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Comment by submeta | Hacker News Reader

Working from home has increased my productivity tenfold. No idle chitchat, no wasted hours commuting, and full control over my environment. I’ve reached peak productivity, and there’s no compelling reason for me to return to the office.

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Everyone is a different case. I know many people who work from home. Some sleep, watch sports, and post on HN during working hours.

I think you'll find those same people were wasting an equal amount of time in the work place as well. They just find other ways. I know one guy who was writing their novel at work, because it only requires a computer/is discrete.

Crazy. They almost certainly could lose the IP. Just shitpost. Or think about the novel and write at home.

I’m someone who finds it hard to stay productive at home but has no trouble focusing in the office.

Ala Atomic Habits, my home environment is set up to make my personal life easy. During the workday it’s way too easy to slip into leisure activities, while on personal time it’s easy to unwind. The office, on the other hand, is the opposite: it’s not full of things I enjoy doing, so distractions come with a lot more friction.

Working from home can be a net negative for some, even if it is a huge boost for many.

It's the change of context.

Even before COVID and the standardisation of remote work I got my best work done when I just grabbed my laptop from the office and went to a pub or a cafe to work.

There's some actual science in there how changing the place where you work makes it ... different somehow and you can focus on what you need to do instead of falling into old habits based on the location.

That’s definitely a big factor, and I’ve noticed a similar pattern with cafes or other locations.

The office is just the most reliable “not at home” environment for getting work done for me—there’s no guilt about camping out all day, seating is always available, internet is reliable, and so on.

Primary way of wasting time is emails that become meetings because meetings really look like working.

Staring at a screen to figure out what to write in an email looks like slacking off, even though it has a much higher productivity than meetings.

I have thought a lot about this and it is why I think remote is doomed long term at the mass market because of a type of scaling property.

I am much more productive working remote. It isn't even close.

The dysfunctional slacker at the office though can get some productivity squeezed out of them at the office. Remote, they are completely useless and dysfunctional.

Then take the average worker with kids who can save a ton of money by not sending the kid to daycare and the loss of productivity from that.

At some scale, the productivity increases do not make up for the productivity loss in aggregate. The more you scale up, the worse it gets.

Remote is only going to work long term for small organizations who won't be much effected by this scaling property.

> The dysfunctional slacker at the office though can get some productivity squeezed out of them at the office. Remote, they are completely useless and dysfunctional.

Honestly, I think part of the issue I see with this is "squeezing productivity" out of them. Almost every other manager I've spoken to would see this as a complete waste of their own time and would simply fire the slacker instead. I know that it's easier or harder in different companies/countries. Maybe it's a sign that the slackers are in HR? ;-)

Back in the 80s my dad worked at a factory as a chemist. He said one dude who worked the night shift had put a cot in a closet. He'd come in and sleep basically his entire shift so he'd be well rested for his day job.

One of the productivity boosts I’ve gotten from wfh is the ability to have a 35 minute nap in the afternoon. Amazing how much better my work is compared to the post coffee break work that was equivalent when I was in office.

Plenty of ways to waste time at the office as well.

The idle chit-chat, the wasted hours commuting (cycling rules), the lack of control are the essence of work life. WFH is largely like a chicken in a cage, just pooping out eggs without even being able to rotate.

> the wasted hours commuting (cycling rules), the lack of control are the essence of work life.

Good riddance then.

> WFH is largely like a chicken in a cage, just pooping out eggs without even being able to rotate.

I think that chicken in a cage is much better metaphor for staying at the office than for WFH.

It's not about details of each environment, it's about how the parent comment focuses on maximizing productivity (number of eggs), while discarding everything else.

- Finding a conference room that isn't taken

- People hanging around socializing loudly rather than working

- The unhygienic and jerk habits of previous users of hot desks

- Uncomfortable, unergonomic hot desks

- Pointless, wasteful, and expensive commute times and expense

- Inferior meals and snacks

- Contracting things from ill people who refuse to stay home

- Disruptions

- Superficial interactions

Let’s all 50 of us share the same bathroom by choice, even when we have the choice of a private bathroom.

Let’s make it so we all deprive ourselves of an hour of sleep each morning.

Let’s deprive ourselves of an hour when we get home too (the commute home).

Let’s not let families spend most of their time together, even when we have all the tools to do so.

Let’s deny ourselves the freedom to live in affordable parts of the country. No seriously, lets literally deny ourselves this and slave away on this hamster wheel stacked on top of each other in these god forsaken overpriced cities.

Let’s do this for 40 years.

And when offered a miracle to rectify all of this, let’s reject it. Let’s talk about how great the office is for some people. Who are these selfish maniacs?

Madness. There’s not enough poetry in the world to capture the madness.

Yeap. I forgot those and more. It's like some sort of culture of medieval hazing rituals that too many people have normalized and accepted that somehow "proves" their loyalty, dedication, and/or self-worth to a company that probably took out dead peasant insurance on them and continually weighs whether laying them off would be profitable.

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