[kccqzy]

My productivity has gone down as well. Because (a) I didn't have a coffee machine at home, and ended up either having to take a mile-long walk to Starbucks or fight against my morning drowsiness; (b) I now need to cook, do the dishes, etc, which are previously handled by the office cafeteria; (c) I tried to reduce my screen time by not having external monitors at home, and now I code on a small 13-inch laptop display.

[shadowprofile77]

Because you lack a coffee machine you "have to" travel a mile for a starbucks? You've got to be kidding me. That's a preference, not a problem. Making very decent coffee requires exactly four things: 1. a small pot or kettle of nearly any kind 2. water 3. ground coffee (it can be bought ground and prepackaged by the way) 4. a source of high heat, usually found along the surface of a stove, I assume you have one of these. No offense man, but what an absurd thing to describe as a problem.

People have been making coffee like this for centuries and continue to do so without a problem. It's a no-cost fixable situation you're in.

[jasonboyd]

That's all well and good but it begs the question, who is going to draw a heart in the foam on my latte? Certainly not me, I'm a backend engineer.

[teekert]

https://www.amazon.com/Happybuy-Coffee-Printer-Design-Selfie...

[lapnitnelav]

The crazy bit is that there's a life outside of work, at least in most of the developed world, and yet the comment you replied to highlights a different reality.

A symbiosis, if only temporary between the corporation and the employee.

Cue David Attenborough's voiceover.

[_ea1k]

I think his point is that he hasn't needed a satisfactory coffee setup at home before and thus hasn't done it. If WFH is temporary, then the issues he's facing make sense.

I always work from home and I can see where his issues come from. I'm sure he'd do things differently if this were a permanent state for him.

[wolco]

Or perhaps the walk to starbucks will help him get in shape.

Or perhaps he will finally be able to break the habit. Without coffee many (not all) are sleeping better and more rested. He may discover he is one of those people.

Switch coffee with donut. Or newspaper and it starts sounding like traveling an extra hour in doesn't make as much sense as biking/roller blading/walking or driving 5 minutes to grab that coffee.

[michaelt]

I've no objection to people who want to take up new exercise regime and cut out coffee. Good for them!

But when people are worried about flu-like symptoms like headaches, fatigue, muscle aches and being out of breath might not be the optimal time :)

[fragmede]

What? Make it myself? You might as well tell me to use instant, you philistine!

No but seriously, instant coffee ftw. There are coffee snobs and then there's getting the job done.

[adrianmonk]

Whether it needed to happen is one question. Whether it actually happened is another question, and the answer is yes.

Productivity is ultimately going to be determined by how people actually behave, not how we believe they should behave. Not even by how they believe they should behave.

[m463]

That requires mindfulness, and with knowledge workers the mind is elsewhere.

Really, he is giving up the benefits of specialization, which has uplifted mankind since the dawn of time.

(pod coffee with all its faults seems to be popular)

[kobe_bryant]

and if you go one step further with a chemex you'll make a pour-over as good as any third wave coffee shop

[newtoday]

I sincerely am not trolling, or being snarky in saying this, but that has to be the most privelaged, 1st world problem, entitled statement I've ever read.

[jmspring]

It’s not trolling, it is an incredibly entitled statement and the type of attitude that gives the tech industry a bad name.

[_ea1k]

If this is the most privileged comment that you've read on the internet, I don't think you've read much. I'm not even sure that the OP was complaining about it.

[newtoday]

Furthermore, they weren't complaining, but exclaiming about their 'inconviences'

[newtoday]

Unfortunately, you're right, it's not. It's pretty disturbing, though.

[wolco]

Yes it was.

But in fairness for calling him out you have the most entitled statement ever read (until this message where I feel so entitled I call you out for calling him out)

[xxpor]

Just FYI, you're being (deservedly) mocked on Twitter about this

https://twitter.com/MikeIsaac/status/1237577750480740353?s=1...

[kccqzy]

Thanks for the heads up. I honestly don't see why people see a need to mock me, when I'm pointing out the fact that at my home I don't have the amenities that I enjoy at the office. I'm not even complaining about anything. If someone else had posted a similar comment, I certainly wouldn't have mocked them.

But then again, it is sad that these days, mockery is the default way of discourse on the internet.

[retsibsi]

For what it's worth, the mockery seems weird and dumb to me. It's pretty clear that you were just engaging in a discussion about whether working from home increased or decreased productivity. But everyone seems to be finding a 'woe is me' tone somewhere between the lines. I wonder if it's mostly a bandwagon effect or if people would tend to read it that way independently.

On the bright side, maybe it will do some good overall, because working from home is (IMO) clearly a good idea at the moment, and now people have a strawman villain they can fight against by supporting WFH policies.

[catacombs]

> I honestly don't see why people see a need to mock me, when I'm pointing out the fact that at my home I don't have the amenities that I enjoy at the office.

You're being mocked because you're musing over the lack of luxury office amenities that many, many workers in the U.S. don't have.

And the fact your comment about needing to walk to Starbucks and actually do the dishes make you sound like a manchild.

[magduf]

Honestly, the bit about cooking and doing the dishes sounded even more ridiculous than the coffee thing. What kind of adult can't do even the most basic cooking, or never has to do dishes? How many people actually get all their food at the company cafeteria like this person claims to?

[KKKKkkkk1]

In college I used to work tech support for $8/hour and we had free coffee. My mom used to work at a factory, and the factory-line workers would eat lunch at a subsidized cafeteria provided by the company.

People just hate tech workers and are looking for every reason to represent them as being entitled and out of touch.

[bart_spoon]

Its an issue because things like coffee are in no way necessary for being productive, and certainly not to the extent that you should need to walk a mile to get a coffee before working.

But for me the problem is less anything you are doing, and more the implications of what you've said about Google (and other companies for that matter). The fact that employers are trying to remove so much of the "friction" of normal, human life to maximize time spent working is a bit dystopic. I mean, by the same logic, why not scrap the cafeteria and bathrooms for that matter, hook employees up to feeding tubes and catheters, so they literally never leave their desks?

Cooking, eating, meal cleanup, etc are a part of human life. If we are trying to streamline that, it should be for the extra comfort of the individual, not so that a company can keep them at the grindstone for even longer. So the argument that working from home causes decreases in productivity because employees have to care for themselves isn't actually an indictment against working from home, it's an indictment against the expectations of productivity that employers have.

[xx_alpha_xx]

Just for the record, mockery has been a significant part of the Internet since the days of Usenet, so don't take it personally :)

[sophware]

Poor you, again, lol.

Seriously, though, I hear you both for what you were actually doing (not really whining) and for how you are taking it. I personally have never been able to just let things roll off me,either (or, better yet, turn them into humor).

[rorykoehler]

In the time you spent on this thread you could have already ordered everything you need online to be delivered to your home.

You have to admit, despite being the butt of the joke, it's pretty funny.

[ErneX]

I'm not even a Googler and have 3 monitors at home. And I'm pretty sure if you request it they probably find a way of paying for one or give you one for home.

[98codes]

You're complaining that you have to do basic household chores, what do you expect? A cookie?

[asdfasgasdgasdg]

I don't have a coffee machine (we have pour over) but I will by tonight. Also as of today doubling our recipes to make leftovers for lunches, and we have sandwich fixins for lunch as well. I'm expecting this to last for a good little while so it's important to figure out ways to be efficient. The biggest hit to productivity is when the nanny brings the kids home in the afternoon, but it's manageable. I'll continue to perform.

This is just part of being an adult. You can manage! You can get used to anything.

[robbrown451]

All of these are easily solvable by simply getting the equipment you need to function. A coffeemaker is about $20. Making lunch and cleaning up shouldn't take more than a few minutes unless you genuinely need some elaborate meal. Geez. I mean, I understand if you aren't prepared for it, but if it is going to last for a while, just do what you need to do.

And is your work actually closer than Starbucks? I don't understand that one.

[jusssi]

> Making lunch and cleaning up shouldn't take more than a few minutes

Let's hear your cooking tips, then. Preferrably no "microwave the plastic box contents you got from the grocery store", that doesn't count as real food, for nutrients quality nor taste.

[zhte415]

Bread takes about 10 minutes, leave it to rest, then bake it. And several loaves can be done at the same time. If you have a bread maker then that's even less work. Pasta just takes a boiling pan. Rice, a pan or a rice cooker. Starches largely cook themselves.

Vegetables/fruit take a minute or two to chop and pan-fry / prep as you like.

Protein can be as simple as a poached chicken breast, roasts again just stick them in an oven. Beans in a pressure cooker, that's also pretty automatic too.

Cooking's as time-consuming as you make it.

And then these can be batched-up / prepped as a morning chore; I find it takes less time than cleaning the house. I don't batch as I like the break in the day of another activity. It's less time than a commute.

YouTube is packed full of easy, tasty recipes if looking for somewhere to start.

[lcampbell]

> Bread takes about 10 minutes

I've been using the newbie friendly NYT no knead bread[1] for years, and it's that easy. The only gotcha is that you have to prepare it the night before, but that isn't really a big deal in practice. Bread is surprisingly difficult to ruin, and fresh daily bread has been a huge boon for me in these new WFH times.

I highly recommend it.

[1] https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/11376-no-knead-bread

[bart_spoon]

Making a sandwich takes about 5 minutes. So does a salad. Or just make 2x the servings of whatever you were going to make for dinner and save half for lunch the next day. Or meal prep and make a weeks worth of lunches in about an hour on Sunday. All of those can be at least as healthy as whatever the cafeteria is making, and take a minimal amount of time.

[cultofmetatron]

had to spend a few months back in the states to take care of my cat. The instant pit is a godsend! throw in some frozen veggies and a whole chicken -> enough chicken soup to feed two people for 2 days. Beans + 1-2 ham bones -> a 5 days worth of beans for less than $8.

[jinglebells]

Here's one: Get some shelled shrimp/prawns. Mix mayo + ketchup, lemon juice, paprika + tabasco to make a sauce and pour over the shellfish

Shred lettuce, slice avocado and serve with some chunky bread rolls. Shouldn't take more than 5 minutes, 1 bowl and a plate.

[jinglebells]

Another: mix a stock cube/gel with 1 pint water and put in a pot on the heat. Throw in some dried rice noodles, sliced salad onions, chopped pepper.

Cook for 3 minutes and you have a delicious noodle soup. Add chicken or protein for extra fun.

[clownpenis_fart]

Working from home and now it turns out I have to shit in my own toilet. This is an outrage.

Hoping I can expense the tp at least.

[retpirato]

This is the funniest comment I've read in a long time. I wish I could come up with a comment like that.

[bentcorner]

> I tried to reduce my screen time by not having external monitors at home, and now I code on a small 13-inch laptop display.

Unblock yourself maybe? Pitch to your management that your productivity is bad and get them to either: a) let you bring hardware home, or b) expense your monitors for WFH.

[jsolson]

Folgers crystals can address your caffeine addiction. They taste like shit, but you'll live and it'll address the chemical needs, speaking from experience. Alternatively, you can buy and freeze pounds of ground coffee and use a filter and hot water for a similar (but vastly better tasting) effect.

So sorry about the dishes, but perhaps your dish washing efficiency will improve? If it's directly impactful to your productivity now for a single individual's daily calories it suggests you've got a lot to learn here! Perhaps a G2G course once normal business returns?

In terms of the monitor I can't help you, my most productive years were on an 11" MacBook air with a single tmux session. A 13" laptop sounds heavy.

(Disclaimer: I work at Google)

[potatoyogurt]

here is a french press for $15. It can arrive on thursday. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07HC22KQH/ref=sbl_dpx_B00008XEWG_...

Is google not giving its employees monitors during this time? I find that surprising but also you could just go to Best Buy.

[CydeWeys]

Google is in fact allowing its employees to take their desktop monitors home, which I first discovered when I saw someone walking out through the lobby with one on Monday and thought it was hilarious, only for that to be repeated.

It's funnier because this is the NYC office and no one drives, so he was probably lugging it all the way through the subway system.

[frutiger]

It’s about $500 for a 4K 27” monitor. I thought Google compensated their employees well enough for at least that.

[tonfa]

But what's the point in buying one if I only need it for a few weeks? I don't want to generate extra trash and those in the office are currently unused.

[Johnny555]

You don't need to trash it when you're done with it -- donate it to a school or homeless shelter (and you can get a tax deduction!)

[CydeWeys]

Or, even better, just don't buy it at all and bring your work one home with you for the duration of WFH.

How is this even an argument??

[iso947]

Take it to your local charity shop

[CydeWeys]

If you don't already have a monitor at home it's because you don't want one. So it doesn't make sense to spend $500 for something you'll use in a temporary WFH situation, then lose money getting rid of it once WFH starts. Much better to just bring the work monitor home for the duration of WFH.

Incidentally I do already have a monitor at home, that costs more than $500. And I'm not using it for WFH, because I find my 15" work laptop sufficient.

[npo9]

(a) and (c) sound like problems that are solved with very common household equipment.

[Johnny555]

(a) There are any number of brew-at-home solutions, I really like my aeropress as it's simple to use and easy to clean. I grind my own coffee, but you can pick up a bag of beans at Starbucks and they'll grind it any way you like. Or if you don't want the trouble of brewing your own, there are some decent (but not great) instant coffees. I really like the Starbucks Via coffees but they are relatively expensive. Mt Hagen is supposed to be good for an instant coffee.

(b) If you're really unable or unwilling to cook or do the dishes, food delivery services are still running and the restaurants they deliver from will be happy to have your order. Order hot food and re-heat it on arrival if you're worried about getting infected from your food. Or maybe look at once of the box-meal delivery services, you still need to cook, but most of the prep work is done.

(c) buy a cheap monitor for now and sell or donate it after you go back to work. You can get a refurb 22" monitor for $50 or so which must be better than a 13" laptop display.

[TeMPOraL]

So buy a coffee machine! A quality one, if you care about your coffee that much. We bought one (my wife loves her morning latte) and it turned out to be the best QoL expense in the last few years. And it isn't even all that expensive!

[smallfry]

Have you tried instant coffee https://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-instant-coffee/

[catacombs]

Oh, no! Who will think of the Googlers?

[hermitdev]

Id suggest giving up coffee. I mostly have. Maybe once a month I'll have a mug. Used to drink 3 pots a day. Caffeine lost its affect on me. Stupidly, I turned to chewing tobacco for the nicotine to keep me awake when pulling long hours. Like I said: stupid. Should have cut out all addictive stimulants. Working on quitting, but its a process.

[dboreham]

Wait..the guy telling us to give up coffee is addicted to chew?? Wouldn't it have been better to stick to the coffee?

[martinbean]

Wow. First world problems much…?

[qbx100]

Starbucks does not sell anything that deserves the name "coffee". Buy coffee filters, ground coffee, and the result is 10x better than the horrible water with a taste resembling asphalt that Starbucks sells as "coffee".

[fragmede]

re: C; Does Google WFH policy (esp in this specific case) not cover expensing or taking a full-size monitor home with you?

[username90]

It does allow both of those.

[etxm]

I don’t know how you hang in there.

[arminius2]

You’re bad at living life.

[bitL]

Oh yes, but that's easily solvable by a $2k investment into coffee machine, dishwasher and a monitor or two. I assumed people had comfortable living/working conditions at home.

[jjeaff]

Two thousand dollars for those 3 things? Are you Bill Gates? (See YouTube vid of Bill guessing how much household items cost.)

More like $30 for a coffee machine and $250 for a dishwasher. Then $150+ each for external monitors.

[RandomBacon]

If you're going to ask people to watch something, it would be nice of you linked to it.

Maybe this is what you wete refering to, but I could only find Bill Gates guessing grocery item prices:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ad_higXixRA

[Johnny555]

If your house doesn't already have a dishwasher you might pay $500+ just for the plumbing and electrical work. Unless you get a "portable dishwasher" that you wheel over to your sink and attach it to the faucet every time you want to do dishes, but if you're going to go through all of that trouble, you may as well just do the dishes yourself.

[magduf]

Depends on the monitors and dishwasher. A $250 dishwasher is a pretty crappy one; the nice ones are $500-1000. $150 will get you a perfectly decent 1080p 23" monitor, however at work I have three 27" monitors that probably cost about $800 each.

It just depends on if you want nice stuff or really basic stuff. The nice stuff costs a lot more than the prices you quoted, just like a nice midrange car like a Camry costs a lot more than a basic, bottom-of-the-line car (Yaris?).

Considering the audience of this site, I would assume most here would buy higher-end stuff, and not the cheapest things available.

[TeMPOraL]

Well, if you invest 10-20x that much in your coffee machine, you get something that's much less of a maintenance hassle and makes significantly better coffee. Worth it if you drink coffee every day.

[dx034]

Honestly, it's all about the beans. I've had fantastic coffee from a $20 french press and horrible coffee from a $5k machine. Don't splurge on the machine, splurge on the coffee.

[magduf]

Admittedly, I'm not a coffee drinker, but rather a tea drinker, but I've seen French presses and I thought the idea was that they aren't very expensive, but they're a lot more laborious than a machine, both in preparation and in cleaning.

It's kinda like my fancy tea infuser cup: I have a nice glass mug with a laser-cut stainless-steel infuser for loose tea. It was $30 at a fancy store (could probably get it cheaper on Amazon), but it's a one-time purchase. With high-end loose tea, it makes great tea, but the problem is cleaning: cleaning out the infuser (by hand) is a lot more work than just dumping a tea bag in the trash and putting a regular mug in the dishwasher. But the results certainly are a lot better than a $0.20 tea bag.

[dx034]

They're not that bad. I rinse them out after use and then put them in the dishwasher. Preparation is like making a cup of tea, just pouring some hot water in. I would say prep takes <2min for a pot of coffee (including filling up the kettle), cleaning <1 min.

[rorykoehler]

Stove top espresso and simple milk frother that I own 1) makes better coffee than I've ever had in Starbuck because I buy good beans and 2) costs $30. Admittedly I spent $200 on a grinder so I could fresh grind finely as it makes a significant difference to the coffee IMO however I could just as easily get my beans ground when I buy them for free.

[retpirato]

do you have the link?

[bitL]

Let's say you want to have two higher end monitors, those would get you to around $1k each. Coffee machine/dishwasher are cheap. You might also want to invest into some cooking machine or some kitchen equipment that could allow you to prepare healthy meals quickly.

[jkachmar]

My motorized standing desk, VESA amounting arm, and 27” FreeSync + color-calibrated monitor _combined_ total at around $1000 dollars.

To highlight the absurdity of this estimate: $2000 USD should be enough to pay for an entire work-from-home setup with a high quality office chair, an ergonomic keyboard, and a whiteboard in addition to what I have mentioned above (assuming that work provides your computer).

[bitL]

Imagine you are used to 4k quantum dot HDR10 displays from FAANG. Would you be happy with some gaming monitor instead? A decent 5k2k monitor is $1100, 5k2.8k is $1300. 4k DCI EIZO is 4k+. You might want two of those as well.

[jkachmar]

The monitor I have is a Samsung C27HG70, which _is_ a quantum for LED monitor.

Although it’s not 4K, given the fact that it ships with a color calibration report I think calling it “some gaming monitor” is a bit silly.

As someone who’s a bit of a picture quality fanatic (I preferred color accurate panel displays “before it was cool”, my television is a 4K HDR10 OLED, etc.) I think it’s quite ridiculous that you’d classify your suggestions as anything other than luxuriously decadent for most programming work.

[Ambroos]

Don't be ridiculous. I work for a FAANG company and we get great but very standard Dell monitors that are all well below $1100.

[ellenhp]

Google's standard issue monitors are standard density. FAANG employees aren't used to fancy monitors, and can certainly get by without them.

Edited to remove a claim that I haven't seen 4k monitors, since I just realized the big displays we can get must be 4k. We can only have one of those though and they're not as fancy as you're claiming.

[kccqzy]

Fair enough. I suppose the fact that this outbreak happened suddenly contributed to my loss of productivity. If I had time to properly prepare a home office and gradually transition to WFH, I could be more productive than today.

[eigenvector]

I truly don't intend this to be snarky or rude, but the things you described are part of most homes, not home offices. You've been using your office as your home and your home as a place to sleep.

[kccqzy]

Correct. And this is, in no small part, due to the fact that there are many amenities in the office that I didn't see a need to buy at home. As a renter I've moved quite a lot of times and will probably move some more, so I've chosen to minimize my possessions at home.

[meowface]

As a temporary solution, if you don't want to/can't make your own, you might be able to get coffee delivered. I do that a lot with Postmates etc. Generally works best with iced drinks, but some places make drinks hot enough to stay hot upon delivery, if the distance isn't too long.

You could also make or buy cold brew coffee (Amazon Fresh delivers large Chameleon cold brew containers to many areas). It stays fresh pretty long if you keep it refrigerated.

[CydeWeys]

> you might be able to get coffee delivered

Is this a joke??? Just buy a coffee machine like a normal person.

[Stratoscope]

It's not a joke at all. Google's sister company Wing can deliver fresh hot coffee by air in five minutes.

You just have to move to one of their delivery areas, such as Christiansburg, Virginia.

https://wing.com/

[CydeWeys]

Why would you go to all this trouble when you can just buy a cheap coffee maker (I use a Kalita Wave) and come out ahead in savings within a week? Coffee requires exactly two ingredients to make, one of which comes out of your tap. It's absurd to have it delivered by drone every day rather than just making it yourself. Is this the kind of thing that only sounds remotely reasonable to someone in the Bay Area?

[meowface]

Sometimes I just want a kick, and sometimes I want to really appreciate the flavor or get some sort of specialty drink. Most coffee I've had from coffee machines doesn't taste great, even with good beans, and if you want good espresso you need to spend a lot of money and effort... or you can get it from a place that does it for you.

But, yes, if you're looking purely for the caffeine and nothing else, a cheap coffee machine is the way to go.

[meowface]

Maybe they don't want a coffee machine for some reason? May not have the space, may prefer espresso, etc.