If they are only at the “reconsider” phase now, they are way behind.

Why would they ban that?

I mean, most companies don't allow regular WFH. Until this week Google didn't either.

Where I work they don't allow any, at all. So if you're out, say to take care of a sick relative for a few weeks, you can't make up any time, or get credit for trying to stay up to date. Even if there's something urgent and you end up spending hours in teleconference and then more time working on the issue, you're not allowed to put those hours in to your time sheet as time worked.

This sounds illegal (wage theft). You should inquire with your state's Department of Labor.

Google has a very strict policy of not being allowed to work whatsoever when you are out on unpaid leave, for obvious reasons.

That depends what you mean by "regular."

When I was there as a software engineer, I worked from home one day a week.

But at least at a few years ago, you couldn't work from home full-time forever. I knew folks in the Atlanta office, and after it closed they could work from home for a long while (many weeks), but needed to eventually find a position at another office or leave the company.

It comes down to how lenient your manager is, but the official policy was you're only allowed to work from home in exceptional circumstances (like you have someone coming over to work on your house), and they look askance at doing it more than a couple times per month.

Ironically, the Atlanta office is now expanding again. Turns out that closing it was a big mistake re: making diversity goals. I could've told them that ...

A ban? What do you do?

Data analysis, some related programming. All stuff I could do from home. And have done from home: For my first kid I was allowed to work from home a few days a week. Then at some point a single employee, literally one, was found abusing WFH (had a second FT job) and the whole practice was banned.

Work at work

Then virus is "a small price to pay for salvation". May be the world will finally see that all occupations that can WFH should be free to WFH.

> Then virus is "a small price to pay for salvation".

I try not to take HN or Reddit too seriously, because God knows that I was an idiot in my younger years too. But man, I really do hate this website some days.

I think, I just completly useless when it comes to empathy. I was like that in 18, 25 and as you can see now at 33.

Another thong is that there is broader context to what I wrote. My context was that I found it ironic how suffering of thousands improves something for other thousands so obviously plus for some other it moves the cause hence the quote seemed appropriate to express that irony.

Sorry if I hurt anybody, I didn't mean to.

Yes, thousands of dead people is a small price to pay so that some people can push buttons in the pajamas.

smh

WFH could potentially save thousands more from reduced car accidents / pollution from commuting.

You realize there are reasons beyond "wanting to push buttons in pajamas" for people to work from home, right?

Show me one that's worth thousands of human lives.

Decreased carbon emissions from commutes disappearing?

GP's post is ridiculous but not acknowledging the positives of WFH is … I dunno, bone-headed to put it mildly.

Have you thought about stopping the spread of the disease by not going out?

Every form of reasoning can be oversimplified to look ridiculous.