[Poll]: So do you like working from home now?

[rh71]

I've been WFH for over 15 years and have my thoughts about it, but overwhelmingly prefer it to being in an office. Most of it is laziness. If you ever dread Sunday nights on the horizon of a Monday morning, you know exactly what I mean.

Now many of you guys have experienced the difference (albeit with more disruptions at home). So how do you guys feel about it? Are you getting work done? Is there even work to be done?

 

[sdifox]

I prefer WFH when I can swing it. But sitting next to VP Delivery who is a micromanager kind of makes it hard. At least now we are supposed to WFH.

 

[IronWing]

Even with cats crawling over the keyboard, I have fewer distractions at home. At the office I get the coworkers who start talking to me from the hallway while I'm on the phone and managers who think right now is always the best time for a meeting.

 

[nakedfrog]

I've been mostly WFH for over two years now, definitely prefer it.

 

[Spoooon]

I prefer the office if it were one or the other. My preference would be blending both of them.

 

[snoopy7548]

I like working from home. I get total peace and quiet, and I feel like I can relax more the night before; even though my commute is only 15 minutes, it seems like I have much more time.

But I do like coming into work sometimes, mostly when I need to do some hands-on stuff. Some of my co-workers are awesome and really smart, so that social interaction is good to have sometimes.

But the problem I'm having is that before this whole pandemic started, I negotiated being able to work from home when I need to, and now there's talk of implementing that for a lot of people.

 

[Brainonska511]

WFH for 1.5 years now; started off working in the office, then shifted to fully remote after 1.5 years (all with one company). It's great. A few things I miss sometimes about an office setting, but not enough to make me want to do it every day.

 

[highland145]

Oops.

The first loaf of the day, sourdough boule EDIT- MY NEW BREAD BAKER ASSISTANT- Young FEMALE with pic!!!

I've one more in the oven. Tonight I'll toast some slices for bruschetta to go with steamed broccoli, a salad, and shrimp scampi with pasta.

forums.anandtech.com

 

[Platypus]

I've been WFH for a while, there are plusses and minuses to both.

I will say that generally I like to go to a cafe (when I can, sometimes I can't let certain devices be seen by prying eyes) even though I am not going to an office. I like the variety and not being stuck inside all the time. I miss having a group of likeminded people in an office setting, but I get 100x more done at home without all the distractions and people needing my help.

 

[thestrangebrew1]

It's a mixed bag for me, but I chose the office instead of WFH. I like being home and being able to spend time with the wife and kid, and I'm saving a ton on gas. But I don't feel like I'm getting a whole bunch done. Mostly because my duties require communication with other departments rather than turning in a product, but I don't get the same feeling of accomplishment through emails and IMs. At the office, I'm in meetings or at other departments 50-75% of the time. Here, I'm just home responding to emails, IMs and phone calls. I also get a bunch of steps in w/o even thinking about it because I'm constantly walking around. At home, I have to remember to take breaks and go on walks or do something physical.

Edit: Oh, and I actually miss some of my coworkers and my Director.

 

[rcpratt]

Still haven't decided. Initially I was ready to get back into the office, but I'm starting to settle in more.

 

[Rifter]

Am essential service, still slugging it out in the office.

 

[purbeast0]

I'm still not working. I went on vacation from March 9th to the 16th. Went to work the 17th and then that night they told me if you were out of the country in the past 14 days, you had to quarantine for 14 days. So I was on quarantine until the 31st.

Then in the middle of my quarantine they did the whole 2 teams thing to only have 50% capacity. The week of the 31st was my off week.

Then on April 1st they announced that they are doing 30% capacity, but as a contractor, contractors can't work at all.

So I've worked one day since March 9th. I also have my work laptop at home, but for contractual reasons, we are not allowed to work from home. So we have the technology to WFH and I can do it right here right now, but they won't let us.

Oh and due to that CARES act, it is looking like I'm going to get paid for all the missed time due to all these restrictions. So instead of them paying us to do work at home, they are most likely going to end up paying us for watching netflix, playing video games, and working on home projects.

Your tax dollars at work.

 

[lxskllr]

I like working in the field. That's what I was doing before, and that's what I'm doing now. Spending every day moving paper and clicking on a computer sounds awful regardless of location.

 

[IronWing]

I like working in the field. That's what I was doing before, and that's what I'm doing now. Spending every day moving paper and clicking on a computer sounds awful regardless of location.

If poison ivy ever becomes a carrier, you're toast.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I've only worked like 5ish shifts so far, but so far I love it. I work at a NOC so my job involves monitoring alarms. So I do that, while surfing the net or doing other stuff at same time. It's basically what I do at work too since I have a separate laptop on a KVM that's off the corporate network, but at home I can so a bit more like play stuff with audio. IDEALLY, I should probably be doing some sort of training though, whether work provided, or even just personally obtained, just for my own skills.

I'd say the only downside of working from home is the soft phone, I prefer the physical phone that is separate from the computer and that rings louder, this one just does a little "boop" once and that's it. So you really need to be on the ball to not miss calls on your line. But it's a fairly minor thing. Also it's super dead right now, I got like 2 calls today.

 

[trungma]

I like the office better but I wouldn't mind a couple of days from home. I think I do more work at home since I am always checking my emails but that might be because I am stuck here. If I can go out, then I would probably doing that instead of working.

 

[Red Squirrel]

One thing I do find working at home is I do need to force myself to go out for walks more, or I'm literally at the computer non stop. We were having nice weather for a little while so I was doing just that, going for a quick walk on my breaks. Now we're back to normal winter weather though. I still take the opportunity to at least get up a little to stretch and what not though. I need to figure out how to make the soft phone ring like a normal phone, and louder, then I'll be able to get up more and maybe even go in the living room just for change of scenery.

Either way, I could definitely get used to this! Like this morning I look outside, massive snow storm happened out of nowhere overnight. Normally I would need to scramble to get the snow off the vehicle and scrape the windshield etc so I'm not late, but working from home? No problem it can snow all it wants.

 

[njdevilsfan87]

Been WFH for about 2 years now, and it has nothing to do with laziness for me but everything to do with refusing to lose 2+ hours of my day when it's completely unnecessary. It adds up to ~500 hours per year. Being able to get errands done throughout the work day (like laundry) gets back more time too.

 

[Brainonska511]

Been WFH for about 2 years now, and it has nothing to do with laziness for me but everything to do with refusing to lose 2+ hours of my day when it's completely unnecessary. It adds up to ~500 hours per year. Being able to get errands done throughout the work day (like laundry) gets back more time too.

Yeah - not having to commute is awesome and being able to do side tasks, like laundry, on lighter work days is great. Commuting by mass transit into Manhattan was costing me ~1.5 hours/day when I lived in Astoria and ~2 hours/day when I lived in New Rochelle.

 

[highland145]

Am essential service, still slugging it out in the office.

Heh, this is me.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Man I can't imagine having to drive that much to work, that's insane. I would either move closer to work, or find a job closer to home, if I was in that situation.

 

[Brainonska511]

Man I can't imagine having to drive that much to work, that's insane. I would either move closer to work, or find a job closer to home, if I was in that situation.

1 hour door-to-door, including a trip on mass transit isn't that bad each way. At least on commuter rail, I could sit and read uninterrupted for about 30-40 minutes each way.

It could be a lot better, but we, as a society, have decided to do nearly the bare minimum for mass transit in metro areas while simultaneously favoring the personal automobile (which encourages people to drive, making congestion worse for other personal autos and for people using buses; nevermind the other negative externalities like parking, pollution, and noise in cities)

 

[Red Squirrel]

That's still crazy, I'm like 5-7 minutes away at most, and I get annoyed if I hit the light RIGHT as it turns red, since that's a 3 minute light. One of the perks of being in a small city. I could technically walk, though it's just not that practical as I still need to get back home, and at 7am after a night shift when it's 30 below, I don't really want to walk.

 

[highland145]

Like Red said, I'm 1.3 miles away. 5 min is a bitch drive. Granted, I do spend time on the road. Shut ins, physical therapy, hospice, etc.