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Comment by throwitaway222 | Hacker News Reader

Does it matter if said top talent was just watching YT all day at home

Their heyday was 2016-2019

I’m kind of curious why people are under the impression that people don’t do this in the office too.

I’ve known people to do full time online masters degrees during office hours. I’ve played a heck of a lot of video games in office. Certainly read a lot of books at the office.

Offices are not some magical “go find work” hypnotic environments.

I can do nothing from anywhere: Hundreds of hours of KSP, hundreds of hours of factorio. The former in an office, the latter from home.

If anything, in an office there's always an excuse not to work. And if you accidentally enter the zone and get something done, soon you are interrupted by inanities.

I almost always have video playing in the background while I work, it helps me focus.

The orders were to rest and vest.

That's just a fictional straw-man you've invented.

There is no evidence that remote workers are all just sitting around doing nothing.

And if they were then the problem is clearly with their managers who are unable to provide clear goals and monitor their status.

In terms of opportunity cost, the only person losing in that scenario is the employer.

Unless, as some have suggested, it's a deliberate tactic to cheaply reduce headcount. (No need for severance/redundancy payouts if people self-select to leave).

If your only remaining employees are desperate sycophants, they're probably not the sort of top talent that actually knows what they're worth. Maybe I'm wrong though.

The freedom to just up and move jobs isn't equally available for everyone.

Anyone who doesn't have a permanent right to work (eg on some kind of visa) can find it hard to switch jobs.

If you live in a place where Healthcare is tied to your employer, then that can cause problems, too, if you/a family member have some kind of chronic/ongoing medical issues.

If your salary package has some kind of deferred portion, then that can also make switching difficult.

That’s the job. There a lot of downtime as a programmer.

You mean for sleep? Yeah, I suppose. But I never had a job programming where there wasn't something valuable to spend my time on

I find that stepping away from my desk for a little while is the fastest way for me to solve a problem I’m struggling with. Kind of like how Dr House always solves his cases while doing other random stuff.

I have frequent 5-15 min slots throughout the day between meetings and during builds. There's only so many valuable things I've found to do with those, and they're usually finished by 10am.

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