[troughway]

>It's unfortunate but it's true: you are going to naturally think more about and have better feelings about the coworkers you see every day in person.

The people who are overjoyed at the prospect of WFH, thinking they are in the right, are a loud minority. Most people, being well-adjusted social creatures, would feel very alienated if they are not in close physical proximity with the people they work with and depend on for their livelihood.

There has been a massive uptick of WFH articles and how it will be the new norm in the future. I think Dang called it a "cliche". The tabloids are writing cheques basic human needs cannot cash.

This might be flippant to say but I wouldn't be surprised if people who espouse remote work/WFH have a very real lack of leadership skills, because you're cutting your own ability to influence those around and underneath you when you cannot look them in the eyes properly.

This won't sit well with HNers, and I get it, since one of the catch phrases around here is that "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." Sometimes, its not others who have a hard time understanding - its us.

The remote work group is very niche. People cannot wait to get the hell out of their houses, get back to what they want to do, and work with their colleagues.

>the only exceptions I know are quite far on the autism spectrum.

Too right mate.

[learc83]

Perhaps we need to rethink work life balance if we need work to fulfill our social needs.

During the lockdown, I couldn't wait to get the hell out of my house, but it was because I wanted go hiking, out to eat, to a ballgame, or just to visit friends and family.

[troughway]

I agree, but eating, sleeping, working, these kinds of things don't happen every other sunday. It's every single day. Any "work life balance" you bring to this, assuming you're in the 40+ hour/week rat race, will have to revolve around those three things, and not the other way around.

The mistake people make is thinking they can make their work life revolve around their life life. As George Carlin quipped "The reason they call it the American Dream is because you have to be asleep to believe it."

So you're there, working remotely by yourself, 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. It takes a special kind of left-field to equate this to being in an environment where you're surrounded by people of "your tribe", as the OP put it.

[learc83]

>8 hours a day, 5 days a week

That's the thing, I'm not. Almost no one who is doing knowledge work is getting 8 hours a day of work done. Instead of driving to the office to get 4-5 hours of work in and goof off the rest of the time with a forced group of people, I get 4-5 hours of work done at home and goof off with whomever I choose.

I work a few hours in the morning. Leave in the middle of the day to walk the dog to the park, have a long lunch with my fiancee, or run errands. Come home do a few more hours of work. Or I work early and take the afternoon off to go hiking etc...

>by people of "your tribe", as the OP put it.

I don't won't my workmates to be the people of my tribe. I work to live, I don't live to work. Our economic system isn't set up to allow everyone to do this, but most of us on HN could if we wanted to.

I've done this for about 5 years now btw. I don't make quite as much as I could if I worked for a FAANG, but I live in a low cost of living area in a medium sized city near plenty of mountains. I highly recommend it over the rat race.

[troughway]

I agree with you again, and yet your statements are bringing up even more uncomfortable questions.

Ever since the "lockdown" started, a lot of people have found they have ample time, and so the thing that has been done en masse is to double down on work. This is mentally and physically (sitting on your ass the whole day) draining, and will lead to a huge burn out in a relatively short amount of time.

Your work schedule is atypical, and in most work environments would lead to eyebrows being raised from management down to your peers.

There is an unwritten rule that you are allowed to work some N number of hours every day that is less than the number of hours you're paid for. But you are there, within the ear shot of most people who depend on you, and if you step out for something they know you will be back relatively quickly in case the world around them starts to burn down.

With this kind of a "I set my own schedule" approach, people would have a hard time trusting you and depending on you. And if you think it's a good career move to let them know that hey I'll be taking a long lunch (every day), well, I've already addressed that.

As MattGaiser put it, it's as if he's a microservice outputting work. That's pretty much what remote contractors are. Nobody _really_ gives a shit about them. It's a hard truth to take in.

I get that there's a huge swath of people who mindlessly browse facebook or twitter or reddit or their favorite ethnic news site at the office, completely not caring about the work because they're mentally drained and it's not 5 o'clock yet, but they are there all the same.

>I've done this for about 5 years now btw. I don't make quite as much as I could if I worked for a FAANG, but I live in a low cost of living area in a medium sized city near plenty of mountains. I highly recommend it over the rat race.

Same, although don't think that it's somehow normal or that because everyone is forcibly remote-working, that it will become the new normal.

[learc83]

>Your work schedule is atypical, and in most work environments would lead to eyebrows being raised from management down to your peers.

At every company I've worked for no one has ever cared. At all. I'm around to answer questions and attend meetings.

>in case the world around them starts to burn down.

I could be back home in 30 minutes if things really got that bad. But since I'm the principal engineer, it's really my job to make sure things don't ever get that bad, and it's pretty rare that they do. I also make sure that I'm not irreplaceable, so that if things go wrong I'm not the only one who can fix them.

>With this kind of a "I set my own schedule" approach, people would have a hard time trusting you and depending on you

Why? I can answer questions from my phone. What's the practical difference between our CEO regularly being out of communication because he's in a meeting that can't be interrupted and me being a 20 minute drive from my computer?

>And if you think it's a good career move to let them know that hey I'll be taking a long lunch (every day), well, I've already addressed that.

Again I'm not optimizing my life for work. It may not be the absolute optimum career strategy but after 5 years it feels like the optimum life strategy. I make plenty of money--several multiples of the median income. Could I be making another $50k a year if I worked 2x as much in an office? Probably, but that's not my goal.

>As MattGaiser put it, it's as if he's a microservice outputting work. That's pretty much what remote contractors are. Nobody _really_ gives a shit about them. It's a hard truth to take in.

I'm not a remote contractor, I manage the technology for the entire company, mentor developers, develop and design projects on my own, meet with leadership about product direction etc... If MattGaiser were working at my company, he'd be talking to me regularly. It sounds like he just has a shitty boss.

But since you bring up remote contracting, I did that for a while and I had even more freedom. I never worked for fewer than 3 companies at a time, so I never had one boss that was absolutely critical that I keep happy. It was great.

[troughway]

Good answer.

1) Is this an off-shore set up where you don't really have an in-house team so you're the principal engineer of a development team that is located another country?

2) What was your setup like at first, ie. before the last 5 years or however long you've been doing this for?

The reason why I ask is because Principal-esque positions often come with perks not available to prole Developers.

>What's the practical difference between our CEO regularly being out of communication because he's in a meeting that can't be interrupted and me being a 20 minute drive from my computer?

Not to sound snide, but the practical difference is - you're not the CEO.

>I'm not a remote contractor, I manage the technology for the entire company, mentor developers, develop and design projects on my own, meet with leadership about product direction etc... If MattGaiser were working at my company, he'd be talking to me regularly. It sounds like he just has a shitty boss.

It would not surprise me that some of these habits, fe. mentoring devs, meeting with leadership, etc, are best cultivated in a physical space before being done online. That's just me though.

Nothing to do with shitty bosses, but not everyone is exactly born with the qualities to check up on people regularly, ready to go out of the gate. Especially in a professional environment. A lot of people are very quiet, reserved, and are waiting to be spoken to, and it takes effort and practice to be a bit more vocal and proactive.

I'd honestly ascribe it to being the exception rather than the norm.

[watwut]

> Most people, being well-adjusted social creatures, would feel very alienated if they are not in close physical proximity with the people they work with and depend on for their livelihood.

I would expect well adjusted people to have family and friends out of work and alto to work well with people who are not in close social proximity. The customers or other team are often in another country or at least city. I would not expect well adjusted people to be "very alienated" in work setup that is not exactly just right amount of social for themselves, I would expect them to be adjustable to both work at distance and in person.

Moreover, if someones ability to convince people stands on him being flippant and implying that those who disagree are inferior, it is really preferable to deal with them on distance.

Well adjusted people dont rely on implied insults to make the point.

--------------------------

Well adjusted people also have responsibilities and duties out of work or hobbies. They need to help to aging parents or their children or tend to garden. Well adjusted people around me like the saved time from traveling to work and back, like more time with the family or fixed stuff in houses they had no time to fix before.

Preference for work from home does not mean asocial, it may just mean opposite - the work is not that persons sole social/emotional outlet.

[matwood]

Wow, where to start. To summarize you said I'm poorly socially adjusted and a bad leader. Solid conversation starter ;)

I agree that humans are social, but I'm not sure why you think we all need to get our primary social interactions at work. Even then, there is work social interaction literally all day long on Slack and other tools.

I think it is healthier for people to have their primary social interactions not tied to work. If a persons primary social ties are all work related it makes it harder if they are laid off or move to a better opportunity. I also find that looser work social interactions make it much easier to keep things completely professional. I shouldn't have to like to Joe in order to work with Joe and accomplish our goal.

I can't wait to get out of my house either, but it's certainly not to head back to an office after many years of being remote. I miss seeing friends, going to dinner with my wife, and rolling in Jiu-Jitsu.

As far as leadership goes, I don't subscribe to the dominate method of leading. If I have to stare someone down to get them to do something we have already gone off the rails somewhere along the way.

[havelhovel]

> Most people, being well-adjusted social creatures, would feel very alienated if they are not in close physical proximity with the people they work with

Most people, being well-adjusted creatures, do not rely on their workplace for their social needs, nor burden their coworkers with that expectation.

See, it's easy to say whatever you want when it's based on nothing.

[silveroriole]

As one of those who don’t have the leadership skills, as you put it: we couldn’t wait to get as far away as possible from those of you who feel some need to be influencing, leading, and unnecessarily bothering us because you want to “look us in the eyes”! Remote work is indeed going great for us.