<story><title>Amazon reverses course, expands work-from-home options</title><url>https://mynorthwest.com/2960761/amazon-offering-flexible-work-from-home-options-seattle-tech-companies/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>xwolfi</author><text>I work on a trading floor in a large investment bank in Hong Kong and I dont get what you dislike abt open floor. It&amp;#x27;s so nice to just know what&amp;#x27;s happening around you, have people rushing to you or you rushing to people, being able to yell or be yelled at.&lt;p&gt;Sure there are focus phases I d love to have less distractions in, but tbh sometimes your value lies in quick response to big problems rather than long concentration to solve small ones.&lt;p&gt;I worked in full height cubicles and sometimes you can spend 2 weeks without sharing something with a coworker to a point you end up having spent all you time on a silly assumption you discover made you overengineer something a dude sitting 10 meters away knew you could solve in 5 lines.&lt;p&gt;Maybe we both program different kind of software and maybe need different environments ?</text></item><item><author>tristor</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve been permanently remote since 2014 (with some regular office visits interspersed at a few employers along the way).  My take is that working in an office is superior to working at home, so long as employees have short commutes and the office provides an environment which is conducive to productivity (e.g. private offices or well-made full height cubicles).  In any other situation than that (e.g. open floor plan being the worst), remote work is massively more productive than time spent in office.&lt;p&gt;It does require a cultural shift in an organization, and I do find that companies that are half-remote&amp;#x2F;half-onsite or some mixture tend to do significantly worse than companies that go all-in on remote or all-in on staying in the office because the mix always leads to remote folks being left out of important political nuances handled in the hallway and break-rooms.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t see myself ever working for Amazon for a myriad of reasons (or most of the other FAANG companies for that matter), but I do think this issue is more complex in a large organization than many WFH advocates give it credit for.  That said, I never intend to go back to an office other than for occasional visits for the remainder of my life&amp;#x2F;career.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>dogman144</author><text>Trading floor is an entirely different environment from the majority of other open office concepts and related jobs out there.&lt;p&gt;It’s more akin to an SOC or other Ops centers, where the open floor and resulting info flow is crucial to the perma on-call nature of those work patterns.</text></comment>
<story><title>Amazon reverses course, expands work-from-home options</title><url>https://mynorthwest.com/2960761/amazon-offering-flexible-work-from-home-options-seattle-tech-companies/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>xwolfi</author><text>I work on a trading floor in a large investment bank in Hong Kong and I dont get what you dislike abt open floor. It&amp;#x27;s so nice to just know what&amp;#x27;s happening around you, have people rushing to you or you rushing to people, being able to yell or be yelled at.&lt;p&gt;Sure there are focus phases I d love to have less distractions in, but tbh sometimes your value lies in quick response to big problems rather than long concentration to solve small ones.&lt;p&gt;I worked in full height cubicles and sometimes you can spend 2 weeks without sharing something with a coworker to a point you end up having spent all you time on a silly assumption you discover made you overengineer something a dude sitting 10 meters away knew you could solve in 5 lines.&lt;p&gt;Maybe we both program different kind of software and maybe need different environments ?</text></item><item><author>tristor</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve been permanently remote since 2014 (with some regular office visits interspersed at a few employers along the way).  My take is that working in an office is superior to working at home, so long as employees have short commutes and the office provides an environment which is conducive to productivity (e.g. private offices or well-made full height cubicles).  In any other situation than that (e.g. open floor plan being the worst), remote work is massively more productive than time spent in office.&lt;p&gt;It does require a cultural shift in an organization, and I do find that companies that are half-remote&amp;#x2F;half-onsite or some mixture tend to do significantly worse than companies that go all-in on remote or all-in on staying in the office because the mix always leads to remote folks being left out of important political nuances handled in the hallway and break-rooms.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t see myself ever working for Amazon for a myriad of reasons (or most of the other FAANG companies for that matter), but I do think this issue is more complex in a large organization than many WFH advocates give it credit for.  That said, I never intend to go back to an office other than for occasional visits for the remainder of my life&amp;#x2F;career.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>codenesium</author><text>This sounds like hell. People rushing around and yelling?</text></comment>