There was a viral video of some PMs working from a pool. On one hand, it doesn't really matter where you work from as long as you get your work done. But on the other hand, I find it hard to believe that someone can have focus in an environment like that. It might be unpopular opinion online, but I think its entirely reasonable to put some restrictions on where you can work from home, if only to allay the feelings of colleagues. Ideally everyone would have a work environment where there is a set standardized output of X that needs to be produced by each employee in which case how it gets done is irrelevant. But in modern work environment, there is a level of trust and autonomy employees are granted. There are dark patterns people can use to minimize the amount of work you're doing without drawing too much attention. And sure, you can think cynically that you should do the minimum amount of work required, because your employer will pay you the minimum amount they have to. But that just sounds overly adversarial and could create a toxic environment and resentment amount colleagues. Not to mention its terrible for you in the long run.
I would be a little worried about somebody working from inside the pool (laptop may get dunked).
By the pool -- seems like a bit of a fuzzy thing. I can definitely imagine working from a deck could be quite relaxing which could help with focus. And some decks happen to have pools built in. I can't imagine a good manager would micromanage, like, distance to the pool or something like that.
We've accepted programmers working from coffee shops for ages, and that environment seems much more distracting.
I dunno. In the end, the metric that matters is, does the work get done? If you can get it done by the pool, fair enough, right?
What do you mean by "an environment like that"? It was just them outside by a pool...it's not like they were at a Vegas pool party... Different kinds of people work well in various environments.
I sit outside and work all the time, often by the pool. It's actually very relaxing and I can get a lot done when I have my headphones in... Sure, sometimes it gets distracting...and that's when I go back to my desk.
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