Comment by leothekim | Hacker News Reader

Comment by leothekim | Hacker News Reader

I used to work at a company where there was a flexible work-at-home policy. It was great, except for this one guy named Smith (name changed to protect the lazy sumbitch). He would frequently email the team about how he wasn't feeling well, or how he wanted to concentrate on something important he was working on, or how he woke up so late that the commute wasn't worth it so he'd work at home.

That was fine and all, but then he would send emails about how he wasn't feeling well and was going stay at home, then show up for the after-hours company parties. He once sent an all-company email to invite others to watch videos with him in one of the meeting rooms during a Wednesday afternoon. I responded "Wednesday afternoon? I think I'll be at my day job then." To which he replied "By Wednesday afternoon, I meant after 6pm. Technically, that is afternoon."

My manager tallied up the days that he did this, and I forget the exact number, but they added up to more than 50 work days in 10 months. The policy wasn't specific about how many days you could work from home, so he was allowed to do this. Worse, others started to follow his example.

And yet, he was getting his work done on those days off, so no one fired him. But, his behavior annoyed everyone s.t. we called working at home "Smithing". I still showed up at work and put in my best, but it certainly was demoralizing to have to work with such douchebaggery.

"And yet, he was getting his work done on those days off, so no one fired him."

He may very well have been a poor worker, but it strikes me as odd how superficial our idea of a good worker is. Productivity being equal (at home or work), what does it matter if he seems to be having it easy? The illusion of looking busy still carries a lot of weight apparently.

I admit I wasn't aware of the quality of his work or his actual productivity. I had heard from others that he was good but not special, and when he finally left we didn't feel like we lost a critical player.

The things that made us think he wasn't productive were: 1.) when he emailed the company saying he was sick and then show up at the company party later that day (more than once); 2.) his solicitation of others to watch non-work-related videos with him during business hours; 3.) his inability to face up to the fact he was soliciting others to watch non-work-related videos with him during business hours.

It matters if the psychological effect on other employees causes them to become less productive or increases the likelihood that they'll look for another job.

So it's this guys problem that others can't act like adults?

I think it's unreasonable to define 'acting like an adult' in a way that's likely to exclude 99% of humanity.

He should have been fired. Work from home culture is not an excuse to screw off. It is an empowerment to do your best work in the location that best inspires that.

Often that isn't work. The problem here sounds managerial to me - that perhaps Yahoo's management can't tell good work from bad work so they fall back on vanity metrics like "butt time in seat."

> he was getting his work done on those days off

> He should have been fired.

If he was getting his work done, what does it matter? This response reeks of 'if I can't see him working, he isn't working.'

Reading this story, the only fault of Smith seems to be that he worked at home and didn't need to. That's an odd thing to be so upset about, so I would guess he was annoying in other ways.

The reason why we started to get annoyed with him because the company party was announced after he had emailed in sick, and then he decided to show up. I think the fact that he could work from home laid bare his douchebag self, and yes that was why he was annoying.

I neglected to mention that the company eventually decided to make it a policy to not email the entire company about working from home. This made him much more tolerable. :-)

I have had the opposite problem - I've had people on my team that I wish would work remotely because they are frustrating to be in the same room with.

Do you have any reason to think that Smith would have been less of a jerk if he had to come in to the office every day?

Good question. Maybe that's why nobody pushed him to come in.

I see a lot of comments like this about telecommuting, where it's implied that telecommuting was the problem, when it may have just been a coincidence.

That said, maybe telecommuting was the problem here. But in any case, it bears some thinking about. There must be some people whose behavior would be better if they had to come into the office. Conversely, there must be some people who behave better if they get to work remotely. Not sure which category your guy falls into, but like you say, maybe people preferred him at a distance.

Yeah telecommuting probably enabled him to be.. who he was. And yeah, it's entirely possible if he had come in every day (as annoying as that would have been) we would have been able to call him on it more and either have him fall in line or compel him to take his BS elsewhere.

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