Comment by mrweasel

I went remote a few years before Covid and I felt a bit isolated, but then I realized I had too much of my social life tied up in my job. Having hobbies and interests outside of work is so much better for my mental health and I wouldn’t swap it for anything, especially a 40 min commute.

I also wouldn’t force anyone to go back to office so I could see the humm of their work. If you need that there’s co working spaces for that reason, or places which have in office options.

Large companies mandating everyone work in office is purely a flex for control and probably to save their property investments.

Sheesh, why should it be unpopular. It's called having a preference/choice. Companies telling everyone to be in the office 5 days a week 9-5 (or whatever) is removing that choice. Some like you may not mind, but for others it might be hell...

The whole "us vs them" being manufactured in "remote vs onsite" is really suspicious to me. I have never actually heard from a single person who wanted to force remote people in, or a remote person who wanted to force onsite people out of the office. It feels like the owner class is trying to build a fox-and-the-grapes narratives around the people they've forcibly RTO'd to try to get some kind of grassroots-shaped support for their forced RTO policies.

It's all about choice. I have 3 young kids. The youngest will be in school next year. At that point, I may find myself actually going to a coworking space from time to time (and if my company had an office near me, I'd go into that sometimes). I certainly don't mind the amenities and the company of my coworkers (all 2 of them that are actually physically located within a 4-hour-drive radius of me).

But for right now, being able to be full-time remote with a fully flexibly work schedule is ridiculously important and useful to me. My wife has a dentist appointment? I can sit here in the basement and pull up the kid's camera while he naps and she can just go. I can eat lunch with my kid. I can do morning drop-off when my wife needs a break from the morning kid-prep grind. It's absolutely vital and our lives would've been a mess the last 4 years without it.

Plus, besides the work-lifestyle thing, there's a question of equality of opportunity. As you can probably guess based on my above remarks, I live in BFE (five generations of my family live here, so I can't leave) and there's literally nothing that San Francisco-type SWE's would recognize as a "tech job" until you get up to Lake Michigan. My options, were I to work locally, would be to work in a place that specializes in government/enterprise contracting and "staff augmentation". If your nose is wrinkling and your brow furrowing upon reading that phrase, yes that's the correct facial expression to be making. And yes it pays what you'd expect.

But thanks to remote work, I'm working for a startup and actually getting to program an actual software product and engage with its product development and all that.

> I know this might be an "unpopular opinion,"

It should not be. I work from home 100% now, but feeling alone is a very real issue for many of us. I have friends I talk to during the day via IRC or one the phone, regular chats and video calls with colleagues and managers, family is right around the corner and I try to get out every day and talk to people.

For some the isolation is wonderful. For others, like me, it's amazing for doing focused work, but I also need people in my life. For some problem arises when their sole social circle is people they work with. If you struggle to talk to people you don't know then coworkers quickly be an "outlet" for socializing.

> get to see people > move around more > feels different from being at work

I'm not sure why one couldn't do this working remotely? Maybe these people can only socialise through work? Being passive about getting out of the house? Unable to create boundaries between work and personal life?

Working "remote" doesn't mean one has to stay at home all the time. We all have laptops and can go any where to work.

I think its having the option and being able to choose. I like going into the office. I talk to people I wouldn't normally reach out to. But I also like being able to be home for deliveries and I know my friends with kids would struggle without it.

I also like the commute. I get in early to miss the rush. I end up walking more. I have the ability to switch from work to home on the way back. After work drinks also help.

That's all based on one 30 minute train that is extremely reliable, air conditioned, and getting a seat. I couldn't do it if I had to drive or take 3+ trains.

One does not exclude the other.

I work for a remote-only company but use a workspace almost every day. I get to chose my own “office” and the people in it, I also pick the commute I want, this one is just 5 minutes away.

I have a 100% remote job. But my team have decided to go at least every tuesday to the office. We are not obligued, but almost everyone comes to the office once a week just to socialize and talk about our projects and sometimes even to take a beer or two after work.

To me, feels super refreshing to talk to people when Im at the office, and to be fair Im much much less productive in the office. But makes me appreciate when Im at home and when I dont need to be in the car for 1 to arrive my home, take everything and go to the gym.

It feels like, going from time to time to the office when almost everyone is there, gives to the remote working more sense and value. And viceversa.

I think you have touch on an interesting point here... When working remotely you really need to put an effort into keeping a healthy social life balance, otherwise you end up feeling exactly as you describe. It's easy for days to go on with no "change of landscape", and that can send anyone straight to depression.

> I know this might be an "unpopular opinion,"

That's the thing, though; it's important to remember that it very much _is_ an opinion/preference. For some people, working from the office is better, for others, it's working from home, and for others it's a combination of both. There are positives and negatives to each, for both the employee and the employer.

That being said, a company limiting itself to _only_ people willing to work in the office is doing just that; limiting itself. I expect the reverse is also true; but the pool of workers to choose from for "everyone remote" is a _LOT_ bigger than the pool of workers for "everyone in the office".

@kwanbix: do you have kids? I feel that's one of the primary deciding factors for working from home. People without kids are much more flexible with their time, whereas people with (small) kids are severely more limited. Freeing up commute time and being able to do small chores like starting the washing machine creates significant happiness, which totally offsets the downsides of not seeing your co-workers (that) often.

Before kids I would also become depressed if I worked remotely full time. But today my "alone time" is already pretty much gone outside work hours so I don't mind being by myself during the day.

It's not a matter of popularity. Some people need the interaction. Others like me hate it.

This is why making it flexible is so great. You could be in the office with other people who enjoy it, while people like me don't have to.

Even before the pandemic I would often hang at the office until 10pm because I could only get work done after the others left. I would get so stressed from all the distractions around me.

90 min commute time is insane to me. That is a massive amount of time to give to your company for free. If companies want people to come back to the office, they should pay for commute time.

Before the pandemic it used to be commonly believed that even remote work shouldn't be done at home and you used to see coffee shops filled with people on laptops (and frustrating people who just wanted a table to drink their coffee and eat a pastry). Obviously during the pandemic we got used to working from home but as you say a big downside is that it removes all distinction between your work and home environment.

It's legit. Fully Remote can be seriously isolating/depressing.

Hybrid is probably the ideal; but even so I live 15m from the office and when I go in it's empty 90% of the time anyway. I don't know if I'd take a 45m commute until the kids can get themselves home from school (daily pickup/dropoff) - but I do miss 2h beer lunches on a Tuesday after closing a ticket to blow off stress.

I also enjoy the office when i'm there.

My problem is that i really hate flex desks and now you don't get your own office anymore.

But my problem is more with my home: I'm now buying a farm and i don't think it will feel the same way as it does at my flat. Its surprisingly hard to 'get out' to not feel annoyed by my flat. But i don't have a good outdoor view only a small window and i do not have a extra office space.

Same. I can't stand working in my home office at this stage. Somethings are easier when you don't have the distraction of a busy office, but many things are a lot easier / more efficient. On-boarding new staff is so much better in person.

Similarly, in the old days when I had jobs where I was expected to wear a shirt and dress reasonably smart to the office, I enjoyed getting changed into other clothes afterwards. It marked a real change between work and personal time. That gets very blurred with working from home.

It really depends on your commute. For me I take a 20 minute subway ride but could also choose an hour walk or a 30 minute bike ride. I definitely prefer my situation to working from home 5 days a week. But if I were driving an hour in traffic I'm sure I'd prefer to be remote.

if you want to see people you can work in a coworking space near where you live without the commute. I dont understand people who want to commute more than one hour a day if they have the choice not to. And even more so if you consider the environmental impact and all the stress that goes with it.

I'm lucky in that my company closed the office far from me, and consolidated on an office about 15 minutes' drive / 25 minutes' bike ride from my house.

Now, when I weigh 30 minutes of commute versus being cooped up in the same room I was in for the whole pandemic and almost lost my mind, it's easy: office whenever I can.

That said, I'd be very loathe to _have_ to come in to the office. There are whole weeks where it just doesn't work out logistically, and it's nice to be able to work from home.

There is a nice feeling that can come from having a new job, but if I suddenly had to be on the road 7-8 hours a week, I would find that very stressful.

I also enjoy a certain level of in-office face to face interaction but 90 minutes by car per day would be too much for me.

I think this is completely fine. Some people like working remotely, other people don't. I fully expect to see a gradual trend of companies going on way or the other over time, because hybrid really is the worst of both worlds with nobody really being happy.

At first I enjoyed going into the office a day or two a week...but nobody else goes in, and it's even weirder being in a giant office building with just a couple people on each floor than it is staying at home.

It's probably because you don't have much to do outside of work and that is where you get your only human interaction. People who have families and friends typically do better in a remote environment.

This is nice!

When everyone can choose what work best for them! We are not the same - and face to face meetings have their huge benefits from time to time anyway.

Except for those poor souls working for Amazon.

The point is having a choice

I also get depressed being in my home all day every day which is why I go to coworking spaces, cafes and parks. There is endless variation that still doesn’t have to chained to a certain commute.

I experience that as well. But the way I see to combat it is that working from home gives me more energy to go out on my own terms like taking classes, volunteering, etc.

I understand the need for human contact and to get out of the house. But you can achieve that working "from home", too, albeit with some consideration for confidentiality requirements[1]. Usually the place you must work from isn't defined. I work "from home", but once a week I work in the same room as a bunch of locals who also work from home.

A few advantages: 1) you have a wider pool of people to choose to co-work with, since they can have other employers, too; 2) you can choose who you want to co-work with; 3) you get to (mostly) choose which and how many hours you wish to co-work; 4) no stress about being late due to a commute or childcare commitments, since co-working hours are optional.

[1] I deliberately arrange to work on things that aren't confidential on co-working days.

So in office is better for you. What irks so many of us is that companies point to people like you and mandate EVERYONE be like that, because the C suite, whose entire lives and career have been built around having people around them assumes or decries that everyone either is, or should be, like them.

Or worse, the middle management is given authority to give these mandates, and are in their highest level of incompetence and use it as a "power move".

huh. it's almost like there isn't a one size fits all solution and people should have options that fit their lifestyle.

you're not alone in this. I thought i would love WFH but it turns out I need some social interaction even though i dread it.

Imagine working all your life, and your crowning achievement being:

- buying a house you never see the inside of while the sun is up

- buying a car whose purpose is making the two hours every day you spend commuting a bit less miserable

human nature in action, you have a nice thing for so long, you'd get bored of it

do you have family?

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> option

Popular

> Amazon tells

Sucks

> Someone quitting over an RTO mandate is cheaper than a layoff.

That might be a thing, but I can only speak from personal experience, and I'm an area of the world where there's still a pretty big shortage of IT workers, so it doesn't make sense to drive them away.

Because they measure the wrong things or is completely driven by sentiment.

Sort of similar, a friend of mine was fired. Ostensibly for not bringing in enough revenue/profit in a consulting business. Very few of his hours where billable, so he looked unprofitable. The issue: He was working on internal tooling, building systems that everyone else rely on to do their jobs effectively. His value was hidden in the work of others, but that's not measured.

When looking a "work from home", you rarely see companies measure job satisfaction, stress levels or even do proper exit interviews. The sort of things you need to keep on top of the keep people long term. Many customers won't report back to your boss that because you sat a your desk at home you where able to help them after your normal working hours, saving time the next day. In consulting tracking billable hours is normal, but if you don't track when and where those hours are worked, you're not going to see that some work better at the office, while others have a skyrocketing productivity boost at home.

Other times you have bosses that wants "butts in seat" because they don't trust their employees. Hell, we had a sister company where the employees sat in a fucking horseshoe configuration at the office, on the "inside" of the horseshoe, so the owner could sit at the open end at check that people where working at all times. Do you think that fucker is going to let people work from home?

I think the most compelling explanation is that control over workers is more important than productivity to the leadership of many of these companies

Perhaps especially in the case of larger companies, sunk costs on office space may be a factor

>I can't seem to find any reasonable explanation as to why they forget it.

The companies already know all about the positive time savings from not sitting in traffic commuting. But they believe that benefit is negated by employees getting less work done at home. My previous comment about employees "saving time" by working from home isn't seen that way by companies mandating RTO : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34929902

I think there's a few factors at play:

1) Ego/Power trip reasons: It just makes you feel like the big man to be physically lording over your minions and they miss it.

2) Class Warfare: Workers need to be kept miserable enough so they turn to mindless consumption and don't start asking any inconvenient questions.

3) Financial Conflicts of Interest: Higher Management is likely to have some real estate investments, maybe even in commercial real estate. They might be worried more about that part of their portfolio than about the company stock part.

Not the parent poster, but companies want people who will deal and cater to their needs, not people who will whine and complain about (even very real) issues.

And employees will typically want companies that will cater to their every whim and pay them very well to be catered too.

Where the two meet is the labor market.

Conditions are changing, and ‘hard’ force is being applied again.

The people who care for your child should themselves tell their employer, in ire, that the earliest they can be at the office is 10, and that they have to leave by 3 at the absolute latest, since they have train commutes themselves.