I actually have ADHD and the opposite is true for me. Working from home I can concentrate without distractions of office workers walking by, or talking about something that I'm not interested in but can't block out. I work in my office at home with the door closed for practically the whole day and it's great. My work has it's own built in structure, but I imagine that other kinds of less structured work could be very difficult for someone with ADHD.
Thanks for helping bring this perspective to light. Most threads on work from home go all in on productivity being higher, but don't take into account the longer term consequences of working from home on knowledge sharing, education, training, and team building. Even if productivity is higher now, that doesn't mean it will remain that way in the long run.
While this is a nice idea, adoption of this kind of knowledge sharing is known to be extremely difficult to accomplish without a massive cultural shift in a company or department. Not to mention it requires those who are knowledgeable (typically older workers with less social media or computer experience) to be tech savvy enough to be active in a space dominated by younger employees asking questions.
I am a proponent of trying to bring knowledge capture software and methods into my department and company but the struggle is real. Getting people on board with this idea will basically require those who aren't interested to leave by attrition for the culture to change enough to accept this idea. But those people who retire are exactly the people we want to capture knowledge from! It's really a difficult situation.
Honestly, I'm playing devil's advocate here. I love working from home and feel that the benefits outweigh the drawbacks in almost all ways. I agree with your sentiment, but without a good understanding of what companies are giving away and whether they can afford it is a big part of why back to office was hurried along.
HR has to basically rewrite the book on everything after such a big shake-up in the culture of employment. New calculations for salaries, new requirements for liability, new hurdles for IT, infrastructure, and security. These are all costs to companies because the culture shifted. Working from home was mandatory for a short time, but it wasn't obvious that companies could make it all work without time to sort out how to best do it.
Working from home is a benefit that is worth money. People are willing to get paid less for the benefit of working from home all else equal. Effectively, if you got to work from home, you got a raise. Forcing people to come back to the office after allowing working from home is like giving a raise and then taking it back. I agree that this is shitty and sucks.
However, when you negotiated your pay it was for a particular job with certain benefits. Complaining about your company not giving you a benefit that wasn't initially part of your hiring negotiation is basically asking for a raise that they aren't obligated to provide.
Edit: I guess this isn't a popular opinion. I felt I was contributing to a conversation that seemed a little one sided by offering an alternative look at it. From an economic perspective there's nothing wrong about what I've said. I don't agree that it's a nice or even ethical thing to do, but the backlash (against companies that push for RTO) seems overly dramatic to me.
My department works almost entirely on the computer but is made up of knowledge workers. We found that our metrics also reflected improved efficiency. However, our metrics didn't (and likely can't) measure knowledge sharing interactions and training effectiveness to compare working from home with in the office. Most of our department has noticed and believes that knowledge sharing and training interactions decrease when working from home. This is not good for long term health and efficiency of the department. In 5 to 10 years the quality of work we provide will go down (or at least not improve as much as it could) without these interactions. So a small sacrifice in efficiency now could be worth it in the long run.
It's hard to quantify exactly what is being sacrificed one way or the other. The only way to really find out is to experiment and see what happens long term.
There is a tangible benefit in certain jobs from being in the same space. I work in a place where we are constantly training new employees with OJT. Continuous improvement and learning new things from peers is important for our future capabilities. Knowledge sharing is a big part of my job.
We rotate in-office and work-from-home weeks and there is a considerable reduction in questions asked and just general training-type or knowledge sharing interactions. Being able to ask a question or provide guidance directly, in-person, and off the cuff is easier than messaging or calling. I definitely get more work done at home, but sacrifice future efficiency of myself, my peers, and the department as a whole because of the reduction of knowledge sharing interactions.
I think we have struck a good balance with the rotation in the time being. We could certainly try to figure out ways to make knowledge sharing and training easier and more effective to do remotely, but as our culture is now, working from home makes it less effective.
The program was called "Power Peg" for those googling for it. It was a test program not intended to be used on the live market.
The Power Peg program was designed to buy a stock at its ask price, and then immediately sell it again at the bid price, losing the value of the spread.
With Tom Baker as the Software Agent! Pretty neat stuff. Douglas Adams is surprisingly on the nose most times. Given how cynical he always is you'd think he wouldn't be too accurate, but he usually ends up being right. This video is pretty optimistic though and gets a lot right. Most of it played out just like a Wikipedia binge.
The red shirt part of the joke is referring to TOS exclusively because it was so prevalent. But really it's a larger trope found across lots of different shows and genres. They may not wear red shirts but you'll know them when you see them.
I think it's a great joke and has stood the test of time. You should try watching TOS before proclaiming that the joke doesn't work.
The real dad jokes are always in the comments.