
Work from home is dead, long live work from anywhere - joeyespo
https://techcrunch.com/2020/05/18/work-from-home-is-dead-long-live-work-from-anywhere/
======
blarglechien
I can work remotely since years, I often did.

I work for a company with a few offices, none is less than 500 miles aways
from where I live.

I will likely never go back to those office.

But I could not picture myself working "on the road". I did it, it's stressful
and leads to less productivity on my side.

Have you try an intense and involve pair programing session from a 'normal'
coffee shop? It's frustrating. Noises, and lack of secondary monitors make it
so.

Pretty often, I would have a week or two where I work from somewhere else, but
I secure the place in advance , the network connection, and try to work it out
with my co-workers if it's imply separate timezone. ( yay for daily stand up
at 4AM ! )

I did work from a van from a few weeks. I was actually not working, mostly
reacting. ( taking meeting, working on tickets as they are assigned to me...
but never taking a deep breath and looking at how makes things better on the
long run. )

Edit : my english is broken

~~~
asdff
The coffee shop only needs headphones, but I think there's demand there for a
coffee shop that also has desks with monitors that you could hook into/rent.
I'd love to be able to just rent desk space around town if it's cheap enough
to pull me from home and has some perks that make it worth it, like a great
internet connection or if it was more walkable to home vs work (I live in a
city).

~~~
nine_k
So, they just will become coworking spaces, with additional amenities (4K
monitors, standing desks, advanced chairs) available at extra pay. Maybe you
could even book them for a couple weeks, or months, to be yours.

Then imagine that your employer would offer you to compensate the coworking
space's cost. And maybe the corporate Slack channel would start coordinating
colleagues to go to the same cafe / coworking space to improve communication.
Etc.

And all this stuff would do nothing to limit one's exposure to viruses and
other pathogens; if anything, it would make the situation worse, by mixing
people even more.

Work from _home_ (or its equivalent, like a long-term remote resort in a
cheaper country) makes sense.

Work from a well-situated, well-stoked office makes sense.

Work form "anywhere" makes way, way less sense; one must be hard-pressed by
circumstances to choose it.

~~~
badestrand
> Work form "anywhere" makes way, way less sense; one must be hard-pressed by
> circumstances to choose it.

I like your analytical approach and you are right: why go to a coworking space
when there's not much difference to a real office anyway?

I think the answer for me lies in the _flexibility_ : In a coworking space I
can come in or leave at whatever time I want. When I have an unproductive day
I can go home at noon and when I feel like working on Saturday I will do so.
Offices just have this peer pressure for Mo-Fr 9-6 that you can't evade and
coworkers or your manager will raise their brows if you deviate from it. Even
in coworking spaces I actually work a very regular schedule, but I just
dislike not having the possibility to break out of it.

~~~
nine_k
From where I sit, it looks slightly differently.

Nobody cares where you physically are, as long as you do your work and are
available for communication. _But_ people do care very much whether you're
available for questions / quick to react if something happens, and can produce
something by an agreed-upon date.

That is, stopping my work at noon because I can't persuade myself to work
would be frowned upon, whether I were in the office or WFH, unless I'd say
that I'm not feeling well. (Which is probably a good way to frame it.)

Likely I'm just quite privileged by now; this is the norm around me now, and
was the norm for maybe 10 years, but definitely won't be the norm 20 years
ago, when I was not a senior enough engineer yet.

------
ineedasername
_> from a hotel_

It always frustrated me that, prior to this whole shutdown, my workplace had a
hard "no work from home" policy. But when I had to travel, they were perfectly
fine with me working from my hotel room.

~~~
manquer
It was never about security or productivity of the team per se.

It was always to do with HR's concerns about the policy being used as
workaround for taking unpaid leave - not saying it is right, just how it is.
When you are travelling personally - you are already on leave HR don't care
whether work happens or not ( your manager might). If it was official travel
then in HR's mind you are not using the policy for as a paid leave so they
don't care.

~~~
ravenstine
As if it should even matter! _(I 'm not saying you're wrong, just that the
viewpoint you describe is ridiculous and archaic.)_

If a business can't measure its productivity absent the employees in the
office, then it's not a real business. Now a business owner might think "Hey,
I _paid_ for those hours, so if they aren't working every minute of every work
hour, I'm losing money!" That might make sense in a "production heavy"
environment, like factory labor, construction, fire fighting, etc., but there
is a growing number of businesses that can operate asynchronously, and
existing businesses should still consider shifting towards asynchronicity
because, as much as it might seem more expensive on the surface, said
businesses can already operate at lower base overhead, and even if an employee
takes hours off their day to travel, run errands, etc., you're still usually
paying them a base salary to get X work done by Y deadline. Being worried
about an employee "not working" for part of the day because they work remotely
is nonsensical for office type jobs where employees tend to work solitarily.

~~~
manquer
Like you say it shouldn’t be hard in many industries .

However measuring outcomes is hard , developing good outcome metrics is such
diversified workforces as knowledge economy is not easy and goodhart law make
is not easy to solve

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tensor
This article misses the fact that there are IP and HR legalities about where
work is done. It's not that companies are simply being mean, their hands are
often tied on these matters.

Changing countries, or working abroad, can affect numerous things including
taxes, employee rights, medical benefits, and ip assignments. Even working
from different states can have tax implications.

~~~
Kye
Remote-first companies seem to have an edge here since they can handle these
situations as they come without a whole structure in the way that assumes
everyone works in an office.

~~~
tensor
Even remote-first companies have limits on where they hire. Usually they hire
in a given number of countries for example, but not all countries. Also, when
you move countries in these companies you still need to get approval so that
the legalities can be taken care of.

~~~
p_l
Depends on how employment is done. If the company accepts B2B-style
contracting, it's quite common for the only issue to be "ok, what timezone
you're going to be in?"

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rconti
My long term dream has been to live overseas with my wife for a couple of
years. Preferably continental europe for travel opportunities. But, she has to
work at an english-speaking hospital that will accept her credentials.

Other options are sabbaticals, early retirement, whatever. Not many
complicating factors other than a house (can rent that out), and our cats.

We generally take 1-2 international vacations per year, so my middle-term
dream it to tack on work remote to that. Fly to a country, rent an AirBnB,
work remote for a week or two, have my wife join me, then do another couple
weeks there as a vacation. So I can double my time away without burning
through my PTO in no time flat.

~~~
mikekchar
I've done this kind of thing. It's OK, but actually significantly less fun
than you might imagine (if you are working). The problem is that you are
working all day 5 days a week and then you are tired during the evening.
Everything is new and so you don't have a rhythm going so it's a bit tiring.
You get your weekends, but again, it flies by pretty quickly. It's also really
tempting _not_ to travel on the weekends because you are tired and then you
finish up your time and discover that you haven't done a quarter of the things
you wanted to.

My biggest piece of advice is to "practice" first where you live. Empty your
refrigerator and pantry. Work during the day and have the adventure of finding
food by only going to ethnic supermarkets that you have never been to before.
Go out to only restaurants that you've never been to before. Etc, etc.

On the weekends, travel -- even if only to the next town over. Don't use your
car. Take a bus, train or whatever. Stay over night. Go hiking. Talk to the
locals, etc, etc. Don't stay home.

If you get good at it and you can maintain your energy it will help you a lot
when you travel and work. Before Covid, my wife and I would sometimes hop on a
train on a Friday (we live in Japan). I would actually work on the train and
then I would finish the day in a hotel. Then we would spend Saturday doing
tourist things and come home on the Sunday. That worked pretty well for me.
But there is _no_ rest!

Also, if you want to work while traveling somewhere (in a car if your wife is
driving, on a bus, train, etc) I recommend taking the day off and trying it
before you try to do it on a real work day. It's actually quite difficult and
requires some setup to get everything working well (good internet connection,
setup of a laptop so you can work in a tight space, bright windows shining on
your screen, dealing with batteries, etc, etc).

Oddly, I'm super productive in some weird spaces: the shinkansen (bullet
train), MacDonald's, highway bus, hotel room, car (when I'm charging it --
electric car), sitting outside in summer in the shade at a Shinto Shrine. But
I am completely unproductive in others: airport, airplane (can't open the
laptop fully!), car (when it is moving), the beach (too bright and there is
sand everywhere).

~~~
em-bee
not being able to work at a beach is a problem only because of lack of demand.
it's absolutely solveable. it's possible to make screens that work on very
bright environments, and splash proof casing helps with the sand.

when i was using an OLPC XO as my portable travel laptop, i was able to work
at a beach just fine.

~~~
mikekchar
Yep. I'm personally waiting for the day when I can get an e-ink laptop. It
would be amazing. I don't need color. Just grey scale and even 20 FPS would be
fine. But that's not what the greater market demands, unfortunately.

------
odyssey7
Correct me if I'm wrong on this.

I'm under the impression that if I pay WeWork to be able to work at their
tables and drink their coffee, that's tax-deductible and a business expense.
But if I buy drinks at a coffee shop to work there, it isn't? [1]

This is something that doesn't make a lot of sense to me, as coffee shops are
sort of a classic place for a freelancer to find space away from home to focus
better.

[1] [https://www.sapling.com/40999/6-surprising-tax-deductions-
fo...](https://www.sapling.com/40999/6-surprising-tax-deductions-for-
freelancers)

~~~
mikekchar
What is allowable as a deduction for taxes is not really based on logic or
fairness. We don't have King Solomon sitting there adjudicating what is the
reasonable course of action. There are just coarse rules.

I'm in Japan, so my rules are likely different than yours. However, if I'm
traveling for work, I can expense the cost of a place to work (including a
cafe). In fact, my accountant demands it because if the government doesn't see
some expenses when I travel, they start to get suspicious that I didn't travel
at all. However, if I travel for my own benefit (even down to the corner
coffee shop), then it is a personal expense. I can expense it if it is a
_monthly_ cost (and hence a necessary business expense of providing a place to
work), but not a one-off case (a personal expense because I'm bored of where
I'm working). There _is_ (or was -- I haven't checked recently) a cafe in one
of the neighbouring towns to me that rents tables by the month for exactly
this reason. It's very affordable, because the tables are hot-swappable and
they over-subscribe.

Before Covid-19 I used to go to me mother in law's for a week ever month or
so. I used to work in the hot spring. It's quite cheap: about $10 for the
whole day. They have tables and chairs and power and a cafe (terrible, though
-- one of the only really bad restaurants I've ever found in Japan). Plus I
get to soak in the hot spring a couple of times during the day to relax. I
bought a month's worth of tickets in the hope that I could convince my
accountant to consider it an expense, but he said it was a no go. Still, it's
totally worth it (as long as you can manage working in a very chaotic and
noisy environment -- I have no problem with that, personally).

~~~
em-bee
so you need that coffee subscription

------
aSplash0fDerp
WFA just needs a cute mascot.

[https://m.youtube.com/results?search_query=Kei+RV](https://m.youtube.com/results?search_query=Kei+RV)

Without a portable office, WFA is a tough sell.

With it, it`s common sense.

------
jedberg
"But what about the taxes and legal issues?"

There are a bunch of comments in here about that. And it's true, it's a huge
pain in the ass. It's why I always prefer to hire people in states I'm already
operating, to say nothing of people outside the US.

But I also see improvements every year. My payroll provider takes care of more
of these issues each year, and there are other startups coming up that help
you take care of these things as well.

There are companies out there that will deal with everything for you. You pick
the person you want and then that company "hires" them and then rents them
back out to you, taking a small piece of their salary for their HR services.

If work from everywhere becomes pervasive, I suspect two things will happen.
One, a bunch of companies will spring up to streamline the process, and two,
the big companies with lobbying powers will lobby for tax code and IP law
changes to streamline the process.

~~~
cmdshiftf4
>the big companies with lobbying powers will lobby for tax code and IP law
changes to streamline the process.

There is literally no benefit to a given state, or country, to make it easier
for jobs to leave their borders.

If we see a larger push by tech firms to let people work remotely, I
personally believe we'll see government intervention in the name of the above.
I also believe that, in the face of such a push, tech workers should seriously
consider unionizing.

~~~
jedberg
> There is literally no benefit to a given state, or country, to make it
> easier for jobs to leave their borders.

Of course not. But there is benefit for making it easier for people to live
within those borders and pay taxes within those borders while working for a
foreign company.

What if the states stopped requiring businesses to file taxes on their
employee's behalf?

What if the feds set up a system where I just report my employee's tax ID and
how much they made to the Feds, and then the Feds share that with the states
and each entity just sends a bill to the employee or to the business owner?

What if the feds pass some laws about autofiling of taxes. I just submit my
employee's pay and benefits to a national register, maybe send some default
amount of money, and everything else is taken care of for me, and they send me
a refund if I overpay or send the employee a bill if I underpay?

There are lots of ways to streamline the system without losing tax revenue.

Most of them involve making the government responsible for collecting taxes
instead of businesses.

------
Grustaf
Pretty sure work from home always meant work from anywhere.

~~~
bretpiatt
As an employer anywhere makes it real complicated. Many jurisdictions have a
tax on wages earned while there, couple of big examples CA, NY and then even
NYC on city income tax.

If you choose to work in NYC as an employer I'm obligated to collect and remit
tax there. For individuals or on a one off basis this doesn't get tracked or
audited much. If it became systematic it would.

This doesn't even contemplate the complexity if you choose to work from a
different country. As an employer if I allow you to change your permanent
address to France am I bound to manage your employment under French labor law?
IANAL but I believe I am.

What if I knowingly allow you to work from a country where you keep your
permanent address in the US and you are on a vacation visa instead of one
where work is permitted. As a business am I obligated to report or am I
running the risk of penalties from that country too?

Anywhere is really complicated.

~~~
jbn
w.r.t ". As an employer if I allow you to change your permanent address to
France am I bound to manage your employment under French labor law?", IANAL
either, but I know for a fact that this is the case. The tax man wants his
cut, so the employer would have to establish a (subsidiary) company in France,
and that becomes the local employer. There's absolutely no way you could be an
employee (in the French labor law sense, which is very specific) of any
foreign company while working in France (that would be "clandestine labor",
see
[https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travail_dissimul%C3%A9_en_Fran...](https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travail_dissimul%C3%A9_en_France)).

It's not specific to France, either. All countries need their tax base (well
not just taxation, there's also retirement/joblessness/healthcare
contributions, etc...).

------
zests
Working from home, and more importantly the increased likelihood of having a
remote position in the future, has inspired me to eventually take on the life
of a digital nomad.

I want to travel the United States seeing and living in as many places as
possible. Unlike several people posting here I wouldn’t mind working out of
coffee shops or with just a laptop.

I see opportunity for adventure while I am still young. I don’t mind the
squalor of living out of my car and showering in gyms if it means I get to
experience more from life.

What’s the catch? I have no idea what this lifestyle would actually bring. If
anyone knows what it is like please share your experiences.

~~~
technothrasher
_I have no idea what this lifestyle would actually bring. If anyone knows what
it is like please share your experiences._

[https://www.amazon.com/Road-Jack-
Kerouac/dp/0140283293](https://www.amazon.com/Road-Jack-Kerouac/dp/0140283293)

~~~
selimthegrim
Or for a slightly more positive take on the South than that book

[https://www.amazon.com/Walk-Across-America-Peter-
Jenkins/dp/...](https://www.amazon.com/Walk-Across-America-Peter-
Jenkins/dp/006095955X)

------
hirundo
VR is approaching a threshold that I hope will make work-from-anywhere more
practical for me. I've tried working on the road but never get near my home
productivity. But if I could isolate by plopping on a headset that reproduces
my home environment with umpteen floating screens it might work. I know just
one dev that works inside of VR. With a bit more resolution and portability
I'll probably join him.

~~~
wayoutthere
I can't handle more than an hour at a time inside a VR headset before I start
to go cross-eyed. I couldn't imagine trying to work that way.

------
ulisesrmzroche
Who writes this shit? No one expects you to work from the hospital waiting
room while your mother is in an ICU.

------
outlace
It seems the preference to work from home is pretty strong amongst software
engineers. As a physician who was thrust into trying telemedicine, I couldn’t
stand it. I would never voluntarily opt to do telemedicine. Besides delivering
much worse care, I love being “in the office” with the camaraderie of being
physically at work.

~~~
petra
If given private rooms, and not cubicles, i bet many programmers won't mind
going into the office that much.

~~~
whateveracct
Why spend 8 office hrs + commute when I can spend half that working from home?
That's an absurd amount of wasted hours that I can now reap.

------
winrid
Did this when I was 19. Lived in my car and wrote code and got paid for it.
That's how I ended up in SV from the east coast. Amazing trip!

------
growlist
The last thing many managers want is a flourishing remote workforce because it
highlights said managers' superfluousness.

------
Traster
>My colleagues and I published a couple of different views on the future of
“work from home” and remote work last Friday — a story that, if analytics is
any sign, really struck a nerve with many of you.

This has become like Donald Trump or Tesla. Article after article that adds
practically nothing on value because the headline drives clicks. This is just
yet another "Now we can do _anything_ because I'm a tech journalist, not
someone who has spent 10 seconds thinking about any of the implications of
what I'm saying*.

~~~
ErikAugust
I think this is a valid point.

Analytics cause a terrible feedback loop where authors just beat a topic to
death with quick keyword-laden opinion articles for clicks. A topic that could
use seriously exploration like "Work From Home" often just becomes some sort
of meme to exploit.

------
kerng
Biggest challenge might be keeping track of locations to pay taxes accordingly

------
jcfrei
Kinda sounds like the vision Adam Neumann had for WeWork.

~~~
ineedasername
Only, you know, without the need for WeWork.

------
christiansakai
What if the country has sanctions?

