[BergTheBold]

My company has let at least a couple people go since the start of the pandemic - people who would just disappear for hours, would spend hours/days working with very little to show. I'm curious - do you think that time management is a learned skill? Is working from home biased towards people who are inherently better at managing time? When the pandemic started we had a drop off on productivity as a whole, but we've since improved and have reached levels at least equal to where they were 2 or 2.5 years ago.

[afarrell]

> Do you think time management is a learned skill?

Time management is mostly about emotion management. For example, procrastinating on asking for help overcoming a roadblock on is often a symptom of fear of appearing stupid or annoying. In-person interactions often help smooth over these sorts of problems. For example: If you are having lunch with someone, it is easier to trust him to be non-judgemental about you running into a package management error.

[tra3]

> people who would just disappear for hours, would spend hours/days working with very little to show.

Were they productive in the office? It feels like "being in the office" is a form of productivity. You didn't actually have to do very much as long you were visible.

[khyryk]

We went from people disappearing at Starbucks to people disappearing on Slack.

[ejb999]

I don't think it is just about time management - all skills can be learned - but sadly there are a non-trivial percent of people in any organization who will simply get away with anything they think they can.

These people, for the most part, aren't any better when forced to work onsite - but it is harder for them to hide from their managers and co-workers.

[codegeek]

Working remotely is not just about time management. It requires a level of discipline and most importantly, Integrity and Honesty. Unfortunately, some people take advantage of the situation and try to game it. I have hired many people over the years including remotely and I have some of our best employees that work remotely (I never worry about them) and some real bad apples who were outright liars and cheats.

[strikelaserclaw]

you sure they weren't working 2 jobs?

[ejb999]

I suspect several were.