Remote Work - Long Term or Not

[Bluedog]

The mobile skin is minimally functional, and very data light. It can work better both in the hinterlands with very weak signals and in arenas with overly congested ones.

The board is set to default to mobile if your device sends a flag that it’s a mobile device. If you change skins, that setting should persist until you change it back.

Use whichever you find more convenient. Of course, DBR Chat only works in the blue skin.

I use mobile on my phone except when I want an extra feature, and I use a different browser that’s always in blue for chat.

-jk

Yes, thanks -jk. To be clear, I only switch from the mobile skin on my phone when I specifically want to select multiple quotes. I use the blue skin to do that multi-selection and post my response, and then I switch back to mobile. (And as you stated, am in blue skin if joining DBR chat).

[elvis14]

It's not a problem I have, but remote works if you want it to work. It's more advantageous to climate change, good workers who take their responsibilities seriously, etc.

There is software that reports you if you try to get paid when you go to the bathroom and tapes your computer use into 10 minutes segments. You can audit the latter to make sure you are working.

As others have stated if my company started tracking this sort of behavior, I'd find a new company. And if my boss ever brought it up I'd ask him if the system showed the extra time I put in when we have deadlines. "That thing still work at midnight?" might be my first question.

We also use teams. I'm green right now. There are times when I'm at my desk (here or in the office) where I show as 'away' (yellow). Note that I can also click on my picture and set that status to anything I want. I also have Teams on my phone so if I ever got worried, I could just show as available from any bathroom anywhere. Heck for all you all know, I could be posting this from some random bathroom right now!

I will say that I think that some people work better from home (or from the office) than others. At the same time, I suspect that people that are good at what they do have a high enough floor that even if they are less effective from home it doesn't matter. When we got sent home I felt I was more productive at work. Now that we are in a hybrid model, I'm really not sure anymore because when I'm in the office, the people I work with don't have to be there and often are not. It's really just a change of pace thing. Between the commute, having to chase down lunch, and not having the right people at work anyway, I suspect that I'm just as productive at home these days (even though I like being around people).

[Acymetric]

Heck for all you all know, I could be posting this from some random bathroom right now!

I exclusively post to DBR from random bathrooms. Is that not how y'all have been doing it?

[rasputin]

As others have stated if my company started tracking this sort of behavior, I'd find a new company. And if my boss ever brought it up I'd ask him if the system showed the extra time I put in when we have deadlines. "That thing still work at midnight?" might be my first question.

We also use teams. I'm green right now. There are times when I'm at my desk (here or in the office) where I show as 'away' (yellow). Note that I can also click on my picture and set that status to anything I want. I also have Teams on my phone so if I ever got worried, I could just show as available from any bathroom anywhere. Heck for all you all know, I could be posting this from some random bathroom right now!

I will say that I think that some people work better from home (or from the office) than others. At the same time, I suspect that people that are good at what they do have a high enough floor that even if they are less effective from home it doesn't matter. When we got sent home I felt I was more productive at work. Now that we are in a hybrid model, I'm really not sure anymore because when I'm in the office, the people I work with don't have to be there and often are not. It's really just a change of pace thing. Between the commute, having to chase down lunch, and not having the right people at work anyway, I suspect that I'm just as productive at home these days (even though I like being around people).

Holy crap. It sounds like we are into potty monitors. I retired from my day job a couple of years ago and haven't looked back. I continue to do some post-graduate-level teaching, which is on-site, and which has, thankfully, minimal potty monitoring.

[budwom]

It all seems highly dependent upon where you are in your career. If you're seeing yourself as still being on the ascent, it makes sense to be seen, make presentations in persons, schmooze a bit in the office.

But if you're comfy with your current situation and you have a boss you trust and who trusts you, staying at home is fine...just get the work done and keep the boss out of trouble. Tell him what you're working on...
Some companies are way more insecure than others. Same for bosses.

[bundabergdevil]

I exclusively post to DBR from random bathrooms. Is that not how y'all have been doing it?

I assume there is a fair amount of tinker stinker time reflected on these boards.

[camion]

I exclusively post to DBR from random bathrooms. Is that not how y'all have been doing it?

Absolutely not that way for me. Not random at all. All posting bathrooms are carefully researched and thoroughly vetted.

I have a particular favorite located in a basement hallway that gets very little foot traffic.

[duke74]

I’m late to this, but there are issues of culture and staff development with a fully remote environment. I understand the arguments for remote working (personal, professional, competitive, and environmental), but in certain industries you miss out on so much.

I am in public accounting. The staff we have hired have not met their colleagues, supervisors, clients or partners in person. They have not been in the offices. How are they to bond, learn what is expected of them, immerse in our culture, or overcome the benefit of on the job training they would receive in the audit room, etc.? It can be done, but new and enhanced processes need to be developed and implemented.

I saw a stat that only 36% of NYC workers are back. City workers (like my wife) have been forced back since Sept 2021. If they are included in the percentage, the actual numbers are way lower. And with that percentage, city revenues and spillover expenditures for services and small businesses are affected.

There is also the “equity” factor - the benefits of “being there” and being viewed as more diligent or dedicated.

For those interested, here’s a LinkedIn piece I wrote.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/audit...-chain-mba-cpa

[Matches]

I am ok with an occasional day of WFH, maybe even up to 2-3 times per month, but more than that and I see my productivity drop. Just the way I am wired I guess. Something about putting on work clothes, driving to an office and sitting at a desk gives me a more productive mindset.

It’s kind of derelict at this point not to have some sort of WFH option in place, though, even if only for illness. Covid has crystallized the idea that if you are sick you need to stay out of the workplace. If it’s borderline, the responsible thing to do is stay home, and if a company wants to promote that mindset it needs an alternative that still allows work to get done and doesn’t cost an employee PTO.

[duke74]

FWIW, Malcolm Gladwell on the issue.

https://nypost-com.cdn.ampproject.or...from-home/amp/

[bundabergdevil]

FWIW, Malcolm Gladwell on the issue.

https://nypost-com.cdn.ampproject.or...from-home/amp/

I feel like if I worked at home for 10,000 hours if become very good at it.

[LasVegas]

FWIW, Malcolm Gladwell on the issue.

https://nypost-com.cdn.ampproject.or...from-home/amp/

“If we don’t feel like we’re part of something important, what’s the point?” he said. “If it’s just a paycheck, then it’s like what have you reduced your life to?”

Woah. This guy looks at life in a very strange way. On the totem pole of my life, my job is way down there. I work to get a paycheck to support myself and my family. That’s really it. What have I reduced my life to? Oh I don’t know, maybe a life spent with my family? A life with hobbies that interest me? This guy sounds like he lives to work.

[duke74]

“If we don’t feel like we’re part of something important, what’s the point?” he said. “If it’s just a paycheck, then it’s like what have you reduced your life to?”

Woah. This guy looks at life in a very strange way. On the totem pole of my life, my job is way down there. I work to get a paycheck to support myself and my family. That’s really it. What have I reduced my life to? Oh I don’t know, maybe a life spent with my family? A life with hobbies that interest me? This guy sounds like he lives to work.

I didn’t read it that way. I read it that with regards to the work universe, the office environment is more fulfilling. Perhaps I missed that point.

He is pretty well known in the business world. (The Tipping Point; Outliers, etc).

[Acymetric]

“If we don’t feel like we’re part of something important, what’s the point?” he said. “If it’s just a paycheck, then it’s like what have you reduced your life to?”

Woah. This guy looks at life in a very strange way. On the totem pole of my life, my job is way down there. I work to get a paycheck to support myself and my family. That’s really it. What have I reduced my life to? Oh I don’t know, maybe a life spent with my family? A life with hobbies that interest me? This guy sounds like he lives to work.

One of my favorite lines: "I work to live, not live to work." Of course that does not preclude being passionate about what you do for a living, it is primarily a matter of keeping perspective.

I didn’t read it that way. I read it that with regards to the work universe, the office environment is more fulfilling. Perhaps I missed that point.

He is pretty well known in the business world. (The Tipping Point; Outliers, etc).

Consider that some people actually do worse in an office environment (for a number of reasons), and are better able to connect with their peers when engaging digitally. Add all of the people in the middle who are likely perfectly happy in either context and you have a sizable chunk of the population for whom this concern just does not apply. Of course there are others that struggle to connect digitally and do much better in an office environment, and for them there may be no replacement for being in the office.

No such thing as one size fits all, and curious that the only ones who seem to want to make it so are the pro-in-office folks (most remote work proponents are not seeking the outright abolishment of offices, they just want the flexibility to be there for people who want/need it). It is certainly also true that some industries/professions lend themselves more to remote work than others, I don't think anyone will dispute that either.

[duke2x]

As others have stated if my company started tracking this sort of behavior, I'd find a new company. And if my boss ever brought it up I'd ask him if the system showed the extra time I put in when we have deadlines. "That thing still work at midnight?" might be my first question.

We also use teams. I'm green right now. There are times when I'm at my desk (here or in the office) where I show as 'away' (yellow). Note that I can also click on my picture and set that status to anything I want. I also have Teams on my phone so if I ever got worried, I could just show as available from any bathroom anywhere.

I joined the F.I.R.E movement 7 years ago. While 2020-2022 has been really boring, I haven't been inspired to change. I was salary, which basically means you sell 100% of your time for a fixed fee. If you goof off too much during the day, you're going to work a night or weekend to make it up. It's an hourly labor problem.

Anybody encounter someone professional-level who is working 2 WFH jobs 9-5 at the same time?

[aimo]

I joined the F.I.R.E movement 7 years ago. While 2020-2022 has been really boring, I haven't been inspired to change. I was salary, which basically means you sell 100% of your time for a fixed fee. If you goof off too much during the day, you're going to work a night or weekend to make it up. It's an hourly labor problem.

Anybody encounter someone professional-level who is working 2 WFH jobs 9-5 at the same time?

Funny you should ask that. We thought we had in a local study coordinator. Her LinkedIn page was saying that she was still full-time at her job with "Us" but she also started a new full-time job with a private company in February. We thought How stupid to do something like that and post it on LinkedIn?!? Turns out, she IS doing a new full-time gig and only helping out on her old job part-time until they hire her replacement. And this is only happening b/c it takes our HR dept FOREVER to post positions, and it has nothing to do with the job market. Except they seem to be forced to hire the most inept and lazy human beings in our HR dept.

[Billy Dat]

I spent the first 12 years of my career working in an office and the past 16 working from home.

This period of time has also seen the maturation of video collaboration software (e.g. Teams, Hangouts, Zoom) which has made it a lot easier to form relationships with your virtual colleagues.

Al that being said, I agree that, as a young worker, being in an office was fun because there were a lot of other young people and we had fun at happy hours and the like. Still, that was a different time, before social media. I can't imagine not being in an office as a 23 year old but being 23 in the mid 90s was also a far cry from being 23 now.

If I had to choose, working from home wins every time. When I lived in Manhattan, my walking commute to work was 30 minutes, which was easy and gave me exercise. When I moved to Brooklyn, that commute jumped to 45 minutes and included a subway ride. Marriage took me to the burbs and that's when the 1 hour, 45 minute commute became a reality - 20 minutes of driving and walking from my house to the commuter train platform, 50 minute train ride to midtown and then either a 30 minute walk or 20 minutes on 2 subways. Once my office moved further downtown, the walk was no longer practical. So, that was 3 and a half hours, minimum, of commuting everyday. The train ride wasn't bad in and of itself, I used to do a lot of reading, but the rest was really lost time. So, the commute alone makes work-from-home, for me, a definitive winner. Being able to attend school functions (performances, graduations, 4:30PM-start-high-school games) is also something you can't put a price on. Not having a work wardrobe is also nice. Of course, it also means I really have no clothing between very casual attire and suits that i wear for conferences and client meetings.

The downside...you don't form the same relationships with your colleagues. If I could eliminate the commute, I'd choose to work in an office with others. I also miss the energy of NYC, even though I didn't do much with it every day. That is a double edged sword, the relentless pace of the city can also wear you down...the constant tension and worry in the 6-12 months after 9/11 come to mind, but it also puts a little juice into your step.

I was going to opine that virtual work pushes what has been dubbed the hyperactive hive mind (https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article...of-modern-work), where everyon needs to be connected all the time and, even if you are in an office together, electronic communication (e.g. email, slack, etc.) is still used for all communication because it creates a documentation trail (e.g. 'Well, I sent you an email about it...')...but that probably happens regardless of the environment. That aspect of modern work kind of sucks.

As for monitoring software, as a manager I wouldn't want to resort to that, nor would I want to be monitored. But, I am also someone who never monitors my kids' phones or tracks them with those Life360 apps. No one was looking over my shoulder when I was 16 and I wouldn't have liked it if they did! Maybe that's the GenX in me.

[Bluedog]

I joined the F.I.R.E movement 7 years ago. While 2020-2022 has been really boring, I haven't been inspired to change. I was salary, which basically means you sell 100% of your time for a fixed fee. If you goof off too much during the day, you're going to work a night or weekend to make it up. It's an hourly labor problem.

Anybody encounter someone professional-level who is working 2 WFH jobs 9-5 at the same time?

Not personally, but I've seen some articles in the WSJ and alike about it:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/these-p...bs-11628866529
https://www.wsj.com/podcasts/your-mo...d-156555f2123a

[budwom]

seems like a decent time to mention something that happened at my long time employer 40 years ago. (It was a gigantic multinational corporation that somehow made gobs of money, until it didn't, despite lots of bureaucratic silliness.)

Guy named Ram was in the department, wanted to transfer to a location 200 miles away, so we had the obligatory party with cake, off he goes. Six weeks later our manager gets a call from the other location "when are you going to let Ram join us?"
Ram had evidently laid low for six weeks, drawing his salary, before anyone noticed he wasn't working anywhere...

[Billy Dat]

Ethan Strauss with a compelling retort to Gladwell
https://houseofstrauss.substack.com/...m-home-is-good