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Comment by mullingitover | Hacker News Reader

> I think the narrative of WFH success is in many ways driven by the people for which WFH is a godsend due to really long commute times or having poor office workplaces (like open plan)

Who doesn't have open plan offices? There are about three people left in the tech industry these days who still have a private office.

> But it’s potentially a lot cheaper up front not to have offices, just like open plan offices were cheaper, so I fear MBAs may discount these drawbacks and make WFH the default in many, many places where it’s a bad idea.

Working in an open plan space is simply inferior to working remotely, except in rare cases where your team is in a bullpen and working full time on a specific project together. It's inferior for engineers because of distractions, and it's inferior for the company because of real estate costs.

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The real estate costs don't go away, they just are paid for by the worker instead of the employer. Now you need to either dedicate square footage to an office setup, or get a bad back working from the couch or the bed or other common home furniture ill suited for long work hours. Maybe you legitimately don't have room in your apartment for this, and now need to invest in another bedroom. Maybe you need to buy faster home internet, or move apartments entirely due to a lack of ISP choices at your address. I've never heard of a business offering a stipend or remote assistance subsidy of any sort to their workers to cover any of this, from whatever great savings are reaped from saving on real estate costs.

I think there is a happy medium, where maybe offices cut back to about 25% capacity or so. People would instead drop in and work like a university library. You could go there and print stuff out if you didn't have a printer at home. If your laptop blew up, you could go there and get a replacement from IT. If you preferred, you could rent out a substantial desk with several monitors and a good chair if you didn't have the space at home, or focused better in that environment. You could schedule in person meetings with your team in a well appointed conference room if you wanted. You could host social events. Maybe even a gym or childcare facility. I think that's my ideal for the office environment going forward: less a sweatshop and more a clubhouse.

> The real estate costs don't go away, they just are paid for by the worker instead of the employer.

I'm not sure how many tech workers didn't already have some kind of desktop computing arrangement at home but I have to imagine it's a miniscule number.

> I've never heard of a business offering a stipend or remote assistance subsidy of any sort to their workers to cover any of this, from whatever great savings are reaped from saving on real estate costs.

My company does, I'm sure it's become pretty standard lately.

Software engineer here who before the pandemic had a setup on the sofa or kitchen table. That’s fine for doing a few hours work in the evening. It starts to get ergonomically painful as a full time setup. It’s also annoying sharing a room with my partner who needs to be in meetings all day while I’m trying to write code.

IIRC it used to be that to claim a write off on dedicated work space at home you had to claim you had a 10'x10' dedicated work env... but I may be not recalling that correctly.

> I'm not sure how many tech workers didn't already have some kind of desktop computing arrangement at home but I have to imagine it's a miniscule number.

I thought the same as you, and then I saw a lot of people at work not have home setups, either because of space or other reasons. It was surprisingly common!

Concentration of jobs without adequate increase in housing leads to that extra room for an office being exorbitantly priced. Then again, if you can rely on wfh, why concentrate to that degree?

> I'm not sure how many tech workers didn't already have some kind of desktop computing arrangement at home but I have to imagine it's a miniscule number.

Once again, in SV/NYC/etc very few due to real estate costs. Most of my peers who aren't married have room mates.

> already have some kind of desktop computing arrangement at home

Sure, but it's your personal desktop computing arrangement -- not the company's.

With WFH, the company is effectively renting that space from you so you can work in it, but you're charging them $0.

This is the definition if a win-win then, because I would take a pay cut to keep working from home (not planning to mention this in salary negotiations). I definitely don't feel like I'm being exploited by saving my company a few bucks and saving irreplaceable moments of my life that I'd waste commuting. The lack of commute is the real kicker, driving to work costs me money, and it's a life-endangering activity.

This is it. I actually took a small pay cut this year to work for a company that is guaranteed remote friendly.

The peace of mind knowing that these guys already had remote engineers before the pandemic and a good workflow, and having a job that is officially and permanently remote is absolutely worth a few thousand bucks to me.

I was dreading going back to the office, even if only a day or two a week.

Counting the commute I would have otherwise been going back to with my previous company that was super excited to get asses back in seats, I'm probably actually getting paid more per hour of my time dedicated to work activities.

> saving my company a few bucks and saving irreplaceable moments of my life that I'd waste commuting.

I bet if you actually considered the commute as part of your paid time to calculate an hourly rate, a lot of people probably come ahead when switching to wfh despite "renting their space" or whatever.

Depends on how you commuted to work. If you biked to work you just lost your cardio gym membership baked into your day.

Were you making more than $0 off that space before? Not everything is zero-sum.

No, but presumably they got some living utility out of that space previously that is now devoted to work. Maybe you can finally take up mountain biking now that you don't have to make space for a desk you don't use after 5pm on friday and can fit the equipment.

The person I replied to was explicitly talking about people who already have a desktop computer setup at home. I guess for a few of them that desktop might be used by a partner or children during the day, but in the vast majority of cases it would sit idle.

I always looked at the commute cost as a balance out, TBH. The distractions on the bus made study on the bus difficult and I wouldn't work on there because I was loathe to be one of the people edging out another with a laptop on a full bus. granted, other places may have better transport than the Seattle area (ours is pretty notorious), but most is pretty crowded and not suited for work or leisure. I count those commute hours as personal cost hours, to me and the environment. It was an hour in and an hour out (on a really good day), and I'm like 20 miles from the city center.

> I've never heard of a business offering a stipend

I recall Shopify was in the news early last year for offering employees $1000 stipend for WFH supplies.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/12/coronavirus-shopify-gives-em...

> I've never heard of a business offering a stipend or remote assistance subsidy of any sort to their workers to cover any of this

I switched jobs during the pandemic. My previous job offered $25/mo extra to help cover utilities, $250 to cover any wfh purchases and let me borrow any office supplies, including monitors, chairs, etc... Although this company instituted a 20% pay cut for 3 months which made that all seem very silly.

My new company is doing practically the same thing, but without the pay cut and is much less strict about the type of WFH purchases.

My commute was only ever a 10-15min bike ride, but Ive personally benefited greatly from the WFH switch and my productivity has been through the roof. I definitely agree with you that maintaining some space to meet and work would be nice.

> Working in an open plan space is simply inferior to working remotely

"Simply inferior" is a bit of a bold statement. Lots of people want to go back to their office for various reasons. For me it's wanting to see my co-workers (which are my friends at this point) in person every day. It's certainly not rare.

I agree that the office is great for socializing, but that isn't what offices are for. I'm talking about trying to do head-down work requiring concentration.

It depends, communication is the majority of my job (as a Senior Engineer who codes more than average).

Same here, but I find that a Google Meet session is more productive than in-person. We can share screens and talk (with the bonus of being able to record the session), and it's honestly easier to follow than when I'm trying to crane my neck to see over someone's shoulder.

In the office, a team or group meeting is a great break from sitting at the desk and an opportunity to be social. At home, it’s yet more staring at the screen at a fixed focus distance and speaking in fits and starts due to network latency. I don’t agree at all that an open office is simply inferior to remote work.

I actually feel and work much better in an open-plan office. The energy of other people being present keeps me very focused and I really like that it’s so easy to collaborate. I think it helps prevent me from being burned out.

However this is all predicated on open office being a layout where your desk is made of wood, hardwood flooring instead of carpet, your coworkers Aeron is 5’ or less from yours, massive windows close by, and there aren’t any forms of walls other than computer monitors. Cubicles require me to attend therapy.

I think introverts do not thrive in the environment you're describing.

Unfortunately introverts are not well represented in management or the types of people who make decisions about seating.

Also unfortunately, many (most?) software developers are introverts.

I'm an introvert. And a VPE. In the SF Bay Area.

I absolutely despise open office plans. I can't work in them.

My productivity shot an incredible amount as soon as I had no choice than to work from home in March, and everybody else in the office. Saved 2 hours a day. And I can use my own bathroom... that alone is worth it.

>The energy of other people being present keeps me very focused

This is the opposite of my personal experience. The energy of other people distracts and interrupts. Collaboration that interrupts focused solo work has rarely if ever been a net gain.

>> Who doesn't have open plan offices? There are about three people left in the tech industry these days who still have a private office.

There's a big range from true open-plan space (long tables with employees sitting shoulder-to-shoulder next to each other) to private offices with doors.

Somewhere in between are traditional "cube farms" which provide some amount of semi-privacy, less distracting nightlines, noise reduction, and feeling of personal space. Most of the companies I've seen are still more like this.

> Who doesn't have open plan offices?

Oracle is one company in the Valley with private locking offices with permanent full soundproof doors and outside windows with mountain views. I had one as an intern!

Shhh - don't tell them the secret!

Wow, if that's what interns get what do the lawyers get?

This reminds me of a story about early open plan offices in the 80s, where an up-and-coming Microsoft poached talent left and right by offering perks like offices with doors. I wonder if we'll swing the pendulum back in that direction again.

FWIW this definitely wasn't the case for their Austin office pre-pandemic.

This is why their HQ is so many really narrow tall towers - so less space wasted in the middle.

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