Vivek Nair

You can now create dedicated rooms to listen to the same music together, without distractions. Read more about it.  

Introducing: Lofi Rooms 🎧 | Pesto

Katherine Luo

Pros and cons of working from home from an employee perspective.

For the past year and a half, most of us have become remote workers whether we
wanted to or not, and everyone has had a different experience with it. Here's my
perspective as a new remote employee. 

Personally for me, I actually really enjoy remote work and prefer it over going
into the office everyday, though it was a very difficult transition in the
beginning. Overall, I've found there to be more pros than cons with working from
home and here's why.


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Pros of Remote Work
No Commute
Remember when we used to think a 30 min commute was short? At least it was in
comparison to the 1 - 2 hour commute some of our colleagues had to endure every
day. By the time they would get home, they'd be so exhausted and wouldn't have
much time left in the day to do anything for themselves. That's why it's so
great not having to commute anymore. No commute means people get time back
during the work week to decompress, pursue their passions, and just get more
sleep. I certainly appreciate being able to sleep in an extra 30 minutes.

More Flexibility
There's so much more flexibility with my schedule now. Since I don't need to go
into the office, I can adjust my start and end time as needed as long as I get
my work done. For example, if I know I need to log off earlier I can start my
day earlier and vice versa if I have something to take care of in the morning.
Since our team is distributed across different time zones, we also get to set
our own working hours so long as there's overlap where we can still communicate
and collaborate. This allows people to set their own schedules instead of having
to live according to someone else's timezone.

More Productive
I've found that I'm actually more productive when working from home because I
can take short mental breaks to clear my head when I need to. When I feel like
my brain is fogged up, I can go for a quick 15 minute walk that leaves me
feeling refreshed and ready to work again. Whereas, at the office, there's this
pressure to always be at your desk and taking a break might be perceived as
"being lazy" when it's actually better for your mental health and productivity.

Better Work-Life Balance
One thing I'm super grateful for is better work-life balance. If I need to go
run an errand like getting my car fixed or going to the post office, I can do so
during business hours where these locations are less busy instead of allocating
time on the weekends to get these tasks done. This allows me to actually relax
and enjoy myself on the weekends - which is what they're meant for in the first
place! 

Being Able to Work From Anywhere
I love to travel, and being able to work remotely has given me the opportunity
to be able to travel within the States without having to take PTO. For the past
two months, I've actually been on a solo road trip where I lived in a new place
for a month at a time. This allowed me to go explore new places on the weekends
while still working during the week without having to take vacation time. I've
also been able to reconnect with friends and family that I haven't seen in a
long time because we've always lived in different place. But because I can visit
them and still work (safely of course), I've been able to renew those
relationships.


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Cons of Remote Work
Feeling Alone
When the pandemic first hit, I really struggled with the feeling of loneliness.
At the beginning, the sudden drop in communication and interaction with friends
and co-workers definitely affected my mental health. However, after using Pesto
I don't feel as lonely anymore because it's easier to casually chat with anyone.
You don't have to set up a meeting to be able to call or video chat, and there
are a lot of cool rooms (lofi and trivia) that we can be in together. Plus, now
that more people are vaccinated and things are opening up again, I can get that
social interaction by working at a cafe or getting lunch with a friend or
co-worker.

Difficult Without A Good WFH Setup
I know this is something others also struggled with when they first started
working remote. Not everyone has a good office setup at home and that can affect
your ability to work from home. For me, I lived in a converted living room with
3 strangers in an apartment (because SF prices), so there was often background
noise during my meetings that would really frustrate me. Unfortunately, at the
time there wasn't anywhere else for me to go so I had to invest in some
noise-cancelling earphones, which made the situation better. Luckily, now that
things are opening up, there will be a lot more options for those that were
stuck in a not so great situation to work somewhere else if need be, like at a
coffee shop or cafe. 


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These pros and cons are based on my personal experience. What has your
experience been like with working remotely?

What is Pesto? 
Pesto is a team communication platform that makes remote and hybrid work more
fast, fun, and inclusive. 

Our product is currently completely free - try it out at https://pesto.app/

The Pros & Cons of Being A Remote Worker

Lofi music has been exploding in popularity (and for good reason). It's the
perfect background music for focusing and getting lost in your work.

A couple years ago, I started listening to lofi music on YouTube while I worked.
What surprised me was seeing how many people were listening to the same music.
As I was grinding through a project late into the night, I felt a sense of
comfort and community knowing that other people were around.

That's where I got the initial idea for Lofi Rooms in Pesto. Anyone can hop into
the room and enjoy the same music together. It's a way for coworkers to feel
passively connected while working on their projects. You simply create a room
within Pesto that's public to your team.

How to create a Lofi room in PestoFeatures of the Lofi Rooms
Multiple Channels
You can configure a Lofi Room to play one of 15 different stations.

Pesto Lofi room station optionsChanging a station changes it for everyone in the
room. If you want to listen to a different station, you can create multiple Lofi
Rooms set to different stations. Our own Pesto team has two Lofi Rooms: one for
low BPM 🥶 "chill" music and one for high BPM 🔥 "techno" music.

No Audio or Video Chat in Lofi Rooms
You can't directly talk or video call with each other while in the Lofi Room.
The room type is designed to be an ambient experience. We don't want people to
be disrupted by side conversations or background noise. We're recreating the
atmosphere of working in a coffee shop with friends, where all of you are
working on deep work.

Easily Pause or Change Volume
We provide multiple controls to pause the audio stream, adjust the volume, and
switch stations.

Command Palette

Cmd K allows you to switch to a different Lofi channelMenu Bar

You can pause or adjust the volume using the menu barTask Bar

The floating task bar also allows you to pause or change the volumeGIFS 
YouTube streams are distracting. There's a ton of UI that's unnecessary.

There are a lot of distractions in the YouTube lofi streamsRather than showing
the video stream directly within the Lofi Room, we selected a couple looping
GIFs (sakura and cityscape) that kept the experience minimal and calming. You
can also turn off the looping GIF if you prefer a still image.

Future of Lofi Rooms
This is the first launch of Lofi Rooms so of course we plan to keep iterating on
it! Here are a few of the ideas we have in mind: 

 1. Increased GIF catalog
 2. Controlling which GIF is playing 
 3. Display reactions to songs
 4. Add different music genres and stations such as Soma FM [http://somafm.com/]

What do you think of the Lofi rooms so far? Is there anything you'd like to see? 

What is Pesto?
Pesto is a team communication platform that makes remote and hybrid work more
fast, fun, and inclusive.

Our product is currently completely free - try it out at https://pesto.app/