think<\/em> this is how many people view a commute, maybe any commute.\nIt’s a negative that takes time away from their day and\ncosts money that could be spent on other things.\nPeople have adjusted during COVID and don’t want to give it up.\nI can sympathise but I think the commute was part of what we were paid to do?\nIf I’d been given a surprise pay rise of thousands of pounds one day\nwould I want to suddenly give it back 2 years later.<\/p>\n\n\n\nEnvironment<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
An office is set up for people to do work.\nAt least it’s meant to be.\nI think they mostly manage to do this.\nGenerally speaking the companies I’ve worked for have provided a decent chair, monitors and enough space.\nThat said, I don’t seem to be that fussy.\nWhen working at home I sit on an Ikea folding kitchen chair and it’s good enough.\nI don’t have a separate room to use as an office so it’s got to be a compromise.\nI don’t really want a standard office chair in my living room,\nthey don’t look good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The main negative for me of the office environment is noise.\nBring a bunch of people together is bound to make some noise.\nThe typical open plan office does little or nothing to dissipate that noise.\nI grew use to wearing headphones and listening to music to drown it out.\nNot that an office is necessarily noisy, although they can be, but\nit’s not something you can control.\nPeople can be having meetings or talking on the phone and\nyou can’t generally ask them to stop just because you need to think hard.\nSometimes what I really need is peace and quiet which might not be available.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Generally though I find it easier to focus in the office.\nTravel in, sit down, start working.\nAt the end of the day it’s easier to relax.\nGo home, cook dinner, settle down.\nSeparate spaces, separate functions.\nWhile the internet is an ever present distraction there are fewer incidental things in the office.\nAt home the postman can knock at the door,\ncat jumps up at the window wanting to come in,\nall your distractions are right there.\nHowever these can also be benefits for being a home.\nBeing there for that knock at the door means I can collect my parcels.\nPeople need to pick their kids up at the end of the school or\ntake care of them if they’re ill.\nBeing at home makes all of that easier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Communication<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
The most likely distraction in the office is other people.\nYou’re likely to be interrupted and to interrupt other people during the day.\nFor most people it’s a necessary part of work.\nThis can be both positive and negative.\nBeing able to ask a college how something works can take a couple of minutes\ncompared to wasting an hour trying to figure it out on your own.\nBeing distracted by a college when you were in the middle of something breaks your flow,\nit can take a while to get back into it.\nI think the former tends to make up for the later overall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What is<\/em> frustrating is continual interruptions when you are trying to get on with things.\nSometimes it’s just one of those days.\nFor some jobs maybe it always feels like one of those days.\nIn theory all these interruptions can still occur when working at home.\nHowever, in my experience it’s much less likely to happen.\nThe extra effort of having to make a video call or type out the question makes it less likely.\nPeople are more likely to muddle through by themselves.\nSo again, positive and negative.\nYou’re more likely to stay in the zone but\nwaste more time figuring out something that a college might just know.<\/p>\n\n\n\nMeetings feel very different between home and office.\nIn the office it might be a quick stand-up or\nsomething more official in a meeting room around a table.\nI feel that the people in office meetings are more present, both figuratively and literally.\nThey’re at the table and, even if they’re not fully listening,\nthey’re not tapping away at their computer doing something else.\nI think it’s better to be paying attention at most meetings but\nat home the temptation to do something else is definitely there.\nSome meetings can be… boring or long or just getting in the way of another task.\nFor people planning meetings do<\/em> consider whether it can be done another way and\nwho actually needs<\/em> to come to the meeting.\nI also wonder if it’s too easy to have a big<\/em> meeting using video calls.\nWith a physical meeting getting people round the same table puts a practical limit on things.\nSmaller meetings tend to mean that each of the participants is more involved.<\/p>\n\n\n\nSocial<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
In the office some of the communication is going to be office business and \nsome is just going to be chat.\nBoth are useful.\nSaying hi when people arrive in the morning or\nasking someone how there weekend went brings people together.\nAt home by default there isn’t any of that.\nI’ve had days at home without any meetings, without anything extra, and\ntherefore without any communication with colleges.\nI don’t think that’s a good way to do it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It might not happen by itself but\nthere are lots of things you can do to avoid that.\nYou can say hi on a team or office channel when you start work in the morning.\nThat means you know who’s working and who’s on holiday or ill.\nAn already active channel is likely to get more use which keeps people in touch.\nDaily stand-ups are similar in the office or via video call.\nI think<\/em> the standing up in a stand-up has a slight benefit in keeping people focus and\nthe meeting short.\nThere aren’t going to be any problems with microphones or slow internet connections.\nHowever I’ve occasionally done chat “stand-ups” where everyone just types at the same time and\nthen reads all the responses.\nHaving this as standard could have the side benefit of making it all searchable.<\/p>\n\n\n\nI think all this back and forth is easier to do in the office.\nStand-ups are more like to segue into discussions about last nights telly and\nthen back into ideas about what to do for the next sprint.\nYou see someone in the kitchen while making coffee and\nend up discussing whether a different framework would be faster for the next project.\nPeople might end up going out for lunch or for a drink after work.\nThe office becomes more than just a collection of people working on the same tasks.\nAt the end of a video call people just switch it off and\nare immediately by themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the end<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
There are pros and cons to travelling to and being in an office compared to staying at home. For me the biggest cons are a potentially noisy environment and the possibility of getting rained on. In return I get easier focus, getting to see a few people and some guaranteed exercise. That’s a fair trade for me. For other people maybe they’ve got a separate office room at home and the commute is worse. It might not seem worth it. Overall I think working in the office gives more pros to the company and working at home gives more to the the employee, vice versa for the cons. I can understand some people just don’t want to come back in. While I don’t think always having 5 days a week in the office is necessary I do think having some time in the office each week would help.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
For many years I spent most of the year in the office 5 days a week. That was the normal. Most software engineers did the same. My office seemed pretty progressive with a hybrid model. We could work from home Monday and Friday. I was often in the office anyway but it was great to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_import_markdown_pro_load_document_selector":0,"_import_markdown_pro_submit_text_textarea":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/permutationcity.co.uk\/bp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/permutationcity.co.uk\/bp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/permutationcity.co.uk\/bp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/permutationcity.co.uk\/bp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/permutationcity.co.uk\/bp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=422"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/permutationcity.co.uk\/bp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":423,"href":"https:\/\/permutationcity.co.uk\/bp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422\/revisions\/423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/permutationcity.co.uk\/bp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/permutationcity.co.uk\/bp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/permutationcity.co.uk\/bp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}