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Square Enix Launches Permanent Work-From-Home Program Next Month:
2020 has been a year like no other - with pretty much the entire tech and video game industry required to work from home during the height of the pandemic.
With this in mind, Square Enix - publishing upcoming releases like Balan Wonderworld and the recently revealed NEO: The World Ends With You - has announced it will offer employees and executive officers more flexibility with a "Work-From-Home" program.
The program will start on 1st December and Square Enix expects approximately 80% of its team to be home-based (working an average of at least three days per week from home). Office based roles will depend on the work required (with the employee working an average of at least three days per week from the office).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 27 2020, @07:04PM (2 children)
Next thing you know the AI will be working from home and you'll be on UBI, smoking weed and masturbating. You don't need very many smart people to make video games, you just need a derivative story and a good titty-n-blood engine.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Friday November 27 2020, @07:41PM
Waking up in a futuristic world full of zombie dinosaurs, our heroes discover that their computer game manufacturing programme has broken down. They need to wander around collecting random fish/plants/diamonds/dinosaurs for unclear reasons in an effort to reconstruct the computer game manufacturing programme. Oh and aliens.
(Score: 3, Funny) by krishnoid on Friday November 27 2020, @08:40PM
Dammit! I was hoping the sexbots would at least make it to market before the AI workers. Now you're telling us we have to take care of it ourselves? So much for hands-free.
Well, at least the AI will probably have genetically engineered the weed to the, er, dankest bud (is that the right term?) by then.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by zoward on Friday November 27 2020, @08:08PM (4 children)
My company was very nervous when they had to have us all work from home. With no direct managerial oversight? What if we all play video games all day? Until they realized we were getting all our work done just fine (maybe even better?) without the oversight, and they weren't paying for a seat in an expensive building, heat, eletricity, parking, office supplies, or subsidizing our lunches. Then they sold the building I work in, and told us all to work from home permanently. As for me, I'm now on the hook for that list of goodies ... but I'm saving signifncantly more than that on gasoline, tolls, car wear-and-tear, and taxes. I also get three extra hours back at the end of each work day.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 27 2020, @09:52PM (3 children)
My company went hog wild with remote work. At first it was 'amazing' "we are getting more down now than ever before". Now the reviews are coming in for the year, "Productivity is down on all measurable items and falling". For me personally I have been basically doing 'remote' work for years due to the way our teams were structured (had an office but was usually the only one there). I was regularly left out of anything, always a second thought, and have to spend an inordinate amount of time humble bragging. A couple of years ago I went 'back to the office'. My productivity went up a lot. I could find out things quickly. I was easily noticed. It was easy to tell when I was bugging someone or not instead of just pinging them on some IM tool. Welp back to the 'joy' of remote work.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Friday November 27 2020, @11:48PM (2 children)
In my case, I design microcontroller stuff from concept to functional prototype. "One man job" consultant kind of thing.
Seems ideal for home, doesn't it?
Ok, I have almost any tools I need. But what I do not have is constant contact with my customer. Synergy fail. It's like pulling the sticks apart in a campfire. Fire goes out.
I go on my merry way, but did not build my customer's dream. That's a fail in my book. Even the finest automobile had to be steered to do its job. I get so many cues from the collective experience of others.
I've experienced this...it's not working too good for me. And I feel I have an ideal situation.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 28 2020, @04:06AM
Excellent analogy with the campfire.
So why should someone pay you to do that kind of work, rather than work with a contractor in a country that didn't kill their economy so that 90 year olds perhaps may live another year (and you have mentioned you weren't young yourself)?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 28 2020, @04:52AM
That is what I do not get out of this. Out of my 'programming' toolbox talking to the 'customer' is the *BEST* one I have. I can show people what they are getting very quickly. I can build exactly what they need and show them. With remote it almost always falls flat. Sitting across a table I can see that squint in their eye when something is not right. But they may say 'oh it is ok'. I can zone in on that and go you seem a bit troubled by it what did you not like about it? They will then show me what they need. Remote skype/webex/zoom call? Probably would not see that at all. Sometimes people need a bit of a shove to say what they are really thinking. For some reason in person works best for it. I used to be huge on 'just let me take care of it'. But years of being dragged along to customer sites I learned differently (the hard way). You put something in the place where it is really going to run and things are *wildly* different.
For *me* though, yeah remote is fine. Because that is my personality. But for my customers/employers? Not so much. They will end up with something that works in my work environment but usually not theirs.