I would prefer WFM with an option to occasionally come to the office, but that assumes that I have a permanent location in the office where I can red things. Back in the old days when I had to read dumps over the telephone the distraction of other conversations was an issue. It doesn't matter whether the other telephone calls were business or personal, either way they were a distraction and soured me on the idea of cubicle farms. But when you're collaborating it's nice to meet in person once in a while, even if the team has access to technologies like electronic whiteboards.
-- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz http://mason.gmu.edu/~smetz3 ________________________________________ From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU> on behalf of Bob Bridges <robhbrid...@gmail.com> Sent: Sunday, March 8, 2020 3:58 PM To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU Subject: Re: Attitude of companies toward mainframers working from home? I think WFH is one place where, especially, everyone's different. For a few years one of my employers had a bunch of us developers working in a cubicle environment where the walls were only waist-high. I've heard since then that many folks hate that sort of thing, but the most inconvenient part of it, for my money, was that I had less space on which to pin up reference pages and racks for various bits of equipment (pens, a forms ruler, highlighters etc, fashioned from repurposed paper clips). What most people complained about, the distraction, turned out not to bother me at all; there was a continual background of light chatter in which I could participate or not. I found it very pleasant. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with you if you don't; just "folks are different". (Some years ago _60 Minutes_ apparently did a segment on adults who probably had ADD when they were kids, before ADD was a thing. I missed it, but for months after that friends and family members exclaimed to me "Did you see that 60-Minutes episode? They had a picture of Bob Bridges on that show!". I gather people who had ADD before it became a fashionable diagnosis simply had to learn to focus without drugs. Whether for that or some other reason, noise just doesn't bother me.) So you'd think I'd hate working from home, but no. Sometimes I play loud music (and sometimes I set the work aside, pick up my recorder and wail along with the music), sometimes I put leftovers in the microwave, sometimes I take a call from one of my kids. But mostly I'm at my desk, plugging away until all hours of the night. I have to remind myself to get up and leave the house occasionally - which I read recently is a good idea for WFHers anyway. Maybe it's like the old principle of "dressing for work". One argument I used to hear in favor of wearing ties at work is that it's a sort of mental discipline: If you're dressed to relax, you won't be mentally prepared to work. The argument made sense to me, but once my employers started allowing jeans and T-shirts at work I found that (in my case at least) it didn't hold water. Again, I don't doubt that some sort of recognized work attire works better for some people, but I don't seem to be a clothes person. YMMV. Just fortunate, I guess. If I hated my job, I'll bet I'd be much more opinionated about which conditions help or hinder. --- Bob Bridges, robhbrid...@gmail.com, cell 336 382-7313 /* Democracy is where you can say what you think even if you don't think. */ -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU] On Behalf Of Farley, Peter x23353 Sent: Sunday, March 8, 2020 14:00 I disagree that it takes more "concentration and effort" to work at home than in one of those "bullpen" offices that so many companies now seem to favor, with little or no private or semi-private space for any employees. I have had WFH options as an ordinary applications programmer since the late 1980's at various employers, starting back when a 9600 baud dial-up connection was the gold standard. I would far rather be working at home than in a "bullpen", as I find those offices far too noisy and concentration-killing than any distractions at home could ever be. I always found that I got far more work done at home than at any office. YMMV I suppose, but that has been my experience. I guess I am also lucky that my current employer already had a large, distributed, and robust VPN infrastructure well suited to dispersing far more of the workforce to WFH than they did even before the coronavirus event. -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU> On Behalf Of Steve Beaver Sent: Friday, March 6, 2020 10:03 PM Working from home takes a lot of concentration and effort. It’s not easy but I’ve done it for years ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
