Coronavirus Forces World’s Largest Work-from-Home Experiment
I am currently soft-quarantined by my employer in Hong Kong because I recently visited Mainland China, and will be working from home for 14 days, along with many others.<p>It's not going that well: from my subjective point of view, people seem to treat it as an extra vacation. They are often not online and will only complete a few small tasks per day, because there is no threat from the boss who sees that you are browsing facebook instead of working.<p>Even government employees are at home. Many people didn't get their tax bill so they don't need to pay tax for now. Sweet!<p>That experiment makes me think that perhaps work from home is optimal mostly for a small pool of highly motivated and talented individuals, such as the average person on HN who actually does feel more productive working from home. Outside of HN, work ethic could be different.