re: Coronavirus and the Collapse of Our Imaginations (some positive vibes)

If the job is only requiring your time for 3 hours then it wouldn't hire a full time employee to do it.

From my experience telecommuting takes a certian amount of discipline and over time production starts to greatly diminish. I send over 50% of my workforce back to the office so they will do their jobs.

I work for a company that has its west coast fully on telecommuting and the east coast in the office most of the time. All doing the same job.

Different bossman perspectives, I guess. Pros and cons to both coasts and I have worked for both sides.

Most of my telecommuting day is spread out over 18 hours, I definitely have 2-3 hour days and sometimes over 10 hour days.

I work in Oil & Gas Manufacturing. We have multiple forge and machining facilities. We employ Admin Support, Document Control, Quality, Machinists, Helpers, Project Management, Engineers and Business Development type roles.

Right now if your job is not related to production or production support, then you are working from home.

This is not an ideal situation.

Having all of your team in one place has major advantages:

1-Being able to have countless and important small and quick face-to-face meetings to coordinate tasks and follow ups. Maybe a 30 second discussion here and there. This helps keep the operation going.

2-Sales calls. Face-to-face sales calls are incredibly important for both the buyer and the seller. This is how business relationships are made. It is very hard to have these types of meetings if people are not at "the office" or "the plant". It is kind of hard to take a client out to lunch to get to know them better if they are at home. These buyer/supplier relationships are extremely important. I sell a very technical product. It is vital I meet with Engineers to make sure they understand our technology.

3- Social interaction and team building. If you are not at work, you really don't get to know your co-workers. Every team needs to be able to work as a team. They need to go through the trials and fight the battles together to get orders out on time. Or deal with customer technical problems that arise to help fix the issue so they can get back up an running. This is how you learn about who you can count on in a stressful situation.

4- Time Management. It is very easy to screw around when you are working from home. You can still screw around at the office, but it is limited. Managers need to make sure their employees are putting in a full day's work. There are various ways to do that remotely. But, it is not as efficient as if you are at the office.

He is absolutely saying all of that. I don't even know where to begin. You must be a fan of rowing where you sit on your arse and go backwards. LOL! I hope to hell all this clears up quickly so Western civilization's survival doesn't depend on idiots who really think they can "click on prosperity" and booom! Everything worthwhile at it's base has sweat labor. America has got to get back to work, comprehend that.

I agree with you on all of those things and it sounds like it makes sense in your line of work.

My last job was remotely managing and supporting multiple construction projects. I'd have to make site visits and meet with clients of course. And it is good to spend some time with the supervision out in the field actually doing the work. Can't develop those relationships over the phone.

That said, it wouldn't have killed me if they let me work 1 day a week at home or something of the sort. Or come in on an as needed basis.

They sort of used me as a mentor for some of the younger engineers as well so there was value in me being there to each them our systems so for me I really couldn't have worked remotely full time. But for some people it's certainly possible.

Since servers moved to clouds there has been one beneficiary that I’ve seen.

Starbucks.

People want to get out and mix it up with other people. They will do it one way or another. They need it.

Also there’s an intangible human element that managers need to see and interact with. A chemistry and flow. Especially in highly competitive and dynamic industries.

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I'm thinking the same thing about getting an education in our school systems. Many are now holding class online because schools are shut down. Why can't this be done on a regular basis? Would save a helluva lot of money by not having to build and maintain actual buildings, staff, etc

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Most kids are not doing shite or the bare minimum. Most employees don't do shite or will constantly strive for the bare minimum. Those that actually try to seek mastery in their work or value competency, or do more than is demanded are a rare breed. Maybe 5% of Americans do this.

Distance Learning has always and will always be sub-par.