Early Remote Work Impacts on Family Formation

https://eig.org/remote-work-family-formation/

by RickJWagner • 3 years ago

259 260 3 years ago

noelwelsh• 3 years ago

My kids were born well before the pandemic, but, as remote worker, being able to hang out at home with them has been great[^1] I'm much more involved in their life than I would be if I was getting home at 6pm+ every evening.

[^1]: Once they were old enough they didn't need constant supervision. Trying to work from home with a toddler was a nightmare.

iso1631• 3 years ago

Once they were old enough they didn't need constant supervision. Trying to work from home with a toddler was a nightmare.

That's odd, I had no problem with working from home with toddlers, but I wasn't trying to do two full time jobs, on any given day either I was dedicated to looking after the kids or my partner was.

Looking after a toddler is a full time job.

xyzzy123• 3 years ago

Setup matters a lot, eg if you have a separate room to go to or a standalone unit in the back yard.

Kids are "sticky" (once they get into your office for any reason it can be difficult to get them out again).

Number of kids matters, their ages matter, their needs matter, sometimes they "get loose" while carer is busy with one (e.g. putting to sleep), and carers need breaks too.

For my particular situation, I can get noticeably more done on days when all the kids are out, even when someone else is ostensibly caring for them "full time".

tyoma5• 3 years ago

Every child and office setup is different. Like the OP I find it incredibly difficult to work from home with kids around. It is actually more difficult when they are more independent, as they can show up at your office area and demand to be entertained and find new and innovative ways to get your attention.

AndrewDucker• 3 years ago

Seconded. I got to spend a lot more time with my second kid because I was at home.

christkv2• 3 years ago

Besides remote work I think more flexibility for part time work would be helpful.

Thlom5• 3 years ago

What about paid parental leave, cheap child care and more flexible work schedules? I manage fine to be involved in my kids life even though I'm working from the office most of the time. Only have 20 min commute though. If I need to follow the kids to the doctor or dentist or meeting with their teacher or whatever during the work day that is no problem (I work from home most of the times when that is needed though). I leave home 7:30 and I'm back home around 16:30, well in time to play with them or follow them to football practice or whatever. It seems to me like many Americans work-life balance is skewed work (combined with long commutes) in such a way that WFH is much more tempting than it is in many other parts of the world.

nextlevelwizard8• 3 years ago

Always need to remember that most vocal people about WFH are Americans who have hours and hours of commute time with very strict office times and just plain expectation of doing 9 to 10 hours of work per day.

Taking remote days was never an issue for me and spending 15 minutes commuting to the office isn't a big deal and around these parts people always looked me funny if I was in the office past 15:00.

So the expectations of what "office work" means is wildly different.

christkv2• 3 years ago

Not American :), living in Spain though and until recently we had shit parental leave and flexible work schedules is something very recent.

Lolaccount4• 3 years ago

Elon Musk: "Get back to the office, we're going to prove we're badass by going through productivity hell!"

Elon Musk: "Population rates are collapsing and it's a crisis we need to address!"

EIG: https://eig.org/remote-work-family-formation/

Billionaires should be banned from speaking on anything other than their areas of expertise.

They get an outsized platform to spout absolute nonsense on topics outside their core expertise.

stuaxo• 3 years ago

Just ban them full stop.

Huge amounts of people don't have enough money to participate in the economy at the same time as billionaires show themselves to be useless or worse, ban them and have a decent basic income - let's say current min wage + some %

peepeepoopoo3• 3 years ago

I agree. Let's start with Bill Gates and Larry Fink.

baq• 3 years ago

That’s what taxes are supposed to be for, except billionaires are the best positioned to not pay them

logicallee• 3 years ago

Your proposal is interesting, though I think you may not have thought it through completely. I have some honest questions about it.

Under your proposal are millionaires okay? Or should society ban millionaires too?

If so why are they okay. If they are not okay, what should the wealth cap be?

Is it okay for anyone to have any private wealth? Your proposal sounds similar to socialism wherein everyone has a certain fixed income close to minimum wage and no one may accumulate wealth.

What are the differences between your suggestion and socialism as practiced historically?

jstx1• 3 years ago

This is really naive. It's a very arbitrary threshold and since most of that wealth is in equity, you're essentially asking for the government to appropriate and run all large companies.

Maybe you actually think this should happen (I don't) but it's a much more disruptive change than it sounds like on the surface. You're flipping over the entire economic model to a different one, and this affects everyone not just the super rich. And even if hypothetically the government takes most of Musk's and Bezos' money, doesn't mean that you'll get the basic income you're asking for.

What you actually need is progressive taxation on extremely high incomes of any kind, and fewer loopholes to avoid that taxation.

louison112• 3 years ago

And see all billionaires disappear to whichever country doesn't do that? The point of remote work, is that a lot of wealth is now very geographically volatile.

sokoloff• 3 years ago

I will defend the freedom of speech for literal Nazis, even though I don’t want to hear Nazi speech.

I think it’s fair to estimate that policy is extraordinarily unlikely to be enacted in the US.

the_gipsy4• 3 years ago

That's... not a good idea.

falcor842• 3 years ago

Well, I would argue that a good balance is to hear people out regardless of whether they are "literal Nazis", but reject "Nazi speech" (such as advocating for racial violence) regardless of who is spouting it.

Lolaccount4• 3 years ago

Really? I'd just imprison the @assholes. But you do you.

EastSmith• 3 years ago

It is weird that you mention Elon Musk, but not Apple and Google, for example. These last two also push their employees to come back to the office, especially Apple. Every two months there is an article about Apple trying to bring everyone back working from an office.

mstipetic• 3 years ago

It’s the hypocrisy that’s being pointed out

rsynnott• 3 years ago

Apple, however, rarely makes alarmist claims about population demographics. Note the two lines in their post.

(I think people give Musk _far_ too much credit by imagining he would have any sort of coherent view on this stuff; he's just parroting stuff he was impressed by in both cases, and doesn't realise the conflict, because that's not how he works.)

nextlevelwizard8• 3 years ago

Musk makes it easy to make fun of him. For best example you said Apple and Google instead of Tim Cook and Sundar Pichai - most people don't even know/remember who is the CEO of FANG companies, but Musk makes himself enough of a spectacle often enough that we all know who he is.

cultureswitch• 3 years ago

I hope you're suggesting that in jest.

Realistically though, the better way to address the problem is to progressively tax capital, no matter the income. A top bracket of 5% of capital gone per year will pretty much solve all but the most efficient of billionaire problems. And progressively tax inheritance in a similar way too.

peppermint_gum• 3 years ago

I don't think it's a good idea, because of the second order effects. Assuming this tax can't be evaded (which, to be fair, is a pretty big assumption), high net worth individuals will be paying >100% tax rate. This means they will have to quickly sell the stock they own to afford the tax. And who will be able to buy it from them? This guarantees a complete, permanent crash of the stock market.

And this is just one of the problems. What about high-capital-low-margins businesses like retail stores and, especially, farmers?

Also, assessing the net worth of a person is incredibly hard. How much is a private company worth? One might think it's easy because Forbes does that, but they're mostly pulling the numbers out of thin air.

coldtea• 3 years ago

Billionaires should be banned from speaking on anything other than their areas of expertise.

Perhaps not even at that (since they can have undue influence on that area, just because they have more money, not because their ideas are better).

They should also be banned from owning media companies or contributing to campaigns in any way.

nextlevelwizard8• 3 years ago

Billionaires should be banned from speaking on anything other than their areas of expertise.

Why draw the line at billionaires? BTW is your are of expertise to talk about Musk or what should and should not be banned?

Lolaccount4• 3 years ago

It's obviously said in jest to highlight the hypocrisy of these @ssholes and others of a similar ilk. Your interpretation and the focus of your response says more about you than it does about me.

drekipus2• 3 years ago

I had my firstborn from my new fully WFH job, in the middle/tailend of the pandemic.

It has totally been a blast having the little one around. I work in my living area which is open plan into my kitchen, so I get to see her learning how to eat out of the corner of my eyes when I'm in work meetings, etc.

My personal suggestion: if you're working from home with children, don't try and seperate and go into the study; do the opposite, being out work and make it a part of every day. It's like the photos of your family you have on your desk, but in real life.

YMMV.

ideamotor3• 3 years ago

What's funny is that when my wife became pregnant I had a near panic to find a place so I could have a dedicated area to focus. And we closed on that very house last week. Our baby is only one month old, but I can already feel what you are talking about. Where we are now is basically one giant room, and I actually like it so far. Whoops. Well, at least the "study" in the new house is a large converted garage that has room for office and an extra living room. I've struggled with remote work with the concept of sleeping where I work, so at least this will fix that, and when the time comes we'll have a dang bedroom for her. Not sure we need three living rooms though, that'll be a lot of play areas!

lotsofpulp8• 3 years ago

Enjoy that peaceful phase, it will not last long.

saiya-jin• 3 years ago

Very similar situation (had first one 3 months before covid, second one during), our flat back then made me work from our living room, where they played. Absolutely amazing for bonding and I am sure they are better off due to it, but I can't say it has been beneficial for my work. But then again the same can be said about most others.

We have tons of global conf calls, its harder to do that with kids screaming in the background or demanding your attention. Good luck focusing on that hard task where it takes you some time to even get to mental model of given problem.

The thing is, when choosing priorities, I would have to be really messed up piece of sh*t of a human being to prioritize work over my own kids. So all good on that front. Now I work from my own study room as they are a bit older (and we moved to bigger flat) and its nice to have some privacy too

XorNot• 3 years ago

Yep this is what I ended up doing too (and am still doing). I have a separate study room I was going to move into, but until it's completely necessary I'm not going to.

j4510• 3 years ago

Having a few spaces setup in the open and in a study complete with dual monitors etc can let you change up the scenery or when needed be present elsewhere and keep things moving.

Distractions at home might be like distractions and interruptions in the office

falcor842• 3 years ago

My mileage varies a lot. I suppose it has to do with how each person's executive functions are wired, but personally, I absolutely cannot get into deep work while family stuff is going around in the same physical space.

j4510• 3 years ago

I know folks who have setup a room at home that looks complete unlike the rest of the home to work in.

Paint, flooring, lights, switches, door handles, ask completely different.

It helped them shift in and out and it was pretty cool to experience, similar to when someone has a basement that feels like it transports you to another place entirely in a desired way.

I find wfh and hybrid life has me thinking about design much more

prmoustache2• 3 years ago

I use both a separate space and sometimes move to the living room, kitchen or rooftop depending on my activity. Staying in the same room and possibly same position all day is not perfect either. I definitely need that separate office when in full focus mode but usually a working day is not 100% like that, same as in a regular office.

My 9 and 12y old kids are at school until 2pm, I love taking that pause at 2:30 to have lunch with them and then I send them to do their homework. Once they have finished it is either they stay quiet or I kick them out of the house and they have to play in the street for an hour.

You can't avoid all interruptions, like when kids are sometimes fighting which is the moment to be strict.

musha68k3• 3 years ago

I assume most people in here had the means to set up their own office / room through the pandemic? I for sure had to with a newborn on its way etc, it wouldn’t have been possible without that.

It’s an absolute joy each morning when I enter that personal, (relatively) quiet space, sitting on my Capisco chair with that beautiful 30” display in front of me…

ragebol3• 3 years ago

We had our first in June 202, so early in the pandemic. I was already WFH since 2019, my wife joined me in that while pregnant in March 2020.

I used to have my offic in the living room, but as soon as our son could walk IIRC, we moved the office. Office is now separate but reachable for the kids. But the separation is better for my concentration. What was my office in the living room is now the play area, filled with drawing, Lego, cars, and what-have-you.

WFH with small kids is perfect. No commute so I gain an hour a day. When I feel it's been enough work for the day, I'm cooking dinner 10 seconds later. If the kids wake up late, fine, I'll drop you off at daycare later after I did a bit of work. It's 5 minutes on the electric cargo bike anyways.

I don't think I could ever go back.

ideamotor3• 3 years ago

I cannot wait for the electric cargo phase. The day care we’ve selected is a 15 minutes bike trip away. How long were your kids when they could handle being on the bike?

treis• 3 years ago

Newborns/infants are way easier than toddlers. Game changes once they get mobile and destructive. My wife is down two laptops due to our little guy.

drekipus2• 3 years ago

Thanks for the heads up.. yeah, we're starting to see some destructive proclivities develop already..

It will be a fun ride in the future!

jossclimb2• 3 years ago

I have been remote for 11 years now and have two children 9 and 12. I can't imagine what it would have been like if I had spent the week out commuting between the hours of 7am to 7pm, we would have lost out on so much bonding time with their daddy being an integral part of their life.

I managed to be highly productive, build a career, yet be there for bath times, tucking into bed, school plays / sports days, nursing when ill, impromptu dancing to toddlers programs on the TV.

Simon_O_Rourke• 3 years ago

Well said! Did you ever in that time get any pushback from an overzealous boss about going back to the office?

VBprogrammer2• 3 years ago

I've been remote since our youngest turned 1 year old due to the pandemic. I honestly can't imagine what life would have been like otherwise.

The year I spent before that I was lucky to see her at all during a day. She wasn't awake before I left (except for the inevitable screaming during the night) and we kept her up late so I could feed her a bottle before she went to bed.

I think it's a huge win for equality and family life. Any boss will have to wrestle WFH out of my cold dead hands.

prmoustache2• 3 years ago

replace "overzealous boss" with "boss tired of counting his fingers".

jossclimb2• 3 years ago

Nope, luckily all my bosses have got it and were remote too (one of them spends a few days a week in the office). I produce what they need, can be relied upon and will travel to customers / tech events / all-hands when needed.

tyoma5• 3 years ago

I’ve also been working from home and very glad to have been there for my kids when they are young, but highly productive are not two words I’d use to describe the experience.

I guess my time management and prioritization skill have improved by necessity, but the lack of uninterrupted quiet time is real.

j4510• 3 years ago

Add someone navigating this after an overly productive decade of remote work, but not one that is healthy or sustainable to be well rounded to access the next level of growth in all fronts, I’m beginning to wonder if having a separate space on the property might be something to try out. Those pre made work pods look more and more interesting.

7sidedmarble• 3 years ago

You really need to have your own office space, and treat it like you are "going to work now" and working in your office. That space needs a door you can close.

I know it sounds hard to do if your family is used to you 'floating around', but I can tell you with 100% certainty it will just not work out long term any other way.

rco87865• 3 years ago

but the lack of uninterrupted quiet time is real.

Do you have dedicated office space in your home? This is crucial.

Additionally, once the kids go to school the house gets very, very quiet for most of the day.

Draiken2• 3 years ago

Sure maybe having kids around might sometimes affect your productivity, but how is that any different than being in an open office?

Phone calls, people talking around you, movement everywhere, unwanted taps on your shoulder and a lot more.

Unless your job provides you with a closed office where you can actually focus on, it's pretty much the same as having kids around.

When I worked in an office I remember the most productive hour I had was right after I got there, because I arrived ~1h early (due to commuting BS) and was basically alone.

Once teammates arrive, it's chaos. No matter how good your headphones are, something will interrupt you at random times just like your kids. Except if you do have an office in your house, you can actually close the door and have uninterrupted time, even if it's in small chunks.

raydev• 3 years ago

Also went through this a few years ago. Instead of being able to end my work day at a reasonable time, I made up for the "inefficiency" by working all sorts of hours.

The tradeoff is being away from the people I love for 8-10 hours a day, and even just being present in a baby's/toddler's life is huge. I'd still stay home again.

I recommend finding a nearby coworking space. Spend 2-4 hours of the house if the chaos is too much.

rco87865• 3 years ago

I've been remote for 4 years with a 4 and 2 year old and....same. Generally more productive work-wise and can't imagine going back to commuting 30-40m each way as I did previously (which isn't even a "bad" commute). And the additional time with the family is irreplaceable.

My company's local office is open, and I do go in 2-3 times a month for various reasons (which I also enjoy as a change of pace). But every time I do it's a total ghost town. And not just our floors, but every floor.

It sure seems to me that commercial office space leases are going to collapse in on themselves over the next 3-8 years as the longterm leases come up for renewal and companies say "no thanks" or "we'll take 10% of the space we currently used".

ghaff4• 3 years ago

Judging by rush hour traffic, tech is something of a bubble. As far as I can tell, commuting traffic is back to pre-pandemic levels as far as I can tell.

bluedino3• 3 years ago

The nice part about the office being mostly empty, is the office park, entrance gate, etc are all also pretty empty. It used to take 15-20 minutes just to get through the damn gate before COVID.

alistairSH3• 3 years ago

I can't imagine what it would have been like if I had spent the week out commuting between the hours of 7am to 7pm

FWIW, I commuted through most of my son's childhood. I still made it home for those things you list. But, it did take optimizing house location/commute, etc. I certainly wasn't gone 7am-7pm. Even with 60 min of driving and 60 min for lunch, that's an 10 hour day.

_ktx24• 3 years ago

But, it did take optimizing house location/commute, etc

To spell the quiet part out loud here, what you're describing is an extreme privilege in a world where homes near tech campuses often go for $1M+. New fathers aren't going to have a down payment for even $600k+. Tech at this point starts as a rich persons game which is why so many tech workers intermarry with other wealthy people. It takes two or a trust fund to do what you're talking about early on, unless you want to rent in a place where rents are highly inflated. At that point, you're choosing between a family and any shade of financial freedom.

A4ET8a8uTh0• 3 years ago

My remote started with the pandemic, but experience has been very similar. In a sense, it is very sad how much parents are forced to give up, when they are in a non-remote position ( doubly so if it is artificial non-remote designation ).

I was always a very detached individual, but the experience changed me and my perspective a lot. The 2 weeks most men get for post birth bonding ( and some don't even have that ) is heartbreaking.

I am not suggesting we move to EU level craziness where a person takes a year off to care for a child, but I am sure there is some middle ground.. and from where I sit, WFH allows just that.

fatnoah2• 3 years ago

I can't imagine what it would have been like if I had spent the week out commuting between the hours of 7am to 7pm

I can, because I lived that life. My wife and I moved from 1 bedroom apartment in the city to a house in a suburb ("only" 10 miles away) and the only time during the week I was able to spend much time with my child was 7am-8:30am before school. By the time I got home, he was going to bed. Generally, one weekend day had to be devoted to home/yard maintenance in the summer.

Before he started kindergarten, my wife and I decided that's not how we wanted to live our lives, so we sold the house and went back to renting w/a 2 bedroom apartment back in the city. My commute was 30 minutes, if I walked, with my son's school about at the halfway point of the commute. I was able to walk my son to school daily, and leave my office at 5pm and get to the sports fields at 5:15pm to coach sports. As a bonus, no house or yard to take care of meant both weekend days were also free. No regrets.

fnordpiglet4• 3 years ago

Now imagine if you had been able to have it all, the only cost being management not being able to see your bag of mostly carbon water physically respirate.

I love having a house and yard, and never having to pollute the environment to shift my bag of carbon water to do the same work worse somewhere less adapted to my being. There will come a time when passions die about RTO and companies stop paying for real estate simply to improve profits for those that don’t need to be collocated. “Culture” and other malarkey will matter not at all once passions die, the current management retires, and the bulk of workers went to college and high school online.

Then children will have their parents again.

okeuro49• 3 years ago

suburb ("only" 10 miles away)

This is odd to me. This is not a long distance. Is there zero transport infrastructure where you live?

pradn• 3 years ago

Not having to take care of a home sounds great. I can't imagine the Sisyphean task of mowing a lawn every weekend. At least raking leaves can be a peaceful thing - lour mowers can't be peaceful!

awb• 3 years ago

15 years fully remote for me and 3 kids.

The lunchtime breaks were my favorite, getting to see how their day was going and help out or share a quick laugh.

It really was and still is priceless for me.

For anyone starting out, I highly recommend trying to be home as much as possible in your kid’s 1st 5 years before they make strong friendships and when you’re their mentor and best friend.

sharadov• 3 years ago

6 years remote now and similar experience as yours - I get to spend time with my kids - play with them, take them to classes, help with homework, at the same time able to eat healthy, work out and have a more focussed and disciplined life. Never going back to the office full time - would like a hybrid role since I feel that is the best of both worlds.

Nux• 3 years ago

This is the way.

CalRobert• 3 years ago

I got a full-remote job in 2018 and think it's a big part of why we ended up having two kids (one was born 2017, one 2019) - we were on the fence before. It also allowed us to move somewhere more affordable.

t344344• 3 years ago

Nice paper. Now I can just point that return-to-office is sexist!

yosito2• 3 years ago

You're not wrong!

humanrebar5• 3 years ago

Anyone who thinks it doesn't have disparate impact probably never had to pump and store breast milk at work just to commute it back to a child at the end of the day.

And it also has disparate impact for people with disabilities. I promise you that people on chemo or with IBS are more productive not having to badge into the office several times per week.

agomez314• 3 years ago

Found my wife and got married during the pandemic, have a 4-month old now and working from home 3x a week gives me the chance to see her grow. I would not be as happy if I had to commute everyday to work, even though i'm more of an extrovert and like to hang out with others. Being at home more also means I get to do more house chores. But the joy of seeing my baby grow is incredible!

Yes, if you are at the office 24 hours a day like Elon it's likely you'll do incredible things, but to me it's worth sacrificing some of that success in exchange for a family life.

lotsofpulp8• 3 years ago

Yes, if you are at the office 24 hours a day like Elon it's likely you'll do incredible things

That is a very optimistic outlook. Or the bar for incredible is lower than I think.

lmarcos• 3 years ago

There are countless of people like Elon (overworked) who have never achieved anything incredible in life, and will never achieve anything remarkable.

j4510• 3 years ago

Maybe it’s the journey for some and not the destination.

Reframing things can be as positive as negative or self enabling or sabolaging as one likes.

j4510• 3 years ago

The thing is becoming a parent in pandemic introduced a different kind of prioritization and focus to be present in the best ways and not just duration. Increasing hours before effectiveness can cap out per quick.

As my spouse reminds me the people who will most care when I’m dead grad my kids and spouse if I’m lucky. Everything else is how much good will, memories and moments you can experience with others.

What kind of memory do we want to be? Preparing for and around that for the next many decades allows me to plan and execute in decades and not be obsessed with maximizing work hours now all the time. Outsized impact gets easier with each wave of tech that does more with less.

Big changes go very slow and then very suddenly.

Raising kids is passing too quick but experiencing existence together is far beyond that.

yosito2• 3 years ago

I've been working remotely for 10 years. Don't have anything that looks remotely like a traditional family. But I have a nomadic extended family of friends and lovers who meet my social and intimacy needs far better than anything I was getting way back when I used to work in a cube. It would be interesting to see some research about the effect of remote work not just on families in a traditional sense, but also how it impacts societal organization and the concept of a "family" at all. Industrial society was pretty organized around the concept of a nuclear family, but that's not always been the norm in human societies, and from my perspective it looks like new societal norms are emerging.

rob742• 3 years ago

Well, this article only underscores what we all have seen in the past years: remote working is better for employees (and potentially society as a whole, and the environment). Unfortunately companies prefer to have their employees less happy, but under tighter control, so tendencies to restrict remote work are getting stronger. Let's see if they manage to put the genie back into the bottle...

nextlevelwizard8• 3 years ago

Just like with everything else nothing is universal.

My team and I are again dipping our toes to office and our office day is by far most productive day of the week for us.

Only problem is that we transitioned to "open smart office" over the pandemic, so we no longer have personal desks. However that too should be resolved by Q4 as renovations come to and end and hopefully we can carve out our own space again.

rob742• 3 years ago

That's all good, as long as you are free to choose the way of working that is best for you and your team. What I am talking about is companies mandating e.g. 3 office days per week for everyone, even if for some it makes no sense at all (neither business-wise nor personally).

horns4lyfe5• 3 years ago

I think the point is that parents spending more time with their children might be more important than squeezing every last ounce of productivity out of people.

4ndrewl• 3 years ago

"affects"

lynx235• 3 years ago

If the pandemic has demonstrated one thing, it is that I don't want to work in an environment where almost everyone is remote. It has become very clear that WFH workers take extra time off at random intervals during a day, and are typically hard to reach if you need to talk to them. Also, the smaller the children, the more likely it is they are subtly unavailable during work time.

This is not acceptable, even though I totally understand these people like that.

Some even have a 40 h job and admit openly that since they are doing WFH, they effectively have the whole day for their personal endeavors. Although in the story I am thinking about, there were no children involved. To the contrary, it is about a person 5 years away from retirement, and their boss has apparently given up wanting to legally fire them and trying to make them do meaningful work. So the solution was to push them off to WFH, and not think about the topic anymore.

em-bee5• 3 years ago

their boss has apparently given up wanting to legally fire them and trying to make them do meaningful work

so they didn't have any serious work assigned to them, and you wonder why they have the day free for themselves?

they are subtly unavailable during work time. This is not acceptable

when i am focusing on coding i am also unavailable. please don't expect me to be available any time you shout. i am not your personal assistant.

dreadnip• 3 years ago

This is not acceptable

Why? I'm a software engineer working in an agency and I work exactly like you're describing. If I feel like going on a run, I'll mark myself as AFK and go on a run. If I feel like closing my laptop at 3 and go shopping, I'll work later in the day when I'm not busy.

I still deliver on my deadlines and contribute more to the company than most colleagues. If you ping me on my phone I'll probably reply at any given time, and I put emphasis on written communication about issues I'm handling. Ideally, I've already written down all of the information you'd want to talk to me about.

This "style" works really well for me.

lynx235• 3 years ago

I am not a dev. I need to coordinate with my coworkers during the day. And since we dont have documentation for every miniscule step a team mate performs, we need to actually talk to each other from time to time.

I am sure as a dev, with sufficiently large work packages, WFH is just a breeze. But not in my job.

the_gipsy4• 3 years ago

First off, there is a huge difference in being 100% available and not outputting work. They are not exclusive. I WFH with people with babies and kids and they absolutely exceed expectations.

Second, people in office can be just as unavailable or unproductive as from home. There are a million ways to slack off or be intermittently absent.

Third, it's a matter of gender equality too. If the childcare is split 50% then one simply cannot work like someone without kids, or one needs someone else to take care of the kids. If it's not split then 99% it's the women who stay at home while the men build their careers.

lynx235• 3 years ago

I expected just as much. So, gender "equality" of the spouse of my coworker is reason enough for my coworker to slack off, and me being coerced into keeping my mouth shut? No. People can demand things like that, but I am not playing that sort of game for them.

Your first two points are both ireelevant to me, because "can be" doesn't help in my daily work. All that counts, in this subjective report of mine, is my experience. And I tell you, WFH is less productive when it comes to working in a team, period.

j4510• 3 years ago

Offices allowed a form of pushibg work into other people. Email can do that too.

Daycare is a possibility instead of having one parent takes care of kids. If that’s not an option there are other creative child care options emerging that can work.

As for not working like someone without kids.. maybe I could learn to be twice as effective with half the time at work like having to be as a parent. Sometimes we can’t reframe work to work harder than we feel we should have to.

The bottom lines is off the life we want is uncommon it might take an uncommon approach and balance.

Many childless people are very inefficient with their time too as contrast.

Managing interruptions and organizing projects into very small steps to better be able to use tiny pockets of time after proving to be critical and a super power.

Thlom5• 3 years ago

Kids should go to child care so both mother and father are free to work.

sublinear• 3 years ago

are typically hard to reach if you need to talk to them

Why do you need them so highly available? Why can't you figure out what you need on your own by default without ruining the productivity of others? Encourage good documentation, ask fewer and more deliberate questions, etc.

What matters is that employees get their work done on schedule, attend and contribute what's necessary to meetings, and don't struggle to communicate well. It was never easy to get a hold of someone in the office either and you even had to waste time walking around to find out. Nothing has really changed except a lot of good for those who prefer wfh.

flangola73• 3 years ago

The thing that's not acceptable is micromanaging bosses and the attitude that business is more important than family.

lynx235• 3 years ago

If family is more important then your paycheck, why dont you resign?

Why should someone without a family invest more at work just because you consider work a secondary thing?

lynx235• 3 years ago

If you think family is more important then your job, then please just quit and dedicate yourself to what you think is more important.

But dont forget that family is an optional thing, that you decided to go for. Your coworkers without a family actually dont care how you spend your spare time. But if you are using your family as an excuse at work, we start to care, and see that you are trying to enforce unfairness.

Its your family, deal with it as you like, but dont take it with you to work.

horns4lyfe5• 3 years ago

God forbid someone isn’t at your beck and call every second the day. What is the point of that story? You admit the person you used as evidence was a bad example.

4k3aa4• 3 years ago

It has become very clear that WFH workers take extra time off at random intervals during a day

Bob Slydell: You see, what we're actually trying to do here is, we're trying to get a feel for how people spend their day at work... so, if you would, would you walk us through a typical day, for you?

Peter Gibbons: Yeah.

Bob Slydell: Great.

Peter Gibbons: Well, I generally come in at least fifteen minutes late, ah, I use the side door - that way Lumbergh can't see me, heh heh - and, uh, after that I just sorta space out for about an hour.

Bob Porter: Da-uh? Space out?

Peter Gibbons: Yeah, I just stare at my desk; but it looks like I'm working. I do that for probably another hour after lunch, too. I'd say in a given week I probably only do about fifteen minutes of real, actual, work.

gampleman• 3 years ago

This is mildly good news, although I suspect that more evidence might be needed to nail the causality here.

Remote work has the biggest effects on fertility for women who already have several children, and no effect on the fertility intentions of women who have no or one child.

This is the bigger concern though. I suppose no effect is better than a possibly negative effect which one may predict (intuitively you may meet your partner at work and that may not work so well when remote), but it is the more crucial segment to address.

cjmcqueen• 3 years ago

My opinion is that people that already have kids and aren't afraid of managing/parenting children while WingFH have more availability and less stress.

Less affluent and people with no kids are using their time elsewhere, which sounds like people are doing more of what they want and less time traffic.

teekert• 3 years ago

Damn I love wfh. At some point my manager told me to not express my positive emotions so much because many people hated it, but man I loved it. My wife was studying so she was also at home, with the kids (then 4 and 8). Suddenly I could have breakfast with them, lunch, dinner, go for a walk with the kids and the dog in the middle of the day for an hour.

And now I still mostly wfh. Still loving it. Going to office 1-2 days a week, also loving that btw. Just, overall, loving the new balance. It feels so natural. Have to say, my commute of 1.5 hrs one way was killing me and I was, just before 2020, looking for other jobs, closer to home because of it.

Sure the ease of it all is enable by my wife being at home mostly, but she loves that. And she has the time to properly manange the restructuring of the old house we bought, and to do some handwork herself (applying insulation, arranging/negotiating with contractors etc.) Tbh, I think if my wife as as work focused as me, it wouldn't be so nice for both of us, so I get the struggles some people experience, but they were mostly when the kids were at home as well.

ghaff4• 3 years ago

At one point, I had about a 1.5 hr. commute each way on maybe 50% of days on average. Even though I could generally take the train for most of the commute, that just wasn't sustainable long-term. Too much time out of the day.

RandallBrown• 3 years ago

I moved to one of the farthest flung suburbs of NYC when my wife went to grad school. My best option for work was in Manhattan.

The commute was about 2 hours each way by train with a 5-10 minute walk on both ends. I hoped it might not be that bad, especially working from home a few days a week. Even then it was soul crushing and I only lasted a year.

omnibrain• 3 years ago

I switched our whole company switched to remote back in march 2020; I became a father in 2022 and have no intention to ever switch back to the daily commute.

I was there for everything so far. But it's not only what I would have missed out on, but also there are so many situations with a baby where it is useful to have a second set of hands. I don't want to imagine what my wife would have had to endure, if I left her alone the whole day.

lotsofpulp8• 3 years ago

but also there are so many situations with a baby where it is useful to have a second set of hands. I don't want to imagine what my wife would have had to endure, if I left her alone the whole day.

The idea of even just two adults raising a baby/toddler all by themselves is a very modern phenomena, in only certain parts of the world. The norm was probably a village like setting where many families are raising many kids all at the same time, and the 1:1 intense mother/child coverage was only during the first year. Otherwise, there would be grandparents, aunts, uncles, neighbors, and a chain of children from young to old who could help with raising the child.

Thlom5• 3 years ago

We have paid parental leave split between mother and father, in total about one year. Add in some vacation time and unpaid leave and you can stretch it a a few months. After that most kids attend day care from around year 1 or 2 and both parents go back to work. Many families let one of the parents work reduced hours so the kids can be picked up earlier or stay home one day of the week or whatever. I feel this is close to perfect for both kids and parents.

passwordoops2• 3 years ago

This is all true, and I do feel very lucky to have a WFH arrangement, but I always think of the people who have jobs that cannot be remote - hospital, care takers, teachers (right now). Most are carried out by women, earning low wages, doing what's been termed "essential" work.

There is a definite bifurcation between the (generally upper) laptop class and the (generally lower) caretaker class. I'm not sure what the solution is (shorter work weeks, flexible scheduling, etc), but everytime we pat ourselves on the back for pulling off remote work this comes to of mind to me

lotsofpulp8• 3 years ago

I'm not sure what the solution is (shorter work weeks, flexible scheduling, etc),

Solution is more people becoming qualified to work in the “upper”, laptop class, hence decreasing supply of labor for the “lower” caretaker class, resulting in increasing prices for caretaking labor, leading to changes in caretaking labor environments such as shorter work weeks and flexible scheduling.

I.e. wealth redistribution from laptop class to caretaker class. Or automation to obviate caretaker class.

passwordoops2• 3 years ago

Makes sense on paper, but so far the solution has been importing cheap foreign labor from overseas (0).

Automation is probably the route we'll end up taking.

(0) https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/01/06/1069369...

meindnoch2• 3 years ago

Don't worry, the laptop class is on its way to become the unemployed class due to ChatGPT. Or so I was told...

j4510• 3 years ago

Maybe the talkers and bsers

humanrebar5• 3 years ago

Most are carried out by women, ...

Is that true? I can rattle off a list of male-dominated jobs that are absolutely not remote, like basically all the "trades" and a list of jobs popular with women that are at least somewhat remote friendly.

Does someone have evidence?

j4510• 3 years ago

Instead of trying to discredit the experience of others or women could it not be a “yes, and trades” instead of a “yes, but”?

fundad• 3 years ago

The women-dominated fields are larger and growing faster.

Der_Einzige• 3 years ago

Don't worry, AI is gonna kill that biforcation in about 2 years. It'll be the other way around.

meindnoch2• 3 years ago

*positive impacts

Tade0• 3 years ago

Almost every parent of 4+ that I know follows the same pattern: they live in the middle of buttfuck nowhere in a detached house in a low cost of living area and work remotely, while their spouse is a homemaker.

Our whole team is remote so toddlers sometimes participate in standups and that is fine - they lose interest after a few minutes anyway.

I can't imagine going somewhere every day and not participating in my child's development to the extent I am now.

This is the way - the more we push people to live in cramped, high-cost places, the less children they will have and the sooner we'll run out of people able to work, much less care for the aging population.

antisthenes• 3 years ago

Our whole team is remote so toddlers sometimes participate in standups and that is fine - they lose interest after a few minutes anyway.

The toddlers or the team? Standups should only be a few minutes anyway.

francisofascii• 3 years ago

In theory, sure. But it reality, 20-30 minutes. Especially if you have non-developers as part of the standup. The first few minutes are eaten up by pleasantries.

thoughtsbykean• 3 years ago

The question of 'WFH impact on family formation' is fairly obvious considering time saved from commuting and 'parent-work hybrid' mode at home. However, since this is a study on working class woman, is the overall trend of increased birthrates true if we consider non-working e.g. jobs lost from covid?

dumpster_fire• 3 years ago

During the 2 years of COVID WFH, I got to see my baby grow up and be there for all the milestones. For the next baby, it's full RTO and I've been feeling guilty this whole time that I'm not able to give the same amount of attention to him. His sister learnt extremely fast because I would be there every other hour just playing and asking questions for just a few minutes.

Sorry second kid, you'll have the same attention that I was given when growing up.

On the other hand, people who claim to be more productive with kids running and screaming around them, I think your brains are special. There's no way in hell I can figure out why a dependent service 3 levels deep is OOMing while my kid is tugging at my pants screaming "read to me!!!!!!" And it showed in my performance reviews. I gave presentations with a crying baby in hand, causing me to just totally blank out.

Win some lose some.

ljf• 3 years ago

Same here - I feel so lucky to have a 'shed/office' in the garden - means I can be around with 10 seconds notice if I've needed, but generally I am 'somewhere else' and everyone know I'm working and busy.

My old manager could confidently and happily conduct snr level meetings with her kids not only in the room but climbing on her - I just don't have that mental power to work like that.

lampshades• 3 years ago

Yeah, I don’t know how these other people are acting like this is such a walk in the park. WFH with young children has been rough for me. While I wouldn’t have had it any other way and am very blessed to be able to see my children grow up, I’m going to go back to an office. I’m not productive here.

rainytuesday• 3 years ago

I was recently thinking about how the US is structurally against family formation with the miserable cost of rent, medical and tuition relative to wages. Nice to see a small counter-force.

johnwheeler• 3 years ago

Thank (insert higher power here) for remote work!

Robotbeat2• 3 years ago

I’m a big remote work skeptic, but this is persuasive to me.

Part of the reason I don’t remote work is because I’m unable to focus very well on remote work in a crowded household with small children… I would inevitably be doing more parenting when I should be working. But while that might be bad for work, it’s good for family… (my commute is only 15 minutes, so a lot of the other arguments here don’t really apply. It takes a couple minutes just to log in into the VPN…)

tra3• 3 years ago

That's a fair criticism. I have the same problem when my kids are home and not at school. Are you able to focus in the office? I feel like most offices are very similar to being at home with small kids in terms of noise levels and interruptions.

Robotbeat2• 3 years ago

My office has dedicated offices but also common work areas, so it’s the best of both worlds and you can choose whatever is feeling the best at the moment.

web3-is-a-scam• 3 years ago

being able to trade commuting for time with my toddler is the best thing to come out of the pandemic for me

andrewcamel• 3 years ago

Would be incredible if the lab leak in China was intentional and they ended up saving the US by increasing the birth rate!

mariojv• 3 years ago

I've been suspicious that the post-pandemic era will yield a new baby boom of sorts.

It's probably too soon to see it in broad demographic data, but just in my group of friends, it seems like almost all married couples except those who had previously committed to definitively stay child-free are having kids. One third of the people under my direct manager have either taken parental leave since mid-2021 or are planning to take it soon.

Maybe this is just an artifact of my age and demographic situation, given I just turned 30 and know a lot of remote workers. It will be interesting to see if there really is a boom or not a few years out. Maybe as the article mentions, it's an artifact of remote work.

lotsofpulp8• 3 years ago

I believe the calculation is that if you want a typical 2 child family, and want to avoid a geriatric pregnancy (post age 35), then 30 is basically when you have to start having kids to give your body a couple years of recovery between births (what doctors recommend).

bubbleRefuge• 3 years ago

Remote since 2016 . 20+ years in software. Single father with full custody of 2 kids who were 13 and 8 when i went 100% Remote. Its a Godsend . When I don't have my kids, I travel and work in exotic places (digital nomading) where I can have a jet set social life. This limits corporate ascension but I think its worth it. Find time to exercise and do projects on the side. Given this, I still pull late nighters to get stuff done at work. Can't imagine giving up this life for a 2 hour commute and becomming a renter in some tech hub. But, I have many contemporaries who have higher status jobs than me in the industry, so I guess there is that.

lo_zamoyski• 3 years ago

It is worth noting that for much of history, for most people, people did "work from home". Children spent a great deal of time around their parents. The education of children is primarily the responsibility of the parent, and in years past, that is precisely what happened. Furthermore, one's family, extended family, or neighbors/community (depending on your situation) would flexibly step in to care for children in the absence of their parents or when parents were busy with something else. Today, a good deal more falls in the lap of parents without the communal and multi-generational support that used to exist.

So WFH gestures in the direction of a return to the historical norm of family-centered life. There is nothing normal about a career-centered life where your family becomes secondary. And because WFH also reduces the need to move, it has the potential to reduce the fragmentation of communities and families. It will be interesting to watch the broader effects of WFH on the broader economy, the culture, and the formation of community life.

ThorsBane2• 3 years ago

This proves remote work is quality software engineering methodology. It results in higher quality, more throughput, and increased investment in Family. I approve.

This means any org or management layer that enforce hybrid or in-office on the people who move code, system design, abstractions, product knowledge work, ux work...are contra Family. Those orgs need to collapse and those managers should be fired.

This will happen no matter what - the orgs and managers that lean into the disruption and make the most of the new world will survive and increase their scale and scope. The ones who hold on to top-down force and methods of mind-control and mind-enslavement (Agile, Scrum) will no longer exist for long - any value those processes have will be automated into tools that respect engineers.

rambojohnson• 3 years ago

how is agile "mind control" or "mind enslavement" ? care to elaborate?

ThorsBane2• 3 years ago

it is a contagion affecting software development speed and quality by putting non-devs and non-engineers in charge of devs/engineers. it is more okay when someone who codes or engineers is in charge of running agile and how to run agile.

when someone non-technical is a scrum master, run for the hills or perform as a 10x engineer until you can automate that person's functions enough that they no longer need to show up at your meetings and just become metrics-readers and team-hype-people for representing your team and not for caring too much about anything that isn't automated metrics and team health surveys from which meaningful ventures forward could be established such as perks and more attention to extracurricular needs if there are any.

ayyyy Corporate family??? gotta take care of everyone more and get outta the way baby, we're moving code here and you're not!

but yeah, 10000000% respect for hardcore startup engineering mentality where agile actually really does mean agile, and it means lean remote agile these days where it's asynchronous comms and as little live meeting bullshit as possible. Learn how to read and write or don't call it agile. be asynchronous or you're not agile enough for me.

6510• 3 years ago

To state the obvious, the more successful people are the more unlikely children fit into the schedule. If one is never home, beyond genetics, the success wont rub off onto the next generation. Work form the office seems a terrible long term plan.

burlesona2• 3 years ago

I will offer a contrarian take, not because I think anyone else in the thread is wrong, but because I think there’s more than one opinion here, and it’s not showing in the comments.

I have multiple children, and I hate (ok, strongly dislike) working remotely. I dislike the lack of separation between home and work, and how it makes my children feel like I’m “always working.”

I love the high-bandwidth communication and collaboration of in-person, as well as the way it naturally fosters empathy and community. It’s a better learning environment for most, and it makes work more fun for most.

I have been an outlier, I guess, and have only been able to find remote jobs for most of my decade+ SWE career. I have a dedicated office space and all the gear, so my dislike of remote has nothing to do with not being properly equipped for it.

I think people have a lot of valid complaints that are actually orthogonal to in-person work:

- Housing is too expensive. True! Not the fault of the office.

- Commutes take too long. True! Not the fault of the office.

- Housing units close to the office are often too small to be comfortable for families. Subjective, but many people feel this way! Also not the fault of the office.

The common theme here is that housing and transportation in America is broken. Utterly broken.

There is no technical or economic reason that we couldn’t have the majority of workplaces in neighborhoods where the majority of employees could comfortably live within a ten minute commute. And I submit that there is nothing better than getting to work together in real life while living comfortably within ten minutes of your workplace.

There’s nothing _wrong_ with remote work, and I think it’s great for it to be an option for those who want it (including all remote companies for those who want them). But remote isn’t morally superior to in-person work, despite the way many advocates talk about it. And an escape hatch from our broken cities is not the same as a solution.

It saddens me that more of us aren’t working seriously on the problem of fixing housing and transportation in the US, and instead are embracing bandaids.

FWIW I do what I can via my work with Strong Towns. If this is a cause that interests you I’d encourage you to read our material and consider becoming a member.

marwatk• 3 years ago

Even if we fixed all of the above, changing jobs would still require uprooting your family. In an era where you worked for one company for life it made sense. Today I don't think it's feasible.

burlesona2• 3 years ago

Perhaps but perhaps not:

1. There can still be many companies in an area with lots of close by housing such that you’re not tied to a single job.

2. I moved cross-country several times while my kids were young and it didn’t bother them at all.

3. I’m mindful of staying settled for a while now that my kids are getting older and forming real friendships. But this is like a 10-year window of time, not an entire career.

malfist• 3 years ago

I appreciate your opinion. I disagree that remote work is for me, though I am fine with the occasional travel for work for those high bandwidth in person activities.

I appreciate that you still support choice in work location, a lot of people (see amazon/twitter/apple ceo's) do not. I think that is critical here. Some people, or groups work better in person, those teams should decide that.

I wouldn't say remote work is morally superior, but it can reduce carbon emissions by truncating commutes and potentially allowing conversion of downtown office buildings into housing. But I'm sure there's caveats here enough to drive a freight train through.

throwaway29812• 3 years ago

The spilt between "we want to go back to the office" and "we want to stay remote" on my team was perfectly decided based on if the individual had kids or not.

warner25• 3 years ago

I don't "hate working remotely," but this is well said.

I have four kids. The oldest was born in 2014, and since late 2016 I've spent an enormous amount of time working from home as a graduate student and as a professional during COVID. But our oldest kid recently expressed that I don't spend enough time with her.

At first I thought, "Seriously? I've spent more time with my kids than literally any father I know, eating three meals per day with them, taking them for walks and to the playground or to appointments during the day, changing more than half the diapers, etc." But then I realized that from her perspective, she mostly saw me looking at my laptop and heard me saying "I'm trying to work, I can't do X right now." If I were out-of-sight, out-of-mind, when working and she only saw me for the two hours per day when I wasn't working, she might have a more positive opinion of our relationship.

And, yes, the reasons I like working from home are precisely because, as you said, it helps me cope with all the other problems related to housing and commuting.

xienze• 3 years ago

I dislike the lack of separation between home and work, and how it makes my children feel like I’m “always working.”

I’ve never really understood this “lack of separation” argument. Are your children at home all day long? If not, the only way it would seem like you’re “always working” is if you were working outside of normal business hours. Which is something that would still happen if you were at an office all day, wouldn’t it? If not, why not? Because your day ends when you leave the office? Why not just make your WFH day end at some similar cutoff point? Why does working at home make that less possible?

If your kids do stay home all day, one way to look at it is that yeah, it seems like you’re always working, but that beats “always at the office” doesn’t it?

danwee• 3 years ago

- Housing is too expensive. True! Not the fault of the office. - Commutes take too long. True! Not the fault of the office. - Housing units close to the office are often too small to be comfortable for families. Subjective, but many people feel this way! Also not the fault of the office.

I think when people say "I hate the office" they (I include myself) use that term to talk about everything the office implies (e.g., commute time). I'm 100% pro work from wherever fits you best. That being said, if the company I'm working for puts an office 5 minutes away from my home on foot, then I will definitely visit it a couple of times per week... but that's just impossible, hence, I hate the office.

tnel77• 3 years ago

COVID obviously wasn’t great, but I got to watch my first born child take their first steps since we were all home during lockdown. I’m oddly greatful for the pandemic at this point.

Early Remote Work Impacts on Family Formation

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