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On February 11 2022 12:06 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On February 11 2022 11:48 Lmui wrote:
Well, I went back to the office for the first time in 2+ years today.
I met up with my team's new hires, interns and a couple of old faces because we organized an in-office day for the first time in nearly two years.
I forgot how nice the casual office interactions are. I wouldn't want to go in every day, but I've forgotten the feeling of just chatting with people, instead of just dropping messages in Teams/Slack. I love working from home, but maybe one office day every other week is perfect for me.
For everything work-life balance that's changed in the pandemic, maybe it's a little too far in favour of life at home. It was probably the shortest feeling workday I've had in a long time, and one of the happiest ones. I've definitely went through quite a few different working arrangements in the past three years due to changing policy: 1. Fully in the office on a daily basis. 2. Mostly in the office, with some flexibility to work from home when convenient. 3. In the office half the time with assigned days, remote the other half. 4. In the office half the time with some flexibility to choose when to be there. 5. Fully remote. My opinions have shifted a bit over time, and obviously maskless is far more pleasant than masked (despite the grandstanding of "mask is not a big deal" that many do), but I have to say that working remote isn't something I like to do all the time either. It's a lot easier to get things done in person, and with a lot more built-in social context to help move things along, than when you're stuck in a full remote environment. Granted, the other side of it is that I feel absolutely drained by a bad commute or even just a long one, so remote does have its benefits. In other words, and maybe this isn't surprising, but it looks like the flexibility to do which one is more convenient to me is more beneficial than just always being at home. 2 & 4 work really well, 1 & 5 are tolerable but suboptimal, and 3 is by far the worst arrangement. I'm not exactly sure what to make of that since any flexible arrangements are by far the most logistically convoluted, but it's an interesting observation of what works and what doesn't.
I think more days at home is better for the life balance rather than 50/50, but just one day where as many people as possible go in every other week or so would be nice, just to see coworkers. I'd add option 6: Team picks a schedule (ex. Every other Thursday), as a designated "office if you can" day (similar to 3, but far less frequent).
Going into the office on a sporadic basis is pretty poor because you wind up in situations where you don't have anyone in the office, so it's basically a commute for the same experience you'd have working at home. There's an option for people to go in more often if they want, but having it basically be an event got a lot more of my teammates into the office, and we were all happier for it. There has to be value in going to the office in order for people to want to work in the office.
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On February 11 2022 08:37 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On February 11 2022 08:28 Gorsameth wrote:On February 11 2022 08:25 Slydie wrote:On February 10 2022 22:52 tavop wrote:
I'm lucky, but COVID hasn't impacted my life. Yet. How is that even possible? Have you lived on the South Pole for the last 2 years or something? When I said "mandates", I didn't only mean vaccines, but also quarenteenes, tests, masks, distance, social gatherings and all other perfectly normal things which have became punishable crimes by law. In a few years, I thing we will look back at this time in disgrace, disgust and disbelief. Yes, I would hope our children look back at this and wonder wtf people were thinking when they refused to comply with health and safety instructions during a pandemic. Agreed. I'd like to think that each new generation becomes both a little less selfish and a little more pro-science.
So COVID passports and mandate were all based on science? An incredible amount of long-shot COVID measures which had absolutely nothing to do with science was introduced all over the world.
This pandemic will and should be studied for decades to come, but I would not feel too confident that the strictest countries did the best, as a lot of measures only had marginal effects on deaths and hospitalizations.
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
On February 11 2022 16:19 Lmui wrote:Show nested quote +On February 11 2022 12:06 LegalLord wrote:On February 11 2022 11:48 Lmui wrote:
Well, I went back to the office for the first time in 2+ years today.
I met up with my team's new hires, interns and a couple of old faces because we organized an in-office day for the first time in nearly two years.
I forgot how nice the casual office interactions are. I wouldn't want to go in every day, but I've forgotten the feeling of just chatting with people, instead of just dropping messages in Teams/Slack. I love working from home, but maybe one office day every other week is perfect for me.
For everything work-life balance that's changed in the pandemic, maybe it's a little too far in favour of life at home. It was probably the shortest feeling workday I've had in a long time, and one of the happiest ones. I've definitely went through quite a few different working arrangements in the past three years due to changing policy: 1. Fully in the office on a daily basis. 2. Mostly in the office, with some flexibility to work from home when convenient. 3. In the office half the time with assigned days, remote the other half. 4. In the office half the time with some flexibility to choose when to be there. 5. Fully remote. My opinions have shifted a bit over time, and obviously maskless is far more pleasant than masked (despite the grandstanding of "mask is not a big deal" that many do), but I have to say that working remote isn't something I like to do all the time either. It's a lot easier to get things done in person, and with a lot more built-in social context to help move things along, than when you're stuck in a full remote environment. Granted, the other side of it is that I feel absolutely drained by a bad commute or even just a long one, so remote does have its benefits. In other words, and maybe this isn't surprising, but it looks like the flexibility to do which one is more convenient to me is more beneficial than just always being at home. 2 & 4 work really well, 1 & 5 are tolerable but suboptimal, and 3 is by far the worst arrangement. I'm not exactly sure what to make of that since any flexible arrangements are by far the most logistically convoluted, but it's an interesting observation of what works and what doesn't. I think more days at home is better for the life balance rather than 50/50, but just one day where as many people as possible go in every other week or so would be nice, just to see coworkers. I'd add option 6: Team picks a schedule (ex. Every other Thursday), as a designated "office if you can" day (similar to 3, but far less frequent). Going into the office on a sporadic basis is pretty poor because you wind up in situations where you don't have anyone in the office, so it's basically a commute for the same experience you'd have working at home. There's an option for people to go in more often if they want, but having it basically be an event got a lot more of my teammates into the office, and we were all happier for it. There has to be value in going to the office in order for people to want to work in the office.
About a third of the people I work with go into the office no matter what, and did throughout the entirety of the pandemic, because their WFH situation just isn't tenable. Not sure if everyone has something like that but I'm convinced there are a lot of people who will do that. That establishes a baseline quantity of people that ensures that it isn't a total wash.
Some people will be in the office never or almost never - the long commuters, the ones that live out of state, or the ones that just have a situation that really makes working from home preferable to being in the office. I expect to see those kinds of people rarely, but if they're well-established in the work they do then there's an established standard for what work they do & how you can talk to them. I can respect that, though I'm guaranteed to see these people once every few months at best.
And then there's those in the middle - the ones for which it's neither particularly convenient nor a massive hassle to come in the office, which seems to be where most people are mentally these days.
I'm not sure I really have a great answer there. Once every other week, optional, is too infrequent; every other day by mandate is awful; and lots of the in-between does lead to situations where you're gambling on whether or not it's worth it to be there. And honestly, if the only people I see on a work day are the ones I directly work with - that's not very fun either. Talking shop for the project in work is productive, yes, but most of the people I actually benefit from having around are those who I wouldn't have talked to on a daily basis regardless.
For me personally, I would say I'd probably like to be in the office more often than not, and for most people to be the same. Something like for 70-80% of people to be in the office 70-80% of the time, so on average a half-full staffing on any given day. You can get stuff done, but it definitely is harder than it was before everyone was remote. Productivity in the current environment is capped at a high but undeniably reduced level (say, 75% of pre-pandemic productivity), and the work feels that much more isolating.
I do understand why others would want to work remote less than that, though. If my commute weren't short (5 minutes) I would be far less amenable to going in. If I wanted to work mostly in a "complete defined tasks" environment where I could be productive but have my job take a back seat to other things in life, I'd want to be remote far more often. But seeing the reality of what it's like, I've definitely soured on continuing full remote, and really just want the flexibility of being able to do it whenever I want to (about a third of the time) and being in the office otherwise. Limited remote works great; full remote less so.
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On February 11 2022 16:57 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On February 11 2022 16:19 Lmui wrote:On February 11 2022 12:06 LegalLord wrote:On February 11 2022 11:48 Lmui wrote:
Well, I went back to the office for the first time in 2+ years today.
I met up with my team's new hires, interns and a couple of old faces because we organized an in-office day for the first time in nearly two years.
I forgot how nice the casual office interactions are. I wouldn't want to go in every day, but I've forgotten the feeling of just chatting with people, instead of just dropping messages in Teams/Slack. I love working from home, but maybe one office day every other week is perfect for me.
For everything work-life balance that's changed in the pandemic, maybe it's a little too far in favour of life at home. It was probably the shortest feeling workday I've had in a long time, and one of the happiest ones. I've definitely went through quite a few different working arrangements in the past three years due to changing policy: 1. Fully in the office on a daily basis. 2. Mostly in the office, with some flexibility to work from home when convenient. 3. In the office half the time with assigned days, remote the other half. 4. In the office half the time with some flexibility to choose when to be there. 5. Fully remote. My opinions have shifted a bit over time, and obviously maskless is far more pleasant than masked (despite the grandstanding of "mask is not a big deal" that many do), but I have to say that working remote isn't something I like to do all the time either. It's a lot easier to get things done in person, and with a lot more built-in social context to help move things along, than when you're stuck in a full remote environment. Granted, the other side of it is that I feel absolutely drained by a bad commute or even just a long one, so remote does have its benefits. In other words, and maybe this isn't surprising, but it looks like the flexibility to do which one is more convenient to me is more beneficial than just always being at home. 2 & 4 work really well, 1 & 5 are tolerable but suboptimal, and 3 is by far the worst arrangement. I'm not exactly sure what to make of that since any flexible arrangements are by far the most logistically convoluted, but it's an interesting observation of what works and what doesn't. I think more days at home is better for the life balance rather than 50/50, but just one day where as many people as possible go in every other week or so would be nice, just to see coworkers. I'd add option 6: Team picks a schedule (ex. Every other Thursday), as a designated "office if you can" day (similar to 3, but far less frequent). Going into the office on a sporadic basis is pretty poor because you wind up in situations where you don't have anyone in the office, so it's basically a commute for the same experience you'd have working at home. There's an option for people to go in more often if they want, but having it basically be an event got a lot more of my teammates into the office, and we were all happier for it. There has to be value in going to the office in order for people to want to work in the office. About a third of the people I work with go into the office no matter what, and did throughout the entirety of the pandemic, because their WFH situation just isn't tenable. Not sure if everyone has something like that but I'm convinced there are a lot of people who will do that. That establishes a baseline quantity of people that ensures that it isn't a total wash. Some people will be in the office never or almost never - the long commuters, the ones that live out of state, or the ones that just have a situation that really makes working from home preferable to being in the office. I expect to see those kinds of people rarely, but if they're well-established in the work they do then there's an established standard for what work they do & how you can talk to them. I can respect that, though I'm guaranteed to see these people once every few months at best. And then there's those in the middle - the ones for which it's neither particularly convenient nor a massive hassle to come in the office, which seems to be where most people are mentally these days. I'm not sure I really have a great answer there. Once every other week, optional, is too infrequent; every other day by mandate is awful; and lots of the in-between does lead to situations where you're gambling on whether or not it's worth it to be there. And honestly, if the only people I see on a work day are the ones I directly work with - that's not very fun either. Talking shop for the project in work is productive, yes, but most of the people I actually benefit from having around are those who I wouldn't have talked to on a daily basis regardless. For me personally, I would say I'd probably like to be in the office more often than not, and for most people to be the same. Something like for 70-80% of people to be in the office 70-80% of the time, so for on average a half-full staffing on any given day. You can get stuff done, but it definitely is harder than it was before everyone was remote. Productivity in the current environment is capped at a high but undeniably reduced level (say, 75% of pre-pandemic productivity), and the work feels that much more isolating. I do understand why others would want to work remote less than that, though. If my commute weren't short (5 minutes) I would be far less amenable to going in. If I wanted to work mostly in a "complete defined tasks" environment where I could be productive but have my job take a back seat to other things in life, I'd want to be remote far more often. But seeing the reality of what it's like, I've definitely soured on continuing full remote, and really just want the flexibility of being able to do it whenever I want to (about a third of the time) and being in the office otherwise. Limited remote works great; full remote less so.
Yeah, slightly different experience to me. We physically shut down the office for pretty much 1.5 years, from March 2020 to Sept. 2021 until after wide distribution of vaccines. Everyone is entrenched at home, some people have moved etc. with the expectation of long term remote work, so it's far harder for my company to get people to want to go back in. I might want to meet and talk to other people, but I like my coworkers, and we chat about not-work stuff far more frequently than we do work. Our productivity level (tech company) is probably at 100% pre-pandemic levels for the established people that know what they're doing, and likely 50-70% for new hires, or anyone onboarded virtually. It's incredibly hard to get them working effectively without in person ramp-up.
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It is interesting how many people here are working from home.
I go to the office every day! And so do basically all my coworkers! We are - at base - an electrician company and I always say: "cabels can't be put into walls from home!"
And while my/our division as programers (electrical engineering) even has the possibility to do at least part-time work from home, most don't choose to do that!
Because of the one mentioning, that Covid didn't "change their life": Workrelated, for me, it absolutely didn't! I shake less hands and wear a mask if I'm at a customer. But that's it. Everything else is the same! Private life is a different story...
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I work kinda hybrid. Everyday I: wake up, go to laptop work a bit, eat breakfast, go to office work there, come back home before rush hours and work the rest of my time.
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On February 11 2022 16:08 Geisterkarle wrote:Show nested quote +On February 02 2022 20:06 Geisterkarle wrote:On February 02 2022 18:54 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:I'm certainly up for new conversations, too  Ok! How about, what people think, that quite a few countries are thinking about dropping Covid restrictions? Or have already dropped, like Denmark: > https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60215200From Tuesday[so, yesterday], masks are no longer required in shops, restaurants, and on public transport. Limits on the number of people allowed at indoor gatherings and social distancing measures also come to an end. Well, DarkPlasmaBall, I tried! But people still want to talk about vaccinations  So half-way around that and to the argument of not getting vaccinated because of allergies. I read an article about a woman that can't wear masks! (I can't find the old article, this one is in a similar direction (German) https://www.merkur.de/lokales/bad-toelz/bad-toelz-ort28297/corona-bad-toelz-maskenpflicht-attest-erlebnisse-90030391.html ) If you were to force her to wear one, I hope you have emergency service on speed dial, when she falls to the ground hyperventilating and getting shakes! Of course she has an official document to proof that. But do you think, people care? Because of all the aggression and hate she got, she basically can't go anywhere. Luckily some friends buy things from the supermarket for her. I'm not sure how many "fake" medical certificates are around, but there are people out there where it is real! The can't wear masks! Or the can't get vaccinated! So maybe not hate all of them at first sight!
I think as covid strains become less severe (which, hopefully, ends up being the trend, like omicron), countries will naturally move to the endemic phase, and countries will generally return to "normal" with the added medical caveat that along with your annual flu shot, you ought to get your annual covid shot. In such a scenario, getting covid or the flu would be annoying, especially if not vaccinated, but not so monumentally infectious or deadly that we'd need to close down everything again.
Also, if you have such rare medical conditions or immunocompromisation that you can't even wear a mask, you almost certainly shouldn't be risking exposing yourself to covid anyway. It's also important to note that, while there exist some people who physically can't be vaccinated (or, I guess, wear a mask), that is the super-ultra-rare exception, and 99% of individuals who don't feel like getting vaccinated or wearing a mask have no medical justification for such a position.
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How often one needs to be in office really depends on the job scope. That said, it's easy to work from home if you're already well established in the organisation. The ones who stands to lose out most are new joiners. Even if work can be done fully remote, it's difficult for team members to build cammaderie and trust without meeting in person. Personally, physical presence doesn't really affect my relations with co-workers and stakeholders (even those that I've never met in person before). But a more extroverted person may feel differently.
Ultimately, some people may work more efficiently in office, others at home. A thoughtful organisation may try to accommodate both types of people. But from a management point of view, it may be an administrative nightmare to allow employees a wide latitude of freedom in their working hours and environment...
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On February 11 2022 08:42 JimmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On February 11 2022 08:37 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On February 11 2022 08:28 Gorsameth wrote:On February 11 2022 08:25 Slydie wrote:On February 10 2022 22:52 tavop wrote:
I'm lucky, but COVID hasn't impacted my life. Yet. How is that even possible? Have you lived on the South Pole for the last 2 years or something? When I said "mandates", I didn't only mean vaccines, but also quarenteenes, tests, masks, distance, social gatherings and all other perfectly normal things which have became punishable crimes by law. In a few years, I thing we will look back at this time in disgrace, disgust and disbelief. Yes, I would hope our children look back at this and wonder wtf people were thinking when they refused to comply with health and safety instructions during a pandemic. Agreed. I'd like to think that each new generation becomes both a little less selfish and a little more pro-science. I wish, that does not seem to be whats happening though, we appear to be taking steps backwards in NA.
On February 11 2022 08:45 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On February 11 2022 08:37 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On February 11 2022 08:28 Gorsameth wrote:On February 11 2022 08:25 Slydie wrote:On February 10 2022 22:52 tavop wrote:
I'm lucky, but COVID hasn't impacted my life. Yet. How is that even possible? Have you lived on the South Pole for the last 2 years or something? When I said "mandates", I didn't only mean vaccines, but also quarenteenes, tests, masks, distance, social gatherings and all other perfectly normal things which have became punishable crimes by law. In a few years, I thing we will look back at this time in disgrace, disgust and disbelief. Yes, I would hope our children look back at this and wonder wtf people were thinking when they refused to comply with health and safety instructions during a pandemic. Agreed. I'd like to think that each new generation becomes both a little less selfish and a little more pro-science. I’d like that to be my takeaway but given what I’ve seen the last 2 years I’m a tad pessimistic.
Fair enough, although I think it's somewhat generational too, in that I believe that there's more pushback from older, more conservative groups than younger, more liberal ones (although I don't have data on that, offhand). I think there will be fluctuations on a year-by-year basis, but an overall, larger trend of improvement over the span of, say, 20 or 30 or 40 years.
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On February 11 2022 16:28 Slydie wrote:Show nested quote +On February 11 2022 08:37 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On February 11 2022 08:28 Gorsameth wrote:On February 11 2022 08:25 Slydie wrote:On February 10 2022 22:52 tavop wrote:
I'm lucky, but COVID hasn't impacted my life. Yet. How is that even possible? Have you lived on the South Pole for the last 2 years or something? When I said "mandates", I didn't only mean vaccines, but also quarenteenes, tests, masks, distance, social gatherings and all other perfectly normal things which have became punishable crimes by law. In a few years, I thing we will look back at this time in disgrace, disgust and disbelief. Yes, I would hope our children look back at this and wonder wtf people were thinking when they refused to comply with health and safety instructions during a pandemic. Agreed. I'd like to think that each new generation becomes both a little less selfish and a little more pro-science. So COVID passports and mandate were all based on science? An incredible amount of long-shot COVID measures which had absolutely nothing to do with science was introduced all over the world. This pandemic will and should be studied for decades to come, but I would not feel too confident that the strictest countries did the best, as a lot of measures only had marginal effects on deaths and hospitalizations.
There are a lot of variables to consider in terms of which countries did "the best", such as population and population density, economic damage, availability of vaccines, the influence of adjacent countries, percentages infected and dead and masked and vaccinated, the ability to not overburden hospitals, etc. Unless there's an enormous amount of justification for using and ranking specific parameters in specific ways, I have no idea how we could come up with a ranking that would be generally accepted by even both sides of American liberals and American conservatives, let alone accepted throughout the world.
Also, given your question about passports and mandates, I think I need to elaborate on what I meant when I said "pro-science", because I was speaking in regards to the descriptive observations and claims established by scientists and medical researchers, rather than the normative steps taken as a result of them. I meant that, fundamentally, there's a huge issue (at least, in the United States) of people rejecting experts and data for no legitimate reason, and if we can't agree on the basic facts underlying a situation, then we definitely will have trouble moving forwards with prescriptive measures on what we ought to do about them. I wasn't trying to comment about the best courses of action (passports or not, mandates or not, etc.) when criticizing how some people deny science.
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On February 11 2022 16:28 Slydie wrote:Show nested quote +On February 11 2022 08:37 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On February 11 2022 08:28 Gorsameth wrote:On February 11 2022 08:25 Slydie wrote:On February 10 2022 22:52 tavop wrote:
I'm lucky, but COVID hasn't impacted my life. Yet. How is that even possible? Have you lived on the South Pole for the last 2 years or something? When I said "mandates", I didn't only mean vaccines, but also quarenteenes, tests, masks, distance, social gatherings and all other perfectly normal things which have became punishable crimes by law. In a few years, I thing we will look back at this time in disgrace, disgust and disbelief. Yes, I would hope our children look back at this and wonder wtf people were thinking when they refused to comply with health and safety instructions during a pandemic. Agreed. I'd like to think that each new generation becomes both a little less selfish and a little more pro-science. So COVID passports and mandate were all based on science? An incredible amount of long-shot COVID measures which had absolutely nothing to do with science was introduced all over the world. This pandemic will and should be studied for decades to come, but I would not feel too confident that the strictest countries did the best, as a lot of measures only had marginal effects on deaths and hospitalizations. Science says vaccinate as many people as possible. passes and mandates are a political means to pressure people into getting the vaccine.
So yes?
Covid passports are not there to create a 'safe space'. They exist to make it more of a burden to not be vaccinated so that people will go 'I want to go to a bar, so I will get a vaccine even tho I don't really want to' or 'I cba to constantly get tested so I guess I will get the vaccine'.
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On February 11 2022 22:10 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On February 11 2022 16:28 Slydie wrote:On February 11 2022 08:37 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On February 11 2022 08:28 Gorsameth wrote:On February 11 2022 08:25 Slydie wrote:On February 10 2022 22:52 tavop wrote:
I'm lucky, but COVID hasn't impacted my life. Yet. How is that even possible? Have you lived on the South Pole for the last 2 years or something? When I said "mandates", I didn't only mean vaccines, but also quarenteenes, tests, masks, distance, social gatherings and all other perfectly normal things which have became punishable crimes by law. In a few years, I thing we will look back at this time in disgrace, disgust and disbelief. Yes, I would hope our children look back at this and wonder wtf people were thinking when they refused to comply with health and safety instructions during a pandemic. Agreed. I'd like to think that each new generation becomes both a little less selfish and a little more pro-science. So COVID passports and mandate were all based on science? An incredible amount of long-shot COVID measures which had absolutely nothing to do with science was introduced all over the world. This pandemic will and should be studied for decades to come, but I would not feel too confident that the strictest countries did the best, as a lot of measures only had marginal effects on deaths and hospitalizations. Science says vaccinate as many people as possible. passes and mandates are a political means to pressure people into getting the vaccine. So yes? Covid passports are not there to create a 'safe space'. They exist to make it more of a burden to not be vaccinated so that people will go 'I want to go to a bar, so I will get a vaccine even tho I don't really want to' or 'I cba to constantly get tested so I guess I will get the vaccine'.
Born in socialism and raised on WW2 history there are things I will never agree with - bolded are among those.
To be clear - this post is not about vaccine it is about governments attitudes toward citizens.
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
On February 11 2022 18:50 Silvanel wrote:
I work kinda hybrid. Everyday I: wake up, go to laptop work a bit, eat breakfast, go to office work there, come back home before rush hours and work the rest of my time.
I did this some of the time. That's the kind of flexibility that I found useful.
On February 11 2022 20:20 RKC wrote:
How often one needs to be in office really depends on the job scope. That said, it's easy to work from home if you're already well established in the organisation. The ones who stands to lose out most are new joiners. Even if work can be done fully remote, it's difficult for team members to build cammaderie and trust without meeting in person. Personally, physical presence doesn't really affect my relations with co-workers and stakeholders (even those that I've never met in person before). But a more extroverted person may feel differently.
Ultimately, some people may work more efficiently in office, others at home. A thoughtful organisation may try to accommodate both types of people. But from a management point of view, it may be an administrative nightmare to allow employees a wide latitude of freedom in their working hours and environment...
From a management point of view, the entire thing is an obvious logistical nightmare. Part of it I'm not very sympathetic to - the fact that managers have a hard time keeping tabs on people and have tendencies to either micromanage or install surveillance software. But on the other hand, I absolutely do see that capped-at-75% efficiency (in my particular line of work) is a real problem with non-obvious causes and managers absolutely have a right to be worried about that.
And yeah, the new joiners are the clear worst off here. Those who already have a well established role and rapport with the rest of those they work with handle it the best.
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Northern Ireland24644 Posts
On February 11 2022 21:00 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On February 11 2022 08:42 JimmiC wrote:On February 11 2022 08:37 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On February 11 2022 08:28 Gorsameth wrote:On February 11 2022 08:25 Slydie wrote:On February 10 2022 22:52 tavop wrote:
I'm lucky, but COVID hasn't impacted my life. Yet. How is that even possible? Have you lived on the South Pole for the last 2 years or something? When I said "mandates", I didn't only mean vaccines, but also quarenteenes, tests, masks, distance, social gatherings and all other perfectly normal things which have became punishable crimes by law. In a few years, I thing we will look back at this time in disgrace, disgust and disbelief. Yes, I would hope our children look back at this and wonder wtf people were thinking when they refused to comply with health and safety instructions during a pandemic. Agreed. I'd like to think that each new generation becomes both a little less selfish and a little more pro-science. I wish, that does not seem to be whats happening though, we appear to be taking steps backwards in NA. Show nested quote +On February 11 2022 08:45 WombaT wrote:On February 11 2022 08:37 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On February 11 2022 08:28 Gorsameth wrote:On February 11 2022 08:25 Slydie wrote:On February 10 2022 22:52 tavop wrote:
I'm lucky, but COVID hasn't impacted my life. Yet. How is that even possible? Have you lived on the South Pole for the last 2 years or something? When I said "mandates", I didn't only mean vaccines, but also quarenteenes, tests, masks, distance, social gatherings and all other perfectly normal things which have became punishable crimes by law. In a few years, I thing we will look back at this time in disgrace, disgust and disbelief. Yes, I would hope our children look back at this and wonder wtf people were thinking when they refused to comply with health and safety instructions during a pandemic. Agreed. I'd like to think that each new generation becomes both a little less selfish and a little more pro-science. I’d like that to be my takeaway but given what I’ve seen the last 2 years I’m a tad pessimistic. Fair enough, although I think it's somewhat generational too, in that I believe that there's more pushback from older, more conservative groups than younger, more liberal ones (although I don't have data on that, offhand). I think there will be fluctuations on a year-by-year basis, but an overall, larger trend of improvement over the span of, say, 20 or 30 or 40 years.
Societal progress or regression ebbs and flows
I’m unsure if our generation are more or less selfish, on average. Their views may present the latter, but on the other hand more people are personally experiencing a tougher life than that their parents did, in a sense an empathy borne of shared experience rather than the more pure form.
The science bit is tricky, I think a lot of skepticism comes in with our current media landscape and a distrust of traditional institutions, which is something I imagine the young fall into as much, if not more than their elders.
It’s easy to trust science if you’re not being asked to change much in terms of your daily life, we’ve already seen some of the friction that occurs when that is shaken up.
We’ve already seen such a collision when it came to pandemic mitigation, the next battlefield this is likely to occur is proper action on climate change, which I imagine will be fun!
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FDA looking like damn fools right now. "The 2 dose vaccine works for kids under 2, but since we want 3rd dose data, we are going to delay the 2 doses until then". In what world does that make sense. god damn
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On February 12 2022 00:54 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On February 11 2022 18:50 Silvanel wrote:
I work kinda hybrid. Everyday I: wake up, go to laptop work a bit, eat breakfast, go to office work there, come back home before rush hours and work the rest of my time. I did this some of the time. That's the kind of flexibility that I found useful. Show nested quote +On February 11 2022 20:20 RKC wrote:
How often one needs to be in office really depends on the job scope. That said, it's easy to work from home if you're already well established in the organisation. The ones who stands to lose out most are new joiners. Even if work can be done fully remote, it's difficult for team members to build cammaderie and trust without meeting in person. Personally, physical presence doesn't really affect my relations with co-workers and stakeholders (even those that I've never met in person before). But a more extroverted person may feel differently.
Ultimately, some people may work more efficiently in office, others at home. A thoughtful organisation may try to accommodate both types of people. But from a management point of view, it may be an administrative nightmare to allow employees a wide latitude of freedom in their working hours and environment... From a management point of view, the entire thing is an obvious logistical nightmare. Part of it I'm not very sympathetic to - the fact that managers have a hard time keeping tabs on people and have tendencies to either micromanage or install surveillance software. But on the other hand, I absolutely do see that capped-at-75% efficiency (in my particular line of work) is a real problem with non-obvious causes and managers absolutely have a right to be worried about that. And yeah, the new joiners are the clear worst off here. Those who already have a well established role and rapport with the rest of those they work with handle it the best.
What do you feel about tech companies considering cutting pay as a trade off to remote working? The rationale being that a remote worker is saving from higher cost of living in big cities.
Personally, I would take the offer. Work at my cosy hometown or pay lower rent at some nice suburbs with lower salary or less allowance entitlements? Bring it on! The bigger concern however is long-term career development rather than the money. There's always the chance management may see remote workers in a different light (semi-contractors) and accord preferential treatment to 'loyal' office workers in terms of promotion.
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
On February 12 2022 12:46 RKC wrote:Show nested quote +On February 12 2022 00:54 LegalLord wrote:On February 11 2022 18:50 Silvanel wrote:
I work kinda hybrid. Everyday I: wake up, go to laptop work a bit, eat breakfast, go to office work there, come back home before rush hours and work the rest of my time. I did this some of the time. That's the kind of flexibility that I found useful. On February 11 2022 20:20 RKC wrote:
How often one needs to be in office really depends on the job scope. That said, it's easy to work from home if you're already well established in the organisation. The ones who stands to lose out most are new joiners. Even if work can be done fully remote, it's difficult for team members to build cammaderie and trust without meeting in person. Personally, physical presence doesn't really affect my relations with co-workers and stakeholders (even those that I've never met in person before). But a more extroverted person may feel differently.
Ultimately, some people may work more efficiently in office, others at home. A thoughtful organisation may try to accommodate both types of people. But from a management point of view, it may be an administrative nightmare to allow employees a wide latitude of freedom in their working hours and environment... From a management point of view, the entire thing is an obvious logistical nightmare. Part of it I'm not very sympathetic to - the fact that managers have a hard time keeping tabs on people and have tendencies to either micromanage or install surveillance software. But on the other hand, I absolutely do see that capped-at-75% efficiency (in my particular line of work) is a real problem with non-obvious causes and managers absolutely have a right to be worried about that. And yeah, the new joiners are the clear worst off here. Those who already have a well established role and rapport with the rest of those they work with handle it the best. What do you feel about tech companies considering cutting pay as a trade off to remote working? The rationale being that a remote worker is saving from higher cost of living in big cities. Personally, I would take the offer. Work at my cosy hometown or pay lower rent at some nice suburbs with lower salary or less allowance entitlements? Bring it on! The bigger concern however is long-term career development rather than the money. There's always the chance management may see remote workers in a different light (semi-contractors) and accord preferential treatment to 'loyal' office workers in terms of promotion.
Well, the rationale they're not going to state is that they have the leverage in that situation because their reduced offer is still probably higher than local market rate. If people will take it... well fine.
Personally, I saw the idea as appealing at first and explored a couple opportunities on that front for a while, but eventually came to the conclusion that it's not for me. I know that many computer programmers have an almost pathological obsession with full remote, but if you look at the landscape of what's on offer it's not impressive. As you mentioned, there's the long-term career aspect, where unless the company is explicitly set up to be remote you'll be in the reliable-grunt tier rather than up for any promotions. Another factor is that your options are limited for new lines of work - the best remote jobs I've seen tend to be gained by switching to remote after already being well established within the company and asking for a change in circumstances; short of that you often end up working for temp agencies, trying to negotiate into remote from a non-remote job, or finding one of the very few positions that actually seem reasonable that offer remote and actually mean it (remote in the job description often doesn't actually mean remote, turns out).
Add to that I've not entirely been thrilled with two years of mostly-full-remote and I've definitely soured on the idea. But as I said, among the computer programmer type that you would see in those kinds of companies, the ability to be full remote can often be the priority, so whatever works for you.
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EPT
