Work From Home

[JerryBaumchen 1,360]

Hi folks,

Disclaimer:  I am retired; so I am not effected by this societal change. 

Opinion: The remote work capital of the US is in denial about its effects - oregonlive.com

So, what do you out there in dizzy.com land think about this?

Jerry Baumchen

PS)  As I read this article, it reminded me of Portland with all of the downtown office/restaurant spaces being empty.

PPS)  One of my favorite sayings is:  Retirement is the best job I have ever had.

[wmw999 2,442]

2 hours ago, JerryBaumchen said:

PPS)  One of my favorite sayings is:  Retirement is the best job I have ever had.

Yeah. Not sure how I ever fit a job in there.

Wendy P.

[JoeWeber 2,720]

Just now, JerryBaumchen said:

Hi folks,

Disclaimer:  I am retired; so I am not effected by this societal change. 

Opinion: The remote work capital of the US is in denial about its effects - oregonlive.com

So, what do you out there in dizzy.com land think about this?

Jerry Baumchen

PS)  As I read this article, it reminded me of Portland with all of the downtown office/restaurant spaces being empty.

PPS)  One of my favorite sayings is:  Retirement is the best job I have ever had.

I think it's the companies call, period. If they want your ass in a cubicle and can afford replacing you then so be it. It's called a job for a reason.

[nigel99 471]

2 hours ago, JerryBaumchen said:

Hi folks,

Disclaimer:  I am retired; so I am not effected by this societal change. 

Opinion: The remote work capital of the US is in denial about its effects - oregonlive.com

So, what do you out there in dizzy.com land think about this?

Jerry Baumchen

PS)  As I read this article, it reminded me of Portland with all of the downtown office/restaurant spaces being empty.

PPS)  One of my favorite sayings is:  Retirement is the best job I have ever had.

Remote work has its downsides, and there is a definite shift in people’s social skills and how much people isolate themselves.

But there is a flip side to the argument and one that companies bear the blame for - the rise of open plan offices.

My day job is design engineering, and if my train of thought is broken it takes ages to get back on track. Most of my life I’ve been in offices and this company has crammed into quite a small open plan office. What’s worse is we share with LOUD sales guys who are always on calls/teams meetings.

The end result is I end up staring at my screen and getting anxiety from all the activity around me, and I can’t use headphones as music distracts me just as much. I’ve always had adhd and been unmedicated, but had to go onto meds to cope in that environment. I hate the amphetamines as they stuff your heart and affect your sleep. Effectively I’m medicating for a bad work environment.

Luckily my direct manager is pretty chilled out (and disillusioned) and so I get to work from home 4 days a week - against company policy.

There are other sides to it as well. I’ve got a dog that always had people around and after covid he really doesn’t like being left alone and as a husky then cries all day and drives the neighbours nuts.

[base698 14]

Over the years I've had jobs that allowed for periodic work from home.  Nothing that was on a fixed schedule but if you had a repair man coming to your house, or wanted to go to a boogie across the country they would usually allow it.  I went remote in March of 2020, at the time I held a director level position at a fortune 10.  Managing people remotely was slightly less challenging than I expected, but knowing what was going on outside the org was impossible.  I've switched jobs twice since.  The first was trying on remote and known for being cutthroat.  While there they forced me to move back to the West Coast and I declined so I found a new job.

Onboarding to a new company is impossible remote. If the company is good at it it's still difficult getting to know people if you aren't there.  As a remote worker there is no chance you run into someone randomly and discover a place they can help you or you them.  Even putting faces to names is difficult.

Remote work life ranges from completely normal, to complete slacking to dystopian hell.  Certain employees that have task queues and monitoring and forced cameras on all day can't enjoy living like that. I definitely couldn't work like that.  If you have reasonable demands, accountability and are left your own devices then it is amazing being able to see your kids and wife at lunch.

Given Elon's stance, what he did at Twitter, and what he likely is going to do at the federal government I will be surprised if a.remote job is possible in 4 years. The trend is certainly away from it.  People have less tolerance for seeing a $180k a year project manager or HR girl flaunting working from a pool on TikTok. The demands are going to be higher from now on.

[nigel99 471]

4 hours ago, base698 said:

Over the years I've had jobs that allowed for periodic work from home.  Nothing that was on a fixed schedule but if you had a repair man coming to your house, or wanted to go to a boogie across the country they would usually allow it.  I went remote in March of 2020, at the time I held a director level position at a fortune 10.  Managing people remotely was slightly less challenging than I expected, but knowing what was going on outside the org was impossible.  I've switched jobs twice since.  The first was trying on remote and known for being cutthroat.  While there they forced me to move back to the West Coast and I declined so I found a new job.

Onboarding to a new company is impossible remote. If the company is good at it it's still difficult getting to know people if you aren't there.  As a remote worker there is no chance you run into someone randomly and discover a place they can help you or you them.  Even putting faces to names is difficult.

Remote work life ranges from completely normal, to complete slacking to dystopian hell.  Certain employees that have task queues and monitoring and forced cameras on all day can't enjoy living like that. I definitely couldn't work like that.  If you have reasonable demands, accountability and are left your own devices then it is amazing being able to see your kids and wife at lunch.

Given Elon's stance, what he did at Twitter, and what he likely is going to do at the federal government I will be surprised if a.remote job is possible in 4 years. The trend is certainly away from it.  People have less tolerance for seeing a $180k a year project manager or HR girl flaunting working from a pool on TikTok. The demands are going to be higher from now on.

Having run a business while I had a wife and kids at home, that is a good reason NOT TO work from home :)

Seriously, a partner and kids don’t tend to ‘get’ that you’re working and will ask for odd jobs and interruptions.

We ended up renting office space about a mile from home to fix that problem (and I got to see the wife and kids at lunch).

[dgw 8]

7 hours ago, base698 said:

Over the years I've had jobs that allowed for periodic work from home.  Nothing that was on a fixed schedule but if you had a repair man coming to your house, or wanted to go to a boogie across the country they would usually allow it.  I went remote in March of 2020, at the time I held a director level position at a fortune 10.  Managing people remotely was slightly less challenging than I expected, but knowing what was going on outside the org was impossible.  I've switched jobs twice since.  The first was trying on remote and known for being cutthroat.  While there they forced me to move back to the West Coast and I declined so I found a new job.

Onboarding to a new company is impossible remote. If the company is good at it it's still difficult getting to know people if you aren't there.  As a remote worker there is no chance you run into someone randomly and discover a place they can help you or you them.  Even putting faces to names is difficult.

Remote work life ranges from completely normal, to complete slacking to dystopian hell.  Certain employees that have task queues and monitoring and forced cameras on all day can't enjoy living like that. I definitely couldn't work like that.  If you have reasonable demands, accountability and are left your own devices then it is amazing being able to see your kids and wife at lunch.

Given Elon's stance, what he did at Twitter, and what he likely is going to do at the federal government I will be surprised if a.remote job is possible in 4 years. The trend is certainly away from it.  People have less tolerance for seeing a $180k a year project manager or HR girl flaunting working from a pool on TikTok. The demands are going to be higher from now on.

Ear plugs my friend. I find them a life saver. They work far better than even good “noise cancelling” headphones. 

[turtlespeed 220]

21 hours ago, dgw said:

Ear plugs my friend. I find them a life saver. They work far better than even good “noise cancelling” headphones. 

Door locks work well too.

[normiss 798]

On 12/21/2024 at 3:38 PM, JerryBaumchen said:

Hi folks,

Disclaimer:  I am retired; so I am not effected by this societal change. 

Opinion: The remote work capital of the US is in denial about its effects - oregonlive.com

So, what do you out there in dizzy.com land think about this?

Jerry Baumchen

PS)  As I read this article, it reminded me of Portland with all of the downtown office/restaurant spaces being empty.

PPS)  One of my favorite sayings is:  Retirement is the best job I have ever had.

Ever since the Internet, VPN connections, and VPN concentrators came into play, my career has been hybrid most of the time.

When the phone company moved all engineering and higher positions to not tracking our time especially PTO, we went to Flex Time. We were told they did not care where we were, what we were doing, or how much time we worked....so long as the network was running, customers were happy, we responded to incidents, and our projects were on-time.

So that's when I still had the school bus camper at Zhills. Wake up, check tickets and status, make a skydive. Repeat 10-12 times a day. My jump numbers made me look like a sky junkie in no time!

I still have this type of support in networking though - so long as I have an internet connection I can perform without issues no matter where I am.

I have seen the risk of new employees with a fully remote gig have a few issues - onboarding remotely is challenging, becoming a working part of a team is difficult with a virtual human, and when layoffs roll around it's easier to lay off an employee you do not have a personal relationship with. Laying off employees you've seen daily for 10-30+ years is hard.