The End of the Working Week | Hacker News Reader

The End of the Working Week

putthingsoff.com

32 pointschanux12 comments

I actually find it much easier to work at the office. I have a lot fewer distractions plus having a separate environment for your work and your home life I think is important. Having said that, my commute is only a 15 minute cycle and I actually enjoy that part of the day.

I'd be interested to hear what other people feel and how they benefit from working from home.

I agree, I find it difficult to work at home - I mean, seriously, there's a big screen TV and Xbox right over there! When I do, I also find it easier to work in the kitchen... my regular workspace has too much "fun stuff" and is distracting.

Also, am I the only one who doesn't experience this "cubicle nightmare" scenario? I don't listen to inane chatter by coworkers, I'm not overly burdened with meetings - and the ones I do have are productive and enjoyable. Also, I bus/walk to work, so I don't really experience the gas-brake-honk freeway experience either...

Oh, and I never, ever get called. I get emailed, people drop by my office, but I think I've gotten less than 5 calls in the past 6 months.

Are there others out there like me who find it just fine to work at the office?

Also:

> We’re commuting instead of computing

I disagree with this vehemently. There's nothing wrong with going to work at a physical place - the commuting problem is not solved by making people sit still. It's solved by wide, far-reaching changes in how our society perceives quality of life. It's solved by denser urban centres, surrounded by denser suburbs, and the elimination of the gigantic American backyard. The freeway culture is a direct result of the American obsession with the house, two cars in the garage, and the huge backyard - go look in Asia or Europe, high quality of life without the massive suburban sprawl. We need to get on that train (somewhat literally) or continue to suffer twice daily down the highway.

i work from home, but i keep regular hours and have a desk that i tend to use "just for work" (not always; if my personal computing needs more power than my laptop then i need to sit in front of the "work" desktop).

i like it, but i am something of an anti-social clod. i can have a nap on my bed after lunch without anyone complaining. i can do the shopping at lunchtime (we live near shops). i don't waste time commuting (in fact i cook + wash pots in the time my partner commutes). i can surf the net as much as i want. play my music as loud as i want. have more space and more privacy and better furniture than i have had in any office.

but i should also admit additional pressures - i live in s america (chile). the work culture here is appalling (it's not what you do, but how many hours your boss sees you around for) and the wages low. by working from home i can do consulting "internationally". i do sometimes consider renting a small office nearby, just to keep work and "life" more cleanly separated. but it seems a lot of expense for little real gain.

[edit: while i agree with much of the article, i find the title a bit odd. i don't want to dedicate my whole life to others, so the "working week part" (9 til 5) makes sense to me. if i nap or surf the web in that time it's because i need a break - that doesn't mean i then have to work more hours to "make up". the idea is that i manage myself better than someone who isn't me could do]

I agree working at the office is much better. I have a family (young son and stay-at-home mom wife) and it is way too many distractions at home. I work at home 2x per week, and have 1hr45min commute each way other 3 days. But train ride is good for reading/programming too. Ideal situation: small work cabin in my backyard...

I prefer working in the office - normal commute is 20 minutes by train - the only problem at least in my office is no doors and i sit close to people who are in tele-sales , constant noise.

For thinking time, i have to get into a meeting room with my laptop - not ideal but still better than at home. I prefer the separation.

I agree. But I do hate my commute (45 mins in the car!).

I need to be in the office sometimes, because it really is much easier to grab a couple of people and scrawl on a whiteboard than it is to use IM.

But we also have very good flexitime - I can start work at 7:30am and finish up to 6pm, so long as I get 35 hours of work in somewhere during the week. This means I mostly work 10-5:30 with a half-hour lunch, while others work 8:00 - 3:30. And either way we miss the rush hour.

I actually felt more productive working at home. I did so last week -- and at the end of the day I still had my laptop plugged in and didn't have to shutdown to commute home, thus worked a few more hrs later than I would have at work. I got more done and the company got a few more hrs out of me than I would've at work.

Distractions wasn't really a problem for me as I enjoy my work for the most part and so prefer to work than watch TV, play my Playstation, etc.

I don't think its about working from home vs working in an office. It should be about 'do what works and results in the highest individual and business productivity'. At the very least, if one of your very good devs wants to work from home, give them an option and try it out. If they are comfortable working at the office, that's fine too.

i think this blog posts hinges on the assumption that most people have the work ethic and drive of an entrepreneur and that's just simply not true. if it was, half the people that come to you with 'ideas' would actually do something with them. "opportunity is missed by most people because it's dressed in overalls and looks like work". - TE

also, if I purchased ideas from employees, the company would not be focused and we would spend each week chasing the "next half-baked idea" which is exactly the type of startups/founders I now avoid after seeing two fail due to that same type of scatter behavior. but, i think this is more important in the context of startups than established businesses where fresh ideas are often needed.

There is a work from home option with my job. I am not interested, in part because they greatly increase your expected work load (without increasing pay). Because of my health problems, I do want to eventually work from home. But I want to do it on my terms, not on someone else's terms. I don't see any advantage in working from home in my present job and I see a number of disadvantages. Some people have tried it and then chose to come back to the office and are glad to be back. I imagine if they didn't place a basically punishing workload on you, a lot more people would be interested. (But I still would not be, for other reasons.)

Having a day job has been an education for me. I was a homemaker for many years so I "worked at home" most of my adult life, just not for a paycheck. I think if I do manage to arrange to work from home on my own terms, it won't be a problem. I don't have small kids or too many other distractions and I have lots of experience with setting goals, managing my own time, etc.

Google needs to do it first with its Wave. If it succeeds, Wave may propagate as the harbinger of the end of working weeks. It's gonna be a real wave, who knows?

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