Slashdot Mirror
WSJ: There's An 'Inexorable' Trend Towards Working Remotely (foxbusiness.com)
The Wall Street Journal reports that the trend towards remote working "is inexorable" in America's labor force, with 43% of workers now doing at least some of their work from home (up from 39% in 2012), and 20% now working entirely from home (up from 15%). An anonymous reader writes:
Besides lowering an employer's rent, telecommuting also makes employees happier, which helps with both recruiting and retention according to the Journal. Automattic, maker of WordPress, is able to have an almost entirely remote workforce of 558 employees spread across more than 50 countries. But it depends on getting the right set of tools. Automattic uses Slack for conversations, Zoom for videoconferences, "and its own internal system of threaded conversations for documenting everyone's work and for major decisions." One of the company's "happiness engineers" even says online communicaton has created "radical transparency," since it's possible to read and search through internal communcations. Just remember that not every job can work remotely, according to Dell's chief human resources officer. "Engineering, leadership, R&D, sales and customer support -- those are roles that don't lend themselves very well to remote work."
It'd be interesting to hear the experiences of Slashdot's readers. Anyone want to share their own experiences with working remotely -- or of working with remote co-workers?
It'd be interesting to hear the experiences of Slashdot's readers. Anyone want to share their own experiences with working remotely -- or of working with remote co-workers?
I really like coming in to the office.
I like the social aspect. I like the morning coffee on the roof terrace, I like the free breakfast, free lunch, just the amazing food, and seeing the people you work with face to face.
But am I more productive in the office? FUCK NO.
All the distractions and annoying people, I am 100% more productive when I work from home. But it' just more lonely, and I miss out on the free food. So I choose to go in. It's also good exercise walking to the office.
You can tell how powerful someone is by the magnitude of the crime they can commit and be able to get away with.
This.
It's almost like I go to the office when I know I have no deadlines hanging over my head to hang out with the other guys...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I find that when I work remotely I end up just posting random bs on slashdot all day. Don't get me wrong - I get the minimum amount of work done to not get fired, but I don't exactly get recognized either. Usually I exaggerate simple things and think everyone believes me. I feel in the back of my head my boss probably knows more than I do and sees through my bullshit. He still lets me do this - maybe because he himself doesn't care, or it's a seat that needs to be filled, and honestly at this low tier of skill, there aren't a lot of good resources available - they'd be doing something else if they were good. Anywise - for people like me - working from home completely destroys our already not so great productivity. People better than me, especially on this site - I don't really know. Out of my peers I'm pretty much at the top of the food chain. They're not slashdotters though, and they don't have CS degrees. They're mostly blue-collar C-students who read CDW catalogs and know different electronic trinckets, but nothing about actual electronics. I'm really the only one who's reached the slashdot level of nerdness, and thanks to the remote work, I don't get fired for being here all day.