
The End of the Working Week - chanux
http://putthingsoff.com/articles/end-the-working-week/
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spuz
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.

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potatolicious
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.

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AndrewDucker
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.

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ct
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.

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hackoder
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.

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pxlpshr
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.

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Mz
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.

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protez
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?

