[pritianka]

I've been on both sides of the spectrum. At first, I couldn't ever imagine working remote. I was an office rat, spent a lot of time at my desk and then socializing with coworkers at happy hours and such. It was a super fun life. When I got the job offer at GitLab, I was super excited about the opportunity and took it in spite of it being remote.

Fast forward to a year later, my perspective has changed. It took me about 3-4 months to adjust but slowly I hit my stride. Today, I can confidently say that I am a lot more productive working all-remote. I don't have to travel or change rooms for meetings, I am fully connected to folks via Slack and Zoom and GitLab issues, and I am working in the comfiest clothes :p. So 8 hours of work in all-remote is equivalent to probably 10 hours in an office.

Socially, I do co-working calls with people, hang out in the slack channels (#dad_jokes and #dog being two favorites), and Zoom as I need to. I never feel left out. I have to say though, I would probably not enjoy being remote when others are in an office because then there is a clear hierarchy of social interactions then.