For many people with younger children (and therefore early evening bedtimes), having or not having a commute is not a difference of an hour or two of your day - it's the difference between spending time with your family during the week versus not at all. I've heard this from many friends (and some family) across different industries - hardly any have wanted to stick their heads above the parapet and single themselves out as being a problem.
I already empathised, but this whole thing has really thrown a light on what working parents (specifically those with primary care responsibilities like school pick-ups and drop-offs) in the workplace have been dealing with this whole entire time.
tldr; A great many people have had an increase of 150% of the time they care about the most by working from home - this proposal takes that away from them.
Haha, you say. But my 3 year old doesn’t sleep before 10 :P
That said, being able to pick him up and drop him off at daycare without having to rush is really nice.
OTOH, WFH people living alone can go many days without any human interaction.
There is no arrangement that is "best" for everyone.
Remote or in-office, that's not healthy. Go outside. Make real friendships with people you don't work with. And if you're struggling with that, then seek help. But don't force me into a car for 10 hours per week, just to help you fake a social support network.
Believe it or not, a lot of people do make friends at work. I can see why that might happen less for you.
They didn't say anything is wrong with having friends at work, only that using work as your only social avenue is unhealthy.
What's stopping you from doing the same?
You can't really get time with your kids when you work from the office, but you can get socialization when you're not working.
dont threaten me with a good time
Then if it turns out the coworking mates are a bunch of jerks, you can switch without wondering if you'll be able to pay rent next month.
Seems pretty cool to me.
Many people WFH and their kids have been stuck at home, they dont feel safe popping to the coffee shop for a few hours of work, and they dont feel safe going to social events.
Once people feel fully safe doing those things and the kids are back in school in person WFH life will elevate for so many.
- Noise cancelling headphones work as well at home as they do at work. I love mine.
- Imagine: I definitely spend time outside of "work hours" doing work, so it might balance out.
Anyway, person-to-person and day-to-day differences in productivity are pretty large in my experience. Of course you could be in a bust-your-butt-for-a-promotion kind of situation, but you could also take the attitude that you're getting paid for what you actually do, and the fact that you are not top 1% productivity is reflected in your current "help-at-home-when-I-am-needed" salary.
This is actually the bug, not the feature. These people have bought noise cancelling headphones, so when they join a meeting everyone else it bothered.
>Imagine: I definitely spend time outside of "work hours" doing work, so it might balance out.
Why are you doing work outside of working hours? That does not make sense.
Noise cancelling headphones have directional mics that typically do a very good job of only picking up the wearer's voice.
If people really want to sound clear, a headset with a mic boom is every better. 0 background noise gets through.
These are all very well solved problems.
Heck my laptop back in 2005 (!!!) had a directional mic array. I could use an included utility app to control where in the room I wanted the mic to record from, I could record from in front of my laptop when going to lectures, or have the mics pointed at me when recording myself.
(That was a super cool laptop!)
If that were the case when everyone was at the office it just couldn't get done.
If you are just picking up a call from your boss to work without being paid overtime then don't do the work. Only exception is if you have flexlible working time e.g. 32 hours per month then you just do a shorter day at some point.
That is me, and I account for time off during day to play with my 10 month son by spending an extra hour after dinner finishing up work.
WfH gives me the flexibility to do that. WfH also means I don't have to take an entire day off if my son has a mid-day doctors appointment. Everyone wins.
> Also the constant background noise of kids crying or some kids show playing it pretty annoying.
Your company should spend the few extra $$ on good headsets for everyone.
My company uses WebEx, which in 2020 had no background noise elimination, but now days it does it quite well.
I can be in a room with another person talking, loudly, and it won't come through on my mic. But I also have a nice Bose headset.
My wife's headset with a dedicated boom mic also works really well in this regard.
Airpods, eh, not sure how much I trust people using airpods. :)
FWIW unless I am talking, I mute myself, and all of my colleagues do the same.
It works when the team is used to and knows how to connect with each other online and to keep those connections going through the day/week. I'm an (highly functioning) introvert and even I hate video onboarding. I've done it twice during pandemic and it sucks big time if the team is not ready for online lifestyle/workstyle. Several months in and I still don't feel like I belong, it's just all the people busying away on their own, like in a univerity groupwork. I miss my old work when the chat was actually a place for smalltalk, instead of a place for just sharing technical knowledge or updating progress.
Feels like some companies think that remote work is exactly like onsite, just virtually. Well, it's not. Dynamics is different, workflow is different, everybody has to adapt. I genuinely want to work remote, I don't think I'll be back to office anymore, but I still need the team that knows how to actually be a team online.
So I went in and... it worked out really well. Quality of life is fantastic, productivity too. It's like we've never done it another way. For the contractors it was even an improvement, because now they were on the same level as the rest. Based on this experience, we have started to hire people from abroad and whoever wants can stay remote.
Advantages of remote:
- 100% focus as long as you have a proper working place.
- Perfect time management as you will interact at planned times and under an agenda.
- No more smells from my colleagues atrocious culinary choices.
- No more being annoyed by sales guys trying to jump the queue for their deal this quarter.
Ask anyone in hardware.
Sure, many and myself included here, setup home labs. Those really help, particularly when boards are small and or one can setup or build a test harness or other suitable device.
I currently work a mix, and onsite is needed, but not always.
My current preference is to do both, and my company just moved. We downsized office space, added a common work area, and I have a home lab and another person is building one up now.
Being sick is bot such a big deal.
We all got much better at the various comms tools too.
As for your other items:
Sales people, who are effective, will find ways. (As they should by the way. New money feeds everyone else.)
Point taken on the smells, but for me I don't care.
Perfect time management? Lolol if it works for you, great. Tons of people will struggle with this anyway.
Having a place to focus is all about the workplace. Can be at home, at work, rented... this one is not really an argument for work at home as much as it is workplace advocacy generally.
I recently switched jobs, and have been to the office once (to pick up equipment and get set up) and it's a completely different dynamic. I don't really know any of my colleagues, chatting online occasionally isn't the same as meeting in person, etc. I still game a few times a week with people from my last two jobs, but I can't see the same happening for this job.
On the whole though, I do prefer it. My work relationships are probably lacking more but my quality of life is greatly improved.
That sounds more like a company culture issue. It's surprising that there isn't a small talk channel. You should suggest one, they can be pretty valuable
My company always had offices spread around the country that worked close with one another, so going full remote was a change, but honestly not a huge change.
We have regular coffee/tea breaks every afternoon, no work talk allowed. A variety of online social events helps round things out.
Is it the same as working in an office together? Of course not. But while I have worked on some great teams that gelled really well, IMHO the majority of work teams don't have deep bonds.
What WfH really did kill was the ability to create informal connections between teams, the types of connections that help Get Things Done faster than usual. I feel that is the one true, huge, drawback of WfH.
A manager I worked with once pre-pandemic had his idea of "business hammocks" for the office repeatedly shot down. He was a genius though.
I had the most ridiculously comfy couch in my office. Blue, threadbare, worn-in. Every time anyone sat down in it I warned them that they were going to fall asleep if they stayed there too long. Without fail, I'd hear wood sawing after a manner of minutes. Vendors, colleagues, the CIO, the CEO, my wife dropping by to visit, that couch was insidious.
The one we had was pretty great too, but not quite as intoxicatingly good as yours.
But, it had a big, brass buddha at one end. Rub the belly for good karma...
This thread is getting me to seriously consider another one. Just started a new company and we all know how that is. A comfy couch might be just the thing.
Sounds like nap pods lol
Some team members output has severely dropped. I've seen people playing video games during work hours for example. Also work and free time has mixed to a point where people just randomly take hour or two to go skiing or for a walk and routinely just quit at the normal time.
Commuting is different in different places. For me it is 15 minute drive to the office from a neighboring smaller city where property prices are 5x lower.
I've never eaten more takeout in my life than during past 2 years. At the office I had access to healthy "home style" cooking with variety of diet. Now I have access to pizza, poor quality Chinese, and decent Indian food. Of course I could cook for myself, but I don't like cooking and I don't want to spend the time.
I'd argue my Quality of Life has gotten significantly worse especially since they closed gyms. Yes, they are now open, but there is also like a meter of snow outside so I probably won't get to the gym until spring actually starts.
I live in an apartment complex so the super has the keys to do whatever work needs to be done without my presence. I could take my deliveries at the office (and I often did since I saw clear improvement on delivery dates when they delivered to a business instead of residential address). Doctor visits were never an issue, because remote work was always an option and many people did work a day or two every week remotely.
If past experience is anything to go by I will get flooded with people saying that I should just do better and be better remote worker (like I probably shouldn't be writting this on company time) instead of acknowledging that different people are different and working at the office fits me and my life style better and that I've optimized for that lifestyle long before the pandemic hit. I personally can't wait for life to go back to normal. I'm sure we will lose some people since they want to be 100% remote and that's fine.
People spending time on other things could be a sign that they either don't want to can't do full 8h anyway. I can't, just can't, my mind does not work that way. I can spend 2-3 days at the lowest gear just barely ticking boxes and then get everything done in one productive day. I'd be happy and I dare say more productive for the dollar when working 6h for 20% reduced pay. I now still work 6h but stretched to 8h and I don't have guilt free extra 2h for my own stuff because I feel like I should be accomplishing something no matter my health, the weather, my emotional state or other factors going on in my life.
It's a shame that people working in, say, low paying jobs in restaurants, care work, supermarkets, cleaning or factories can't say the same.
Dear god, people enjoying their life. This is the worst. Clearly society can't function unless everyone is miserable.
Have you ever considered that maybe the entire 8 hour work day is bullshit? That it is entirely possible for people to contribute productively within different time-frames?
>I'd argue my Quality of Life has gotten significantly worse especially since they closed gyms. Yes, they are now open, but there is also like a meter of snow outside so I probably won't get to the gym until spring actually starts.
What does this have to do with working from home? What could remote work possibly have to do with your inability to stick to a gym routine?
>I'm sure we will lose some people since they want to be 100% remote and that's fine.
You won't "lose some people". Unless your company has the pay and clout that Google has, your company will be decimated by a wave of people quitting.
Have you considered some reading comprehension? Read the first sentence you quoted again and stop pushing your own opinion and gospel.
>What does this have to do with working from home? What could remote work possibly have to do with your inability to stick to a gym routine?
This too is super disingenious line of questioning. How aobut not being able to go to anywhere else? Feels pretty weird just to drive to the gym and back.
>You won't "lose some people". Unless your company has the pay and clout that Google has, your company will be decimated by a wave of people quitting.
ROFL
That has nothing to do with working from home though, it has to do with the pandemic. I go places during my lunchbreak in work from home now that there are vaccines and things are open again - it's so convenient, if I need to duck to the store or the chemist or I want to pick up food from a local cafe.
I'm going to be honest with you, I occasionally play video games during work hours at the office too. Way I figure it, if no one is saying anything about my output then they are receiving the value they expect for what they're paying me, and I'm not charitable enough to give them more than that.
I was only able to work from home during this whole thing for 2 weeks when the entire department had COVID (myself included). I played through Factorio[0] during those two weeks and nobody noticed.
[0] I didn't like it. It's very well made and I cannot say it doesn't successfully implement exactly the experience it intends to, I just didn't actually have fun.
Also one guy doing this overtly errodes the whole team. Like why should I work all day while you play video games or go skiing or whatever in the middle of the day? Yeah nobody is complaining because they are being nice and/or assuming that your productivity has dipped do to the pandemic.
> assuming that your productivity has dipped do to the pandemic.
Why do you not assume that productivity has dipped due to the pandemic and instead believe it is because people are working remote?
as long as their tasks are done, who cares? i take a 30min nap after lunch almost every day but i could also do a FFXIV dungeon instead.
You sound like a micromanager. If you have notable metrics that show decreased output, then raise the issue and correct it. But don't say that everyone should be subject to losing privileges due to your team's poor performance.
Wouldn’t that snow be just as annoying to deal with for getting to work?
And waking up early just to walk to the gym and back feels weird.
We as humans are not designed to be productive selves 5 days in a row, for 8 hours a day. If I'm not feeling well or having a bad day, I might finish working an hour or two early but make up for it by working overtime another day that week. It doesn't matter that I cut that day short - I wasn't going to be very productive if I wasn't feeling well anyway.
The 9-5, 8 hour work day was designed for PHYSICAL labor during the industrial revolution where output was directly correlated to time. This is not the case anymore. If someone can meet/exceed their responsibilities in 5 hours, why do they need to spend 8 hours just because slower workers need that time? This just punishes efficient workers.
That is no issue. In fact in my company we don't care how long you work per day or when you work. People tell us how many hours they can work per month and they get paid accordingly. Of course the union sets some minimum and maximum numbers we can do, but in essense it is normal to work flexible hours. Even to just take days off and do either longer days or work on a weekend/holiday if that's what you want. Or work hours "into bank" before hand and then take days/hours off. No problem with that.
My problem is guys literally working 9-5, expect "lunch break" takes 2-3 hours since they are playing a video game.
>If someone can meet/exceed their responsibilities in 5 hours, why do they need to spend 8 hours just because slower workers need that time? This just punishes efficient workers.
Except people will always find excuses why it wasn't their fault the feature/release/product didn't ship in time.
You missed the entire point of my comment. If they take 2-3 hour lunch breaks and meet/exceed their company and performance goals, then it shouldn't matter how long they are working. Results matter, not time.
Yeah, kinda guilty of that. Zero gym and during the winter hours where end of work = end of sun, I've had times where I take a walk. Usually more than 1 unproductive day leads to me just using a bit of the moonlight oil to catch up. Nothing super drastic, but e.g. last month there was a day where I just had a burst of productivity to ride for some 3-4 hours at 18:00.
Game wise, I'm never going full "well time to boot up the PS5", but I have been playing a lot more mobile games on the side while stuff compiles.
>I personally can't wait for life to go back to normal. I'm sure we will lose some people since they want to be 100% remote and that's fine
Well, tech is an even hotter market than a pre-pandemic so in my industry I'm not too worried about anyone pursuing full remote. It can go vice versa for those companies that go full remote and for people who want that separation of life.
I still want some office to go into, but I do hope that this pandemic changes some attitudes about the times where I made need to take a "sick but still productive" day at home, or when I travel and need a week to just report in remotely. Flexibility is nice in a pinch and in previous companies that was a pain.
I don't get this. If you are sick then be sick. Instead of working 3-5 days in half capacity just take a rest day or two and you'll be back to 100%. As I've understood some countries have limited sick days, but that's not a thing here. I always tell my team members to take sick day if they don't feel 100% because over all it will be more productive if people work they they are healthy.
And as per pre-pandemic remote working days were always an option, just not full time since there were days like sprint start and ending days that were much smoother when everyone was present in person.
My team used to play street fighter or super smash bros during lunch.
However, a decrease in output is a separate issue that needs to be addressed by the employee's manager/leader.
> I've never eaten more takeout in my life than during past 2 years. At the office I had access to healthy "home style" cooking with variety of diet. Now I have access to pizza, poor quality Chinese, and decent Indian food. Of course I could cook for myself, but I don't like cooking and I don't want to spend the time.
My company's office is close to only a couple worthwhile restaurants (WTF Downtown Seattle, if you aren't next to cap hill you are boned). While at home, I have multiple good options within walking distance to me.
Check if you are within shef.com's service area. Home made meals from local cooks. Great stuff.
> I'd argue my Quality of Life has gotten significantly worse especially since they closed gyms.
Once they reopen, WfH means the time saved on commuting can be turned into gym time!
Prior to WfH I had to bring workout clothes and a towel with me if I wanted to hit the gym before lunch. Because my commute was on a bus, that was crammed full standing room only shoulder to shoulder, adding a gym bag in the mix was no fun.
Instead you should be an advocate for mixed teams. Why can't your remote coworker just zoom into the meeting with you onsite?
We can all be accommodating to each other.
Second it the actual logistics. It was always pain to accommedate the one or two remotees by having some kind of conference phone-thing. Over all it is just way more convenient and nicer to talk face to face. In my opinion even all online meeting is better than hybrid one.
I've seen people playing ping pong during work hours in the office. They even have tournaments sometimes.
The horror.
What about all the people who already knew spending 2 hours commuting was a terrible use of our time before the pandemic, regardless of how much of a bigger house we could get?
So we lived in dense cities, in walkable neighborhoods, where the office was a 15 minute walk away but so were restaurants, parks, grocery stores, and theaters?
But part of the exchange we made was that our houses/apartments were small, and were for LIVING not for working. We don't have a spare bedroom to turn into a segregated office, so instead the work/home life has been an overlapping mess for 2 years.
Also, if WfH spreads, many of the people who made the same choice, getting a small apartment in a dense city for living only, will probably make a different choice now and move somewhere else. I know many people who did just that. I expect this will lower the prices of housing in cities, which means you could live in a bigger apartment if you wanted.
The only option here is either having a member of the team always one step behind, or changing the entire organisation of the team to revolve around that guy. People who prefer "in-office" work would rather make the effort of commuting so that they do not have to deal with that. So they expect the other people in their team to do the same, otherwise there is little to no point.
My point is that "let's invest in great offices for those who want, but let people do what they want regardless" is not really an option, because you are paying the organisational and financial price, and not really getting the benefits of either.
I believe most organisation working in "hybrid" model will impose fixed days at the office - so they can get the full benefits of the "in-office" time. And let other days at home, so that people working better remotely can enjoy that as well. Teams will organise around that, eg by schedule most meetings on "in-office" days.
This is awfully close to sunken cost fallacy - we have invested so much in it, therefore we have to use it no matter what circumstances.
> I believe most organisation working in "hybrid" model will impose fixed days at the office - so they can get the full benefits of the "in-office" time. And let other days at home, so that people working better remotely can enjoy that as well.
This is the worst option for many people because it would force them still live within reasonable commuting distance, resulting them not being able to move to lcol area or closer to their parents/communities/etc. What's the point then of allowing them to go remote when it's not really remote, but rather "not here, but still close"? Yea, it will work with some pople, but for others it makes things worse.
Some agree with the idea that remote is strictly "better", but many do not. Bear in mind that we had the opportunity to create fully remotes companies for a long time, and some succeeded, but most companies were still office-only or office-first. Similarly, some companies will move to remote-first post pandemic, but it does not look like everyone will - far from it. And everyone is making their pro-and-cons analysis.
> What's the point then of allowing them to go remote when it's not really remote
Here is the point: this is not remote. It's office-first with some days were you are going to be allowed not to come, in order to lower the commuting time and get more "alone" time. For people who want to work remote, from anywhere, this is not cutting it. And it's not trying to. For people who still love the office but have some complain about having to go every single day, this is a nice option.
Amazing how the realities of our financial system and transaction structure basically necessitates projection of a management groups will on others isn't it?
Couldn't have anything to do with the overrepresentation of psychopathic/sociopathic tendencies amongst corporate decisionmakers...
Yeah that only works for very small teams the moment you are like ten or os, even in an office first setting will be away for whatever reason, tradespeople coming, feeling sick etc
> Going on lunch and discussing about your project ? Too bad.
> . Got an idea you ran by a colleague at the coffee machine ?
> . A state of the project on a whiteboard in the office ?
> No, you need to use Jira.
Too bad that you need to put that into writing so later it can be referenced or you end up headscratching at a git commit which doesn't refer a ticket three months down the road
deanCommie's argument was around a choice of living arrangements based on the idea that work would happen at the office, and there not being any space for work at home, so a purely logistical one.
Coordination between on-site and remote workers is a separate issue, though I agree it is absolutely important.
> People who prefer "in-office" work would rather make the effort of commuting so that they do not have to deal with that. So they expect the other people in their team to do the same, otherwise there is little to no point.
I guess it works both ways. People who prefer "from home" would rather make the effort of communicating by text / visio so that they don't have to deal with the commute.
Precisely ! That's why it's important to communicate clearly to every person of the team the working agreement that are expected - and to enforce them. If the agreement is that no one is expected to have to commute, and everything must be done so they don't have to, that's perfectly fine - as long as everyone plays the game. And any person still insisting to meet "somewhere" because they don't like emails/IM/zoom needs to be talked to.
Similarly, if the rules are : you have to come to the office 3 days/week, expect that some things will happen in person, show up, and play the game. If you start insisting that everything needs to be organised in a way that allows you to stay fully remote and not show up, you need to review your position.
The important part is to ensure that expectations are clearly expressed - and enforced. Which Google is doing.
But it's frequent enough you can still hold most of your stuff for inperson if you didn't want to have the overhead of remote working.
If that's the style you prefer, then you need a co-working space to replace the office, in the same way your place probably isn't big enough to entertain people for dinner so you use a restaurant. And it's too dense with the neighbours to throw a proper party with dancing, so you use the bars and clubs.
At least this is my understanding from having done a bit of both.
WfH means not needing to buy for commute. Buy for lifestyle. Still want to live urban? Get a co-working space.
I would also argue that small apartment can be very limiting also for living. I mean, sure, if you spend all your free time in those restaurants, parks, grocery stores and theaters, then it may actually work. But if you wanna do anything that requires personal space, then living in a small apartment is very limiting.
I love my solo lunchbreak walk just to empty my head or just think instead of having to talk or interact with team members.
International companies have been doing this for decades.
Until I retired at the end of 2017 I had worked for over twenty years in a team which had developers and domain experts in the following countries: Norway, UK, Sweden, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, Turkey, USA (several states), Canada, Poland.
Occasional collaboration is different from day to day, and I'm sure that's why GP emphasised 'asynchronous' - doing it with your close colleagues requires a shift in how you work, async written communication not chats, PR review not pairing, etc.
> I can have someone come by and cut my cat's claws whenever need be.
You have somebody else come over to cut your cat‘s claws?
I know a number of people that don't feel comfortable doing that, or have cats where you'd need multiple people, or to wrap them, in order to clip their nails.
I definitely don't clip as short as they do at the vet, but I have a great set of clippers, and learned that what works for our cats is to keep the clippers on my desk and clip one or two nails when they come for a midday sit on my lap.
I can still work from home when I have errands to run or medical appointments, but I much prefer being in the office.
Yes, I like working remotely most of the time. But I like living close enough to the office that if needed, I can go slap someone upside the head on a whim.
See your POV easily though.
A decade ago, maybe a bit more, I consolidated into a backpack. Laptop, often second portable display, various adapters, chargers, clipboard, writing tools, phone, earbuds (I still prefer wired, if nothing more than the crazy good mic mine have), sewing, grooming, first aid...
Seems like a lot, but it isn't, and where I go the pack goes.
I can go from cold, arrive somewhere, and be up and running in a few minutes. Have not maintained a dedicated office for years now.
I do have dedicated work places, and have a few things, cheap things, duplicated for convenience.
These days, I have a home lab, work space, well equipped. Can do most anything I need there. This was not expensive, but I did also get gear over time too. Most of it was opportunistic buys. Total deals.
At work, any gear I need I either use where it is, or it is in my workspace.
The end result is a very mobile way. I am currently out of State for a week, and am pretty much fine, minus some gear, but I am also not needing to handle the associated roles either.
For quiet, I am on cell phone, no desk phone for the last decade. Use a spare room, my car, at home space, whatever.
The big perk is being where I both want and need a very high percentage of time.
Would hate full time at office. Would have to have one to start!
Well, at least those of us who work in Windows can have a pretty great experience because RDP is the shit. Leave a session running at work with a bunch of shit open, connect to it from home and everything resizes and rearranges to fit however many monitors and at whatever resolutions you decided to pass to it, disconnect the session and login locally at work again...
My question is: how did people not realize this before the pandemic?
The workers of Silicon Valley (and other urban centres) literally created and sustained this problem all by themselves: "You have to get to Silicon Valley!"
I'm in Uruguay, South America, so the pandemic has been an incredible boon to me. I even got a remote team management position !
I went mobile over a decade ago. Had some work travel to do, and it made so much sense I basically reorganized, ditched a desk phone (literally put it into a drawer, left VM announcements that I do not do VM, and have not had one since), setup a nice backpack with the goodies and never went back.
Through that time, I setup a home lab and just did more and more there, until about the only thing that matters is where stuff to work on actually is and whether I can move it.
Even those are easily matched in quality with zoom/slack and draw on screen features.
Just so you know, this is not legal. I hate it.
Your blanket statement is wrong. If you’d said “likely not legal”, you’d be correct. Someone could very well get work visas and have their employer approve the travel and accept the likely required nexus in said country.
Hey look it works for them too, everyone is a winner!
Which part of the Google offer significantly changed thanks to work done during the pandemic ? All these profits come from something that was built - in person - in pre pandemic work organisation, so we know that this was was successful. The only big thing that I can think of on Google side that was supposed to take off during the pandemic is Stadia. I own one, and it's an understatement to say that it did not deliver on its promises. It is not the first Google product that fails, and it is hard to say if the failure is due to remote work, but still something to consider.
Most Google products and services were mature in 2017.
I imagine maintanence. Even if they decided not to pursue any new products, features, or other major updates, keeping their services updated and providing various B2B support is a big part of keeping the whole thing running. It's not glamorous, but it is very specialized and requires top talent even for bug fixes, security patches, etc. at that level.
This is very true.
It is also true that these built products were operated in a remote work environment - meaningful, and significantly enhanced profits were extracted when operating these assets remotely vs operating them in person. Sample size is small of course and time will tell.
Stadia, not a great example, build in person - launched and operated remotely. Was its failure due to it being poorly built or poorly operated? Fellow owner and former user of the service, I didnt think it was that bad technically, but understand I am in the significant minority on that one.
My team has been able to hire people from all across the country, gaining access to talent that we normally would not have been able to reach.
Because my entire company has gone fully remote, if someone on the team has to take a trip overseas, they can choose to continue working if so desired. If someone wants to bail to a seaside town during the worst of winter, no problem.
People aren't forced to live in overpriced urban areas, they can live where they choose to!
> I think that an environment where someone can tap me on the shoulder when they need help leads to overall higher productivity, even if individual productivity suffers temporarily.
I agree, but I am getting 1/8th of my waking hours back from commuting.
Since the pandemic began I have been putting under 3000 miles a year on my car. I am eating home cooked meals every day. Mid day I can walk down to the local grocery store and pick up food to cook later for dinner.
My QoL is insanely improved.
If I need maintenance work done (Late last year I bought a house that was built in the 1950s, so, yes, lots of that happening) I am here all day long if need be. I don't have to worry about when expensive packages are delivered, I am always here to pick them up. I can have someone come by and cut my cat's claws whenever need be. I can schedule doctors and dentists appointments at any time of the day and not have to take a day off of work to make them.
And so on and so forth. WfH rocks.