
Let employees work from home - douche
http://www.midnightdba.com/Jen/2017/05/employers-let-people-work-home/
======
bitL
The crab mentality here is really appalling :-(

I work remotely for 6+ years; during that time I created some unique
algorithms, traveled around the world, met diverse types of people giving me
unexpected inspirations from which business benefited tremendously (unique
stuff nobody else has). I have the big 4 companies trying to contact me all
the time if I wouldn't want to work for them, however seeing inside e.g.
crammed offices of Google in Zurich with monitor next to monitor, makes it
very unappealing.

Remote work requires focus and discipline. Focus is way easier than in an open
office, discipline is more difficult. I still remember finishing some server
part and tests while laying on a beach in Barcelona using their public Wi-Fi,
getting tanned, and whenever I felt like, dipped into the sea - it was super
energizing and motivating to continue working. Also viewing sunset above the
place of refuge on the Hawaiian Big Island from a rented cottage, while
sipping a cocktail and working on some advanced algorithm was superbly
motivating. Just because some managers need to control everyone around and
enforce the same misery on their subordinates doesn't mean there aren't better
ways to work. It's actually stupid not to give people WFH and make them
miserable commuting (some people spend up to 6 hours/day in the traffic). The
technology is there, but the perceived lack of control and insecurity of power
structures must spoil it for everyone, "'cause everybody is doing it in the
office and it can't be done other way well". Phew

~~~
korzun
You are an exception. I was a huge advocate for working from home because I
would get things done and end up saving two hours of commute.

Your perception of this approach changes relatively quickly in a managerial
role.

If you are shaving 1-2 hours off your commute, then the overall output should
be in line with whatever it was in the office. I probably met two other
engineers that kept that in check.

~~~
bitL
It's not for everyone. You can often see middle-aged men escaping their homes
and working long hours because they feel miserable around their wives; for
them office is the only "safe space" they have. But for self-motivated high-
performing communicative people WFH might be a much better arrangement. They
might have a different problem - not knowing when to stop and risking a severe
burnout which would be limited by office hours.

~~~
dade_
I have seen this too, but it turns out they also hide from their wife at the
bar afterward.

------
jasode
_> Objections to work from home fall apart_

Essays from workers like Jen McCown isn't going to work.

What works is to have massively successful businesses that beat the
competition _because their employees work remotely_. Since no multi-billion
dollar business has demonstrated that specific cause & effect, the idea
doesn't gain traction.

Yes, businesses like Basecamp and Automattic have remote workers but I'm
talking about significant business successes on the scale of
Google/Apple/SpaceX/etc. If a remote workforce can demonstrate unequivocal
superiority, there would be endless case studies about it in Harvard Business
Review and every manager would be copying it like the Six Sigma craze a few
decades ago.

What the WFH movement needs is _evidence of massive business success_ instead
of essays. So far, the real-world evidence just hasn't tipped the scales yet.

~~~
Veen
I don't follow your logic.

The vast majority of businesses aren't like Google or Facebook. The vast
majority of the nation's GDP isn't created by companies like Google and
Facebook. Hundreds of thousands of businesses are the size of Automattic,
Basecamp, or smaller. Those businesses employ the the vast majority of
workers. Therefore, Basecamp and Automattic are excellent role models.

Unequivocal success does not mean the same thing as Unicorn. A sustainable and
profitable business of any size is an unequivocal success.

~~~
maxxxxx
I am a big proponent of remote work but I think it's harder to manage a remote
company. Automattic and Basecamp have excellent people in leadership who have
a clear understanding of their company.

A lot of mediocre middleman managers in the typical company aren't capable of
setting expectations and evaluating work results.

You need very good workers and leaders in a remote company.

~~~
RHSeeger
> You need very good workers and leaders in a remote company.

I think that's a point that some people miss. To have remote workers, you need
people who can effectively work remotely. It's a learned skill, like any
other, and not everyone will be good at it.

Saying "we're only local" or "we're only remote" is a bad idea, you can have
both and call it a win on both ends.

~~~
maxxxxx
"Saying "we're only local" or "we're only remote" is a bad idea, you can have
both and call it a win on both ends"

Honestly, I think it needs to be one or the other. Mixing some remote people
into an otherwise local team often doesn't work.

~~~
ntsplnkv2
A big thing in this thread is "fully remote."

The fact is WFH does not need to be a full time thing for most companies. Just
offer it as a benefit-if you want, you can work from home 2 days a week, or
WFH if you need to be home to pick up a package or have a doctors appointment.

That alone will make your company much more attractive.

~~~
maxxxxx
2-3 days per week should be a no-brainer. Especially for developers writing
code.

------
barrkel
I worked remotely, from home, for 5 years. These days, I work mostly in the
office, with a 40 minute commute each way, despite the option for occasional
working from home.

There's a few reasons to prefer working in the office. The single biggest one
is the hard delimiting of the work day; when I'm not in the office, I'm not
working, I'm not available on email or chat, and unless it's an exceptional
situation, nobody will phone me either. My evenings belong to me and my loved
ones only. That's precious. It's far too tempting to let one thing bleed into
the other when working from home.

The biggest secondary one is influence on the business. Simply being present
when decisions are being made, whether they're technical or business, means
you have a chance to speak up and help set direction. Stuff that emanates over
remoteable media like chat, email, project planning tools tends to be after
the meeting, not before or instead of the meeting. This doesn't change for a
company until most / all of the workforce is remote, and that's simply not
true for most companies. If you're interested in a career, turning up is a
significant boost for most people.

The final one is bandwidth and transaction costs. Chat is a dreadful medium
for remote communication - if you've ever had to sit there waiting for a
reply, and wonder whether it would be more efficient to switch back to what
you were doing - it's almost impossible to come to a decision in good time in
chat. I've seen 5 minute conversations take half an hour. Starting a video
chat is far better, but it has a big barrier to entry; it's not like talking
to someone a few desks over. Try and do it with 4 or more people, and it turns
into a coordination problem, people dropping in and out, someone eating while
not on mute, synchronization for startup, etc.

Frankly, I prefer email. You can put together a logical argument, a coherent
or strawman proposal, and discuss things at length point by point. It's much
higher bandwidth. But too few people read long emails, and even fewer respond
correctly with inline replies. The days when people were trained on newsgroup
netiquette are long gone.

~~~
mabbo
> when I'm not in the office, I'm not working

This resonates very strongly with me. A "wfh" day for me means I get half as
much done. My home is where I keep all my distractions!

> You can put together a logical argument, a coherent or strawman proposal,
> and discuss things at length point by point. It's much higher bandwidth. But
> too few people read long emails

My trick for this: I write the email, then I go back to the to start and write
a 3-4 sentence summary of the rest of it. Often doing that leads me to delete
the rest of the email entirely. Always check: are you writing at length to
help someone else, or just to clarify your own thoughts?

~~~
RHSeeger
I had a manager that asked me to put summaries at the top of my emails. It was
super effective.

I also label sections as to who they target (ex, when something is a technical
explanation that not everyone needs) and add footnotes (with raw data and the
like) when it's appropriate.

I'm a serial long-emailer, but I've learned how to interact with normal
society ;)

------
radmuzom
As a divorced single guy with not too many friends, I look forward every day
to go to work and have people around me. I interact socially only with three
or four of my office mates. Anyway, I may be the exception, but I am not an
employee who wants to work from home.

~~~
mabbo
Even as a married guy, apart from my wife the people I speak most to are the
people at my office. I'd go nuts if I worked solely from home.

Are you also in the 30-something friend-slump? My parents (late 60s) have a
more active social life than me.

~~~
sjg007
Meetups and friends of spouses etc... Golf works as well.

------
rmah
This article essentially boiled down to: I want X. A few companies already
offer X. You should offer X too.

There are sometimes advantages to offering full or partial work-from-home
options to employees. For some projects and company cultures, it can work
well. But honestly, this blog post was a rather shallow argument in favor of
it.

~~~
Qwertious
I think what the article is _trying_ to say is that employers' arguments are
more often bullshit than legitimate (and obviously, both sets of employers
think their arguments are legitimate), so usually they should just give it a
shot.

~~~
dsacco
Unfortunately, that's not meaningfully different from, "I want X, you should
offer X." It is basically the same as saying, "I want X, some companies do X,
give it a shot" in persuasive power.

I love working from home and have done it for most of my career. The next job
I take will probably be in an office though for a change of pace. I honestly
find that despite my personal affection for it, most arguments in favor of
remote work really just aren't very compelling.

"Some companies do it successfully" is not compelling to most companies. It's
a disingenuous portrayal of the real difficulties and sacrifices that need to
occur for remote work to be successful. Remote work rarely works partially,
because without a deep seated remote culture the employees who are not in the
office will be fundamentally left out of subtle but important group
interactions. If you are the only remote employee on your team, they're not
going to video conference with you to have a spur of the moment discussion
that leads to a business insight. Conversely, asking a company without a
remote culture to change is asking all of the employees who are already there
to embrace a new, unfamiliar culture where they can't just lean over and ask
someone a question.

It's my personal opinion that there is a very vocal minority that wants remote
work to succeed, a more silent swath larger than the first that is
indifferent, followed by a supermajority that silently disapproves (or at
least, wouldn't want to work in such an environment). Even though I enjoy it,
it appears selfish to me to ask companies to offer remote work without
significant evidence it will work for them, all the while imposing a real
communication cost on employees that work there who already thoroughly enjoy
the status quo.

It seems to me like it's similar to a lot of other things in professional
life: you can't have everything, and if this is really important to you then
find a job that offers it. But don't expect companies to alter their
organizational machinery to cater to you when they have no reason to.

~~~
ntsplnkv2
Vacation days weren't compelling either. There is no business case for
vacation days like you're asking for, except, similar to WFH options, it makes
for happier employees. I'm sure you'd scoff at a company offering no vacation.

Also, it's sad to label employees preferring benefits and choice as selfish,
vs huge companies sitting on piles of cash maybe losing .00000005% in
productivity, if that's even true.

The same old arguments get trot out, and your arguments show where you are
professionally. Business insight? Sorry to say but most people work to collect
a paycheck. They don't make decisions, and typically their "insights" are
ignored by management anyway. For every "insight" from a group discussion,
there are just as many people working on their own, making important
discoveries or taking steps forward.

This isn't band of brothers. I don't need subtle discussions or have to pick
up on social cues nor am I a manager who has decision making power. I don't
need to form lasting bonds with anyone. I just want flexibility with my hours
to make my life more convenient-and a place that values that will get a lot
more out of me than a place that doesn't. That is what the essay says: if you
want to expand your options in hiring, offer at least partial WFH. And put me
in the boat that agrees with that.

------
camelNotation
I think WFH is a great idea, but until we can do multi-user video conferencing
over the average home internet connection, it just isn't going to be as good
as in-person interactions. However, once we can reliably see one another's
faces in HD and share screens at the same time, it might even be superior to
sitting next to someone and having them try to look over your shoulder as you
show them something or ask a question. WFH is all about communication tech. If
it's high grade, WFH works. If it's low grade, it doesn't.

~~~
beachbum8029
Doesn't Google Hangouts let you do this? Is the average home connection not
good enough for hangouts?

~~~
twothamendment
Just today we tried slack for video and screen share (I can only view in
chrome on Linux, but that was enough for today). Slack was stable, clear,
didn't drop and didn't heat up computers like Hangouts. Our two failed
attempts on hangouts were right before trying slack.

We have on our list to request early access to Hangout Meet (if that is the
right name).

We have a remote team, all with average home connections. The ironic part is
when we try to have a meeting with the office and their network is the issue
and all of us at home are still on the call and seeing clearly seeing each
other.

------
throwaway2016a
I like working from home sometimes. A line is crossed for me when a company
goes 100% remote.

I would go crazy working from home day in and day out. I actually did have a
borderline nervous breakdown years ago because I couldn't take being alone so
much of the day. In fact if I have to work from home full time again I would
pay to have a membership in a co-working space just to be around other humans.

I think work from home full time reinforces the idea that programmers and
anti-social and not creative. The opposite is true for many (most?) of us. And
for people who are social and creative you need other humans around.

I say let people work from home but make sure they have the option of an
office.

~~~
schtitt
Curious about the implied link between social-ness and creativity.. care to
expound? I can think of several individuals who are highly creative but who
prefer being alone.

~~~
throwaway2016a
> Curious about the implied link between social-ness and creativity

They are linked in that I think they are both related to working in an office.

\- Social interactive as it relates to an office environment is fairly obvious

\- As far as creativity... that requires more explanation. That was more a
response to people saying things like "I can get more code done working from
home"... as a manager who also still codes (a lot) I can say, I am paying you
to solve problems not write code. If the problem gets solved I don't care if
it is 10000 lines of code or 10. Solving problems takes creativity. And for
many people, creativity is enhanced by being around other people. Other people
expose you to new ideas. You can still do that work from home but but I think
an office accelerates. Granted, history is full of people who were immensely
creative but also recluses, so that can swing both ways.

~~~
dasmoth
_I am paying you to solve problems not write code._

Really glad to hear this, it's something that people seem to easily lose sight
off

 _If the problem gets solved I don 't care if it is 10000 lines of code or 10.
Solving problems takes creativity. And for many people, creativity is enhanced
by being around other people_

That may be true for some people, but it's diametrically the opposite for
others. Partly just pure personality, but I'd also argue that working with
others biases towards "fine grained" solutions where your contribution
dovetails with other pieces. Working alone for non-trivial increments of time
makes it easier to step back and think about whether there's a single piece
that can solve the whole problem.

Finally, the specific case of WFH often (not always) makes it easier to step
away from the computer for an hour or two when you're stuck, perhaps prepare
lunch or even go for a walk. That's a far more fertile setup for inspiration
to strike than sitting in front of a blank text file.

------
GoToRO
The problem with work from home for companies is that they need managers that
can actually evaluate someone's work. Most of the time this is not happening
(either there are too many things to know or the manger never did any actual
work for a very long time).

Also the problem is that companies want to hire the best and the brightest and
then they quickly turn around and they don't trust their employees. Funny
enough this is exactly how communist countries operated: they needed very
smart people to fight the West but then they could not trust them because
smart people had a tendency to like the West.

~~~
yourapostasy
> ...they need managers that can actually evaluate someone's work. Most of the
> time this is not happening...

When the situation that managers in aggregate do not know how to evaluate
their staff's work prevails at a company, forcing everyone on-prem and letting
the managers evaluate _that_ is likely what causes a lot of the organizational
dysfunction we talk about. WFH definitely offers managers fewer readily-
available cues to evaluate their direct reports, but I wonder what a
quantification of those cues versus those available on-prem by a
professionally-trained anthropology observation team might turn up.

I hear a lot of stories of people getting pissed off that a less-capable
coworker is far more successful within the organization because the coworker
was fantastic at say, face-to-face networking within the organization. Could
such activity be much more difficult to pull off in a WFH-dominant
organization, and fool managers who are deficient staff evaluators in an on-
prem-dominant organization, sufficient to offset the drawbacks of WFH?

To a certain extent, I think the WFH-versus-on-prem debate obscures an
overarching requirement that managers still must sweat out the details, and
cannot delegate to a set of company policies the need to lead and manage, a
core component of which is knowing your direct reports at a granular level in
many dimensions.

------
neogodless
We know that workers want choice, autonomy. Whether they really want to work
from home is only an unanswered question because of a bigger question that
isn't always answered very well.

How productive am I?

When teams do well in defining production metrics (aka key performance
indicators/KPI), and employees have some way to know what conditions work best
for optimizing their KPI, they figure out if they want to work from home, the
office, the subway, etc.

I was probably most productive at a job that just had an enjoyable
environment, three-quarter height cubicles (i.e. almost private, reasonable
sound division) that were tucked away from phone users and conference rooms,
solid team contribution on projects (inclusion of key players in kick-off
meetings, without excessive status checking, but cooperative design from
developers, design, business analysts, etc.) and... very occasional work from
home. It helped that I lived less than 10 minutes away, too, and could come in
at (what I consider) a reasonable hour, rather than forcing myself awake.

In addition, we had "billable" targets - we'd work together on estimates, and
we'd try to spend 80% or more of our time measurably attributable to projects.
We could readily access this information, and know how well we were doing.

But... there are other jobs where remote work is far superior. Noisy open
spaces, cramped workspaces with not enough monitor real estate. Then I just
want to get out of there. I want to have the choice, and the ability to know
if I made the right choice, by looking at how productive I am.

------
coffeemug
Efficacy of remote workers is just a thing some people really want to be true,
but it's not clear that it's true at all. (It's also not clear that it isn't,
but the evidence is nowhere near as overwhelming as some people make it out to
be)

------
ksk
I don't believe WFH actually works (as an exclusive means of working for
everyone). I have done the WFH thing for a couple of years at a startup (where
everyone was remote), and even leaving aside the camaraderie aspect,
collaboration was always a challenge.

You're forced to give up several ways of communication which are valuable. You
can't walk into a colleagues office for a quick whiteboard discussion. You
have to schedule time when both of you are available. Not only that if the
discussion brings up things that other people are working on you have to again
wait and schedule time with them too. You also can't pickup on non-verbal
cues, which can tell you if they're nervous/apprehensive/unhappy about
something in the project, etc. You give up laughing at silly things over
lunch, or sharing a quick joke as you pass someone in the hallway, or giving
someone a hug on their birthday. All the little things that do lift your
spirit when you're frustrated or feeling a bit low.

------
II2II
To The Author:

Please show us some numbers to back up the claims? The few numbers that you do
provide either fail to support your argument or can be construed to contradict
it. (I am thinking of: everybody wants to the option to work from home
followed by 35% would change jobs for the option to work from home, even if it
is part-time.)

Also, anecdotes don't cut it. You can find counter examples to almost anything
that is based upon human nature, particularly when it involves self-assessment
or personal opinions. Businesses will care more about the quantifiable. The
bigger the business, the more likely they are to care about the average over a
large group of workers (rather than individual cases).

I am sorry, but most of the debate over working from home is based upon what
people want rather than what businesses or even their employees need. Your
article does nothing to change that. If you want to change people's opinions,
please be more persuasive by dealing with the quantifiable rather than the
subjective.

~~~
JenMcCown
Hi there, author here. The article actually links to a NY Times article and
the Gallup study that it cites. But remember, this is an opinion piece. I've
been in the industry for 15 years...hang on, no, it's 20 years, but who's
counting? And except for those stats and linked articles, these are my
observations and opinions.

I can't write an article that will convince 100% of the people. A book deal
and a set of long discussions wouldn't convince 100%. If you disagree with me,
that's fine. I spent my time knocking down the most common arguments I've
heard, and a little time talking up the observed benefits.

One final point: I think companies should take "what people want" as part of
their career into account! Even big business doesn't completely dismiss trends
in the workplace - which are indeed driven, in part by what workers demand.
More places offer considerations for ergonomics, pleasant work spaces, tea and
coffee rooms, snacks, health programs, and so on. This is just one more thing,
and this is my small contribution to the talks.

------
nzonbi
Imagine how much energy the world would save if most people where working from
home. Electricity, transport fuel. How much less pollution and traffic jams.
How much less need to build cars and transport systems. How much extra time to
enjoy life would people have by not commuting.

With so huge positives. I don't understand why not more research is put into
work-from home.

------
peapicker
I don't want to work from home, thanks anyway. Except on bad weather days.

Then again, I'm at a senior principle engineer level, and need to have face
time with my VPs and directors in addition to other devs. I don't believe it
would be possible to work at the level I'm at remotely, nor to be promoted to
such a level. And my commute isn't horrid at ~25min.

~~~
JenMcCown
"Except bad weather days."

Exactly! Your company has to offer any kind of WFH to allow that!

~~~
peapicker
And I do work from home on bad weather days so this isn't an issue

~~~
JenMcCown
That's marvelous. The point is that many companies don't allow that, and
should.

------
jefe_
Was in a management meeting the other week where HR mentioned they were
considering implementing a more official work-from-home policy. What we're
trying to get away from is hourly employees 'working from home' when really
they're sick, by offering formalized remote work opportunities. Sounded great
until they mentioned the 'monitoring systems' they were evaluating. I shared
my very strong opposition to the proposed monitoring systems, went home and
crafted a Less-Orwellian Remote Office policy. Shared the policy with HR the
next day, and they really liked it, agreeing there were ways to accomplish the
goals without surveillance.

Writing the policy was trickier than I expected. Started very much with a
spirit of 'Hire people you trust,' but thinking about the policy, applied to
specific people who have been hired, it brought some more specific guidelines
to the policy. Here are the highlights:

Eligibility for Remote Work (pick 4 from: 1 year with company, management
status, strong performance record or recommendation from team lead, one
department-specific criteria)

Requirements for the Remote Office (minimum equipment, ample space, etc.
clearly defined)

Approval Process & Remote Work Guidelines / Contract (lays out guidelines for
working remotely and collects employee commitment to adhere)

Saw some commentary that the frequency of working from home shouldn't be a
privilege (i.e. if you do a good job, you can work from home for a week), that
it should be as routine as possible, so we're making eligibility to work
remotely, on a set frequency, an attainable privilege (so it can be revoked if
necessary).

For the alternatives to surveillance, we will be implementing some improved
communication tools, and departments will be adopting the concept of an ultra-
brief daily scrum.

Tried to keep it lean, will be interesting to see where it excels and where it
can improve.

~~~
AlexB138
> Eligibility for Remote Work (pick 4 from: 1 year with company, management
> status, strong performance record or recommendation from team lead, one
> department-specific criteria)

I'm guessing "pick 4" is a typo, since you only listed four criteria, but
"management status" strikes me as odd. Assuming this means "be a manager to
qualify for this option", which may be an entirely incorrect assumption, I
think this is actually backwards. Managers are the people who need to be on
site most. 80% of a managers job is interacting with people. Unless their
entire team is remote, a manager should really be in the office to quickly
handle issues as they come up and be available to their team as needed.
Difficulty around effective communication is the biggest down side to remote
work, in my opinion.

This strikes me as favoritism towards the managerial class, rather than an
actual good policy. Otherwise, sounds like an interesting way to handle it.

------
mcculley
I've a contrarian view on this. Not all IT jobs are amenable to remote work.
Some work benefits from tighter collaboration than current technology offers.
Sometimes that collaboration is with folks other than IT staff, who may be
less comfortable using technology solutions for collaboration.

If the inputs and outputs of your job can be delivered entirely over email and
version control commits, then work from home is a good idea. However, how do
you deliver more value than someone from a developing country if your pipes
are so narrow? I think there's still a lot of room for the value provided by
teams working closely together.

~~~
alansammarone
Basically every piece of useful information that can be encoded using your
voice can also be encoded using an email - and in a much more efficient way,
since you don't have to keep deciphering emotional cues. Of course, expressing
emotions, for example, can be harder, but I don't think engineers should be
relying too much on expressing their emotion as a way to do a good job.

~~~
user5994461
Text is the least efficient of all forms of commutations.

How long to write a long email? How long to speak to someone?

~~~
matwood
> How long to write a long email? How long to speak to someone?

A better question is how long to say something that is well thought out and
matters vs. how long to write something that is well thought out and matters.
I have found that talking leads to lots of talking with little real substance
unless it is meant to be a brainstorm session. And even then, writing ideas
down before hand help to quickly get to the sticking points rather than bike
shedding over something trivial and wasting everyones time.

Writing out a page long email forces the writer to think through and address
their idea more seriously up front. This is why Bezos famously requires a
written memo for a new idea _before_ the meeting [0].

[0] [http://blog.idonethis.com/jeff-bezos-self-discipline-
writing...](http://blog.idonethis.com/jeff-bezos-self-discipline-writing/)

------
bluedino
I have some IBMer friends that have been recently notified that their remote
working privileges are going to be terminated.

------
k__
I switched to freelancing so I could work remotely without questions asked.
Worked quiet well.

It also showed me that I have a problem with employment in general. People
telling me when to work where and on what. It agitates me.

------
UseStrict
I've always looked for companies that offer flexible working options. My
employer has a default of being in-office but allows for flexible hours (like
working 7 - 3, or splitting my day) and allows for occasional remote work. In
return for this benefit I end up working more. Days I would have taken off for
appointments, obligations, extremely bad weather, or mild illness I end up
working remotely.

I also find that days when I work from home tend to be more productive - no
pets and no family means I have no distractions at home, I can just sit and
code all day.

------
tyingq
Careful what you wish for. If your company works out a system where everyone
can reliably work 100% remotely, you become a very replaceable cog.
Replaceable from a much cheaper labor pool.

~~~
sqeaky
Why does working from home make someone more replaceable than someone working
from an office?

I would think in most IT positions the thing that makes one least replaceable
is their value to the team. If you constantly provide in the form of More code
written or servers maintained because you can focus better then you could be
more valuable. I don't think working from home directly relates to values, and
I think arguments can be made for value increase or reduction.

~~~
tyingq
You compete with a larger pool when working 100% from home. Both skillwise and
costwise.

~~~
sqeaky
That is an interesting take on it. I am comfortable with that, but I can see
why many might not be.

I will have to think more on that to see all of the ramifications.
Immediately, I can see how it looks like businesses might try to hire devs
from inexpensive overseas shops, but I know why employers rarely do that a
second time. Then there are the really expensive devs who are clearly some of
the best in their field, but that is so expensive few shops would consider it.

as an aside, I suspect working from home as a cultural shift would allow some
real estate prices to normalize. There would be less need to move many people
into very expensive areas.

~~~
tyingq
Sure. It doesn't have to be overseas though. A SV startup switching to work
from home could save money by hiring remote developers from cheaper places in
the US.

------
rumcajz
The article assumes that making money is the primary goal of a corporation. If
it was, then sure, WFH would make sense.

However, the corporation is not a sentient entity. It cannot desire anything,
be it money or something else. It's only human participants that have
incentives.

Of those, only shareholders have direct incentive to make profit, but even
then they may own the shares for speculative purposes and desire share price
to grow, not necessarily the profit. And even that's not necessarily true:
Those who short their position may actually want the shore price to drop.

But shareholders in fact don't have much influence of business decisions of
the corporation. Those are delegated to the management. The management, in
turn, has incentives to extract as much rent from the business as possible.
Thus, it cares about profits only to the extent where it adds to their rent.
Increasing profit while decreasing the rent is a bad trade-off.

Regular employees, in their turn have incentives very similar to the
management. They want to be paid as much as possible without losing the job.

All in all, you can think of it as of struggle for a limited resource
(bananas, share of profit) in a group of chimpanzees.

Now, imagine what would happen if one chimpanzee refused to participate in the
group's interactions, walked away, but still demanded his share of bananas.
It's not going to work.

In the end, I would say that WFH would only work if everybody worked from
home, completely changing the way the group interacts.

~~~
cname
What if one chimpanzee sometimes stepped away from the group and all their
bickering, noise, ego-driven shenanigans, and other distractions? Maybe that
chimpanzee would pick more bananas (and share them with the group).

Office culture is often (I'd say usually) toxic and/or inefficient. Being in
the office doesn't mean any useful work is getting done. And just because
people are in the same general vicinity doesn't mean they're interacting in a
useful/beneficial way or even interacting at all.

Working from home is certainly different from working in the office, but being
in the office isn't some natural state of affairs or a particularly useful
baseline.

------
pklausler
All I need as a programmer is a place where I can concentrate. If I can't do
that at work, my employer has failed in a self-defeating way.

------
eldubz
I'm all for WFH opportunities, but just to play devil's advocate I do really
think there's a difference in team dynamics when everyone's in the office
collaborating in person versus working remotely.

I'm not saying it has a significant impact on productivity, but the team
"connectedness" is sometimes not as strong if some people are never in the
office.

------
pacomerh
To the people who say`I'd go crazy if I worked from home`. The trick is not to
work entirely from home, but to mix it up with an shared office, co-work
space, cafe, etc. There's a big difference in having people around you that
don't know you. They wont distract you because they won't talk to you or call
you into a meeting.

------
mcgrath_sh
I feel like my current setup is perfect for me. I work at an office that is 15
minutes away by car with no traffic and 30-35 mins with traffic and via back
roads. I can go in and leave when I want, as long as I am doing the work. I
have _never_ been a morning person. Essentially, I wake up at 8, hang around
my house til 8:45-10 depending on the day and zip into the office. I then work
until 5 and do some more work either before or after at home. There are 2-3
days a week that I work from home if I feel like it. I will come in for a half
day over lunch break. Or I will leave at or after lunch and finish the day at
home. Basically, I am presented both options and do what I want. I don't think
I would want either exclusively, but the ability to mix and match is
wonderful!

------
sumanthvepa
I'm the founder of my own company and my co-founder and I both work from home
-- our respective homes that is. I know my experience is probably not what
people have in mind when they think of a work-from-home employee, but for what
its worth -- my productivity is orders of magnitude greater than it was when I
was employed (at Yahoo!) Productivity is more a function of motivation(+) and
bureaucracy(-) than anything else. Skype and telephone, and the commit log
seem more than enough for us to keep abreast of each others' doings (although
we definitely meet about once a week for a 5-6 hours) I would absolutely hate
to have to micro-manage someone to the point that they have to be in the same
room as me to get work done. (I'd rather hire a more self-driven individual)

~~~
pkaye
So you are running a two person company? I think some of the issues with
remote work come when the company scales up to 10+ people. Coordinating among
multiple people becomes more complicated. The skill level of individuals start
to vary. Something that could have been hashed out in 5 minutes on a white
board takes half an hour.

------
accountyaccount
Here's the problem I run into: I can get 90% of my work done at home, but my
boss can't. So I have to come in every day because he has to. It's completely
childish, and I imagine this is the same in a lot of places.

I personally would love to give the ability for my employees to work at home,
even if I didn't. I don't understand the mindset where people don't want
things to be better for someone else... even if they can't also be better for
you. This happens even when those benefits to others come at no cost to
yourself.

Does anyone else have any experience overcoming this with someone else? Like
it's bad to the extent where if this person works late he'll be passive
aggressive towards everyone who doesn't have to also work late.

------
sigi45
Or don't.

Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

There is a story of mysql as a company who had an employee who was not
reachable for a few months.

Yahoo got there workforce back at the office.

I personally like to have the option to work at home when necessary and i
might get more stuff done at home i also might just not work.

~~~
Baeocystin
I'm not sure I would take anything Yahoo is doing as an example of a good
idea.

~~~
besogne
They did buy a share in Alibaba! Yahoo's share in Alibaba is worth more than
the total value of Yahoo. So, if you buy Yahoo, fire all its staff, close all
its web sites, and then liquidate its share in Alibaba, you can make a lot of
money.

------
Pukkap
Having worked at home for many years the hardest thing i found was to switch
of from work and have a home life. even after reading all the article on
separating work/home life. now i work in a office i feel i get more done.

------
partycoder
An open plan office can be productive if people move long discussions to
meeting rooms, and try to solve their problems via chat or e-mail.

An open plan office where everyone is trying to talk, quickly degrades into
people raising their voice to be heard, becoming a yelling mess where it's
impossible to do serious work unless you are very good at ignoring noise, or
you are blocking noise physically... like using earplugs or moving to a
meeting room.

Working from home, you can just focus and do your work. However this is not
the case for everyone. If you live with a bunch of people or pets this might
not be your case.

------
misiti3780
I have been working remotely for 6+ years and it would be very hard for me to
go back to an office. I have complete control over my life right now, can work
from anywhere, make my own hours, etc.

------
zollidia
I have mixed feelings about WFH. I love the idea and it works perfectly for
those that don't/can't commute. Can work independently with out direct
supervision. Then there are some that need the office structure to get their
work done.

But, sadly, there are some that abused WFH privilege. And we, for the most
part know what the out come is when a small group of people abuse a privilege
- it's gets removed as a whole.

------
dboreham
I worked remote from home, or at least a building 100ft from my home, for many
years.

But then I founded a company and made that building its International HQ. So
now I'm not remote any more.

------
kimsk112
"Everybody – EVERYBODY, I say – wants at least the option of work from home."

I think his sentence nails it. I also prefers working at the office and
interacts with fellow developers either formally (meeting) or informally
(water-cooler talk), but it makes no sense to force anyone to be at the office
all the time.

I'd like the flexibility of working remotely out of country or WFH during rush
hours and commute whenever I want. This really affects my decision to join or
leave the company.

~~~
alltakendamned
Everybody wants it, few can handle it in a responsible way for more than a few
days per month.

------
dionidium
_I know a handful of professionals who don’t want to work from home at all…but
even those people admit that they want the flexibility to work from home on
days when their kids are sick, the car has a flat, or workers are coming,
rather than having to take time off of work._

Is this a problem that people who work in technical fields actually have? Even
in companies with aggressively unfriendly WFH policies, I've had good luck
requesting time at home in situations like the above.

~~~
JenMcCown
Yes. I have a colleague whose kids get sick a lot, and they're very concerned
that a firing is imminent for that reason.

~~~
sjg007
Family Medical leave might be helpful.. You can schedule it e.g. take 1 day
off a week or something. It's protected.

~~~
JenMcCown
It's a lot harder to navigate that one might think, and FMLA is for serious
illnesses, not "one kid got the flu this week and another got the runs last
week and before that it was stomach upset and before that..." etc.

------
abalashov
I felt the need to write a full article as a response, and link it here in
place of a comment in the hope that it won't be viewed as gratuitous self-
plugging:

[https://likewise.am/2017/05/19/in-response-to-the-cult-of-
re...](https://likewise.am/2017/05/19/in-response-to-the-cult-of-remote-
working/)

------
dionidium
I can't help but think that a lot of this desire is driven by the existence of
far-flung suburbs and painful commutes. I was planning to work from home today
to receive a delivery that now seems to be delayed, so, since I live within
walking distance to the office, I decided to come in anyway.

I guess if I lived an hour away I'd have preferred to stay home.

------
darkstar999
I think these arguments are missing a big aspect of successful companies:
culture.

How can you have good office culture if everyone works from home?

~~~
JenMcCown
You're missing the point that WFH doesn't mean "all employees must WFH full
time".

WFH is everything from "I gotta go home, the kid's sick" to "I'm going to WFH
Wednesdays to concentrate", to "see y'all online!"

~~~
mcgrath_sh
Exactly! That is what I have. I work from home about two days a week. The
flexibility to work from home is what is golden. If my boss said "hey this
week stay in the office," I am like can do. This also lets me visit inlaws and
the like without using up loads of vacation. I don't have to worry about
handling tedious things on weekends and it frees up my commute to do things
like cut the grass. It is a win win.

------
HeshamA
Pro remote work but need like this tells me that maybe the tide is turning
[https://arstechnica.com/information-
technology/2017/05/ibm-t...](https://arstechnica.com/information-
technology/2017/05/ibm-to-remote-workers-come-back-to-the-mothership-or-else/)

------
msmm
I charge almost double if client wants me on site, especially if all the
company is crammed in open plan arrangement. You either can't focus well or
have to keep destroying your hearing with headphones and work takes longer to
complete. If WFH make sure to do a walk in the morning and after work and go
somewhere for a lunch.

------
nsedlet
I agree with many of the WFH benefits put forward in the article. However, I
think it ignores & mischaracterizes many of the WFH costs.

Ignores:

* Face-to-face communication is often more efficient. Just my opinion, but conversations are usually faster and easier in person than over Slack or email. Asychronous communication can be nicer for certain things, but it sucks when that's the only option. Video hangouts are better, but there's a barrier to setting one up, and they're still not as effective as face-to-face.

* Presence in the office helps keep everyone in the loop. Team members are much more likely to speak to one another actively. They're more likely to understand what everyone else is working on. They're more likely to understand the business's main priorities and problems. Even physically just sitting a few desks away from someone, vs. right next to them, makes it less likely that two people will interact.

* The office provides important social interaction. If you work a lot, your office might be your main opportunity to have substantive interactions with other people. Some of my past coworkers have become my closest friends. People who work from home (I'd guess) are much less likely to form close bonds with their coworkers.

* A professional setting can be motivating. I find it energizing to walk into the office where everyone is working hard. My day is measured out in minutes and I feel a constant pressure to get something done. When at home, I feel the pressure less - it makes me feel better about what I get done, but it also makes me less productive.

* Boundaries between work & home are helpful for relaxation. The ritual of leaving the office helps reset the mind, I think. Otherwise, workdays easily bleed into evenings that neither productive nor relaxing.

Mischaracterizes:

* "Some people need close management". The internet is incredibly addictive & distracting. Sitting at home makes it much easier to succumb to that distraction. Obviously that can happen at work, but there's a limit: you can't watch Netflix, for instance. And you'd feel weird if your screen was constantly on Hacker News or Reddit or whatever every time someone walked by.

* "How do I know they’re working if I can’t see them?". This is a strong point and I agree that most managers over-emphasize face-time as a measure of productivity. But that doesn't mean it's useless. For non-routine, creative, or project-based work (e.g. engineering) it's hard to measure productivity. Deadlines can be great but oftentimes are artificial - much of the time, the most engineers can really promise is that they'll work efficiently, smartly, and to the best of their abilities during the workday. So it is of some benefit to the manager to see that the employee is there for 40+ hrs each week. Managers also want to know if their reports are frustrated, anxious, demotivated, happy, confused, etc. - much easier to get a read on that in person so that the manager can address it.

Many of my friends who are able to work from home choose to rent coworking
space for many of the reasons above. Admittedly I rarely work from home, but I
do manage people who work remotely. Also, neither me nor most of my friends
are parents yet.

