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Comment by x3874 | Hacker News Reader

> The big difference is that the private space in my own home is under my control.

So you have definite control over spouse, the children, the dog, a neighbour, some builders doing work in the street, ...? Must be magical where you live.

I observe this with coworkers every week: - their special needs offspring needs special attention - their neighbor is noisy and an Grade A jackass - cats meowing for minutes - the wife of someone interfering to assign him chores for lunch time - i personally am plagued by sirens of medical emergency transports during months when it gets hot under the roof here, multiple times a day / night

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What you are describing is inadequate remote working conditions - it will be just as bad as inadequate office working conditions. Adequate ones can be had if you give a crap about your work - get a dedicated room with a closable door, set expectations with your family, soundproof where needed - again not different from setting those kinds of boundaries in an office setting.

no true remote worker would be distracted at home

You make it sound like it's the only solution but you don't *have* to work remotely from your home. You can rent an office close to your house.

That sounds like the worst of both worlds. You're on the hook for all the costs of an office, not just a small uptick in power and data use. You can't put on laundry or chat with your spouse during a break. And you have lost the advantages of in-person communication with your team.

Agree with those downsides but the benefit is still in saving time on commuting, which for me is the biggest benefit.

Depends what you are looking for. It's great to avoid the commute.

I think it's an attractive solution. I'd get all the benefits of working from home with far fewer of the drawbacks.

> You're on the hook for all the costs of an office

Honestly, I'd consider that a small price to pay to be able to avoid going to the office.

I literally don't see how any of that is different to my coworkers next to me being in meetings all day long and talking loudly, while I'm sitting there are trying to focus. At least at home I can ask my wife to take a kid for a walk because I need to focus for a bit. In the office I can't just tell everyone around me to shut up.

...or you can move yourself. With a big desktop setups perhaps not as much, but grab your laptop and head out someplace else. library? coffee shop? wherever. Working 'remote' I have options as to where to go to get privacy/focus. When I worked in office spaces, there were almost always some distractions that were hard to get away from (either logistically or socially).

Nearly everyone at my work has a proper big desktop workstation because we need the firepower that laptops don't really offer. Which rules out "just moving" and sitting somewhere else temporarily.

> library? coffee shop?

To be honest, working in public spaces like that is just as bad, if not worse, for me than working in an office.

Mostly, yes. At least I anticipate all these things when deciding whether to work from home or not.

Anything else is just unprofessional, nothing to do with working from home in general.

So should the needs of the child be left unattended, then?

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