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WFH is becoming a benefit again

60 points by sharemywin

by clintmcmahon

2 subcomments

Been working remotely for a long time now and was beginning to feel that loneliness. So, I started going to a co-working space to be around people again. Two/three days a week I'm in the "office" with my new "coworkers". It's been great to get to socialize and talk to other tech folks who are working on interesting and different things.
But I also love that freedom of staying home whenever I want to. IMO, more offices should operate more like this.

by game_the0ry

3 subcomments

I don't know about you guys, but RTTO was the biggest signal to me that corp america is lost and beyond recovery.
The benefits are so obvious, yet here we are.

by tmaly

2 subcomments

The high performers are usually the first to leave under tighter RTO conditions
https://www.business.pitt.edu/return-to-office-mandates-dont...

by _fat_santa

4 subcomments

I've been working fully remote for like 5 years at this point and I have to say I do get an itch to go into the office.
My pipe dream for the future of work is it's remote by default with in-office being a decision that's made at a team level. Ideally there would be no hard requirement to come to the office X days per week, it would be a team coming together and saying "hey, how about we all go into the office on Tuesday to collaborate on this thing" (this assumes buy in from the entire team).

by jaffee

0 subcomment

I was a big WFH proponent, but I found the thing that I hated the most was the commute. Actually being in the office is pretty nice (assuming you work w/ nice people, have good culture, good coffee, nice desk setups, etc).
I've made the switch to biking to work about half the time and it's freaking amazing. I turn 20-30 mins of absolute dead time where I'm spending money, polluting, and using up infrastructure into 50 minutes of getting healthier and having a blast. It's a great trade, especially if you were going to work out anyway... which you should, of course.
I'm effectively spending 25 extra minutes of my day to get a 50 minute workout and save some money, and not pollute, and not contribute to traffic problems, parking congestion, etc. etc.
It's not necessarily easy to make this happen, cycling safely is a whole other can of worms, you kind of need a shower at the office (or take it easier on an ebike), but the benefits are massive if you can do it.

by hnthrow0287345

0 subcomment

RTO would be much more popular if people were actually coming back to an individual office instead of the cubicle farm
Businesses and commercial real estate did this to themselves. I especially hope commercial real estate enters a death spiral and we stop building offices unless they are absolutely needed and free up some of the land for residential use (and not converting the buildings).

by mobilene

0 subcomment

I miss the energy of being in the office, but I do not miss the commuting. If I could commute in 15 minutes or so each way I'd strongly consider an in-office role. OTOH, the ease of the home office is very nice.

by dakiol

0 subcomment

It's not just about gas pricing, it's also about housing. E.g., why live in Paris, Madrid, Barcelona, Milan, if you can live in a cheaper (and way less populated) city? Going back to the office, even if it's 2 days/week completely defets decentralization of housing in most of Europe.

by pickle-wizard

1 subcomments

I was discussing this with a friend last night. If fuel prices get high enough I can see it happening.

by OptionOfT

0 subcomment

In Texas where BCBS is based, the city asked them to re-instate in-office policies, as all those people drive a large amount of tax income in the city.

by fortranfiend

0 subcomment

I'm hybrid, but most weeks get called to site due to the nature of my job. Supposed to be 50/50 but often it's full in office. Air gapped networks that look like museum pieces are fun...

by monkeydust

0 subcomment

Keynes still has under 4 years to be proven right!
https://www.economicsnetwork.ac.uk/archive/keynes_persuasion...

by BirAdam

1 subcomments

I've never understood having an office when it isn't absolutely required. Why spend money on something you do not actually need?
If people can't make remote collaboration work, perhaps they should study how gaming groups achieve this.

by blakblakarak

0 subcomment

At least where I live (France but not Paris) all the decently paid jobs in my field all seem to be fully remote. I’d love to go back to partial RTTO but it’s simply not financially viable given the paycut and commute costs.

by zer00eyz

0 subcomment

I have been a consultant for well over a decade now: it's rare that I ever end up meeting clients in person. I have also seen just about every approach to "work from home".
Without an office, entire layers of communication get stripped out. The "ownership" of all those channels by your company only compounds the problem. You're not going to bitch about your boss, your PM, your project in the same way in slack as you might over lunch, with your co workers. Communication becomes burdened with layers of "nice". It is much easier to be brusk and professional in a request to someone you just spent the last hour eating with while you had a conversation about family, life, and what you did on the weekend.
Meanwhile there are entire layers of informal communication that can go on when teams intermingle. The cross pollination between accounting, customer service, design that can happen when you're in the same location simply wont occur when every one is on their own island.
I agree that ONE can be far more productive when stripping away the commute, and having the privacy that comes from NOT being in a crappy open floor plan. But it's a sub optimization problem: optimized parts don't always result in a better over all organism (organization).
Can it work: it sure can. Might it be optimal for you, maybe. But that doesn't mean it is applicable in every case.

by netrap

0 subcomment

Do companies give a crap about employees spending money on gas? I mean maybe for those that are traveling salesmen or something... but otherwise I don't see how it would bring it back...

by kogasa240p

0 subcomment

I think we'll start to see the effects once oil reserves get low and gas prices truly skyrocket.

by theandrewbailey

4 subcomments

Those pushing return to office have drank so much of the Kool-Aid that compliance with policy is worth any cost. You must keep collaborating and allegedly being productive in person.

by KellyCriterion

2 subcomments

Honestly:
This WFH shit was the worst for me - Ive lost more than 20kg due to eating not enough at home, I like to go to the office: I can go out and have several lunch options and I dont have to cook for one person and then clean up 20 Min.
:-)

by PeterWhittaker

0 subcomment

This comment <s>, maybe?
I guess, then, that one of the big benefits of my daily is that we don't swing wildly between WFH and RTO with whatever trend/fashion/panic/wind/fart is in the zeitgeist/ether/air/media?
With the exceptions of the occasional client meeting that must be onsite, or the occasional conference, and our monthly team lunches, I've been 100% WFH since mid-2020, not pandemic related (I was mostly WFH for since sometime in 2019 (waves vaguely), and it was changing from consultant to senior wage slave that sealed the deal).
Just like the rest of my team. OK, sure, we're small, and OK, sure, perhaps we use the available communication channels more effectively than others seem to, and OK, sure, while some of us are friends, I don't think any of us make the category error of assuming that coworkers are supposed to double as our social life, but seriously, if people are effective working from home, and we are, then let them.
The world started WFH, we changed nothing. The world started RTO, we changed nothing. The world started complaining about gas prices, well, those of us who own trucks and/or off-road did too, but we changed nothing about how we work.
Triple the price of 1Gbps fibre to the home and we might get a bit more upset. </s>