day, and the only people I do talk to, for 8 hours, are generally in a neutral to unhappy mood, which also does nothing good for my mental health. Which is just adding on top of the effect being moved from the role I went to college for, and I applied for, and that I thought would help get me on the right path for my career goals (data engineer), down to a support role less technical than the one I had as an internship during college, had on me.

I’m applying for data analyst/BI/Junior DBA/Junior Data Engineer roles across the western US, but I have a feeling it will be quite hard now with lots of experienced workers being laid off competing for lower level jobs, considering I only have six months real world experience. As well, I want to start a project for my portfolio to help learn some key technologies I don’t know, but I’m generally so mentally drained after work I just don’t want to do anything. I just want to nap or zone out. I took Friday and today off but it doesn’t feel even close to enough time to fully recharge.

I’m rambling off subject, but yeah, as you can tell, this entire thing has definitely not been easy on some of us. I think I’d like WFH if it was an option, as in, Monday and Friday WFH, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, I’m in the office. That would be a good balance for me.

Older married worker chiming in.

I can’t imagine how bad this would have been if my wife and I had still been living in our apartment. Even then I had a separate small office and we had a treadmill in the living room.

This is in a relatively low cost of living area. So I’m definitely not bragging.

But now, it’s not too bad. I have a large separate office, we have one bedroom converted into a decently equipped gym with exercise equipment, my son has his own room, my wife converted another room that was originally her study to an ad-hoc studio so she could continue to teach her fitness classes.

You're absolutely right about random interactions being essential for your career growth. And the worst part is, even if all the juniors go back to an office, a lot of the seniors will want to WFH, so you'll lose out on a lot of that benefit even at the office.

That being said, perhaps with all the seniors working at home there might be more chance for interaction with them while also at home?

Many times in life the most listened group of people is not the one with the best arguments, it's the most loud.

I'm liking working from home a lot, but it's okay and should be acknowledged that some people work better in the office.

There are people bad at working in open floor plan offices, too. What did companies do? Stick with (only) open floor plans, i.e., select for those employees who can work in that environment.

Absent some external force (like, say, legislation, or a union), why would companies care that there are a subset of people who are $17,000 more expensive for the same output?

Because competent IT engineering talent is a very limited resource?

Lol, no.

I agree with your generalization. Here's another:

Companies will completely disregard this information and will base the amount of office space and WFH policies based on the cost of real estate post COVID19.

I predict that when the virus situation calms down, companies will tend to prefer WFH policies until some companies start noticing how cheap office leases are. At that point, we'll ramp back up to where we are today for the same bogus reasons we have open office plans and lots of butts in seats.

I also predict that there will be a bubble of architecture changes for new housing builds: single family homes (that often have a home office space) will start to be built with 2 home offices to support married couples both working from home.

Rent expense is already a tiny fraction of labour expense. I don’t think companies will make a different decision if market lease rents decline 50%. It is tiny on the income statement. They will make the decision based on the impact to labour, as a tiny shift in productivity or retention/turnover could easily wipe out the relatively small rent expense.

I have a fried that could work from home, but is still going into the office. When I asked him why, he said that if he worked from home he would soon be divorced. His wife confirmed that was true. (I didn't ask, but I assume that means he will never retire?) So, that was an interesting perspective for me since I have loved working from home and projected my love onto everyone else. It's often hard to remember that our own beliefs, feelings, thoughts, etc. are not universally applicable.

The problem now is that we don't have enough jobs for the people who are good at working from home due to an antiquated view on jobs and productivity.

In the future, we'll have way more jobs for these people as companies see the advantages in cost when hiring someone who will be happy to make less money and produce more because they a)don't need to live in the bay area, b)don't need to commute and c)don't get distracted all the time.

This said, I find it very unlikely that software office jobs will disappear or even reduce drastically. I'm predicting a 30% reduction in full-office jobs, not a 90% reduction. Despite all of the excitement for future WFH opportunities, remember old habits die hard.

Regardless of that, I don't think traditional return to an open office for the tech industry is likely anytime soon, given the risks & the ability of many to work remotely.

Maybe a limited number of small, closed offices, rather than a desk for every employee in an open-space will be the new norm, maybe companies will buy employees equipment to accommodate them at home?

Some will just ignore COVID wherever they possibly can, but I think most won't.

Agree, like most everything it seems, I'm in the middle on this. I prefer the office, but spend 1-2 days a week working from home. We have an open office plan and I find it best to work with people at the office and concentrate at home.

Given the current working conditions, I'm getting better at the prior from home. But I know people that literally cannot function this way, and I know others who never come to the office.

Given equal distribution of both groups, the misery should equalize and it'd be a net win for corporate profit and the environment.

and there’s another subset of people who are fine working from home, but whose souls are starting to shrivel from the lack of face-to-face direct human interaction, something that i believe counts among several basic human needs. i count myself among that subset.

"Work from home" is a misnomer. People are free to rent a shared office space if that is the environment they prefer post pandemic. So "work from home" actually works for everyone.

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