Where do you prefer to work from?

Where do you prefer to work from?

  • From home

    Votes: 191 56.7%

  • From the office

    Votes: 27 8.0%

  • Remotely

    Votes: 23 6.8%

  • Hybrid model

    Votes: 88 26.1%

  • Other

    Votes: 8 2.4%
  • Total voters
    337
Prefer working from home.

Working from home I can be productive within 15min of waking up, working from the office my 4.40am wake up translates to only being able to get to my desk at 6.15am or so 1h35min vs 15min.

Working from home I can be on my time relaxing within 5min of stopping work, vs 45min minimum when working from the office.

Yes, there are things that I need to do from the office that are not possible from home, these only pop up a few times a year, special hardware, etc. When working from home in the past, I just made an arrangement, came into the office and did what was required, it really wasn't a problem.

Internet at my house is faster and (so far) more reliable than at the office. Power at my house is much more reliable than at the office.

When we were working from home in 2020, I bought some equipment (out of my own pocket) to make WFH easier, new laptop, etc., got all my software installed onto the laptop. It's a much better setup, PC at the office takes 17min from power on to being able to work, Laptop takes around 3min. Running the same simulations in octave is around 5 times faster on personal laptop vs work PC. Building projects is around 2-3x faster on personal laptop vs work PC.

Overall work delivered was significantly higher during work from home times vs work from the office. It's hard to put a precise number to it, because obviously it was different projects with different scale, but a good estimate would be 2-3x more productivity from home than from the office. (It's really not hard to verify, all time was logged to projects, release documentation for software, manuals, drawings, etc. is all there, there's no way to back up a claim that I worked more productively at the office, all the evidence is to the contrary).

Did I ever have a low productivity day when working from home? Yes, of course there were the days when I took more coffee/cappuccino breaks than usual, didn't put my all into work, etc. but you'd have to compare how many days like that there were from home vs how many days like that at the office. When you're having an off day, you're having an off day, no matter if you're at home or at the office, it happens. Honestly when I'm having an off day at the office I'm thinking "I'm at my desk, everyone can see I'm 'working'" so I really don't care if I'm not productive because being at the office counts as 'work' (in a sense).

Also by the time I've driven to work with a typical set of traffic lights being: working, fail, fail, fail, fail, fail, working, working, I'm already annoyed. 10 taxis have cut me off, jumped (the working) traffic lights in front of me, etc. my day is already starting off badly.
 
I think for manager types of folks the laptop/hybrid thing can work. For me, I like my 27" 4K monitor and 64GB of RAM with my "workstation" running as a VM on my computer. That means if I do work from the office I will effectively remote into my work VM hosted at home.
 
Brian_G said:
Most people are not adults, they just act it along with everyone else.
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That would mean most of the people managing companies are not adults.

WollieVerstege said:
If that is the case, there is a serious management issue that needs to be sorted.

Had 2 teams doing the same work during lockdown working fully from home. One team excelled and another team tanked. Turns out the manager of the latter team was the problem. Was unable to adapt to WFH and was dragging his team down.

So it is not always the workers that are the problem.
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Most team problems are really management failures.

LCBXX said:
Tell me: what do you work-from-home-only types make?
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Paper aeroplanes and doilies.
 
Working in the office is much more likely to be a less productive, i.e. off, day, because it means less sleep and having to deal with commuting.

The office is also full of distractions, including far too many opportunities for socialising.

Johand said:
Hybrid with half a team on Teams and half in the office is literally the worst of both worlds.
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I’ve been having difficulty getting this through to some people. Our current project team consists of people in multiple cities in South Africa and elsewhere.

Rouxenator said:
Doesn't hybrid mean you use an inferior computer such a a laptop?
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No, it means I use a superior computer such as a laptop.

Tman543 said:
Hybrid. WFH 3 days WFO 2 days.

Best of both worlds. I've learnt that sometimes the odd face to face chit chat with colleagues helps with collaboration and morale/relationships.
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More like 2 days in the office and the rest of the month away from the office. That’s best of both.
 
noxibox said:
More like 2 days in the office and the rest of the month away from the office. That’s best of both.
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That could work depend on your role in a department/projects.

However think about the transfer of skills and sharing ideas or complaints on a specific project or task. You can't do that easily online. I feel sorry for the new guys who starts off WFH having no clue what they are doing in a department. Having to wait for the next online training session to get book knowledge on role.

That's why I say weekly office visits are essential for projects that are multi discipline
 
WFH for over 2 years now (thanks COVID!). No 2 hour commute (each way) simply can’t be replaced. Holding out going back in for so long seems to have had a “positive” result: the office has been under-utilised so much that they’ve decide to close it and open a smaller office up in York. Sadly, that means about 70 people are facing redundancy if suitable remote roles can’t be found for them - and that includes me (even though I’ve already been WFH since March 2020).
 
Offices for offices sake is a massive waste of money for the company, and time for the employees.

Sure, if its some sort of business that needs hands on from multiple people on a physical thing, sure.

But any work than 'can' be done remotely, will be done better remotely(If everything is setup well) if staff arnt just fking around etc.
 
Dan C said:
Bugger off... My work HP is 1440p with a 4G sim. So I can travel anywhere in the country and still do my work.
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He sits on the internet watching porn and posting memes all day so I wouldn't worry about his opinion on pc performance
 
Steamy Tom said:
He sits on the internet watching porn and posting memes all day so I wouldn't worry about his opinion on pc performance
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Few laptops can come close to what I have. Granted it is not portable. But I can access it from anywhere using inferior laptop hardware. It has ample battery life thanks to an inverter, Ryzen 7 5700G, 64GB RAM, 18TB HDD, 1TB SSD oh, and did I mention the 4K monitor I have used since 2020?

When I work, I work.

When I travel, I..... erm..... well..... don't work.
 
eg2505 said:
on a Beach in the Bahamas, and catch a weekly Flight back to JHB for a few small things,
be on airplanes and beaches and office only extremely rarely.
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Easier yet, you can open a bank account in Panama without any problems and fly to the Bahamas weekly.
No visa needed.
Copa flys Tocumen to Nassau non stop.
Take cruise from the Bahamas to Miami - I will pick you up, or meet you in either Panama City or Nassau. :)
Cheaper to cruise than to fly :) :)

All three countries accept US$ - so its super easy.
 
Rouxenator said:
Few laptops can come close to what I have. Granted it is not portable. But I can access it from anywhere using inferior laptop hardware. It has ample battery life thanks to an inverter, Ryzen 7 5700G, 64GB RAM, 18TB HDD, 1TB SSD oh, and did I mention the 4K monitor I have used since 2020?

When I work, I work.

When I travel, I..... erm..... well..... don't work.
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Well my laptop can access a system that is about 5x more powerful than your Ryzen.

Actually make that more.... I have more power in about 10 countries with VPN's to compete if you like.
 
I work from home 4 days and I'm in office 1 day a week to show face and collab with team.

My commute is 1 hour into the office (one way with no traffic on a good day) so I used to start every day getting enraged by the f**ktards on the road.

I don't have interruptions or distractions at home and I manage my work time well to meet all deadlines while still being able to do some chores, it makes work/life balance so much better, whereas before I would only get home at 6pm and still need to cook, tidy and then collapse in a heap. The people at my work are energy vampires so that also doesn't help.
 
Rouxenator said:
Few laptops can come close to what I have. Granted it is not portable. But I can access it from anywhere using inferior laptop hardware. It has ample battery life thanks to an inverter, Ryzen 7 5700G, 64GB RAM, 18TB HDD, 1TB SSD oh, and did I mention the 4K monitor I have used since 2020?

When I work, I work.

When I travel, I..... erm..... well..... don't work.
Click to expand...

:rolleyes:
 
TEXTILE GUY said:
Easier yet, you can open a bank account in Panama without any problems and fly to the Bahamas weekly.
No visa needed.
Copa flys Tocumen to Nassau non stop.
Take cruise from the Bahamas to Miami - I will pick you up, or meet you in either Panama City or Nassau. :)
Cheaper to cruise than to fly :) :)

All three countries accept US$ - so its super easy.
Click to expand...
when my international Arms dealing Business takes off, i'll sure to let you know, :)
one can dream of "commuting" between Miami, the Bahamas and Panama

alas its but a pleasant dream.
 
Remote for quite a few years now. Anything from a train compartment on the Trans-Siberian express to a captain's cabin on a Norwegian ferry. Only North Korea was a problem as no internet access. Off to Germany for a couple of months at the end of the week.
 
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