Some interesting things in there. The asynchronous working bit (if it means what I think it means) is interesting. At the moment I find the flexibility to e.g. go out for a ride at lunchtime if it’s a nice day isn’t really there because shifting that work to a different time of the day means other people in my team aren’t around so a lot of stuff would get blocked. If that was more flexible I reckon I’d personally find WFH more appealing.
Right now in many ways it’s not that different to being in the office. But then I didn’t have a big horrible commute, and I can imagine that would change the equation.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the Basecamp internal rules and how to encourage more of that async / “write it up” working rather than exhausting endless chat and meetings. The “working out loud” ethos promoted by Microsoft, Slack and the like makes for an awful lot of noise and tangents when quietly thinking it through and getting a proper first draft together would be a better approach.

https://basecamp.com/guides/how-we-communicate

That Chris herd Twitter thread is really interesting. Thanks

MrsF’s kit has been dropped off. Decent Dell Lattitude with 8th gen i5, 27″ monitor, mouse keyboard. All needed a good clean as the previous user was a smoker. All good to go on Monday. Her new boss seemed excited that she was starting – probably because he’s bogged down with work !

In our firm around 80% of staff have been in all the time since March.
This is mainly due to the nature of our product. Flour, despite our plant being fully PLC controlled there are so many things that require human intervention so no choice but to have staff in. The Admin side was WFH for about 3 months but seeing as we have a large office and a 10th of the staff it was designed for separation/space isn’t an issue.

At first I was doing 3 days in and 2 at home but at any time I could be called in and most of my tasks as Engineering manager means you need to be on site.
I mostly hated the WFH as I was covering the early start at 6am yet still having to field calls etc at 6pm. Plus being on 24/7 call every 4 weeks was stressful as you can normally head off certain issues if you are on site.

I think it was @DezB that said it was very lonely if your on your own, though I can see from others posts having others around, I know my sister in law and husband found it hard work.

Our office is a new building with high environmental spec, part of the design is that you have full occupancy so that body heat and laptop heat to keep the building warm, in this weather no one will want to go in because it will be bloody freezing !

At the moment I find the flexibility to e.g. go out for a ride at lunchtime if it’s a nice day isn’t really there because shifting that work to a different time of the day means other people in my team aren’t around so a lot of stuff would get blocked. If that was more flexible I reckon I’d personally find WFH more appealing.

I’ve done that a few times. Need to be quite careful about it and keep an eye on calendars to make sure that I’m not likely to be called but I can quite often find the time to take a 2hr lunch break or log off at 3.30pm and get out then. It does vary and there are times when I’m working more or less solidly throughout the day.

I’m lucky in that my current place already had a fair degree of remote working even before lockdown so it was able to transition to full WFH with minimal disruption and management are very keen on staff wellbeing. That encourages a very open environment; my boss once told me he’d be off for a long lunch as it would be the only time that day he’d get his 10km run in. Similarly I’ve told him I’ll be taking a long lunch/logging off early to go for a ride and he’s not batted an eyelid. He knows I’ll stay late/start early when required, he knows I always get the work done to the times stated so within reason he doesn’t care too much about a prescriptive 9-5.

I quite like the fact that I can nip into the garden and spent 10 mins on the slack line as a quick screen break (although I’ve slacked off quite a bit in this recent cold snap).

A few of us on work are friends on Strava and I quite often see our Head of Sales nip out early for a 5k or 10k run mid afternoon, before it gets dark.

I wonder how much of this will come to pass…?

I think the KPI thing will. Which in most companies wi be a bad thing as the target will always be slightly beyond but the is normally achieved and modelled on the good weeks so you will be working even more.

This motivates me.

It would massively demotivate me.

Our office is a new building with high environmental spec, part of the design is that you have full occupancy so that body heat and laptop heat to keep the building warm

Yikes, wonder who signed off on that design? Last time I saw a building designed like that all their heating plant (heat pumps, maybe asking for trouble) was working so hard it eventually froze up, the evaporator coils were encased in ice/frost so thick it had buckled the unit casings!

It’s a proper spam magnet, this thread.

Funny how we’re all wired differently, isn’t it. I’ve recently reduced my commute from “down the stairs” to “across the landing,” it’s been brilliant as it’s at least halved my journey time.

I don’t see much issue with long lunches. I suppose it depends on what you do but I’d not be available all day every day as I have meetings and calls to make. The world still turns.

Just went out in the ice at lunch for an hour and a half in the ice. It was great. Nothing stopped at work.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the Basecamp internal rules and how to encourage more of that async / “write it up” working rather than exhausting endless chat and meetings. The “working out loud” ethos promoted by Microsoft, Slack and the like makes for an awful lot of noise and tangents when quietly thinking it through and getting a proper first draft together would be a better approach.

https://basecamp.com/guides/how-we-communicate

Posted 6 days ago

Just read these guidelines and found myself nodding my head the whole time, really wish I could work in such an environment, so many of the bugbears I have of corporate life would be eliminated working like this

I **** hate working from home and only do it now and then, much prefer to be in the depot.