I've had "real" offices. I've worked in open-plan offices. I've had a home office. I've worked from bed.
There are tons of good ways to do it.
Lately I swap between a kitchen table and a chair on my porch. I no longer use multiple screens, I've just gotten really fast at swapping windows on my 15" laptop; I've gotten good at figuring out how wide my terminal window breaks should be and where my browser dev tools should sit.
Surely there are more optimal ways of doing stuff. Odds are that there is a Taylorist approach that would pull more productivity out of me. But much like my typing speed (~50WPM) isn't really the limiting factor in my programming skill, screen real estate isn't a big factor in getting stuff done for me.
But the big thing for me is that, in the end, it's fine for me to switch stuff up on a monthly or quarterly or yearly basis.
I could never have done that when I was in an office. I couldn't take 20 min and play banjo or accordion and come back to my problem with a fresh eye. I couldn't put on my laundry and hang it up while I listen to other folks on the daily stand up. I couldn't start my lunch cooking in the instapot while waiting for a script to finish running.
It would take a hard, hard sell to get me back in an office, not matter how much real and legitimate enjoyment and utility other folks get in an office.
That's work from home brilliantly summarized, very true.
However, I have my doubts about productivity in smaller teams and startups. Being in the same space physically I think speeds up a lot of things. In small teams and esp. at early stage startups your whole day is a meeting where things are discussed and resolved spontaneously. Sometimes it is important to have an environment where information is exchanged dynamically and in an unordered fashion, as opposed to structured meetings, schedules and planning that become necessary in fully remote teams.
Then there's the social part. At least don't forget to do regular meetups in real life if you can.
Honestly, I'm very divided over this. Is there a way to have the spontaneity and dynamism of working in small teams in real life, and have the comfort and freedom of working from home?
> Being in the same space physically I think speeds up a lot of things. In small teams and esp. at early stage startups your whole day is a meeting where things are discussed and resolved spontaneously.
Who's going to write the fine-detail code if they whole day is a meeting? It may change from case to case, but for some small teams the biggest challenge is to produce something so good that it out-competes the product of teams significantly larger. A brilliant idea gets you 5% of the way, the rest is getting busy with very boring details and corner cases.
My small teams and startup experience: none of that boring work gets done as soon as there are two people together. Simply put, social interaction is way nicer than boring work. This is not just technical development work, but even commercial research. I know this is a thought crime, but I sometimes feel like it would be a good idea to lock the socialite sales person in a room with no human contact whatsoever until they finish that Excel spreadsheet.
> Who's going to write the fine-detail code if they whole day is a meeting?
From my experience, in good teams people understand when it's time leave each other alone. I hate the word "sprint" which comes from the much hated "agile" culture, but it's what it is: there are these small sprints when everyone signals DND by taking on their headphones. Which also means only disturb me if it's very, very important or urgent.
But it is also important to be aware of what's going on in the company. Not just what you are doing but also why. Everyone can take part in decision making which happens during the day spontaneously. Or at least be aware of the process. From my observations: if done right, this kind of environments can be super productive.
I never got on well with Scrum, especially with the way it has become synonymous with “agile”. Really a shame that “agile” which focused on people has been swamped as a term by Scrum which is process process process.
Scrum isn't bad, but there are better agile processes. Most people doing scrum don't really do retrospectives and make changes to the process. In a large company this isn't really reasonable as there needs to be some process in common with each team, and the processes you most need to change in scrum are the ones that can only be changed if every team does it at once.
I favor kanban processes - it locks in less at an organizational level and thus allows more freedom to make changes for the team. Though in my experience there is less change needed in the first place because the only processes specified are the ones that are locked in and everything else is whatever it takes to make it work.
Agile is rooted on focusing on people. Make a group of good people and empower them and they will create a process that works well. Also on the cases the process fail, they will change it. But if you go and decide the process, that's more than half the way towards a failure already.
What you propose works in a small organization - which is the type of place where scrum was created and works well. In a large organization there would be too many people trying to make conflicting changes for that to work. Any individual change might be good, but they conflict and nobody can track what you are supposed to do now. That is why large organizations are so hard to change.
Agile focusing on people is a good thing. People are number one, but agile has always acknowledged the roll of processes.
> In a large organization there would be too many people trying to make conflicting changes
Ideally, even in a large organization, it should still be structured down into small teams that can self-manage. You'll end up with Conway's Law taking effect, but you'll also alleviate the O(n^2) communication problem. In my experience, it works a lot smoother than 50 person teams where everyone's tripping over each other all the time.
> From my experience, in good teams people understand when it's time leave each other alone. I hate the word "sprint" which comes from the much hated "agile" culture, but it's what it is: there are these small sprints when everyone signals DND by taking on their headphones. Which also means only disturb me if it's very, very important or urgent.
When I was working in a startup, we did a "hybrid wfh" thing: we knew when we were about to have something requiring our full attention and would work one (or multiple) days from home. We had Google chat (or whatever it was called at the time) for anything that could handle a delay in response and the phone for anything that needed a chat right away.
At the time, the office was in a kind of co-working space, so it was a particularly hellish combination of open-space and multiple companies, complete with people unaware of their phones' silent mode. The upside was that even for regular work, productivity skyrocketed when we were home, so the founder, who initially was against this, started warming up to the arrangement.
More broadly, I think that different jobs have different requirements. I hate it when people talk around me and find it harder to focus. I never got used to this even after multiple years. And while I love listening to music, even while working, I don't enjoy wearing headphones all day long. I'm wearing glasses, so bigger headphones start to hurt after a while and in-ears are pain to put back in after every interruption.
Also, headphones cut you off from the surrounding discussion (that's the point, right?) so the whole "you can overhear the spontaneous decisions during the day" kinda falls flat, doesn't it?
> "you can overhear the spontaneous decisions during the day"
This is a good thing if the spontaneous decisions are always and only the ones that are important to you. This is a bad thing if there is any other decision. In a shared multiple companies space the only decision that matters to you is "where should we go for lunch" (they might not work with you, but you can still eat lunch with them). In a company only space it is better, but there are still a lot that don't matter to you. If it is a team only shared space most of the decisions matter to you.
I’ve worked passed midnight maybe twice in my 3 years working at startups. Both times it was because I wanted to get something done not because the founder asked. Some times I wake up in the middle of the night and, with nothing else to do, start working on something but it’s only because I want my equity to be worth something (nothing or everything) as quickly as possible so I can move on: not because I have to do these things.
> Who's going to write the fine-detail code if they whole day is a meeting?
Reminds me of the time I worked at an early stage startup. I used to take official vacation time, and disappear from company collaboration tools to get real work done.
Did not expect to find someone who does the same thing as me. I am actually kind of embarrassed I’ve taken sick days just to work without interruption or to investigate some tech I wouldn’t get company time to research (“we need you pumping out code, whats learning? You already know everything you’ll ever need!”)
Huh. During my undergrad, one of the most time-consuming courses was almost entirely pair programming. Having another person there to pull you back on track when you get distracted, and vice versa, was definitely a productivity improvement. Also less time wasted going down the wrong rabbit hole.
The chance that one of us was feeling motivated to put in the work to deal with that corner case is higher than the same chance for either of us individually. Though I guess it depends if the distracted person is more able to derail the other person, vs being pulled back on track.
Maybe “meeting” has the wrong shade of meaning here. The comparison isn’t to a pro-forma “let’s sit down for 30 minutes and focus on discussing this” meeting. It’s more to a “war room” continuous-until-it’s-fixed meeting that happens in response to an incident:
• bringing all stakeholders together with exactly one goal (in a startup-as-meeting, that’s “finding product-market fit”),
• where everyone in the room has domain expertise and heavily-overlapping capabilities;
• and any non-shared knowledge relevant to solving the problem that each stakeholder brings in with them, is immediately pulled out and put on the table, until there is formed a complete shared understanding of the problem,
• and micro-tasks / “there’s always another thing” tasks are then being greedy-scheduled by whoever’s free and able jumping to take them on next;
• with everyone keeping track well-enough of what the solution-space for each task is looking like, that at any time the person working on a task can drop it to work on something else more urgent+suited to them, and someone else will be able to immediately pick up that task — not because the other person had the time to document everything and make onboarding to the solution-space easy for them, but rather because everyone was learning all they could about everything everyone else was doing in expectation that they might have to jump in.
In regular work, you do heads-down work and then you explicitly decide to “have a meeting”, which interrupts your heads-down work for a while. In a war room, you’re always “in” the continuous meeting, and people explicitly decide to break off to do heads-down work while the meeting continues around them. (Usually with one ear open to notice if they need to jump back in and contribute/adjust the course of the plans being made.)
For extremely-early-stage startups (i.e. founders and no-one else), this is what every day looks like. Rather than dividing up the problem along lines of domain-expertise (a sort of human Service-Oriented Architecture for problem-solving, with single-person “departments”), you instead essentially act together as one “multi-core person” to solve problems.
IMHO, if this isn’t how most hours of the day at your early-stage startup look, then you either don’t have the right founders, or you don’t have enough shipping pressure (i.e. “too much” runway.)
> Who's going to write the fine-detail code if they whole day is a meeting?
You do it in the meeting, while others discuss things that aren't your concern. If it's something hard you really need to focus on, you tell the others to either shut up for a bit, or lend their eyeballs for a while.
Also, the boring stuff gets done just fine in a group everyone getting their last month's pay depends on it.
Been there, on both counts. The only thing I miss about it is how much you get done, compared to being a €€€ consultant tied to a spot with red tape.
I work remote at an early stage startup, I’m not sure you’re right. It might be faster to work together but only by the amount of time it takes to type. We’re on slack talking all day and have video meeting when needed. We work fast as it is so I’m not sure we’d gain much by being in person (other than social stimulation.)
I work on site in an early stage startup, and I think it's about commitment to a communication model.
We have a 2x2 grid. On the top we have 'in person' and 'remote'. Down the side we have 'synchronous' and 'asynchronous'. I've worked in companies trying all five (yes) of these combinations. This is my experience.
- in person, synchronous: everything happens in meetings. Business likes the certainty of meetings, engineering doesn't like the disruption. With the right accommodations, most people are content.
- in person, asynchronous: everyone's in the office, and no-one knows why. The CEO offers vague maritime platitudes.
- remote, synchronous: "can you go on mute" now causes a company-wide gag reflex. Everyone's happy because they can apply for new jobs without being noticed. (Seriously, the company I worked in that did this had absurd turnover, for this reason.)
- remote, asynchronous: engineers contribute to discussion when they have time. Hotshot managers want there ideas validated now, though. Despite this contention, most people are happy.
- hybrid: A cabal has formed in the office. Finally, it formalizes when a Jira account named 'Office' appears. When a remote worker creates an issue, the cabal convenes to decide a response. There is no room for negotiation. Gradually, the remote staff evaporate. Only the hive mind remains.
You can have that remotely. In my team we (8 people) spend our whole day on a visio conference room. We’re mainly idle but we use it to ask for help, discuss decisions informally, vent, talk about whatever(games, movies, etc.), all of that exactly the same as in the open space, but better because we can still disconnect if we need to focus.
If we need a real meeting or need to talk with a specific subject, we just go to another conference room, in the same way we’d use a meeting room in the office.
The thing though is that we have a dedicated device for the visio. For now it’s a Cisco DX but it could work with an iPad for example.
The massive difference between what you describe and sitting in person is body noise. A cough in an office is normal while a cough in a video chat gets everyone’s attention.
I feel like it would be very draining but it sounds like you’re enjoying it?
We just mute ourselves when we’re not talking an close the camera lid if we’re not comfortable with it.
I used to be self conscious about it, but I think the company culture plays a role. We had these devices and this behavior way before COVID because our teams were already remote (5 people in a city in France, 2 in another, 2 in Tunisia…), this is the company way of keeping remote people close to one another. The whole company works like this because all the teas are distributed. I went from not caring about it to loving it, and if I switched company I would do my best to advocate for such a system.
I usually use Push-To-Talk mode on most video calls when I can. I'm not perfect about it, but I do manage to mute probably 90% of throat-clearing noises or 75% of my typing.
I'm also divided, and I still go to office because of that (at the moment we can sort of choose it ourselves), 1 or 2 days a week. Sometimes 0. I enjoy the time in the office, I see who is there, try to gather a big group for a good lunch and talk as much as I can. At home I focus on coding, document writing etc. I'm all for letting teams hash it out among themselves.
One argument that I think fails in the long run is that creativity drops. Maybe it does, in the short term, but if people are happier at home, and more companies will support it, new ways of being creative or even together will be found. I wouldn't worry so much about losing the "classic, old" way creativity worked before, there is so much to be gained and so much yet to be learned. Give it some time, embrace it, see where it takes us.
One example of growing creativity for me has been: One colleague in our team is from the US, he's the only one. Pre-Covid he'd be on a speaker in our meeting room, no cam on. Since Covid he has his cam on, same as everyone else. We engage much more in small talk, recently we got a tour of his house and garden via webcam. What a nice guy! We wrote some patents together now too. Even though we are 8 hours flying away from each other. The talent pool for teams just grows much bigger.
In my experience, reasons like "spontaneity" and "dynamism" are used to cast lack of vision, poor planning and management, and amateurish execution in a positive light. YMMV.
> Being in the same space physically I think speeds up a lot of things. In small teams and esp. at early stage startups your whole day is a meeting where things are discussed and resolved spontaneously.
I do not understand how people can get work done in an environment like this. I've had similar experiences and "the whole day is a meeting" only served me for unnecessary interruptions, useless workplace banter and unsatisfactory results.
I think that small teams with high throughput communication can work in place and remote. In place the high communication is there by default where the default remote position would probably be lower communication / more isolation. It doesn't have to be this way of course, but it would require the remote high communication model to be put into action intentionally.
It's worth remembering that this high communication method isn't really scalable too, and that larger teams trying to follow it will find themselves dedicating a larger % of their time to noise. It would take some intentional actions to move away from it as the team grows.
> this high communication method isn't really scalable too
True, from what I've seen the threshold lies somewhere at 10-12 people, assuming a mixed team engineering + marketing + etc.
But while you are small you can take advantage, remove all formalities and be in-place as much as possible. You can move so much faster, having trivial respect and ethics in mind, as in don't talk loudly about sales just next to an engineer who seems to be working on something. And vice versa.
Communication points are a bottleneck. Smaller teams help, but the ideal team size for accomplishing a task is 1.
Putting engineers in a war room or open office is only going to irritate the ones who want to spend their time doing deep work. And those are usually the better ones.
Look at the entire crypto space. $1.5T+ of value and growing and the vast majority of it is built remotely, sometimes anonymously, and it's one of the most free and spontaneous industries.
the best of both worlds would be to work remotely most of the time and have (frequent?) sprints where you get to know your coworkers and also engage in this kind of high bandwidth settings.
Being able to noodle on a guitar while stepping away from a problem is a super power for me. If you work from home, get an instrument you can distract yourself with. The music or drills can break you out of ruts, and if you do it half seriously, you can develop real skill.
The oh so serious kabuki show we all play out in offices, especially open plans, wastes a lot of mental energy on "professionalism" and decor. People get away with being good at that type of theater, instead of being competent problem solvers, or try to turn those things into leverage for internal politics and career maneuvering.
If people are doing knowledge work, then the privacy of their home gets rid of all the unnecessary play acting. Maybe the pandemic will demonstrate once and for all that an employee with a good work ethic can be lots more effective from home than at the office. And if we encourage music and creativity and development of other relaxation and focusing skills in service of optimizing mental acuity, that leads to a better world.
==If people are doing knowledge work, then the privacy of their home gets rid of all the unnecessary play acting. ==
Except for all the hours you spend on video calls where people are looking directly into your home. If you use some type of background to blur your home, that becomes the same type of "kabuki show" you reference about offices.
==Maybe the pandemic will demonstrate once and for all that an employee with a good work ethic can be lots more effective from home than at the office. ==
Maybe you have a bias here? I know lots of people with "good work ethics" who feel less productive at home.
+1 and I like your writing style: “””The oh so serious kabuki show we all play out in offices, especially open plans, wastes a lot of mental energy on "professionalism" and decor.”””
It’s great how everyone works so differently. When I am alone, working from home, I can’t find a proper mental break anywhere and everything becomes a mess and I eat worse. Having a physical work/life split makes me cook more food, learn more recipes, and gives me a constant fresh look at my home and items to make sure it’s clean and tidy.
In the WFH situation it’s suddenly 20:00 and I’m starving and just look to snack or even go so far as to order food, but when I work away from home I have the train ride back to browse which supermarket I’ll shop at and message with a friend on how and what we’ll each be making.
This. I like WFH as a concept, but I feel like it would require a separate office room to really work, and right now I don't have the space for that. Working from living room just mixes up work and leisure really badly.
I’m my case having a “separate office room” is just occupying the space where I might have had the family computer or my gaming station. I have always had that space, at least since the days of my ok’ packard bell and kings quest!
I intend this with all the charity in the world, but it does need to be blunt because comments like yours are influencing decision makers to force everyone to come back, whether it's full time or in a so-called "hybrid" model.
You've had a year and a half to adjust. If you don't want to move, you could easily rent office space near your home. Your lack of planning does not constitute an emergency for everyone who is happier and more productive at home.
Can you create a work/life spilt by having a separate office in a separate part of the house?
Or even have an external office on the property.
If you knew you can work remotely 100% of the time, that frees you up to consider cheaper locations where you can get a better house for the same rent.
Have you tried setting alarms on your phone and when you start/stop go for a short walk?
One thing I do to separate work from home is to get changed. Wake up in underwear, lounge until work start alarm then get dressed/go for walk/start work - end of work alarm go for walk/get changed - helps me with the mindset of what is work and what is not.
I don’t always need to do this, just when it starts to affect me.
That is a real problem. When I WFH, I do better when my customer supplies a secure laptop to access their systems. I use that laptop only for work, and simply turn it off at the end of work. During the day, I can grab my iPad if I have personal e-mail, etc.
This is the biggest improvement in my ‘quality of life’ from working from home. I’m still not totally convinced I don’t like working with others around me, but the ability to eat well, integrate exercise and chores into the breaks away from the screen i’d take in the office anyway are priceless.
And I find too that it doesn't even reduce down your working time too - an awful lot of thinking time in an office is when you get up from your desk and walk to the watercooler, bathroom, whatever. I do so much thinking and working out whilst doing these home chores.
Personally I have a MUCH easier time paying attention if I busy my hands with something mindless like dishes. This has been ruined lately by me becoming the guy that runs the meetings, but hopefully I can change that soon since I really dislike running meetings and would much rather wash dishes.
Bringing up an anecdotal edge case, a couple years ago I have attended a viewing in a coworking space (Bricklane, London) where members had to sit on old recycled school chairs because that was the "design". Apparently you need to get a sciatica to look like a hipster coder.
Having the right setup is not only about making your brain more productive - it's about keeping your spine pain free. While my home office is set up for this purpose, only one company that I have worked with so far had this aspect in mind. In the past, I had to take days off because of terrible set ups and long work hours. Having a well positioned and large second monitor helps a lot.
You have much more control over this while designing your home office. Working from bed is not the way unless you're planning to marry a physiotherapist in the future.
The chair thing is always amazing to me. I worked at a company that had crappy chairs (because they claimed they couldn't afford better).
One of my team decided that they needed a good chair for medical reasons and asked for it. They got a really nice chair.
I don't know if anyone complained, but it wasn't long before the whole team had really nice chairs. The cost was negligible compared to the morale boost, IMO. I don't think I ever looked at that chair without thinking, "Man, that's a good chair!"
When I got a new job that had crappy chairs, I bought myself a new chair right away without even asking. Whenever I upgraded, I'd give my old one to anyone on my team that wanted it. I don't know if they cared much, but it sure made me feel better.
I saw once a guy sitting next to the door in a small crammed office. He would get hit by it from behind each time someone opened it. Must've been a marvellous experience, he quit rather quickly.
I think working from bed for a short time is a good way to keep varying your posture.
The headline is misleading because I would have answered that I work from bed sometimes, but I also work from every chair or position around the house. I have a laptop and I move around.
Working from bed is when I am trying to finish something that's not particularly challenging while also kind of watching the baseball game on TV.
> screen real estate isn't a big factor in getting stuff done for me
Lately, I've been wondering if less screen real estate actually makes me a better programmer.
Being able to simultaneously have 6 files open across two large monitors with a lot of vertical real estate means that messy code doesn't hurt me as much. In fact, I'm pretty sure the only reason I do that is to facilitate dealing with messy code. I no longer have to build a stable mental model of it in my head, because it's reasonably convenient to just keep referring back to the original source code.
When I'm just on the laptop screen, though, and I can fit one file full width, or two if I've been good about keeping the line length below 90, I start having to keep things in my short term memory. Which means that, when it's not amenable to that, I'm relatively quick to get annoyed and refactor it for comprehensibility. I'd like to think that, with time, I'd eventually come to just write more comprehensible code in the first place.
A couple more data points here, obviously riddled with bias, come from my colleagues. Some have desktop computers with multiple 4K monitors, some have a laptop connected to a single external monitor, and some have that and also a habit of unplugging the computer and working on the front porch whenever the weather is nice. My impression is that the people in the first group tend to write the least comprehensible code.
Of course, the 4K monitor jocks also tend to work the fastest. But I think it's maybe a bit like when I used to work for building contractor. Nobody liked to be on the same crew as the person who worked the fastest.
I've been using just one monitor for the last two years and never once wanted to go back to multiple monitors.
I used to have two external monitors and it was always frustrating to dock/undock and re-arrange my windows. That was why I transitioned. But I've seen no reason or negative impact on my work to drive me to return to multiple screens.
HackerNews often talks about how task switching and multi-tasking negatively affect focus. I wonder if those same people think multiple monitors contribute to either of those. On my screen I only ever have one window; it feels more intentional. On three screens I had email and teams on one, a browser on another, and my IDE on the third. Surely that's more distracting, no?
Initial Google results seem to sing the praises of multiple monitors. Am I truly unproductive on my one screen or have others seen the same benefits? How can "productivity" even be quantified?
So it seems I accidentally nuked my Macbook pro two nights ago after my dog spilled a glass of water on my nightstand and splashed some onto MBP- I thought it was an indirect hit, but the next morning I plugged it in and appeared to have shorted some stuff out internally, and even worse- it seems to have shorted out my thunderbolt monitor too.
So I was forced to just use my Macbook Air, and I was preparing for a massive productivity hit, and tbh- I think it may have actually helped a bit- I don't think we realize how much we get distracted by having email and slack or whatever open all the time, and just being able to focus on one task at a time visually was actually kind of a relief.
Long term, I am going to want monitors back and all, but I think there is a real benefit to keeping the things that are not 100% your attention at that moment entirely minimized and out of view.
You’re really on to something here about systems thinking and the relative power of tools. I feel similarly about big IDEs and stateful, long-running test runners.
This is spot on. The 'bottleneck' in programming is not the screen size or typing speed but the I/O of information in the brain.
I too stopped using multiple screens some time ago because it felt like being overwhelmed with information and experiencing fatigue, while not being more productive.
I stopped using multiple screens, but only because my 4K (at home) and ultrawide (in the office) can fit everything I need. I wouldn’t do the same with 1080p.
I've been working from home 20 years now, and I have the opposite setup from you. I've got a much nicer setup then I ever had in offices - from 3 monitors to my favorite keyboards. As I get older and my eyes get worse, I really appreciate the space the monitors give me.
I do agree about going back to an office... Its not really something I anticipate doing.
~10 years WFH here and my approach is similar to yours - my home office has become almost ludicrously well equipped.
My approach is that I think about how much commuting would cost me, and consider that a reasonable amount to invest in my working space at home. As a result, I have a very small, but very functional space that I feel good about sitting in for 8 hours a day. I'm comfortable, I'm calm, and when I need to think, I don't feel stressed by my environment.
Edit: to give some examples - I have very carefully chosen art for the walls that I can stare at and my mind can drift, when I need to solve problems. I had a desk custom made to give me the most amount of space because this is a very small room (~3m x ~2.5m) that regular desks can't make the best use of. I have great audio gear (mic, headphones and speakers), carefully tuned lighting, etc, etc.
In isolation the thousands I've spent on this room seems kind-of ridiculous, but compared to the thousands more I haven't spent on commuting and compared to the satisfaction I get when sitting in here, I think it was absolutely worth it, and I am very grateful that I was privileged enough to be able to make all these choices.
I've gone the opposite way. I did WFH/remote for ... years, always on a single laptop. I was very mobile - f2f client meetings, work from coffee shop, work from hotels, etc.
In the last year, as travel/f2f was essentially taken off the table, I've moved to laptop with 2 external monitors, and just recently to 'desktop' setup. I still have the laptop, and use it to work from home now and then, but I'm slowly getting used to more screen real estate. It's not even so much 2 monitors, just a much larger main one. 32" vs the 15" has been a big difference, mostly for the better.
But... I had years of comments from a lot of folks about "no idea how you can get anything done from just one laptop - that screen is so small, etc."
I've done WFH for a year and a half now (and the odd day in the years before that), and I still kinda struggle; it's easy to let the distractions take hold, and it costs me energy to get started on work. Mind you, the work is not the most exciting at the moment either.
That said, as other commenters have mentioned, there is value (for me) to work in a team and to have others actually depend on me and my progress; I need a bit of external pressure. At the moment it's mainly self-pressure / self-motivation, which isn't the best.
I do think in the future I'll pursue jobs where I'm both independent but also replaceable, because at the moment I'm not replaceable so I don't feel like I can move on yet.
“ I'll pursue jobs where I'm both independent but also replaceable”
I totally get the pressure felt when you’re not yet replaceable. At least from the responsible, not wishing to burn bridges vantage point. It can add stress because it means vacations are only half spent and makes other opportunities seem wrong to take because you know you’d be leaving the company in a bad state. And mind you this is at the same time as trying to spread as much knowledge around as possible. Small teams can make this more common.
> Surely there are more optimal ways of doing stuff. Odds are that there is a Taylorist approach that would pull more productivity out of me. But much like my typing speed (~50WPM) isn't really the limiting factor in my programming skill, screen real estate isn't a big factor in getting stuff done for me.
Your work habits suggest the best "Taylorist" improvement might just be to let you roam. Seems to be working best.
> I could never have done that when I was in an office. I couldn't take 20 min and play banjo or accordion and come back to my problem with a fresh eye.
I've seen music/game rooms at good companies. If a company can't set aside some space for breaks, that's a red flag.
Working from home only possible with experienced devs. Once you have lots of juniors, it's very difficult to coach them. Juniors need to be able to contact fellow devs randomly and not via a zoom call.
I’ve been mentoring two juniors at work and I prefer zoom actually. It’s a lot easier for me to share my screen with the both of them than it is to all huddle around my desk. If they run into a problem they ping me on slack and we hop on a call together. It’s not any harder than strolling over to my desk.
In Finland there used to be a culture of everyone from high school upwards living in chatrooms or IRC, so it has been extremely natural for people to "idle" on chat channels and interact naturally over those. I would say chat channels feel much more intimate and social environment to me than sitting in an office. Even when we worked in offices we had IRC or Slack or other channels open and interacted over those rather than by actually walking around and talking. It's simply much more effective, asynchronous, and leaves a log of what was said and agreed.
> I could never have done that when I was in an office. I couldn't take 20 min and play banjo or accordion and come back to my problem with a fresh eye
I should say, "I wouldn't have felt free to do that in the situations I've been in".
And maybe that's just a supposition that I was making.
People pay me to play music-- it's not that I'm bad at it. But there are a lot of reasons ranging from not annoying other folks to not looking like I care more about playing scales than fixing a problem which make me think I should not do that kind of thing.
You have summarized the good experiences I have had working from home (except onsite for a while at Google and Capital One) since my wife and I moved to a small town in the mountains of Central Arizona in 1998.
I have two areas of my yard where I can work, one is always shady, I have a dedicated office, but also work in the living room and kitchen table. I have a nice external monitor on my desk, but I don’t really need it for most writing or work tasks.
I really don't know much in this area but this seems to be more of a posture thing. A physiotherapist told me he only uses laptops because apparently that's the best combined with the right table and chair due to the tilted, low screen.
In my experience he's at least not completely wrong, but in the long term I still aim to try a standing desk to mix it up, sooner or later sitting in general feels wrong when I overdo it. And I just prefer a single large screen. Enough to fit two windows beside each other with enough space for any situation.
I suspect the real problem is lack of movement. If you spend long periods of time in the same position no matter how good your posture is it is going to cause a problem.
Best thing is to get an external keyboard, otherwise the screen will be too low and your neck will be perpetually craned downward (same issue with prolonged smartphone usage), or you set the laptop on a pedestal so it's eye level, but now your typing like a praying mantis.
I worked from home for around 15 years and I miss it tremendously. I think my productivity was much better when my "take a moment from work" diversions were exactly the things you described-- doing some laundry, washing some dishes, preparing lunch, etc.
I'm back in a traditional office setting. My diversions are mostly the "surf around on the Internet" variety. That's not to say random Internet use didn't happen when I worked at home, but I found I enjoyed random non-computer diversions far more than sitting viewing websites. Now that I'm in an office those non-computer diversions aren't an option. I just end up wasting time on websites when I need a break.
I also really, really miss working from my couch with my 15" laptop on my lap. It was vastly more comfortable than any desk setup I've ever had and discouraged me from hoarding physical articles in drawers, corners of a desk, etc.
I never understand the ability to work on a laptop. For me it would be a significant blow to my productivity. How do people do it?
I have 3 full monitors, one for running 10 or so processes that I can glance at stdout, then the other two monitors for having many different editor files open, numerous data plots, and multiple reference guides open, etc.
Different engineers do different work. Not everyone is running 10+ processes and referring to reference guides all day, some, like myself, spend most of our days writing emails or reviewing PRs, neither of which really necessitate lots of screen real estate.
You're not looking at and digesting all of that information at once (unless you have an impressive dozen sets of eyes :) ). You're context switching, and you've found that the most productive way for you to context switch is to have everything fully available at a glance. For others, being able to switch at a literal glance is less productive and more taxing (those 10 process can be distracting!) so we use different tools or methods, like workspaces, tmux sessions, terminal tabs. I usually have three projects each loaded and available for attention at once with a key press, but I don't need (nor do I want) them actively visible alongside each other.
Virtual desktops and 3 finger swipes for me too. I cannot understand how having multiple apps visible helps, because you have to continuously switch your eye focus and if you have distracting apps like Slack in your field it's even worse. So laptop with 1 window maximized is the best for me. And the mobility that it allows: move to the sofa, armchair, cafe, I even deployed from a taxi. I tried to buy and use external keyboard and trackpad on my standup desk during the pandemic, but I returned the same day - the distance between the position of keys and the trackpad was so weird after years of laptop only.
thinking about it, I'm probably really biased. I do robotics, so live analysis of sensors, processed data output running on a real platform as well as involved simulations is part of my process. I need to be able to glance at data and plots quickly without changing my current screen
On windows I alt tab often. I close anything not related to work keeping the list of windows short (maybe 5 at most).
Split screen some where appropriate.
My home office is 2 monitors.
My work office is 3, however I only find myself using 2
Here is my first hand experience from roughly 15 years of working from home at this point, with a little office time mixed in.
This is the right approach from an ergonomic standpoint - cycle through how you sit/stand while working and you’ll minimize a lot of joint issues. If some position is causing you issues, it’s easy to identify and effortless to switch. At minimum it isn’t healthy to sit for hours straight. It’s also easy to mix in a few workouts or use some sort of treadmill or stationary bike.
Years ago I went from 3 27” screens down to 1 12” MacBook and had no loss in productivity. I was primarily doing design and data analysis work. DPI and OS window management matters more unless you have vision issues.
I have a desk with dual monitors and a laptop dock where I do most of my work, but sometimes that just isn’t where I want to be. The biggest win is the flexibility, I can be in bed, on the sofa or outside and do the same stuff I do sat at my desk.
> I couldn't put on my laundry and hang it up while I listen to other folks on the daily stand up.
Yeah, there's a secret value in low level distractions: they prevent higher level distractions. When you go into a deep focus environment for that daily, chances are your mind will focus deeply on something entirely unrelated.
Not at all. It might actually cause you to burnout if you begin to feel your work has encroached on your personal life. I went through a rough phase a while back because of this.
Not sure why you got downvoted; remote work has been awful for me mental health wise since COVID. Not every dev wants to sit at home all day while they work. The separation and social interaction are important for me.
For the past 2 weeks, I've been working from a treadmill. It has been incredible. I got a small under-the-desk treadmill for my standing desk and I walk at about 2.5km/hour and get around 20,000 steps in per day. It has improved my mood, my clarity, and also has improved my sleep (because I'm tired of walking). I also find it easier to focus on tasks for some reason.
If you can make a setup like this work for you, I highly recommend it. Your body will thank you in the long run.
EDIT>> A few of you are asking about the model. I actually bought 2, one for myself and one for my partner, who also loves it.
This one is mine https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07V7F8QYK. I got it when it had a $100-off coupon, so the price wasn't as steep. No real complaints so far, except you can't store it upright. I just roll it out of the way when I want to sit.
The one for my partner is https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0895DRWVY. She likes it. It's a little smaller and can be stored upright and out of the way, which is nice. There have been complaints about the remote (and it only comes with 1), but the manufacturer claims to ship new remotes free of charge if yours breaks.
They're both a little quirky with a very simple LCD screen. Supposedly mine has an app integration for step counting, but I just use my phone in my pocket. They both get the job done.
I’ve had a walking treadmill desk for over ten years.
Whether it’s for you is quite personal: See if you can find somewhere to try it out for a few minutes, in particular try typing and using the mouse/trackpad while walking. My treadmill tops out at 4 mph (6.4 km/h), which is really too fast to do anything but walk. I can watch videos at 3mph, code routine easy stuff at ~2mph, code hard stuff at ~1mph, and to read hairy code I have to stop completely. I don’t walk all day, I also stand and sit.
Some things that will help you have a good experience:
• Get a purpose-built walking treadmill: They’re smaller and more importantly go much slower.
• Get a very solid, stable desk and put it on a stable floor. Any little monitor shake will make things miserable.
• The treadmill is not silent, so you’ll probably need to stop when speaking on video. It’s awesome to be in watch/listen-only meetings and put in a mile or two.
• A nice option I’ll upgrade to someday is a stand-alone walking treadmill with a wireless control, plus a nice sit/stand desk.
I tried watching videos on an iPad while walking on a treadmill and found that head movement made it annoying to watch. The obvious solution is a bigger screen further away. Did you find anything like that?
I'm not intending to give health advice but the health benefits of walking are pretty well established and commonly accepted by doctors. I encourage you to do the research if you are skeptical or talk to your doctor.
Health detriments of sitting all day are also pretty well established and commonly accepted by doctors. Don't know where pnut was going with that lame comment.
We often joked that, when we all inevitably got treadmill desks, we'd have to get him a climbing-wall desk. It'd be great! We could just stick a computer at the top of this thing, and maybe some espresso for motivation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjiepNna8GA
I walk around 4 hours per day. Yesterday was 4 hours 13 minutes, 22k steps, 5.96 miles. It seems like a short distance for that many steps, but it's because you tend not to take huge strides.
I'll usually do 10k steps in the morning, take a break and sit and eat lunch and rest for a bit, then finish another 10k steps.
The treadmill has rear wheels, and I roll it back out of the way of my desk, then roll my chair back to my desk, when I want to sit.
I don't wear shoes while walking or indoors. If I start getting foot problems, I might get a pair of indoor shoes.
In my experience typing while walking has not been an issue but using a mouse with moderate to high sensitivity can be challenging. Using a gaming feature such as "sniper" mode to toggle mouse sensitivity when precise clicking is necessary solved the problem.
Yep! I walk regularly on calls and during pairing sessions. Google meet is pretty good at noise cancelling. My coworkers say they can't even hear the treadmill. Heavy breathing isn't really an issue for me at 2.5km/hour. I'll have to dig up our standing desk dimensions, but there is no problem there for me or my partner. I'm 6', she's 5'8", and we both have different standing desks and different treadmills. There would be no issue with the desk height or width, but you should measure your own setup if you're thinking of doing the same.
I jump on a rebounder a couple of times a day, nothing like your setup but it seems to improve my wellbeing. The rest of my time is unfortunately quite sedentary, I tried working while standing but for some reason it didn’t work out for me. But now im thinking that standing and walking are quite different. You made me think about getting a thredmill...
Yes, it is a mini trampoline of around 4 feet in diameter, it doesn't have springs but bungee cords so it doesn't make any sound when you jump on it and the jump is quite a bit smoother. I jump on it in sessions of 10 minutes, and it feels like a very convenient and fun cardio. Jumping somehow works out your whole body and it supposedly helps with lymphatic fluid drainage - actually , any kind of movement or sport does help with that but having a sedentary lifestyle affects it heavily. It is a good general exercise and very convenient to do in the confines of your own home. Oh, and jumping on it feels effortless while it actually does work out your body quite well, when you stop jumping it does feel like you had a workout. Of course towards the end of the session the heart and breathing rates goes up. I really like it.
Fitbits have longer bracelets you can swap in, so you can fasten it over your ancle. People in jobs where they cant use watches usually do that if they want to track steps. Your doctor/nurse might be wearing one.
IMO sitting just makes your blood slower to flow = less juice for your brain.
I was helping IT support before the pandemic when I had free time (or waiting something to finish)
And I liked all the walking around the office, between buildings, etc.
Now, I artifically simulate situation by leg-shaking :)
Picture tech people walking on their treadmills for compensation and then picture gerbils running on wheels for food. Picture tech people drinking Soylent and then picture gerbils eating pellets. The world is whack.
People are substituting artificial things for the natural things that made us happy in earlier times. Walking on a treadmill vs walking outside in the sun and shade amidst plants, trees, and other living things. Eating things for nutrition vs eating fruits and vegetables for enjoyment.
The options here are sitting while working or walking while working. The options aren't sititng while working or disregarding society and returning to the forest.
Which is basically a myth at this point. For most of the last 5000 years most people have had a much lower quality of life than people do today. It's not like things were nice before we sat infront of computers all day.
It's not that life was living hell for everyone either. Plenty of people have lived comfortable lives throughout the ages -- it's just that there are far more of them nowadays.
There's also still a lot of people who have troublesome lives, not to mention people living un-comfortable lives in front of a screen.
> It's not that life was living hell for everyone either
It's not really that much of an exaggeration. Significant percentages of women died in childbirth, young children died of diseases, and men died of violence. If you didn't, multiple people close to you did. Back-breaking manual labor for subsistence was the norm. Even the small minority who lived "comfortably" could randomly die from a tooth infection.
It can be exaggerated to be sure, but I think it's even easier to discount the stunning drop in absolute poverty over the last two centuries because we've simply forgotten how terrible the old "normal" was. I highly recommend books like Enlightenment Now or Factfulness that do a great, detailed, and evidence-based job of driving this point home.
But it _is_ an exaggeration. Child and maternal mortality rates was obviously higher back in the day, and social safety nets were mainly based on community and family rather than own savings or contributions like in modern Western society.
On the other hand, there are still somewhat un-contacted and isolated tribes on multiple continents, and I've never heard anyone describe their life as hellish. Most of those tribes are perfectly aware that there is an outside world, and one would think they'd join the rest of us if things were _that_ bad.
As it is now, it seems the situation is far worse for those who attempted to leave but failed to integrate into modern society.
That being said, average quality of life does seem to have increased a lot the last 100 years. There's no doubt about that.
Thanks, this is a valid criticism of my point. I maintain that it is a bad idea that people had it better as hunter gathers considering it is not an option to return to the forest, and we are doing pretty well by sedentary settlement standards. But you are right that it is also a bad way to shut down valid arguments against the problems our technology has caused.
A lot of people still don't! For those of us who do, WFH gives us a bit more flexibility about how we spend the time in front of a screen and maybe a chance to fit in exercise where there used to be a commute.
I also get plenty of sun and eat well. But I happen work at a job that requires me to look at a stationary screen for much of the day, like I imagine most of us do. So I am choosing to not be as sedentary. But if you're suggesting that we should abandon working in tech because it's unnatural, I'm afraid you're probably talking to the wrong audience :)
You're not the first person to mention gerbils on wheels to me. I think it's mostly a reaction to seeing something unconventional, despite its health benefits. If you feel like you're not living your ideal life in this industry (assuming you are also in tech), that's fine, but don't project that onto me please. I enjoy what I do and how I live.
> People are substituting artificial things for the natural things that made us happy in earlier times.
You frame threadmills and soylent (terrible name, though) as gerbils in a cage. That's one way to frame it. But I choose to frame those things as steps towards becoming something more than humans, with humanity taking its destiny in its own hands.
Maybe one day we will have conquered death and live as long as we want to, but until then a small-ish machine that improves my quality of life with me barely noticing is a good first step.
We might be the only animals that eat "for nutrition" instead of "for enjoyment", but we are also the only animals that read.
Just because you make an analogy doesn't mean it's valid lol.
Like there's obviously an entire category of differences between a person consciously choosing to use a treadmill desk versus a captive pet gerbil on a wheel.
Some of the highest performing humans for the past couple thousand years have spent an abnormal amount of time in dimly lit rooms reading, what we're doing now is not far off if you're actually plugging away at useful tasks and not mindless scrolling.
For what it’s worth, I made a similar decision. My dedicated home office is large enough to reengineer for a treadmill (I used one at Google every day for a short while), but I decided it was better for me to go on frequent mini 5 minute walks outside, with long walks before work and sometimes during lunch break. Being outside is healthy, which is why I like to find a shady spot outside to work for short periods.
Also, short walks are great times to think about work. Or, sometimes having a pad of paper to think away from a computer.
> Picture tech people walking on their treadmills for compensation and then picture gerbils running on wheels for food. Picture tech people drinking Soylent and then picture gerbils eating pellets. The world is whack.
A bit much? I'm not sure where you get soylent from.
Nobody is substituting here, I didn't get that from the OP at all.
Another commenter mentioned that working from home allows for asynchronous tasks, the OP merely stated that means he can work and work-out on a treadmill. He is neither being compensated for or replacing going out into nature.
Yeah. That’s what optimization is. It turns out that when I sit for work, then lift for health, then walk in nature for enjoyment I get a lot more out of each of these than when I try to get one thing to meet all these needs.
Like, this is the most normal thing that it works this way.
This naturalistic fallacy nonsense is so tiresome. “Oh wasn’t it great that we lived in nature and got eaten by bears”. No. It sucked.
Survey seems pretty flawed and potentially biased. The survey was done by a contractor/home improvement company so maybe they used customer's as their population?
While SWEs might need/want a good desk setup, many office jobs just don't need it. I'm not sure people are really improvising but rather find sitting with a laptop is how they normally work anyway.
And working in the bedroom can be misleading... it's often a private place you can put a proper desk.
I WFH and went from living alone to having 3 roommates who all WFH. I have my bed, desk, and theater setup all in the (master bedroom). It's actually better than a 1bdr apartment, it's quieter (no leafblowers!) and I don't have dirty dishes right behind me.
I have a small desk but a 4K 32" monitor and a vertical 1080p one. A microphone on an arm and NO webcam; I use screen sharing 90% of the time but I don't need to see peoples faces. (I really wish video calling didn't compress >1080p screens so much). If I need a webcam, I use my laptop.
Maybe the pandemic changed things but you could get decent chairs for $20 at goodwill.
I guess I'm just skeptical that a majority of people have difficulty working from their home... You know the place you live and pick your own furniture.
It depends of the country. In my country-side town in Europe, I would have no issue.
Now I am in Hong-Kong, and it's really hard to find a place that have enough place for a desk in a bedroom / place in the living room, without breaking your bank account. I heard that it's the same for Singapore.
I'm still amazed at how we lack both ergonomic and comfortable ways to use computers, it's usually just either one or the other, never both.
Imagine a large pillow that's shaped vaguely like human back should be when resting, which you could put on your bed to support your entire back, neck and head, at a slight incline. Then, add a keyboard support that can be moved around, alongside with one for mouse (or just a trackpad), as well as a VESA wall mount for a few monitors above the bed, angled so that you can look up at the screens directly, without putting too much strain on your eyes.
And, because it'd be just a few pillows and some aluminum pieces for the mounts, it shouldn't break the bank like the linked item either. Otherwise, even with reminders to get up and walk around every hour, it always feels like my back is in the wrong position, regardless whether i'm sitting at a table with a chair, laying in bed with some pillows underneath or anything else. Even though i do stretches and daily exercise, the lack of truly ergonomic ways to work without having to constantly monitor my own posture (which will realistically never happen) feels like a detriment, or at least will become one in 20 years, when back issues start manifesting.
So here's my question: why are people so obsessed with office chairs and why don't we have such pillows be more popular, or just don't put more thought into working from bed?
The most capable and ergonomic interface device I have found is, after extensive configuration, the Steam Controller. For file management, web browsing and social media I don't really have to use a keyboard aside from typing, and in both modes my posture is symmetric. Transition to games is of course seamless.
Sadly, it is no longer on the market but the community behind it expects a new model.
This is almost my setup for years, except using a laptop with a hi-res 17" screen rested on my knees.
I can sit in this position for hours on end without getting uncomfortable.
I've tried out every office chair including the Aeron, they don't compare in any way. If I was forced to work from a chair, I'd get a $100 adjustable deck chair.
I also found multiple monitors are very tiring on your head/eyes which need to be constantly moving between them which takes time and energy. Alt-tabbing is much quicker and as a bonus you're not gimped when forced to work from a single monitor/laptop while outside.
I'm afraid that trying to compile an enterprise Java codebase with a laptop on my knees would be painful, since currently it maxes out all cores for a few minutes.
A deck chair seems like an interesting idea, however!
In regards to screens, I've found that 4 is still not enough for me - even some of them are stacked vertically with a DIY VESA mount and stand, so the movements end up being pretty limited and are more like the occasional gentle stretch.
Then again, I'm the kind of person who likes to have multiple categorized browser instances open, text editors, IDEs, source control tools and terminals to the point where managing all of the windows would be a hassle. Workspaces could help, maybe even tiling window managers, but I think everyone has their own preferred workflows.
For the pillows I recommend pregnancy pillows - they're filled with some kind of small grains and adjust to your body perfectly, providing an amazing level of comfort.
Is $7k really expensive even for non-programming jobs? Assuming a 5-year lifespan, that comes at around $120/month which should be affordable to most of the developed world.
I have another theory: The reason we didn't adopt such ergonomic setups is because they look "weird". We are quite used to sitting in chairs and it's not quite far from sitting on a rock.
A customized ergonomic setup will pay itself in quite a short time.
Yes, it is. For that same amount of money, in my country, i could purchase 2 used cars, or just buy food for about 3 years (without eating out), or pay rent for almost 2 years.
Alternatively, such a setup would cost me almost 5 month's worth of net salaries (as a software developer in one of the countries that people outsource to) and that is before any additional shipping costs.
Such setups might make sense for people in the 1st world countries with decent salaries, but for me and may others who live in Eastern Europe or other countries that aren't as financially advanced, that is still a considerable sum of money.
As for your point in regards to looks - i somewhat agree, however i definitely wouldn't mind such a setup in a full remote working position.
Especially when eventually coupled with some high quality VR headset that would provide a passable resolution for programming (essentially at least an effective resolution of 1280x720 per virtual screen). It might be a while until that becomes feasible, if ever, though.
Latvia. To give you some perspective, my current net salary is around 1500 euros per month ( the national average is a bit under 1000 https://tradingeconomics.com/latvia/wages ).
Regardless, 7000 USD is around 5900 EUR, so 5900/300 = almost 20 months of rent covered. This also assumes no shipping costs, which might add a bit more.
This is the most out of touch comment I have seen in a long time, even for hackernews. A lot of people with office jobs are making $35k-$40k a year. You're talking about 1/4th of their take home salary, and $120 a month is an expense that at least 50% of America couldn't afford and most don't have $7k on hand to blow.
If you get a 10% gain in productivity, the chair/desk already paid for itself. It also replaces both a chair and a desk, so the total cost is less than $7k.
> You're talking about 1/4th of their take home salary
Over a life span of 5 years, that's less than a 10% of take-home salary. Non-Ergonomic chairs have a high future cost for your health but I guess doing that math is not humans strongest feature.
10% gain in productivity =/= 10% gain in compensation, most people already have a chair/desk so replacing their function does not automatically make it cheaper. Seems like you're doing more of a math problem instead of applying this to actual people.
I've worked from home since March 2020 and I sit in a crappy folding chair from Costco. My office sent me a chair, and I also tried a kitchen chair, but I found the folding one the most comfortable, in that it doesn't lead to back pain after long use, while the others do.
I've found the most important thing is setting the heights of my screen and keyboard properly, that seems to be the main determinant of discomfort.
I think there's something to be said for the general lack of movement that comes with WFH. It could be pure coincidence but the years I was in best shape running were the years when I had a 30 minute walk to/from work.
I now work from home and try to get out some mornings for a walk around the neighborhood but more often than not, I go straight from bed to a chair. My body gradually loosens up during the day but mostly in a seated position.
I bought a pair of Steelcase Criterions from a local used furniture store for $75 each. They have been wonderful. But I am going to have to order new pistons for them as mine has started to slowly sink. Those seem to run about $45 and are easy to replace. Might upgrade the casters while I’m at it.
I’m probably going to be an outlier in any poll because I’ve almost always worked from home, and never bought a chair for my desk. I did however have a really painful experience with my most recent chair, as in significant pain head to heel daily for months. And it turned out it was back pain I couldn’t even feel. A friend gave me a desk chair when he replaced his and now it’s down to head and neck pain.
When I found out I was working from home a few years ago, I bought a used Steel Case Leap
for about $200. Since then, I’ve probably sat in that chair for at least 5000 hours.
It’s easily worth every penny.
The same logic for busing a bed should apply to home office ergonomics. You’re going to spend eight hours per day with both. Invest!
I use a $3999 Hale Aircomfort Zero Gravity Recliner with Air Massage [1]. I have three 27" monitors that are attached to a motorized sit/stand desk, purely so I can adjust their height as I adjust my depth of recline. This is an investment in my health that my employer doesn't seem to want to even discuss.
Recent survey asked "Are you missing equipment that is only available at the office?" No, it's the other way around thanks.
Yeah, probably, still though, I bought mine for probably about $150 USD, all Japanese made with natural Kapok and Soba inside, I've had them for about 7 years, washing the covers of course.
I've done this for decades[0], sitting on cushions on the floor, used to have keyboard + monitor on coffee table, but now it's lower, keyboard + mouse on a large square cushion from a sofa, monitor on a small woofer speaker. Working on Mac minis the last 10 years. I don't know, I just like being low down, it feels grounded or something. I find it very comfortable.
[0] Well, no idea what a zafu or zabuton are. My setup cost $0.
Working from home for a few years I have a Steelcase Leap v2, standing desk I use about 20-30% of the time, and a crappy office chair I use when I'm just sitting down for a few minutes (one 'problem' with a lot of high quality office chairs is that they tend to be designed in a way that promotes continued sitting).
The Aeron is comfortable, but the way it reclines feels improper to me. I think their Mirra chair, with it's adjustable arm rests, gets reclining right. I like both because the mesh bottom is soft enough for my tailbone, which gets sore easily due to having broken it a long time ago. The missing feature both these Herman Miller chairs desperately need is a headrest. A 3rd-party one exists for the Aeron, but not for the Mirra.
If you want something like an Aeron, then ask your friend with a Costco membership to get you a $120 Metrex IV Mesh chair by Bayside Furnishings. It's 90% as good and it doesn't have the insane recline that the Aeron does. Only downside is, Herman Miller uses much sturdier plastic for their chairs, but that's more suited to shared office spaces with employees who don't take care of their chairs anyway.
>The Herman Miller Aeron has been so solidly "the recommended" chair for so long at this point it's meme worthy.
There's a reason for it. An Aeron will last you your entire working life. As a 250lb man who likes to recline, I was going through cheap office chairs about every 3 months working from home, so I took the plunge and bought one. It very much feels like a piece of heavy duty commercial "equipment", not a cheap piece of furniture. I bought mine used; it's 20 years old and looks brand new. And the ergonomics, while controversial, I've found to be life changing.
The Aeron was the first chair I used that tilted & locked forward to help sit upright instead of leaning back. A startup I worked for in the early 00s bought a bunch of these from a failed dot bomb for a fraction of the cost. Not all of the Aeron chairs have the forward lock feature (part of the wide price ranges). The full ones go for nearly $1k USD. I found a chair clearly inspired by Aeron that has this forward lock feature at OfficeMax for $200.
Surprisingly, "gaming" chairs might be the best, most cost effective option. Ars Technica[1] reviewed a couple gaming chairs from the home office viewpoint.
I bought a toned-down style version of the Secretlab Titan chair pretty early in the pandemic and it is way better than my Aeron at work. And the Aeron is way better than any other normal office chair.
I was always an Aeron fan because it is a great chair but also it was also a status symbol. Back in 2011 I was working at a startup that finally started making real money and one day a semi truck showed up in the back lot and everyone rolled their motley collection of random office shit chairs out and we unloaded the Aerons off of the truck, still wrapped in plastic. I still have that same chair in the office, 10 years later, and it is basically as good as new.
But...the high back Secretlab Titan chair is so much better. The back and lumbar support is great. The armrests are ok, but for less than $20 you can buy generic memory foam covers that feel like velvet clouds and position your wrists just right to help with avoiding RSD. The neck pillow isn't used all the time, but when I need to literally lean back, it is there. The chair also lays almost flat if you need a nap.
For less than $500 it is a no-brainer. There is an active subreddit (r/secretlab) that is almost cult-like, which was kind of a red flag for me, but it actually seems to be legit superfans and not marketing. The chairs have a five year warranty - up from three but only if you post about it on social media, which is also kind of a red flag. But it is a quality chair and after almost two years of constant use, the arm rests are completely solid and it still feels brand new.
There's nothing wrong with the Aeron but on the rare occasions that I'm in the office these days, it just feels...inferior.
Edit: The arm rests are actually great - I just meant the padding. They obviously go up and down, but they also rotate in and out. So unlike most chairs, you can position them so they actually support your complete arms as you're typing - not parallel to the chair, but angled in so your elbows are at shoulder width but your forearms are supported closer to the keyboard.
I forget about a lot of these adjustments because once you dial them in, it just feels right.
it doesn't seem to have an adjustable lumbar support area, as in, move it up or down? wouldn't that be a requirement since everybody needs the support at a different position?
I spent over $1k on a Steelcase Leap several years ago and ironically switched to a Secretlab last year. It comes down to the fact that the Secretlab reclines a lot more and I find it far more comfortable. I've only been using it for a year and a half though, so who knows about long term.
Do you recline while you're working or do you mean in between work? I'm just curious because I've napped in it a few times but generally keep it locked at a slight incline and almost forget how adjustable it is.
I do, it's in recline mode all the time. I have a little foot stool I put my feet on while I work. Probably not the most healthy thing but it's really comfortable.
The Secretlab chairs are nice (especially for the price), but they can be a little stiff and their adjustability is more limited then a Steelcase. I have been using a Secretlab for the last 8 months or so, and it's better then what I had before, but if I had the choice of going back to the office and taking my Steelcase there I would.
I think the consensus is they're a great option on the lower end of the price range. Steelcase, Herman Miller, et al are usually much more expensive than the Secret Labs making gaming chairs. You might have trouble finding a store stocking them though to try out, afaik they don't generally have any retail presence.
I have a crappy $80 ikea office chair. It’s served me well for years and is light years ahead of random dining room chairs - if people are using those for extended periods of time I’m not surprised they’re getting injured - I’ve been there and it’s why I got a half decent chair.
I love the Capisco Hag "standing desk" chair. The desk stays in standing position and I hop on and off of the chair. It's a chair that encourages you to take new positions all the time.
It works really well for me. It's the single best piece of equipment I have in my office.
A lot of people recommend the Aeron, but I am not a fan of the plastic hoop, as I sometimes pull a leg up underneath me.
I have a Lifeform with a custom seat made with a cut out for the perineum and coccyx to make sure all my weight sits on my glutes and thighs and keeps pressure off the spine. It's insanely adjustable, has a amazing lumbar support, and is very comfortable to sit in for long periods of time.
I bought an used fully loaded Aeron for $320, delivered, on Craigslist 2 years ago. I wasn't sure it would be worth full price, so used seemed like the way to go.
I wouldn't think twice of spending full price ($1500?) for one now. But I doubt it will ever need replacing... it was built in 1998(!!), like a tank. Some time later I bought a new gas strut for $50 (the old designs wobble) and some Atomdoc castors so it would glide over the hardwood floor.
Adjusted it once when I first got it. Vastly reduced my back issues - though a chair is just one part of back care.
After switching to standing and seeing incredible gains in my body health, it's hard for me to consider spending on a good chair. I have a standing stool at the ready if I really need a rest, or at that point it means I need a break anyway. Oh and I started without a standing desk: just repurposed a piece of high furniture to find out if I can work this way. I was tired the first week but you quickly get to where sitting for long periods is unappealing!
When I tried that, I found that as soon as I wanted to alternate into more "passive mode" (Youtube, reading a blog post) standing didn't work. I like the stool idea, would love to try standing desk one day again.
I’m every stereotype of queer and ADHD and autistic, when it comes to posture. Good for you that it serves you well but my body needs back support and a thousand places to put my legs :)
It's totally for real, and I stand up and walk a little every hour or so, or I'll get tired and start slouching. WFH eliminated my chronic back pain, and I credit the bench.
As I understand it, the key is the good posture. My back pain was caused by weak lower back muscles. Maintaining good posture exercises those, where comfy chairs only relieve the immediate discomfort at the cost of long-term health.
It's cliche, but the Aeron. Your ass and back will never feel sore or like you need to get up.
They're wicked expensive brand new, but I found mine for $200 off Craigslist. Have had it for 3-4 years and it's one of the best purchases I've ever made.
Test out first, if possible, everyone is built differently. For a lot of us the Aeron puts pressure on our legs at the front edge of the seat, and it can become painful. Not something you notice in the first few minutes, but fairly quickly. For those people, the Leap v2 is usually a better option.
Steelcase Please seems to be ideal for my above average height. Quite expensive though, if you are getting it for the list price - check if your company has a discount with them or their local distributors as many companies apparently do.
The way it's written it looks like the bed (and the couch etc) are used for work because alot of remote workers don't have a real office to work in. I have a dedicated office in my home to work from with a real office chair and standing desk and that's where I do my work. A colleague of mine even has an under desk treadmill.
This does bring up a valid point that not everyone can afford these things, but employers should provide them IMO.
This is the issue with “hybrid” work. You either live somewhere where you can afford an office, or somewhere where the commute is bearable. Living somewhere where you have a dedicated office and the commute isn’t hell is a very expensive proposition in most American cities.
Agree. WFH a couple of days a week is largely nonsensical. Employers still need to pay for office space. Employees need dedicated work space in their homes and additional equipment while still needing to be located relatively close to the office.
If people's work from home days aren't coordinated it can save a lot of per worker real estate because you can go to floating desks so you only need to accommodate peak attendance instead of having a single desk for every person. The schedule can be adapted to team needs too so that people working together are in the office on the same days so they can take advantage of in person collaboration when needed.
I like my coworkers to be people I know in real life; I also like to code in a silent room. One way of accomplishing that would be a private office at work, but hybrid WFH is the next best thing.
Do you mean an 'all hands on deck' emergency or an all hands meeting? If the latter that's a problem with an event space not of desk space. If it's the former you rarely actually need everyone present and it's unlikely every department will be needed at once unless the whole company is failing and even then people can work remotely for those too.
It seems impractical for employers to pay for an addition to your house if you don’t have a room (let alone moving you to an entirely new building if you don’t own).
In which case employers should just increase wages to take into account how much is saved on office space. Then workers might be able to afford larger houses or apartments.
If the person is working remotely they have a much larger market to look for. If every white collar/knowledge worker suddenly got all the office budget and went to work from home you'd see big shocks but it could be spread throughout the country not just in cities. Of course there'd be a huge new market opportunity for turning the suddenly empty office buildings into apartments or something too.
Then let employees work from home permanently so they can afford a larger house.
Telling employees to work from home for a year but be prepared to come back to the office at any time is the worst of both worlds - they have to pay high housing prices to live within easy commute distance of the office, but meanwhile they have to work from home and may live in a very small home.
Some employees may prefer to live in or near a city for other reasons, but others would be happy to move farther away.
Even in their own offices most employers don't even provide a height-adjustable desk, or a good quality mouse and keyboard. They're not going to pay for a treadmill at home…
mmm yeah thats a good point, I was considering downsizing during the pandemic because I wasn’t using some rooms and am nomadic and hanging out at cafes and coworking spaces
but now that I’m back I can see how having the dedicated office is a luxury
The tone of these articles gives me an ulcer. Let me relay to you all the places I've gotten remote work done over the years:
* Private office space
* Co-working space
* Dedicated home office
* Bedroom corner office
* Bed
* Sofa
* Kitchen
* Bathroom
* Garage
* Solarium
* Hotel
* Coffee Shop
* Car
* Lakeside
* Beach
* Park bench / picnic table
* Jury Duty waiting room
* Airplane
* Subway
* Streetcar
* Train
* Ferry
* Top of a mountain in the wilderness
And I'm probably forgetting a handful of other locales!
_This is the whole point of remote work._ The tasks you perform and the location in which you accomplish those tasks are wholly unbundled, and I'll be damned if I let anyone talk down to me to tell me which ways are better or worse for me at any given time. That's my decision and mine alone.
Anyone complaining about the pain doesn't know how to work in bed. lie face down and prop your chest up with a pillow. you can work for hours that way. When that gets tiring, roll over, and brace yourself against the backboard or wall with the same pillow to support your lumbar. repeat for zero back stress computer programming.
if it's because of muscles, you should really be training your neck but adjusting your pillow to support your head works as well. it's a bit more finicky though. If it's flexibility you've gotta do more stretches just for your health.
I'm a fan of raising my legs and propping the laptop up against my knee. Comfortable typing angle and my head can rest on a very small pillow so I am no craning my neck forward.
I will throw in my 5 cents anecdata (I have a history of trauma/back injuries and pain).
I spent about 100 euros on a kneeling chair, that had enough adjustment settings for my liking. I have been increasing my time on it steadily for the past few months, to the point that I now confortably work the whole day from it.
It is a complete mind shift, I actively have to sustain my posture (and actively shift it), I don't slouch and I don't snooze off. It propels you into 'active mode'.
Whenever I am eventually physically tired it prompts me to take a break by taking a walk or eating a snack. I have been absolutely back pain free for the last 8 months and overall I feel that my posture is improved.
The ball exercises your lower back muscles for sure, but you can still have bad posture on it. I used to sit on one cross legged with bad upper back posture.
My experience is that it is a night and day difference to adjust all the angles of the chair to fit your body frame.
If you have pressure on your knees with these modern kneeling chairs it is possibly not correctly fitted.
When I sit on mine my body weight is distributed between my butt, thighs and shins equally, I am not pressing down on my knees in any measurable way. What I do feel is that my spine assumes a completely neutral position, like the feeling of balancing a weight on top of a long pole.
For full disclaimer I have no idea what (if any) will be the long term consequences of this on my knees. But to be brutally honest I would much rather have a full knee replacement in my old age than a spinal surgery/disk replacement.
I love the water. Last time I worked from home (a couple of years ago), I built a custom desk/rack that suspended over our big bath to hold my laptop and mouse. I coded for hours in the bath. I had to be careful on the Skype calls though.
Personally, before COVID, my company reshuffled me into a group without anyone physically around for the most part. I had no in-person interaction most days when I went to the office. I simply stopped going in and just WFH’ed. I had only one complaint in years about it. COVID made it official, and then the company decided to make a round of layoffs. I didn’t make that cut (unrelated to WFH) but was able to find a fully remote job that pays better and I have zero change in my work socialization. Instead, I’ve tried focusing more on non-work options, as those will be more portable anyway.
I move around quite a bit during the day. Living room table, couch, play room with the kids, etc. I have a portable desk I'll pop open outside to spend time with the dog. I experimented working within VR on the oculus quest but the neck strain was too much and the resolution too low. But occasionally I would lay down with the headset on and a keyboard in my lap.
Changing my scenery helps me stay engaged. But I feel for others who do not operate that way and cannot afford a setup that accommodates how their brain works. That would be very frustrating.
Any chance you could link your portable desk? I've been contemplating getting one so my work at home could be a bit nicer (move to different parts of the home, in particular, the loft gets very hot during the summer) without having to actually set up a proper desk, or sit with a computer in my lap (I need two, both laptops, so that's not actually an option presently).
> Many people simply do not have the space allocated inside their homes for an office setup, and it can be too expensive to move to a bigger place.
Because they're stuck in the expensive city where their employer offices. If WFH means location independence and mobility, these employees will eventually find the space they need and can afford. At the moment, they're stuck in limbo.
There's a lot of optionality between city with roommates and no space to setup a desk and middle of nowhere. Point is, it's not mutually exclusive like it is when you work in the office and thus have to reside near the office.
Choosing to live in a city for reasons other than officing there is a choice. Given the choice and the preference for city life, would they choose a lower cost city where they could afford more space?
> ...when you work in the office and thus have to reside near the office.
I don't think most people pick their residence based on their work location. My company's office is in the downtown of a major metro, and yet the majority of my coworkers are located far from the city core, often 30+ minutes commute by car -- and two colleagues who commute 90 minutes each way on the extreme end.
There are much stronger factors influencing people's choice of residency, such as familiarity, proximity to friends and family, recreational opportunities, nightlife, etc.
Which, to my mind, answers your question:
> Given the choice and the preference for city life, would they choose a lower cost city where they could afford more space?
I would venture to guess that for the vast majority of people, the answer is no. Few people are willing to uproot their life for a bit more space.
These likely aren’t the same people in this stat. Once you’re rooted, you’re rooted, but these people aren’t rooted. You’re also supporting the lower costs solutions exist aspect of my argument. Sure they require a commute but they exist.
Personally, I’m going a bit batty with work from home. I get my stuff done - but it feels like pulling teeth against my procrastination and desire to relax in the spaces I’ve used for relaxation.
After a year and a half I’ve run out of rooms that aren’t already spoiled for productivity. This used to happen in the office but I’d simply migrate desks or work from the kitchen for a few weeks.
If I was single wfh would be a godsend to simply travel where I wanted to travel and work where I wanted to work. But my house has a 10 month old a nanny and a working spouse inside of 1500 sq ft.
I mean, I like working from home, I like the extra time in the morning for sports, and in the evening to cook. But I also experience disadvantages from it... I really like being amongst others, which isn't the same via Slack.
Also, I dislike having my house as both my chill place and my work place. I feel it doesn't really work. I already have a different room to work in, but I still feel 'locked up' at my house somehow.
The article brings up that for most a home office is a luxury.
And i thought how is that possible, just use some extra room in your house.
Then I remembered having a house and an extra room might be an easy thing to attain as a software developer, but that is only true because I don’t live in the Bay Area or Seattle.
Yet in those areas you might have more fun on weekends.
Just to see, I looked at prices for a round trip ticket from the pacific northwest to the bay, and how much a 3 night stay in a hotel would cost.
I was able to find a non stop flight and a cheap hotel for $200 (which seems crazy to me).
So if I could find those deals every other week I could spend bout $1000 (food and Uber included) a month and get to spend six days a month in the Bay Area.
My mortgage is like $1900 a month for 4 bed 2 bath 2300 sq ft on an acre and a 15 minute ride to the airport.
I feel like if I did that and spent $2900 a month combined for my trips and mortgage id have both a good home office and would still get to work once every two weeks on a Friday in the office and enjoy awesome SF food plenty frequently enough while probably paying less then what most people in SF pay just for rent.
Anyone consider this? (I have a wife and kids so biweekly trips would be a “not gonna happen” for me)
Wait you don’t have an extra room to use as an office?
What about in one of your other houses? One of them has got to have at least one empty room you could use right?
I knew some people who did something like that 20 years ago, "living" (having a family) in the south of France and working in Frankfurt. They only did it to give their families the chance to live near their extended families or for the jobs of their partners, nobody did it because it improved their quality of life. It's probably different when you're 25 and single vs when you're 40 with a family, but I don't know anyone who works away from home several days a week and enjoys it, and it's not an uncommon pattern for consulting people around these parts of Europe (apart from the status symbol that this sort of lifestyle is, despite it objectively sucking - weird how people are that way).
Just my personal take. The real challenge for me has been keeping the primary stakeholder for small remote projects engaged and communicating routinely.
I have been getting jobs where I am the only programmer for years, and one person is funding the project out of their pocket. Which means my income is limited, but also is low-stress and affords me a lot of freedom in terms of things like technical decisions.
One issue is that the sponsor usually realizes within a few weeks that I don't really need new feature ideas every few days to keep busy. So they tend to be busy with their own jobs or life and migrate towards checking in once or twice a week.
Which is usually fine, but I do find myself wishing sometimes that they would just glance at the Discord every two days. When they get busy, that can sometimes coincide with times that I have done a deployment for them to check out or have a lot to discuss. Then I am sending them an email asking them to look at the Discord.
The headline appears to just be to pull people in, as I'm guessing the original survey didn't differentiate between those that have spent a whole day working from bed, those who regular work from bed or those that have once, for an hour, done so.
However, the meat of the article is more interesting and it asks questions which, sadly, it doesn't even attempt to answer. At the remote company that I work for, as well as allowing for expensing of an office setup, they will also contribute a reasonable sum (enough for most, unless you live in San Francisco, for example) to work from a shared office space, resolving the "what if you don't have room" in one go.
Of course, this isn't 100% perfect as there will be those who don't want a shared office space but equally don't have the room in their own home - I'm not sure what the answer is here.
Huh - I can't imagine working without a proper setup: keyboard, mouse, at least 2 monitors. Lying in bed is nice, but having to deal with cramped, wobbly laptop keyboards, annoying trackpads and tiny laptop screens really isn't.
I'm really pro-remote, and I've been working from home for the last 3 years, but I've never identified with how a lot of people do it.
Whether it's remote workers themselves or people like my parents, people seem impressed with the idea that they can work in their PJs/underwear. I can't work that way, for some reason. I need to be wearing the same clothes I'd be wearing at the office. Although I don't do this most of the time, even wearing my shoes in my office helps me feel and act more professional.
Working from bed would be even worse. I've done it on occasion, but I always end up hating it. To each their own, though.
One size doesn't fit all - and that's exactly the issue with office work. After years in IT business I know exactly what are my "peak" hours/time and when it's better not to do anything work-wise and just focus on something else. Forcing me to work specific schedule in a specific office setup is no go for me. Plus other things like being able to exercise instead of my commute, eat healthy, use my equipment and tools I prefer, being able to refocus when I need and take advantage of my biological peak/down hours/time made me super efficient and productive.
I work from bed on my Macbook Air M1. I just can't do the same on my other laptops it's just to hot on my tummy. For me this is the first true 'tummytop-laptop'.
There are plenty of reasons to live in a city that have nothing to do with work. I can walk to the library, cafe, grocery store, park. I can ride a bike to the beach, go to the opera, shows, etc.
I mean, I can't go to the opera _right now_, but soon enough I can.
I'm saying that the reason cities are such expensive places to live is because a lot of people want to live there, because their work is there. If you aren't actually working in the city, you're paying a premium for something you're not using.
There are very good schools outside of cities, as well as good hospitals. There are also plenty of beautiful towns with tons of shops and whatnot within walking distance, or a short bike ride. And they are a lot cheaper to live in than a city.
The article isn't about tech workers and people can decide to work from bed for reasons other than a lack of space. I've seen my partner do it for comfort reasons because her job involves reading huge amounts (on an iPad), but as an engineer I would never consider it.
I have a standing desk, in the corner of my living room. I've tried other locations, and that hasn't worked. Being here, I don't get the feeling of being "disconnected" from the household.
Most importantly, of course, is that it increases my availability to my cats. They are quite efficient at expressing their needs, and I have to be ready to drop everything, in order to attend to said needs.
I have a nice chair (a Herman-Miller Embody -overrated). I never sit in it. I stand at my desk whenever I work.
I have a desk that can go up or down, and have it set up, so that I can lower it, quite easily. I never do. It stays at one level (42.5").
I have a monster LG[0] that stretches across the entire desk. It is exactly as wide as the desk. I have another 4K monitor, above it (wall-mounted), for the AppleTV, or if I am giving a Zoom class (screen share).
I have a laptop (a 2019 15-inch MBP), but it stays plugged in. I insist on a laptop, so I can take it on the road, if necessary, but the LG has spoiled me rotten. Using the laptop screen is painful. My next laptop will be the smaller pro version M2 that comes out, later this year.
When I work, I generally "dress for work" (button-down shirt and jeans), but a lot more casually than I did, for over 30 years in the office. I feel as if it is important to have that silly little bit of self-discipline. On weekends, I allow myself shorts, and, occasionally, a T-shirt.
My hours are whatever I want, whenever I want. I tend to get started early (I wake up at 5AM), and often code, right up to bed time. I sometimes stay up, in bed, testing my work on my iPad and/or iPhone.
I take breaks whenever I want, and they can be long breaks, but I don't let myself have more than about 3-4 during a day.
I tend to work 7 days a week; sometimes, I allow myself a "half day" (maybe 6 hours). My GH Activity Graph is solid green.
I personally feel as if my productivity knocks anything I ever did in the office, into a cocked hat.
I think that our industry (maybe true for all industries) has a very skewed idea of what constitutes "happy."
It was not a voluntary retirement. I love working, and have skills that could earn companies millions of dollars.
It's just that the industry made it quite clear, very quickly, that I am not welcome (you see, I'm -how shall I put this- "chronologically-challenged." I'm older than 35).
So I found a few folks that can't afford nice things, and I'm working with them.
Feel free to check out my work. I manage to stay busy.
I feel the exact opposite: My back twinges when I think about sitting in the same position for hours. Working with a single laptop (without external screens, mouse, or keyboard) I can switch from bed to couch to desk multiple times per day.
I can't do more than 5 minutes of laptop in bed, so I do somewhat envy your setup that apparently isn't awful for computing. But I'm also in the "don't laptop in bed" category so I may not have been motivated to solve it.
I have a coworker who works from his bed. He says it's better for his back than any specialized back-friendly chair he has tried yet. I, on the other hand, would be in traction after a couple days trying to work from bed. I really prefer upright posture and a good office chair. In my case a Leap v2, though everyone will have their own preference.
Been working remote for most of 30 years: I have tried an office, a home office and many more things but best seems to be a standing desk with treadmill and 2 couches: 1 inside and 1 outside. I spend most time on the one outside throughout the year. Chairs never worked for me, no matter how expensive/ergonomic they were.
After 6 months working in my dining chairs last year I was starting to have back pain, so I paid full price for a Herman Miller Mirra 2. A year later I feel it's already been worth every penny. After my mattress, this is a piece of furniture I spend the most time in direct physical contact with. Not a place to skimp IMO.
Not all aspects of the work we do has to be in front of a computer screen. Sometimes when I need to think really hard about a problem, I lay down, close my eyes and visualise. It doesn't even have to be on the bed, sometimes I'll lay on the floor in the middle of the living room. Can't do that in the office.
Yeah I did that, when I was really tired and needed to lie down every so often. But it's not really conducive to programming. Mostly I work from a desk. I don't think it's too expensive. I'm not paid that much but I had no trouble affording a 400eur second hand sitting standing desk
It's not enough for companies to provide stipends for teleworkers to buy ergonomic chairs or desks, Axios' Kia Kokalitcheva notes. Many people simply do not have the space allocated inside their homes for an office setup, and it can be too expensive to move to a bigger place.
I like it for after lunch for an hour or two while sipping a coffee and trying to rally for another productive session. Much better than trying to rest my belly on a chair or standing like I did at the office.
I was having a lot of trouble falling asleep at one time when I was in college - to the point where it was impacting my health. I brought it up with the nurse and she asked me if I was reading in bed and I said I was. She said try staying out of bed until bed time and see if you have an easier time falling to sleep. And bam - within a few days, I was sleeping normally again.
I feel a subtle, but strong, push back to the office by most employers, and get I get it some situations. Jamie Diamond is right about certain jobs in finance, but most of us are not offered those apprentiship type white collar jobs.
You proved you can work from home, why make things more complicated? Oh yea, to the people whom have zero social life other than work friends, there are still bars. Yes that last sentence is a bit rough.
I'm waiting for the "Save the planet" by working from home argument. The amount of Carbon whatever saved by people not commuting must be great?
I feel like employers are passively aggressive over this whole return to a 2 hour commute, office bull crap, and and all the other bs we do out of convention.
Oh yea, so lets finally bury the tie for good.
(A bit of a rant--yes. I just feel like they are really worried about work from home common sense movement. On another note, but strongly related to Covid, and zero pre government planning, I've also noticed how seemingly liberal cities, like Sausalito CA, are doing everything in the "Move along you homeless person, we don't want you here, but we will Act sympathize during meetings time handbook".)
For knowledge workers, You can either
a) get up, shower, breakfast, press clothes, put fuel in the tank, drive to commuter station, wait for the cattle car, suffocate for an hour, grab a coffee on the walk to the office, sit settle down and start working
Or
b) Alarm rings, wake up grab a bit of breakfast coffee, plop backdown on the bedroom and start off to the races, when you catch a break shower, pay bills and make a sandwich while listening on a conference call
I don't think it doesn't matter if you work from bed as long as you produce quality output. There are a lot of factors that affects your productivity but if you're used to work remotely, you can put on your laptop and put your game face on.
In a prior job I routinely took a nap during our sprint demo/retro/planning. Kind of absurd really that one can sleep through a meeting with nobody noticing.
They agree (and agreed, as the napping was in a past job) that a lot of meetings we are taken do don’t help us do our jobs. Not sure if they nap during them.
People that don’t like working from a bed generally have uncomfortable beds. You should always buy the best bed you can. You spend a third of your life on one.
Not sure what you mean by asking "how", but on the floor usually atop an area rug or mat and head pillow.
Often when I sleep on something soft and significantly deformable like a mattress my neck and/or back are messed up the next day. Never happens on the floor.
I've had "real" offices. I've worked in open-plan offices. I've had a home office. I've worked from bed.
There are tons of good ways to do it.
Lately I swap between a kitchen table and a chair on my porch. I no longer use multiple screens, I've just gotten really fast at swapping windows on my 15" laptop; I've gotten good at figuring out how wide my terminal window breaks should be and where my browser dev tools should sit.
Surely there are more optimal ways of doing stuff. Odds are that there is a Taylorist approach that would pull more productivity out of me. But much like my typing speed (~50WPM) isn't really the limiting factor in my programming skill, screen real estate isn't a big factor in getting stuff done for me.
But the big thing for me is that, in the end, it's fine for me to switch stuff up on a monthly or quarterly or yearly basis.
I could never have done that when I was in an office. I couldn't take 20 min and play banjo or accordion and come back to my problem with a fresh eye. I couldn't put on my laundry and hang it up while I listen to other folks on the daily stand up. I couldn't start my lunch cooking in the instapot while waiting for a script to finish running.
It would take a hard, hard sell to get me back in an office, not matter how much real and legitimate enjoyment and utility other folks get in an office.