[nine_k]

So, they just will become coworking spaces, with additional amenities (4K monitors, standing desks, advanced chairs) available at extra pay. Maybe you could even book them for a couple weeks, or months, to be yours.

Then imagine that your employer would offer you to compensate the coworking space's cost. And maybe the corporate Slack channel would start coordinating colleagues to go to the same cafe / coworking space to improve communication. Etc.

And all this stuff would do nothing to limit one's exposure to viruses and other pathogens; if anything, it would make the situation worse, by mixing people even more.

Work from home (or its equivalent, like a long-term remote resort in a cheaper country) makes sense.

Work from a well-situated, well-stoked office makes sense.

Work form "anywhere" makes way, way less sense; one must be hard-pressed by circumstances to choose it.

[badestrand]

> Work form "anywhere" makes way, way less sense; one must be hard-pressed by circumstances to choose it.

I like your analytical approach and you are right: why go to a coworking space when there's not much difference to a real office anyway?

I think the answer for me lies in the flexibility: In a coworking space I can come in or leave at whatever time I want. When I have an unproductive day I can go home at noon and when I feel like working on Saturday I will do so. Offices just have this peer pressure for Mo-Fr 9-6 that you can't evade and coworkers or your manager will raise their brows if you deviate from it. Even in coworking spaces I actually work a very regular schedule, but I just dislike not having the possibility to break out of it.

[nine_k]

From where I sit, it looks slightly differently.

Nobody cares where you physically are, as long as you do your work and are available for communication. But people do care very much whether you're available for questions / quick to react if something happens, and can produce something by an agreed-upon date.

That is, stopping my work at noon because I can't persuade myself to work would be frowned upon, whether I were in the office or WFH, unless I'd say that I'm not feeling well. (Which is probably a good way to frame it.)

Likely I'm just quite privileged by now; this is the norm around me now, and was the norm for maybe 10 years, but definitely won't be the norm 20 years ago, when I was not a senior enough engineer yet.