37% of jobs in the United States can be performed entirely at home

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047272720300992

by rustoo • 4 years ago

414 395 4 years ago

akagusu• 4 years ago

But execs want you to commute because their mindset is to make worker's life miserable, and working from home is seem like a privilege.

warning263• 4 years ago

Not everyone loves WFH, you know.

agumonkey2• 4 years ago

After covid we have some vague stats and yeah not everybody enjoy full remote. But 1) there's a large pool of people that do, 2) you can have hybrid 3) unless no other colleague goes to the workplace you may enjoy some workplace social context 4) we need to reduce energy expenditure and not commuting seems like a massive gain.

onion2k2• 4 years ago

In my experience, whether or not someone enjoys something is largely irrelevant when it comes to work.

hn_version_00236• 4 years ago

I don’t mind coming into the office, as needed. What I do mind is being required to be someplace daily to assuage the ego of of some C-suite stuffed suit.

SuoDuanDao• 4 years ago

And those people can deal. I dealt with their preferred work environment although I didn't love it.

mostly_harmless• 4 years ago

and a commercial real estate crash would be bad for the company's bottom line

MSM• 4 years ago

I see this everywhere but I can't see how it's true.

I'm guessing that a company's largest expenses are (probably in order, too): People, Technology, Office space.

Most companies, especially smaller companies, do not actually own the office space they are in, they lease it. Commercial real estate crashing would greatly reduce one of their top 3 expenses... how is that bad for the bottom line?

nikanj• 4 years ago

Executives work towards a large number of stupid performance goals, but worker misery isn’t one of them.

hn_version_00236• 4 years ago

Citation needed. I could gesture wildly at everything these days. It sure seems like someone is working towards worker misery.

grimjack00• 4 years ago

It only seems like they do.

api• 4 years ago

Now think about the economic savings in the areas of energy and capital depreciation on cars. The overall economic efficiency boost from this could be unbelievably huge, not to mention the environmental benefits of less routine commuting.

I wouldn't be surprised if this approves economic efficiency by trillions of dollars.

warning263• 4 years ago

If only there were some way to transport people that wasn’t cars!

onemoresoop2• 4 years ago

That's the thing, remote working decreases the reliance on cars to some extent and not for everybody. Yes, cars are still used for transportation. In some urban settings public transportation is an option. I live in NYC and never owned a car not only because I rely on public transportation but it's a complete pain in the neck with parking, unwanted tickets and high cost for insurance.

tonyedgecombe• 4 years ago

If only there was some way to live near work.

alar442• 4 years ago

Do you live in a major metro area? If you do, you should know that the rest of the country was designed for cars. Mass transit in your average US isn't feasible as everything is so spread out. There is no city center. There's no downtown.

kube-system3• 4 years ago

Telecommuting is a solution for many situations where a public transport is simply impractical. At my last in-office job we had many people who chose to live in unincorporated areas across state lines and commute 100+km via car to the office. I currently live 400km+ from my job here in the US... 4 hours by car or 14 hours by ground-based public transport.

chasd005• 4 years ago

no matter the transportation mechanism it still takes time. Unless someone can invent a star trek'esque transporter the commute will always suck.

ppsreejith• 4 years ago

Also, the effect this would have on reducing rent and cost of living.

AnIdiotOnTheNet• 4 years ago

Yeah. Personally, I don't mind working in the office really, what I really want from WFH is the elimination of my commute.

dv_dt• 4 years ago

It will take some time work through, but there will also be cost savings on office spaces for companies.

paulcole5• 4 years ago

100% of the jobs I want to do can be performed entirely at home, but I prefer to do 100% of them in an office.

warning263• 4 years ago

Exactly — yet so many people can’t accept that ANYONE might want to work from an office.

My assumption is that people who love WFH are generally suburbanites who can’t fathom getting to work involves anything other than sitting in traffic for two hours.

iso16316• 4 years ago

When getting to work involves a short walk to the office, getting a coffee on the way, of course that's the best commute by a country mile. When the weather's nice like this morning I'll take a longer walk, but I don't have to do that commute.

sharemywin2• 4 years ago

I hate cube and half cubes or like at my current job before covid I had an office that I shared with 2 other people.

Tade0• 4 years ago

Urbanite here. I hated having to travel daily, even when my commute was around 35 minutes.

Currently working remotely and living in a city, because that's where all the services are.

dudul5• 4 years ago

Who are these people who can't accept that anyone wants to work from an office? If there are so many of them, can we see some examples?

Office work is not just about the commute, it is also about terrible work conditions where you may be seated in an open space shared by support, engineers, sales, etc.

"So many people can't accept that ANYONE is more productive in a remote setting".

This "us vs them" discourse is so childish. Just find the company that works the way you want, either all in office, or hybrid, or all distributed and move on.

alar442• 4 years ago

The vast vast majority of people don't have 2 hour commutes. This is pretty much an LA or NYC thing. There are other cities in the US and none of them require insane commutes like this.

My drive to work is 7 minutes, I live in a suburban neighborhood. I don't work in the office because there's no need for it.

AlwaysRock4• 4 years ago

People are not great at empathy.

If you have small kids working from an office gives you a good place to work with, hopefully, less distractions.

Some people like commuting because its their me time. Some people like the socialization being in an office gives them. Some careers/roles are easier when you can walk over to someones desk and talk to them.

There are plenty of reasons why working in an office might be interesting to someone. Just like there are plenty of reasons why working fully remotely is interesting to someone.

nappy-doo• 4 years ago

You're asking someone to respect your choice to work from an office, while it feels like you're disparaging their choice to live where they want to (or possibly can afford as, for example, most of the suburbs have become cheaper than cities for much of America.)

Can we all just agree that people want different things?

nonameiguess• 4 years ago

I live in the dead center of a major city, but it happens to be a city that isn't much of a tech hub. Thanks to widespread work from home, I can now consider job offers from anywhere and work for a hot startup that just IPO'd and get the same benefits of a bull market for engineering labor as someone younger and/or unattached who can easily move halfway across the country for a better job.

sharemywin2• 4 years ago

Not trying to be sarcastic. I genuinely asking. Why?

I'm not a fan of the office because:

1. I don't like the commute 2. I have an office in my house, but at the "office"; I would be sharing some kind of space. 3. now that covid is less of an issue I plan on going to lunch more with freinds.

zeroonetwothree2• 4 years ago

1. Commute is a nice way to get some alone time and unwind after work (admittedly, I wouldn't mind a shorter one though, say 15 min)

2. At home there are many more distractions (kids)

3. At work there are nice people to talk to/interact with

4. Getting lunch with coworkers is a nice way to bond and discuss ideas

5. All my friends moved away during the pandemic, and an office is a good way to make new friends

6. IME, meeting in person leads to friendlier interactions, whereas virtual interactions tend to be more hostile

7. The separation of home/office life makes it easier to focus

paulcole5• 4 years ago

1. I bike/run commute and have planned my life to let me live with 15 minutes of where I work.

2. I purposefully choose to live in a small apartment with no dedicated “work” space.

3. Yeah, me too.

apocalyptic0n3• 4 years ago

Not the OP but for me:

1. I get very little face-to-face social interaction if I'm working from home. I need the interaction at the office or I fear I'll lose the already terrible social skills I have

2. Some conversations are just easier to have in-person, especially from a management standpoint. I don't micromanage and I am pretty hands-off but when a team leader is having issues with their team, it's generally easier for them to pull me into a conference room and chat face-to-face with me and we can figure out a resolution together. This can happen over video, but I find it's better if it's not.

3. I find you get exposure to new techniques and technologies and different perspectives on how to approach solving technical issues when you're in an office and can see a team huddling trying to figure something out.

That said, I know it's not everyone's preference and I'm in favor of a hybrid model personally. Office is available if you want to use it. If you're living in the area of the office, come in once or twice a month and have a face-to-face meeting with your project teammates and/or manager. Otherwise, you're free to be at home if you want.

Swizec• 4 years ago

I love working from home and remote suits me. But the past few months I’ve noticed more and more coworkers asking for zoom pairing sessions, increasing numbers of mob programming sessions, and a general craving for face time.

Personally I dislike those because they’re the worst of both worlds. Not quite remote, not quite in person. I get more done on my own.

In my observation many people are just very done with remote. Especially the younger folk whose lives aren’t as full of adult crap yet.

dockd• 4 years ago

I can't speak for the OP and everyone has their own reasons but - Do you have a roommate? Children? Now your house/apartment is looking like a mini-office with shared space. - Your house has one office. Where will your spouse/partner work? Most houses don't have two offices. - Maybe living in a small apartment is OK for people because they can get out to larger spaces. Want to live in a studio apartment and work there too? - Offices can have cafeterias and tend to have restaurants nearby. - habit

eminence324• 4 years ago

In addition to all of the social reasons others have listed, I'll list 2 technical reasons why an office is a more comfortable place for me to work:

I have 2 large monitors at my office desk (so when you include my laptop's screen, I have a total of 3 monitors; lots of screen space). Compared to no external monitors at home.

At the office, I have a gigabit connection to the LAN and file servers. At home, I have a VPN that is, while pretty good, not able to compete with 1GBe.

sporedro• 4 years ago

Not the person you asked, but for me it’s the social aspect.

I can’t stand being on a camera, voice and text chat don’t really replace the in-person conversations for me.

Everything else is either the same or much worse working in person.

cwmoreiras7• 4 years ago

1. I like my commute. If my commute changed I would feel differently. Regardless, I feel employees should get paid for their commutes.

2. I don't have an office in my house. Even if I had the space I don't think I would want to use it for work. However, since coronavirus happened I have had way more space in my office than I did before, and I refuse to be sandwiched between two other engineers in an open office floor plan. So if my company tries to do that they will have a problem, at least from me.

3. I pack my lunch as often as possible and don't really know anyone who works near me.

I do think there are many developers for whom it makes sense to work from home. Especially if they are seniors, and their company workflow is well organized for it. Also, I do think that there are people who are very efficient working from home, but if they are WFH it will still be harder for junior engineers to collaborate with them or learn from them.

I've seen it suggested that in the future, companies who want people to come back to the office will lose all their best employees and will only be able to retain the people who can't get a WFH job. I think a lot of what makes someone a good engineer comes down to experience, so if that were to come true it would ultimately mean that senior engineers (best employees) will work remotely and junior engineers (can't get a WFH job) will be working on site. That kind of leaves junior engineers in the dust as far as mentorship is concerned so I would not consider that a good thing, even though it seems to be fine with certain people who think that they are "good engineers", when in reality they are probably just seniors.

turtlebits• 4 years ago

Not everyone has a bad commute.

Distinct place where I don't have the distractions of home. (ie feel the need to clean, fix, things)

Much nicer environment - way more open space / natural light, great air quality, views, amenities.

coldpie2• 4 years ago

Man, I love my commute. Losing that was one of the hardest parts of the year I spent WFH. I take the bus to work, it's about 40 minutes each way. I get time outside, I get to watch the sun rise, I spend that time reading library books and magazines, sometimes I talk with strangers for a few minutes, I stop off on my way home to get new library books or at a shop for whatever, or sometimes hit a bar on the way home. My commute rules, don't take it away from me.

deltree7• 4 years ago

This could have never happened if Jeff and Sanjay were 'working from home'

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/12/10/the-friendship...

Who knows Google would have been an also-ran Search Engine company if it weren't for those two solving the right scale problems at the right time.

And no amount of 'Productivity Metrics' can capture these leaps in value creation because it truly is of the 'Unknown-Unknown' category.

tapland3• 4 years ago

I miss the casual chatting about all kinds of things and the ritualistic coffee breaks (Sweden) a lot.

A lot a lot.

I can't afford an apartment with another room for a proper separate office, and wouldn't want to waste that space on a room to separate work and home even if I did.

dudul5• 4 years ago

And you can't afford this apartment because up until 2 years ago everybody was forced to get a place next to the office. You should support remote/distributed work, since it will make it possible to move to the country/small towns and relieve the pressure on difficult housing markets.

willcipriano2• 4 years ago

Id be open to going into a office, but when I compare wages between jobs done from home and jobs that demand in office I'm not seeing a significant delta. Even if the drive was 15 minutes I'd want something to cover my costs and time.

I was interviewing a month ago and I got a in office offer that was a little lower than the remote offer I had. I brought up that I'd be willing to come in for more money or some sort of flex time around that hour commute and that was met with a audible gasp from the HR person. They acted as if the request was rude and that the occasional free lunch made up for the 10 hours a week time loss. That made the choice for me.

If I am truly more valuable to the business in a office I see no reason why I can't share in those rewards.

giantg23• 4 years ago

"That made the choice for me."

Often the way they react is more important than the actual content. Seems like if they don't understand your concerns on this topic, they likely won't be amenable to your future concerns on other topics.

paulcole5• 4 years ago

I’m actually the opposite. I’d take a 10-20% pay cut today to get an in-person job vs. my current remote job. I just haven’t been motivated to job hunt lately.

foxyv2• 4 years ago

If I lived in some parts of Europe, then yes, I would totally love to go back to the office. But in the United States? I can't afford to live close enough to the office for a short commute (4-5x as expensive) and transportation is garbage.

Worst of all, there is nobody else there. Our teams are spread across 8 different countries in so many different time zones. I would have maybe 1-2 office mates from my department. That show up irregularly.

I remember the happy times I had in the office and I really wish I could recapture that spirit. But the wheel of time has kind of turned.

paulcole5• 4 years ago

I’m in the US, choose to live in the least expensive and smallest apartment near a large-ish city so that I can have a short and manageable commute to both work and the things I enjoy doing.

My transportation costs are essentially 0 — bicycle maintenance I can mostly do myself. My electric bill is $20-$50 a month. Sometimes $3 for a bus ticket. Plus no homeowner’s insurance, property taxes, maintenance, water/garbage bills (all included in rent).

My costs would be 4x-5x higher if I didn’t make the choices I do, simply because the style of living I prefer isn’t available outside of cities.

trentnix2• 4 years ago

Can Be != Should Be

kreeben3• 4 years ago

Why not?

WillPostForFood• 4 years ago

"Can" doesn't tell you if the job is done better or worse, happier or unhappier.

biermic• 4 years ago

Social interactions.

lbriner2• 4 years ago

We are going to have a massive problem with taking on juniors, particularly younger people. Without many people visiting the office, there is a lack of banter, encouragement, confidence building. Imagine you were 16 and your introduction to the world of work was sitting in your own bedroom!

Honestly, I don't know how we deal with it unless we create a schedule where there has to be certain people in the office on certain days so that a junior can get the interaction and support which is as much of job training as anything they can do online.

So that's one example of when can do != should do

NationalPark• 4 years ago

By what normative standards? It's a labor market. If employers want employees to come in and get middle managed by chair watchers, I'm sure there's a number high enough to convince almost any remote-preferring worker.

hsnewman2• 4 years ago

I would change the title to "Approximately 37% of jobs in the United States can be performed entirely at home"

neogodless• 4 years ago

"37%" isn't a number with high precision to be begin with, so the "approximately" is implied.

hsnewman2• 4 years ago

I would say that it is quite specific.

foolfoolz• 4 years ago

i know it seems unlikely now but i think we will return to the office. not 100% of the time. not everyone was doing 100% before either.

but a lot of people have switched jobs in the remote only era. we have experienced / are experiencing how little we know these new people. how little we feel connected to them. how strange it is to not make new friends at a new job that go beyond the work-friend level. i think most people will pay the cost of going in (again, not every day) for the gain of seeing people. this will be gradual but i think it is a common sentiment that we want to work with people we can see in person

waterboigh• 4 years ago

this will be gradual but i think it is a common sentiment that we want to work with people we can see in person

That's been my biggest issue, is I miss the people. I miss the coffee runs, the random lunch outings...

However, if I lived my ideal schedule I would work from 0600 to 1100 ITO, break for a 'siesta', then finish my work later in the afternoon evening as my schedule allows. And so my co-workers have also had their own ideals which overlap little to any such that we quickly reach a point of "no point in having in office, we overlap two hours at best."

Perhaps the best model to satiate flexibility but indulge the human side of the equation, is remote-first regional-companies. One can still plan to meet with some regularity without absurd amounts of travel. At my first startup, we would meet on a roughly weekly basis for a company lunch to have those conversations easiest done face-to-face, or just hang out for an afternoon enjoying the local natural beauty (#SaltLife) - anytime the Engineering VP and I needed to meetup, we'd just figure out what day we could meet up at a colo office or coffee spot.

Otherwise, remote from wherever made sense. Some days for me it was pool side, some days down by the creek, most days just in my home office. The only real down-side is that lack of a national or global talent pool, but we weren't even all that niche so it wasn't a factor for us and, I suspect, most companies which just do the same old languages on the same old platforms.

AlwaysRock4• 4 years ago

I'd happily do quarterly week long company regional on sites. It's expensive for companies to do, if they do it right and cover all costs and travel for sig others/family, but its still cheaper than rent on a big office building.

throwxxxaway• 4 years ago

I feel so much better working remotely so that I don't have to talk to my colleagues in person. We are completely different people, like from different worlds. RTO is mandatory at our place.

This made me happy every time I saw a rise in infections or new variant, for which I feel bad about myself.

eropple2• 4 years ago

I started a new job during COVID. I've met my coworkers twice (two of them three times). There are a solid four people out of an org of ~40 who I unhesitatingly consider non-work friends now.

"You can't make friends over the Internet" hasn't been true for decades.

hn_version_00236• 4 years ago

Indeed. How many of us have friends made through gaming over the ‘net? I’d wager 50%+

AlwaysRock4• 4 years ago

Eh. I've had close work friends and even with my best efforts those still felt like work friends, basically not as close as my non work friendships, and the relationship suffered greatly once one of us left that job.

I don't try to cultivate work friendships now. It's a great way to build up a friendship that wont exists, or will only exist to a lesser extent, in 12-24 months.

I'll be nice and friendly, as always. But I'm not staying late to get beers with work folks because they are my friends. I'm going home to see my family or hangout with my actual friends.

It just doesnt feel healthy to tie work and my friendships together.

somehnacct37572• 4 years ago

Whether workers want it or not isn't going to be the deciding factor. Nor will it be a mental health issue. Just look at their years of ignoring studies about how open offices are bad for knowledge workers. Rather, it will be purely a financial decision.

It comes down to whether employers are going to sign many-year leases for a social hangout spot for their employees. As well as accept liability during future COVID outbreaks.

Right now there is artificial demand from employers in favor of returning, but only the ones who already signed many-year leases. For everycorp else, an office is an unnecessary expense. They will take the money they save on rent and insurance and spend some of it on wellness perks and subsidizing home offices, and come out ahead financially.

I also think the employee demand to return to the office is misplaced. We're all tired of being cooped up at home with nothing to do, but that has more to do with lockdowns than WFH. Without the lockdowns, those 2 hours you spent commuting are now time in your day to join a social club near your home, start an outdoor hobby, etc. Will WFH workers still want to return to an office once they find a new mental health balance that doesn't rely on their employer? I think no.

spookthesunset5• 4 years ago

As well as accept liability during future COVID outbreaks.

Yet somehow grocery store workers managed to work in their "office" and survive the last two years. Why do all these software developer people think they are so special?

It bothers me how many people use COVID as a means to push their personal agendas.

tick_tock_tick3• 4 years ago

Rather, it will be purely a financial decision.

I agree and think this will be the key. Most will return to the office and the companies that don't will be out-competed forcing them to close or return. Of course this will take years to fully shake out.

Tenoke• 4 years ago

Has the title editorializing rule been dropped? I see even more posts with changed titles when the original isn't particularly misleading.

caymanjim• 4 years ago

I've been more aware of title changes lately, but I don't know if the frequency has increased. Some of them have been egregious. I'm a fan of changes like this one, though. I can't stand clickbait titles like this article has.

htk2• 4 years ago

The title is a verbatim copy of one of the highlights in the study.

Karawebnetwork• 4 years ago

Since this is the most descriptive line out of the highlights section, I personally enjoy that this is the content chosen instead of the "clickbaity" page title which would be "How many jobs can be done at home?".

stefan_• 4 years ago

But then the jig is up, no? I thought that was an amazing moment when recently the NYC mayor asked CEOs to "help get workers back to the office".

It's not about the work, it's not about the city, it's about making sure real estate doesn't crash and those campaign contributions can keep coming.

lbriner2• 4 years ago

Maybe the mayor also cares about local businesses that get their income from city workers as well as the transport networks which need all the money they can get. Maybe they care about the tourist buzz from a busy city or the saftey in numbers.

You don't always have to assume the worst of someone just because they are powerful.

dml2135• 4 years ago

These things are not mutually exclusive.

spookthesunset5• 4 years ago

Don’t forget the suburban sprawl this sort of stuff will cause. Eating further and further into our natural habitats building giant houses for wealthy, privileged tech workers.

PaulDavisThe1st• 4 years ago

In most surveys of this, there are substantial numbers of people who want to get back to the office. That doesn't mean we should ignore the people who don't want to, but the opposite is also true.

It's also about the other businesses that are enabled by having significant number of non-at-home workers in the neighborhood. I'm not saying that this should outweigh or override anything else, but I am saying you don't have to be this cynical.

TimPC2• 4 years ago

The coding used by this survey is a joke. If 40% of an occupation says they work outdoors that's below 50% so it's bucketed into the work from home category on that criterion. I think if even 20% of a job is saying they work outdoors that's pretty strong evidence you're missing some information about what the other 80% are doing in their job that prevents it from being a work from home job. The net result of their setup is obviously a vast overestimate so take the 37% number with a grain of salt.

stevenhubertron2• 4 years ago

Couldn’t the job still be performed at home with the occasional on site? I’m thinking of a construction PM. The job could mainly be done at home other then when needed to meet GC on site. Seems like there is still WFH no?

htk2• 4 years ago

That’s why the “entirely at home” from the study’s highlights is an egregious conclusion from its methods.

TimPC2• 4 years ago

Depends what you're using the WFH number for. If you want to extend it to an argument about being able to live substantially further from a job then needing to meet a GC on site some of the time is a dealbreaker. I think it's fair to say to call the job as a whole a WFH job it needs to be 100% remote. That's not to say non-WFH jobs can't have some remote time.

spookthesunset5• 4 years ago

I’m thinking of a construction PM. The job could mainly be done at home other then when needed to meet GC on site.

I’m sure all the blue collar construction workers would totally respect the PM even more than they do now if they didn’t show up on site…

There is an awful lot of privilege going on behind the scenes in these WFH debates.

isoos• 4 years ago

I’m thinking of a construction PM.

The construction we've seen recently had a PM, and they were on the site about 20-25% of the time. Parts of their job can be and should be done in an office (or from home), but I can't imagine that they wouldn't visit the site regularly while keeping the quality and the schedule goals...

wing-_-nuts• 4 years ago

I know some companies are trying to get their employees to go back to a hybrid schedule, but for me, I think the bell can't be unrung. My company is a f500 company that I would not have thought would remain remote, but we have, and it really helps us hire and retain talent. It honestly helps us recruit people that would otherwise have sought out trendier employers.

stevenhubertron2• 4 years ago

I don’t hate working in an office. I hate working in an “open plan” office where someone is always interrupting my work.

silisili2• 4 years ago

Same. Seems not too long before people started really hating offices, offices started being designed to make you hate them. Open offices, no walls, 'island concept' which sounds all fun and tropical until you learn it just means you no longer even have your own desk.

If companies want people back in offices, make them enticing. Have perks! Imagine everyone getting their own room, with a nice desk and maybe small couch and mini fridge. Having a shared personal assistant to take care of some things, work related or not. Heck, even something as small as a free daycare would be a huge motivator.

If you want people back, start treating them like people and not cattle.

pc862• 4 years ago

I agree with everything you said but how is "free daycare" something small? Daycare costs thousands of dollars and the regulations and licensure are (rightfully) a very high bar. I would see free daycare as a huge perk and I don't even have kids.

hn_version_00236• 4 years ago

My wishlist is:

1. Kill the panopticon (open offices) 2. Employers should bear the cost of ALL commuting

The panopticon is truly dystopian, and whenever I’m in one, the hair on the back of my neck never lays flat. I feel watched (because I am) and it isn’t pleasant.

Forcing employers to bear the costs of commuting would really up-end things. We’d all be working from home really damned quickly, and I suspect there’d be massive gains for the environment, climate change, etc.

jjav• 4 years ago

offices started being designed to make you hate them

Indeed. I didn't mind at all going to the office the first many years of my career, where I always had a private office with a closing door.

But with open offices, I'll do everything I can to never be there.

tnel77• 4 years ago

Free daycare could get me back in an office. That would be a huge financial perk.

Apocryphon7• 4 years ago

If companies want to lure employees back into the office, they should give them offices of their own.

samstave2• 4 years ago

its funny, when working at Intel, one of the things people bitched about was the cubicles. (1998)

I hate open offices, but having worked in all formats, open offices are bad for mental health.

When working on MPK West for FB, they built an open office to house 3,000 employees with only 5 offices (with escape hatches) for the c-suite.

cableshaft• 4 years ago

Cubicles suck compared to private offices, but they're miles better than open offices.

zamalek• 4 years ago

If you were to prefer working in an office, you can find a local office space that meets your tastes.

Or if you like open office, you could go that direction too.

mwattsun6• 4 years ago

5 of us wrote Microsoft Works for the Macintosh while working at home from 1984 to 1992. Without the internet, we got together as needed to merge code, usually once a month, but sometimes once a week. We talked on the phone. We went to Microsoft once in awhile. It was ideal and worked very well.

Maybe it was just our personalities that made it work, but I am astonished that any programmer would rather go into the office. With high speed internet and video conferencing, I assume that some people are just very lonely and need face to face. I see nothing wrong with that. I understand it, but after 1992 I took a job that forced me into an office and I hated it.

I can safely say I never wrote any good code while working in an office. There are too many distractions.

cecilpl2• 4 years ago

This is fascinating to me! How did you manage to merge code in the 80s? What tools were available? Did you have three-way merge tools or did you do it more manually?

Or rather did you talk frequently and ensure that you weren't stepping in each other's files? How did you make changes to shared APIs?

eminence324• 4 years ago

Some "old-timers" at my software company occasionally tell stories about how "checking the source code" meant physically grabbing a the one binder filled with pages of fortran and inserting your changes. Physically holding the binder gave you exclusive checkin access :)

tfigment• 4 years ago

I would assume RCS and floppies. CVS later. That is what my company apparently used in that era.

Clubber3• 4 years ago

There were always tools to diff two codebases and make a intermediate file that had all the changes. We did it back in the BBS days. You could always take the diff file and type the changes in manually. That's how "mods" worked. It would be something like this

  SomeFile.pas
  14: - If Variable = 1
  14: + If Variable = 2

mwattsun6• 4 years ago

Macintosh Programmers Workshop had some tools but we mostly did it by hand so we tended to work on different parts of the program. If that was a problem our manager who owned the company would do a road trip to collect the new code that another person needed (we all lived in the Bay Area.) He had a big financial incentive to do so. Or we would get together, but that was not optimal.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_Programmer%27s_Works...

zozbot234• 4 years ago

What tools were available?

"My Briefcase", in Windows. It was like cloud shared storage, but using removable media.

headmelted• 4 years ago

If you don't mind my asking, have you spent much of your time since then working from home or in an office?

I likewise very much prefer working from home and find I get more done, but wanting to get an idea of what it's like from someone who's seen and done both over the long term.

mwattsun6• 4 years ago

Works was my first job out of the Navy in 84, so I had no prior office experience. I spent 94' to 2000 working in 4 separate offices for 3 different companies. I remember my first office experience I brought in a cot. People looked at me like I was insane. Well, I guess power naps are out of the question. Then I was exposed to office politics for the first time. Some people walk around hating each other all day. What a downer that was. Some women (and some men) would interrupt me to flirt with me. I didn't mind that so much. Then I would be in deep focus fixing some problem and they'd flash the lights because it was someone's birthday and we all had to go to the conference room because it was someone's birthday and there was cake and ice cream. Again, I didn't mind that so much. I felt for all these reasons and many more I was less productive in an office than I was at home. The office to me is a place a lot of people like because they can f around with their office friends.

Edit: I never worked in an office again after I resumed programming after the dotcom bubble burst. Another anecdote: I got called into HR because someone complained I was yawning too loudly.

Bluecobra2• 4 years ago

Didn't Microsoft give everyone their own dedicated office in those days? I thought I read/heard somewhere that is what spawned development of Outlook/Exchange.

I agree about the distractions, it's extremely bad with the open office model and hard to get anything done for me. I would much prefer cubicles or dedicated offices.

Clubber3• 4 years ago

I remember hearing that too. Having an office with a door or at least a shared office would make it tolerable, but still the commute always put me in a sour mood to start and end the day. Now a days, the fad is open office, which is a dumpster fire for development. I can't believe Apple fell for that with their new mothership.

mwattsun6• 4 years ago

This was true in the late 80's early 90's when we used to go up to Redmond from California to pow wow, but I heard that's not true anymore. Also, if any Microsofties are reading this, how would I got about getting the source code of Works for the Mac? It was about 200,000 lines of 68000 asm code that I'm thinking of trying to get to run in the browser. I may make a formal request to Microsoft if I get more motivated about it. I lost my copy along the way.

RandallBrown• 4 years ago

I had my own office at Microsoft as late as 2013.

It was by far the least favorite work environment I've ever had. It was lonely and unproductive for me, with a 15 minute - 2 hour commute depending on traffic. I came home from work angry every day. I have no idea how I lasted almost two years in that environment.

I really enjoy open offices. My next job was all pair programming all the time. No assigned desks. You just showed up and sat down with a different person every day. For me that's the most productive way to get work done.

For the last 3 years I've been working from home and don't see myself going back to an office ever again. I enjoy my time at home too much.

Everyone is different and not every company has to work the same way.

Cederfjard• 4 years ago

Some people also don’t have living conditions at home that are conducive to being productive. Not everyone can afford the space to have a proper home office, for example.

pc862• 4 years ago

Absolutely correct. Any everyone's situation is different, but let's be real - the vast majority of software engineers can afford a great home office space.

Someone1234• 4 years ago

Not everyone can afford the space to have a proper home office, for example.

Because they have to live in expensive urban areas near their workplace. Their money would stretch much further if they could remote-work from rural areas.

vonseel2• 4 years ago

I think if a company is going to be fully remote, they should provide an office budget to every employee, so you can either rent an extra bedroom / buy a bigger house / or rent space in a co-working facility.

Working from your bedroom with a desk crammed in the corner is a serious downgrade IMO from having an office with good vibes.

eminence324• 4 years ago

Nothing anyone says in these comments should invalidate your own personal experiences and successes with your working arrangements.

But I have to admit I'm surprised to hear you say that you are "astonished" that any programmer would prefer to work differently.

2 things that I've learned from reading NH over the years: tech/programmer people are often very opinionated, and also have widely different opinions on just about everything :)

mwattsun6• 4 years ago

Admittedly what you say is true. People tend to believe other people think like them. I go on my own lived experience. Never once in 8 years did any of my coworkers suggest we get an office. We felt lucky to be able to work at home for all the reasons that people give.

I had a couple of other reasons for hating the office that I don't often see mentioned. I'm sensitive to 60 Hz fluorescent lights and also to bad air. Most offices are flooded with this kind of light and don't recirculate the plastic and office supply fumes often enough.

balaji1• 4 years ago

In this case, tech/programmer people have differing opinions about returning to the office. But the managers or at least the management have only have a single blanket policy for all. A compromise like 2-3 days in the office is one such policy.

Adraghast• 4 years ago

I assume that some people are just very lonely and need face to face

Anecdata from Hacker News suggests this is true. A lot of lonely young men here freely admit their coworkers are the only people they regularly interact with in-person, and remote work takes that away from them.

ethbr03• 4 years ago

I'd spin this around and cast it as a challenge -- regular, forced interactions with coworkers is minimally sufficient and retards some people from pursuing social activities outside the home.

There are already a number of options in even the smallest town. I expect that will increase as more people move to WFH and seek social outlets.

And at the end of the day "interacting with coworkers in the break room" is a pretty low quality bar for an alternative to surmount. Maybe your work conversations are more fascinating than mine, but I get more value elsewhere.

WYepQ4dNnG3• 4 years ago

That's true, but also very sad. I am lucky enough to have a lovely wife, kids and just enough good friends. And that's all I care about.

I don't really miss at all the office, let alone my co-workers. Working remote is just what I need, and I am way more productive.

nluken2• 4 years ago

their coworkers are the only people they regularly interact with in-person

This sort of self-alienation seems to be a pretty widespread problem larger than the in-person/remote debate. That said, it's probably better for those experiencing it to have some in-person socialization in the office than none.

achenet4• 4 years ago

join a sports activity. Free socializing, plus health benefits. :)

mumblemumble2• 4 years ago

It's more than that. I'm mid-life, with kids, meaning that my best opportunity for getting out of the house on a regular basis is while they're at school. Without that, days can go by without a significant change of scenery, especially in winter when spending evenings at the park isn't a great option.

I'm not lonely, per se, but, all the same, the pandemic has been very, very difficult for me. I went from being a longtime remote worker who went to a coworking space most days, to what has sometimes felt like two years of house arrest.

I agree that going in to an office - especially an open plan one where they pack desks end-to-end in giant noisy rooms - is a less-than-stellar option, too. But I also suspect that many people's newfound love of WFH is fueled in part by the novelty of the experience, and that the shine will wear off after a couple more years.

weatherlite6• 4 years ago

We are social creatures, there is something quite unnatural only interacting with your wife/kid or worse - with no one else at all, for weeks and months. If not the office, workers are better off using some social working space, but unfortunately WFH is so tempting and easy most will resort to that. Psychologically it's not ideal. Yes the office can be a pain, commute and what not, but loneliness could be worse.

throwaway4aday• 4 years ago

WFHomers need a modern equivalent of the Knitting Bee. Distinct from a co-working space since it is organized by its members who make an effort to get to know each other and it shouldn't be dependent on membership with some organization, just a grassroots locally organized thing.

closeparen9• 4 years ago

I meet people outside of work “regularly” - more weekends than not - but a coffee or a hike or a live performance here and there is very different from casually sharing a building on a random Tuesday.

The comparison isn’t a social life, it’s a family or roommates.

JohnHaugeland• 4 years ago

A lot of lonely young men here freely admit their coworkers are the only people they regularly interact with in-person

Well, with the 8 hours they're getting back from not commuting, they'll have more time to go out and socialize in non-work settings

hooande2• 4 years ago

This doesn't make sense. There are countless opportunities for social interaction. Join a church, a club, a sports league, a gaming discord. I get that there's a lot of friction involved in joining anything, and many 'lonely young men' don't want to put forth that effort. But it's definitely less total effort than forcing people to come to an office for the purpose of social stimulation. Just measured in terms of time and fuel spent commuting by each person, it isn't even close.

I think there are a lot of reasons that people prefer offices. Most of it is probably tradition and "that's the way we've always done things". If the reason is truly lonely people needing social interaction, then there are a lot of way better solutions.

thinkharderdev2• 4 years ago

I think a lot of it is the exact circumstances of you office as well. All else equal I think I would actually prefer working in an office assuming that:

1. It felt like a "real" space (i.e. not a beige cubical farm)

2. Was not excessively loud

3. I had a comfortable chair/workspace

4. I could walk there from my house in under 20 minutes

5. There was no dress code

6. There was nobody there who I found deeply annoying and also insisted on interacting with me regularly

And I think a lot of people (especially young people who live in cities close to where they work) actually do have something approximating that situation.

long_time_gone• 4 years ago

Interesting how you automatically assigned a gender. My wife has worked from home for 4 years and can't wait to get back into an office. I like to think that some people just have different preferences.

renewiltord• 4 years ago

The interesting thing is that folks on HN who want to work from the office just say “I can see why you’re remote. Just not for me. I prefer to work in a team that’s all in-office” but folks on HN who want to work remote always go “It’s because you’re lonely that you can’t work remote. I have a loving wife and children. You are miserable and using coworkers as a substitute for social company.”

Like, dude, we get it. This is important to you. So go work where you find that. A bit tiresome to constantly come into these threads and listen to this endless repetitious nonsense.

Christ on a stick. Do you never tire of it?

stjohnswarts• 4 years ago

It isn't my responsibility to help "lonely young men" meet people. Just go to a bar/meetup/church and start talking. That's an individual's responsibility to socialize.

xkbarkar• 4 years ago

Believe it or not, that entails lonely women too

odonnellryan• 4 years ago

It took me 1-2 years before WFH didn't make me depressed. I enjoy it now but I understand.

spaniard892772• 4 years ago

I won't accept any non-remote job where I need long commutes and I have to sit my ass there for the whole week.

Just yesterday we had a summer day, so just after lunch I went to a remote beach, used my phone as AP and worked for about 5 hours until nightfall.

No interruptions, no annoying noises, not battling with AC.

I mean, having tasted this, Im pretty sure what would I do if my company asks me to go back to office. I still have a low paying job, but my life has improved dramatically.

And my office is literally 5m walk from my home, so Im already ahead of many people in that, but it's a noisy bunker with no window, lots of people and all kinds of other BS.

People is definitely lonely. I can understand that, but I won't pay for other peoples loneliness.

If you want friends, ask me for a beer, or come to my house, I like to cook for people.

But Id bet that this is more of a managers thing.

thfuran• 4 years ago

You have lunch a few hours before dawn?

markus_zhang3• 4 years ago

With a kid at home I'm very inclined to work in office whenever it allows. I'm also much more productive in office when everything from coffee to food are taken care of.

Nowadays I believe WFH is kinda the norm in IT as long as company policy allows. I love the hybrid mode: two days in office to relax, three days at home to help wifie with kid.

iso16316• 4 years ago

two days in office to relax, three days at home to help wifie with kid.

This is not working from home, or working anywhere

If you think working from home means you have time to "help with the kid", you're wrong.

Mountain_Skies• 4 years ago

High speed internet and video conferencing might bring many of those distractions into your home office in a way that you didn't have to deal with during the old days.

FpUser• 4 years ago

"I assume that some people are just very lonely and need face to face"

This. We have managed to completely fuck up life style of the segment of the population to the point that they have no life outside of the office. This is sick.

mwattsun6• 4 years ago

A good book about this is Bowling Alone. As much as I liked programming, I would also take the day off to go surfing if the waves were good. Another WFH benefit.

http://bowlingalone.com/

jdminhbg• 4 years ago

That said, it made a huge difference that forced WFH coincided with closing all possible social outlets at the same time. If you discovered that you wanted to expand your social circle to diversify away from workmates, you were out of luck.

foobiekr• 4 years ago

Most software is no longer this self contained. It doesn’t need to be that way but often is.

Around 9/11, I was responsible for a major system component that turned out (shocker) to be a lot more work than anyone had estimated, so I spent the week before and the month after 9/11 working fully remote so that I could dedicate every waking hour to the component. Putting aside the lack of balance, it was the most productive I have been in my life despite the high distraction of the news in the outside world.

But the last two years have been nothing like that. Some of that is my current role, and some of that is that building complex systems requires more coordination, but it also seems to me that there is some issue both around engineer depth on average (previous example, everyone was fluent in reading code and it spoke for itself) and that software these days in large companies has just so much internet-group overhead.

And video conferencing is a punishment in most large companies, worse than a phone call because it seems, to me, to result in people paying less attention. I may be alone in that though.

xhrpost• 4 years ago

some people are just very lonely and need face to face

Sure but some of us are just more extroverted and have better energy in the office. Also having a clean separation of work vs home context can be helpful, training the brain "this is work time"[1]

I think it's totally fair to point out if people are opting for the office just due to a lack of need fulfillment elsewhere in life, but don't think its wise to assume it's only that by a wide margin.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Doorway_Effect

heassler• 4 years ago

Going to the office means getting to know the people you work with to a meaningful level (there are other opportunities to do that besides meetings, such as having lunch together or going out for a coffee/walk) in a way that is simply not possible when chatting via google meets.

But there’s also the increased exposure to serendipity. Unexpected things occur in the office. Maybe you overhear a conversation that makes you think about your career, or during drinks after work you end up discussing a new cool startup idea with colleagues. None of this really happens when you stay at home.

Sure, there are pros to staying at home. You will have more free time and fewer distractions, among other things. But there are also massive perks to putting a bit of effort and going to the office sometimes. Those perks, admittedly, may be hard to understand for the average introverted, socially anxious software dev.

memonkey• 4 years ago

My own anecdotal and I'm sure many others have experienced this before, but getting the culture right for remote work has been a great experience. I get to know people at a meaningful level. I remember being younger in high school and making meaningful relationships on the internet through chat rooms and video games that last to today.

chapium• 4 years ago

I disagree on one point. I've spent much of my career working with remote offices over the phone and with desktop sharing. I have to say, group video conferences really don't cut it. However, one on one calls and video calls work really well and you can get to know your coworkers. Its so much better to have one on ones with others and not have each other worry about posturing in front of their peers. Group video calls are at least just as useless as group meetings.

humanwhosits2• 4 years ago

Unexpected things occur in the office. Maybe you overhear a conversation

The office rumor-mill produced a lot of bad politics in my experience

jghn• 4 years ago

Maybe you overhear a conversation

This is the one thing I've never found a suitable replacement for in the remote world. Chance encounters are difficult to replicate. Maybe I'm discussing an issue with a colleague, and someone in earshot happens to know the answer. I've seen groups try to have policies like no DMs and only using public channels, but that sucks.

I much prefer remote life, but it's true that there are some aspects of in person work that are better.

mike10921• 4 years ago

Agree with all of that. For me, the issue with working at home is that home is my relaxing and family place office is my work place. My mind focuses at work much better when i am in my work environment.

Creating real connections with co workers from my experience is not possible via zoom / google meets. There is nothing that can replace real human interaction as far as creating relationships.

scruple• 4 years ago

Going to the office means getting to know the people you work with to a meaningful level

In 15 years in this industry, I have only developed a handful of deep relationships with former and current colleagues. The vast majority of my own work relationships have been superficial. I'm a card carrying member of the over sharer's club, and yet so many of my colleagues throughout the years don't know that I'm originally from Ohio by way of Pennsylvania... That I'm a military veteran... That I'm a strength and endurance athlete, etc. Maybe that says something about me, but I don't think I'm an outlier.

Some of the people I've worked with were utterly contemptible and, while I maintained a professional relationship with them at work, myself and many others were inwardly happy to see them go when the time came. I think we all know plenty of cantankerous assholes who we've had to call team mate, colleague, or worse, manager / boss.

We work here together for a (usually brief, in the grand scheme of things) period of time and that's often the only glue that holds the majority of us together.

One of the deepest and most impactful relationships I have forged through a shared working environment is a person who lives in Argentina and who I have never met in person. No office required, just the Internet.

Cd00d3• 4 years ago

The serendipity point is interesting.

A few years ago I had my team's desks moved to be next to our sales team. I wanted to overhear their conversations and phone calls to get a deeper understanding of client feedback and how clients used our product. It worked out well, and we got into a much better place in terms of feedback and requests.

During covid I've also had a very strong indicator of how clients view our product - the entire sales team quit over time.

nanochad• 4 years ago

Translation: we should all be forced to go to work because we are dweebs and don't matter over our other social peers.

There are ways to establish communication to humans other than going into work to use their keyboard and monitor.

Valakas_• 4 years ago

Going to the office means getting to know the people you work with to a meaningful level (there are other opportunities to do that besides meetings, such as having lunch together or going out for a coffee/walk) in a way that is simply not possible when chatting via google meets.

Who cares? I care about my family and friends. If I match with someone at the office, then it will happen anyway with remote work and I don't need to be force to interact in the hopes of having a better relationship. I work for work, not to socialize. I socialize with people by choice, not by force. And those people are those who I like.

Unexpected things occur in the office. Maybe you overhear a conversation that makes you think about your career, or during drinks after work you end up discussing a new cool startup idea with colleagues. None of this really happens when you stay at home.

I don't need the unexpected to make me think, thanks. I like to take command of my own life instead of waiting for unexpected wind blows to drive me somewhere or make me think of where I want to go in life. I'm sorry to hear some people need that. Maybe therapy would be good for them. Or, you know, talking with friends.

Those perks, admittedly, may be hard to understand for the average introverted, socially anxious software dev.

I feel sorry for the people who feel the need to put others down in order to try to prove a point (for which arguments are lacking, and therefore they resort to ad-hominems).

UncleOxidant• 4 years ago

5 of us wrote Microsoft Works for the Macintosh while working at home from 1984 to 1992. Without the internet

It's hard to imagine now how this could be done without the internet and a distributed vcs like git.

unemphysbro• 4 years ago

what was the merge code process like?

glouwbug• 4 years ago

git merge --strategy ours

vonseel2• 4 years ago

Some people prefer working in an office because it helps them stay disciplined and keep a better work/life balance. Perhaps I’m just speaking for myself here, but I tend to get lazy and feel like my life has much less structure as a fully-remote worker.

AniseAbyss• 4 years ago

Some people live in tiny apartments without even a balcony.

wdurden• 4 years ago

ClarisWorks was created like this too.

https://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/bob/clarisworks.php

bsder• 4 years ago

I can safely say I never wrote any good code while working in an office. There are too many distractions.

1) Not every office is Silicon Valley Open Office Garbage

I personally think this is the biggest issue.

We never threw in with the "open office" bullshit. Offices have doors. We don't have that many cubicles, and they're generally for contractors/consultants/etc. Every time we started having cubicles, it was time to move to a bigger office.

People hate commute traffic--that's sadly unavoidable in the US. But they didn't seem to hate our office (I could, of course, simply be blind like so many stupid managers).

2) Not every job is solely writing code.

I need a lab. My juniors need a lab. They don't need to be there every day, but they do need it regularly. Expecting them to set this up in their apartment is unreasonable.

3) Junior engineers need mentoring

Maybe the fact that software does this quite so terribly is hiding this need.

There is a lot of friction between simply mentioning something to a staff engineer after lunch and setting up a specific zoom call. There is also something about the staff engineer overhearing something "minor" that junior engineers are struggling with, correlating that multiple of them are having similar issues and setting up something to fix a process or educate people.

4) Lack of face to face time increases conflicts

This is anecdata. However, people who don't actually meet face to face regularly don't cut each other the same slack that those who meet regularly do. I don't know why. Although, we could probably paper over this by having regular lunches.

I like working from home. But I also liked working at the office. They are two different modes that serve two different purposes.

I will, however, agree that 9 to 5, 5 days a week in the office is dumb. At the very least, significantly condensing the number of "common hours" and letting people commute on off times needs to increase. This was happening, but very slowly. Covid accelerated this.

chrismcb• 4 years ago

There are multiple reasons to want to work in an office. Makes it easier to separate home from work. Not having the space at home to work comfortably. Not having the quiet need from a busy and noisy house Being and to interact with others, even if it is just in a social capacity. Of course personally I'd prefer to work from home

DoneWithAllThat• 4 years ago

Once again, I am begging HN: this is a misleading title format for links to single papers or studies. What is being phrased as factual in the headline is merely an assertion in a paper, and should be reflected as such. “New paper claims (x)” is reasonable. “Study suggests (x)” is also reasonable. “(x)” borders on straight up falsehood when it portrays an assertion as a new finding about our world.

lukas0993• 4 years ago

I think the assumption on HN should be that the title is merely what the article author is claiming. So from my perspective reading a title like "37% of jobs in the United States can be performed entirely at home" is automatically converted to "AuthorClaimsThat(37% of jobs in the United States can be performed entirely at home)".

monkeybutton2• 4 years ago

Imagine the environmental impact of cutting out emissions from 37% of commuters for "free". We could do it today. Its been proven to work the last 2 years. It's such low hanging fruit it's mind boggling!

bobbean• 4 years ago

Oh my god, imagine the improvement in traffic for those who do have to leave their house for work.

monkeybutton2• 4 years ago

The effect is compounding too because those people will spend less time driving and idling their engines!

jmyeet• 4 years ago

The lesson here is you can never really predict what will happen. This is important to remember when people make any predictions, particularly for doom and gloom scenarios.

Take the Black Plague, which killed an estimted 25-50% of the population of Europe. For those lucky enough to survive this was a huge boon for workers rights and wages [1].

There have no real increase in worker wages in 40 years [2]. The pendulum swings back and forth on any issue and we've swung too far towards unbridled capitalistic exploitation (IMHO). Labor organization (ie unions) led to things like a limited work week, safety in the workplace and so on. The flipside of that was corruption, resistance to change and so on. But ever since the farce of the Reagan trickle-down economics era, worker conditions have gotten increasingly worse (relatively) while the accumulation of wealth at the top is absolutely unprecedented.

So Covid has killed millions and this is of course tragic. But who knew that this would be the catalyst for the first real increase in wages in decades and the ability to redefine the outdated in-person work that wastes so much time on money on pointless commutes?

I'm glad that something good is coming out of this.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consequences_of_the_Black_Deat....

[2] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/07/for-most-us...

nickysielicki• 4 years ago

My workplace is trying to get people to come back in the next week or two and people are suspiciously taking a lot of vacation. ~30% of engineering is out today. Methinks they’re in for a very big surprise in 2 weeks, and I don’t think they’ll have the money to counter the offers that people will naturally field in this market.

It’s an unforced error.

jleyank2• 4 years ago

This seems low as only jobs that require(!) F2F interaction with customers or coworkers can't be done remotely. This might come down to "mucking about with the hardware" being the dividing line - if you need the car, it's in the shop, otherwise you can do in on the road, via the Web, ...

Psychologically, companies and (older? extroverted?) workers won't agree with this, but it's not up to them to change. Change happens at its own pace and you can either yell at the tide or move with it.

etskinner• 4 years ago

You're right about the dividing line being mucking with hardware (I'd also add 'requires access to large or expensive equipment'). But there are plenty of jobs that don't require face-to-face interaction but do require on-site work for one reason or another. Air traffic control, janitors, machinists, garbage collectors, geologists, bakers, etc.

jleyank2• 4 years ago

Good point, feel free to expound on my definition of hardware. "Ya gotta touch it?" as I might have been to locked into my own vocabulary.

dxbydt• 4 years ago

Dr. Dingel writes - "Our code makes it easy for users to explore alternative assumptions about whether any given occupation can be done from home."

His repo - https://github.com/jdingel/DingelNeiman-workathome

Would be a worthwhile student project to replicate this in R/pandas (They used Stata on a Mac, if you know what I mean) & have an interactive online plot so one can change the survey assumptions & see what results. Just collating all this data in one place is a monumental effort.

I remember this paper was a "huge fucking deal" when it came out in Sep 2020. Has like ~1500 cites. Was used by Biden administration to set policy. Co-author Dr. Neiman was personally nominated by Biden for treasury. Authors are Booth school stalwarts. Pls do read the paper, very insightful even if you don't agree with its methodology/conclusions.

smm11• 4 years ago

The world did not exist until Git.

tharne• 4 years ago

I really hope American businesses don't bring this headline to its logical conclusion...

"37% of jobs in the United States can be performed entirely at home...by people in India or Eastern Europe for much less money"

achenet4• 4 years ago

not if those jobs entail good written or even oral communication skills. Native English speakers have a huge leg up on Indians and Eastern Europeans in this regard.

For example, I imagine Coca-Cola is willing to pay more to have the person writing their ad copy be someone who has been immersed in American culture from birth.

samarthr1• 4 years ago

A good portion of Indian engineers speak good English. Anecdotal evidence only though.

manuelabeledo2• 4 years ago

Companies have been doing this for decades already.

The current situation is not going to shift even more jobs to India. Reasons being, good engineers from India are already moving to the US in sheer numbers, and good talent is unlikely to remain at Indian IT consultancy companies.

Anecdotally, I have worked along with very clever engineers who happened to be Indian nationals living in the US, but I have yet to find an above average engineer working at an Indian IT shop and based in India.

nunez2• 4 years ago

I've met a few sharp Indian engineers in India. They exist.

weatherlite6• 4 years ago

If it becomes really bad there's a good chance governments will step in and heavily tax offshoring or provide tax benefits for reshoring.

Workaccount22• 4 years ago

Just like they did with all the cheap offshore manufactured goods...

Don't hold your breath.

weatherlite6• 4 years ago

It's already been happening and will increase for sure, but so far hasn't really affected salaries as far as I can see, U.S devs haven't felt a thing yet. If anything, salaries in East Europe went way up.

What I do fear is interest rate starting to rise and the implications of that on our industry but that's another thread.

latenightcoding• 4 years ago

Doesn't that mean a good chunk of those jobs can also be outsourced?

flowersjeff• 4 years ago

This surprises...nobody? Except maybe bean counters/management types that need to show off perhaps.

With that said, I do have concerns. These issues center around a shift in benefits offered as a result of this new paradigm ( hate using that word but ) around the nature of work. I.e. the gig everything economy coming to your job...soon

Many folks in the US work a 9to5 not just for the pay, rather for healthcare and stability. However, it's only a matter of time that employees will become even more API'ified / made into independent contracts / etc. I know that many will welcome the flexibility - some though will not understand what this means.

I do wonder how the US will be able to handle this continued move away from 'trad' employment, given our rather odd situation of one's medical being tied at the hip to one's employer? Those that work in other jurisdictions need not fear the loss of a job as much as a US citizen. Literally, you could die ( just look at how many of those that were made unemployed during the pandemic lost access to medical. )

Just my musings...

mumblemumble2• 4 years ago

I would guess that the gig economy simply can't come for any jobs that require significant domain expertise or more than a few hour's worth of attention to any single project.

Comparable to how you don't see day laborers doing pipefitting.

dudul5• 4 years ago

2 thoughts.

First, "gig workers" can't work across the board. Companies working on products often need people to have deep understanding of the product. We all know how costly it can be to lose say a software engineer who has a few years tenure.

Second, if the gig-economy were to become very widespread, it may finally be a push to have a true, sensible market for health insurance in the US. If employers no longer pay insurance carriers/brokers to cover their employees, these carriers will need to come up with products people can afford.

hooande2• 4 years ago

If there is a large shift toward gig economy work, then the healthcare industry will shift as well. There's nothing preventing them from offering affordable healthcare to gig employees other than the status quo and their current profit models.

Something the size of the insurance industry is going to shift about 5-10 years after the general market. So if you're worried about short term gigification of your job, you might want to look into private insurance/benefit options now. Over the long term I think it will take care of itself.

coding123• 4 years ago

I think it's dangerous when we look at gigification as a "who cares it will work out somehow".

Imagine how up-in-arms if they gigified programming. It has already happened in places, but what if they wholesale a price per line of code?

This will get a lot of replies but honestly, a codebase that is spaghetti from gigification may be cheaper than non-spaghetti codebase at 100k - 200k/year * number of developers and work just as well for the domain it is in.

If you can put the "it won't work" aside - imagine they figure out that it does. That rage right now - how is that not applicable to the people getting gigified right now?

SpicyLemonZest• 4 years ago

I'm pretty skeptical of this methodology. They don't seem to be making any attempt to measure whether a job can be done effectively from home, only whether it's prohibited by some physical necessity. "Managers, educators, and those working in computers, finance, and law are largely able to work from home", but is having your teacher or lawyer on a little iPad really a complete substitute for having them right in front of you?

I guess I'm not sure how I would do it better, but that doesn't make it super meaningful.

panzagl• 4 years ago

Educators? Really? That alone makes me doubt the article.

didip• 4 years ago

The society has a once-a-lifetime opportunity to refactor how it can work, but it squandered it.

Imagine if office buildings are no longer necessary. A lot more hi-rise apartments can be built, cities can be a lot more dense, and light rails can be attractive again.

chasd005• 4 years ago

high rise apartments are really just office buildings. Just live at the office, it's pretty much equivalent.

aaccount• 4 years ago

Most jobs done need to exist to begin with.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kehnIQ41y2o

Overtonwindow• 4 years ago

Working from home is great and all, but do we really want work to be within our home? I’ve been working from home the entire pandemic, and I still find it hard to stop working and “be home.”

chasd005• 4 years ago

that definitely has to be managed well. I wfh in a room where i also do my hobbies and stuff (like a tiny workshop more or less). What i do is when i'm done with work i put my company issued laptop in a dedicated drawer and close it. When the drawer closes my mind flips to "i'm at home" mode. The next morning, when i open teh drawer, my mind flips to "i'm at work" mode. It works for me but may not work for everyone.

peter303• 4 years ago

Coworking spaces were supposed be a compromise. Individuals and small teams could work in an office-like space without home distractions for a few hundred a month. In the early days coworking provided quality bandwith and printing for less you'd pay at home. But that advantage has faded.

I have lost track of how coworking has fared during covid. For a while, pre-covid, they seemed to outnumber coffee houses in my metro area.

chasd005• 4 years ago

heh it must hurt to have paid for all that commercial real estate that's now sitting empty. I bet a decent portion of the motive to get employees back in the office is to just validate the rent bill.

daniel-cussen3• 4 years ago

Mostly it's invasion of privacy. Your boss can invade your privacy trivially at work, and get reads on you about how little you can be paid, how much abuse you can actually take, to what degree he can injure you long-term so you have a worse negotiating position, what the consequences will be of going over that, all kinds of things. Like a typical boss will spend all day plotting how to get an employee to work unpaid overtime. Plus scream at you at FULL VOLUME, physical intimidation has to happen in person, it's too abstract if the volume is limited by the sound system or if the intimidation happens over video, it's not only less immediate but it can also be recorded accidentally. Like "oh I'll get my ass kicked...in 6 hours. Eh, go for it."

And no decibel meter, that ruins the fun, when he whispers and retaliates for you not hearing him, or when he squelches "I'M AN ASSHOLE" the decibel meter can't say "oh that was inaudible, but the other one was this far from a shotgun." Ruins the fun. Because later in court, if the plaintiff repeats the scream, not only with the words, but with the tone, and with the VOLUME, THE COURT HAS TO STOP AND CHECK THE ACOUSTICS, HOW WELL INSULATED IS THIS ROOM, WE CAN'T INTERRUPT THE COURT NEXT DOOR. IS THAT REALLY HOW LOUD HE SAID IT? DECIBELS? METRIC SYSTEM? IF THE JUDGE HAS TO COVER HIS EARS THROUGH THE TESTIMONY, HE WILL HAVE TO FIND A VERY GOOD CLAUSE TO JUSTIFY--I SAID JUSTIFY--THE VERDICT IN FAVOR OF THE DEFENSE [explosives starting went off as I wrote this paragraph].

The basic problem with work from home is that it's digital. Gaslighting requires analog.

(And I have had virtuous bosses, and even the boss who screamed "I AM AN ASSHOLE" into a recorded call center phone call had many virtues. In many ways employees, through their lack of work ethic, bring this upon themselves. But at the same time, he screamed "I AM AN ASSHOLE" into a recorded call center phone call. I'm not sure I disagree or agree with his confession, he said it and what is said is said.)

PraetorianGourd2• 4 years ago

Gaslighting requires analog.

No, no it doesn't. Sometimes the most powerful gas-lighter is oneself. Silence can cause me to gaslight myself. Shit, my boss isn't responding.. is he mad at me? Or fuck, a Zoom meeting at 4 PM on Friday fuck fuck. It must have been that PR.. I thought I removed the creds.. Of course I didn't, I never remember that. Fuck. Again. Damnit. I can't stand to look at it..

Also human communication is more than words and sounds, but expressions, body movement, minor twitches etc. Someone can be terrible at lying or obfuscating the truth in person and write some convincing shit in an email.

People are the problem my friend, not where you work. Your isolation at home, and the ability to force isolation by closing an app, treats the same symptoms but you misidentified the disease.

Animats• 4 years ago

If everything you do goes in and out over a wire, some day your job will be either automated or offshored.

deafcalculus• 4 years ago

That's what a lot of people thought in the 2000s, but going by SV salaries the automate or offshore story hasn't really played out! Then again, horses seem to have lost their job in the early 20th century after cars came along, and their population just declined thereafter.

Workaccount22• 4 years ago

You ever wonder why people in old rust belt areas complain about "the globalists" all the time?

lvl102• 4 years ago

Wait till they find out 80% of office jobs are redundant.

johnisgood• 4 years ago

I know right... If I could go through with (got health issues at the time) implementing automation of some stuff, then because of me hundreds of people would be out of their jobs... or at least that job. It would have saved the company a lot of money, too.

kkfx• 4 years ago

The fallacy reside in: "can be performed", witch do not state how they can, because so far most push "smart working" in the form of "get this laptop, this smartphone with a 4/5G plan and you are ready to work". That's obviously tend to fail and works just for people who have corrected the aim perhaps with a docking station, external monitor and external keyboard, having a spare room silent enough etc at personal level at company level it's even worse: most have no idea about remote work. The modern classic solution is having a big enough hw resources to keep a VDI infra asking workers to be on remote desktop all time, and again that's not a good idea even if seems to be the easiest.

Seriously facing such aspects and finally admit that "real" WFH means set up a home office, with relevant furniture, equipment, connections etc and organize the work to be done from remote pushing people on some proprietary platform in the hope to get a quick&done third party solution will not really push up WFH to something structural and good for all parties involved.

zw123456• 4 years ago

For the other 63%, I think an interesting possibility is to use a robot Turk machine type of arrangement. Take for example, the "flag person" at a road construction site, it is an outdoor job and hence would be categorized as not possible to do from home, but, one could easily design a very simple machine with a camera and the stop/slow sign that could be operated remotely. That could actually be safer and lower cost. There are lots of other possible examples, window washer, etc.

There is probably some companies working on it already, if not, it might be an interesting idea I think.

PraetorianGourd2• 4 years ago

Have you ever worked as a flagger? I have. It isn't a binary "move the sign and then flip it back". Here are a list of things that you would need to consider:

1. Flaggers often go from site to site throughout the day. You would need someone to set up and take down the machine

2. The flagger is in constant radio contact with the work crew. They need to know which equipment is blocking which lane etc. And this is always changing.

3. Flaggers need to respond to emergency vehicles, busses, their own work trucks etc. You have to have your head on a swivel at all times

4. Pedestrians/bikers/other road users need to be considered as well, and may be outside of camera shot

5. What if the connection is choppy/equipment breaks. Does a tech go site to site? Does the crew stop working? Labor is the single biggest cost of construction by a large margin. Everyone minute the crew isn't working is CrewNumber * PrevailingWage lost.

6. Flaggers work at night/all weather/complex intersections. All this would need to be accounted for.

7. Like self driving cars, there are about 12 billion edge cases that take a combination of experience/reasoning.

I don't mean to be dismissive of your idea or anything. But this attitude is pervasive in our industry, that "I saw someone doing a job that looks easy, I bet I know everything about it and can design a better way to do it". That attitude is both great (inspires bold ideas) and terrible. The right question isn't "I bet this could be automated" but rather, "I should job shadow someone doing this job, see if there are any ways to improve it".

gwbas1c• 4 years ago

I've been remote by necessity for 8 years, since 2014.

I'd prefer to be in the office most days; but the realities of life would make it difficult for my wife and I to both have careers and be parents. If either of us had a rigid "be in the office Monday - Friday" job, the other would need to cut back to part time just to care for our young children.

What I've observed: In software, a company that wants you to be on-site Monday - Friday has control issues. Limiting your workforce to people who live within a reasonable commute who are single / single career couples / childless couples just makes it hard to hire.

beauzero• 4 years ago

This would save a lot of oil.

careersaas• 4 years ago

This is approx ~30% in Europe, meanwhile of the positions that "can be performed entirely at home", interestingly these remote positions take half as long to fill... in comparison to fully office-based positions.

Source: https://app.careersaas.com/portal/career-search.html

gilbetron• 4 years ago

The company I work for had a "return to office" about two weeks ago, and while we still are 50%+ remote, those that aren't we're now in the office a lot more. My first impression after two weeks is how little the in office people get done. They spend a significant amount of time socializing and walking around to meetings and getting meeting rooms working and eating, and when they are in meetings, are less focused, and when they aren't in meetings, they talk about not being able to concentrate as well because of all the distractions.

They also seem to be having a lot more fun!

It should be interesting to see how it plays out in the next few years!

37% of jobs in the United States can be performed entirely at home

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