I would agree with this. I have a team that I work with, two of which are younger people about 20 years my junior, and one who is a few years older than me. We all get along well and have a lot of common interests, so the social interaction was definitely a part of the work day. I definitely miss that aspect of work.
The other aspect that hasn’t been mentioned here is what I would describe as a “separation of duties”, although that’s not the ideal description. I’m talking about the distinct delineation of “work” versus “home”. That is, when I leave work, I’m done for the day both mentally and physically. That’s not the case when you’re working from home. This is probably the big negative for me when it comes to working from home. I like the physical separation between the two environments. -D > On Dec 4, 2020, at 11:51 AM, Floyd Thursby via Mercedes > <mercedes@okiebenz.com> wrote: > > I realized when I was at Lotus that I was working mostly with people who were > not in my office so it really didn't matter much where I was. Instead of > fighting traffic at 830 I would drop the kids at school, go home and work for > a coupla hours, make phone calls, emails, work on computer stuff, whatever. > Then I would head into the office for the afternoon and if I needed to meet > with anyone I could do that. I got more done at home without the > distractions, and dealing with colleagues in England or Europe was fine from > home. It was a really nice sorta hybrid scheme. Working always from home got > to be old, even though I got more done and it was relaxing and flexible, I > missed the social interactions, random drop-in discussions, and serendipitous > ideas that popped up being around other people and seeing them in the > cafeteria or hallways. It was just easier in a lot of ways to get a job done > being around others, at least for some things. > > IBM went to a remote work environment back in the late 90s, got rid of a lot > of office space but still had some for meetings/conf rooms and hot desking if > you needed to be somewhere with those resources. Most of the people were > always traveling somewhere anyway so it did not make a lot of difference. I > spent a lot of time in hotels, airports, airplanes, and off-site partners and > our other offices so it was fine with me though I did (until I moved away) > have an office at our main building in Cambridge with a killer view of Boston > and the river. Plus I really liked a lot of the people I worked with so that > was nice to be around friends. > > But yeah, the social interaction is a key factor not just in work but in lots > of other things, I find that people are getting cranky and ill-behaved not > having that. > > --FT > > On 12/4/20 9:26 AM, Dan Penoff via Mercedes wrote: >> And in a nutshell that’s what this company found. While the initial approach >> was to let roughly 50% of the employees work remotely, about a third of >> those ended up wanting to return t the office if I recall correctly. Many of >> them were younger people whose social lives involved relationships with >> their (work) peers. >> >> It was pretty interesting, I thought. >> >> -D >> >>> On Dec 4, 2020, at 9:17 AM, M. Mitchell Marmel via Mercedes >>> <mercedes@okiebenz.com> wrote: >>> >>> A wise company will do an intelligent mix. Those who do better working >>> from home, work from home. Those who do better in an office environment, >>> work in an office. >>> _______________________________________ >>> http://www.okiebenz.com >>> >>> To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ >>> >>> To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: >>> http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com >>> >> >> _______________________________________ >> http://www.okiebenz.com >> >> To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ >> >> To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: >> http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com >> > -- > --FT > > > _______________________________________ > http://www.okiebenz.com > > To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ > > To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: > http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com > _______________________________________ http://www.okiebenz.com To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com
