[muzani]

Let's address the elephant in the room: Working from home is a lot less efficient than an ideal office. It's harder to debug things or pair program when needed, it's harder to grab someone's attention, it's easier to miscommunicate, and communication is a lot slower. You also don't get the same camaraderie as you would face to face, but the upside is that you also don't get distracted by attractive coworkers.

However, few offices are ideal. Traffic and commuting is one of the worst little things of daily life. It's dangerous. It ruins the environment. Parking sucks.

Good offices are wide open spaces, with good air, good climate, and cheerful environments. Many offices are bad environments and overcrowded.

There's a balance that COVID has tilted. Some will learn that they don't need offices anymore, especially when people have decked out their home offices. It's likely we'll see employers double down on home offices where they can. Some, like Airbnb or Apple might find that morale is better in their offices. Some smaller companies might set up theirs out of major cities, where lifestyle is cheaper and less crowded.

[labcomputer]

> Traffic and commuting is one of the worst little things of daily life. It's dangerous. It ruins the environment. Parking sucks.

I agree, but commuting has significant mental-health benefits. It provides a clear mental separation between "work" and "home".

I and several of my coworkers have noticed that we never feel "off work" anymore. Work just bleeds into everything because there isn't that 30 minute period (enforced by the need to arrive home in time to make and eat dinner) to clear your head at the end of the day and mentally switch contexts.

[b_t_s]

> commuting has significant mental-health benefits.

My experience has been the exact opposite. I've been fortunate to have very reasonable commutes in all my jobs, but WFH is much better than my 25-30 minute commutes. I no longer get the "it's 5:50PM but can you take a quick look at this because you're the only one still here" issues that had me commuting home at 7 or 8 pm every few weeks. And then there's the 20 hours a week of time I get to play with my kid, do chores, or relax. Sure I still get the occasional slack message mid evening, but that was happening before WFH as well. There are downsides around ease of communication and sense of camaraderie, but work life balance/separation has been pretty much 100% win.

[green-bottle]

I have noticed a tendency among people to rationalise things that suck in life to actually be good for you. Phrases such as "It builds character" or "It is necessary for the society/people/..." are not too uncommon.

It seems to be a universal characteristic of people to co-opt largely harmful activities such as smoking for useful things such as social interaction or relaxation.

[freeone3000]

You can just... Make one. You can just make the division. You can turn off the work computer and walk away at five.

[labcomputer]

Not the same thing. You're still in the same physical space.

Again, that time on the bike/train/car provides head space to mentally context switch away from work time and into home time.

Plus, it's very easy to do "just one more" commit while you're boiling pasta for dinner.

[b_t_s]

This is not a need that all of of us have. Nor is a commute an effective way for all of us to disconnect from work. It very much depends on both the person and workplace in question. Where it apparently is a serious need for you, I'd second some of the other suggestions on finding your own replacement, maybe something along the lines of set an alarm for end of day, turn everything off, and get out of the house and walk/bike.

[ManlyBread]

I don't feel that way at all. Yesterday I dismissed one person who wanted me to "take a quick look" by saying that my work day ends in 10 minutes so I won't be able to help much, then after these 10 minutes I closed down my work laptop and enjoyed the rest of my evening without thinking about work once. The problem exists solely in your head.

[kojeovo]

Have you tried going for a 20 min walk or something like that after work? I have a dog so I find that taking him out after helps with this.

[diag]

That's just what my wife has started doing. It's an easy division when you stop looking at emails after 5.

[steffan]

> commuting has significant mental-health benefits

This seems like a stretch for anyone who has ever dealt with rush-hour traffic in a major city.

[muzani]

That's true, which is why I think there's a middle ground. A total 10-30 minutes daily commuting is nice and better than 0. I saw statistics once that said the average one way is 40 minutes, which is dangerous and tiring.

[Micoloth]

I agree, exacyly. Unfortunately, having such an ideal commute is basically impossible for most people, who are left with the other two options, both of them worse. Alternate between commute and wfh is better but just not as good.

I really feel like an ideal commute is one of the ultimate luxuries, given how much impact it has on daily life. Even better than 20 mins by car is 20 mins by bike/ on foot.

[tolbish]

Is that the mean or median?

[muzani]

Appears to be mean: https://www.getkisi.com/work-life-balance

[kingkongjaffa]

This is a truly, truly terrible take. I work 100% remote and I've never been happier. Our culture is fantastic and we are encouraged to log out at our EOD working hours.

[pc86]

I take direct issue with "good offices are wide open spaces," a statement that is strictly opinion in its most charitable interpretation, and actively goes against scientific research on productivity.

[muzani]

Are you saying that it's scientifically proven that good offices are cramped rooms and cubicles?

[T-A]

A few seconds of googling yield, among other nuggets of wisdom:

January 2019: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/325959

January 2019: https://slate.com/human-interest/2019/01/jobs-workplace-priv...

February 2019: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/327142

November 2019: https://hbr.org/2019/11/the-truth-about-open-offices

August 2020: https://www.businessinsider.com/open-offices-over-due-to-cor...

[muzani]

I don't mean open offices. They're even more crowded than cubicles. I mean the classic ones where you have walls, a door, your own desk, a few feet from your desk to your door, a bunch of bookshelves, a few monitors, a window, and nobody enters your office unless it's important.

[lostdog]

I also thought your original post was advocating for open offices.

Still, I'm more productive in a cramped room with a door that closes than in an open offices, and I'm sure many others are too.

[deeblering4]

“working from home is a lot less efficient than an ideal office” — Goes on to highlight the distractions of the office and all the efficiency/time gains of WFH.

[pc86]

I think the point is that managers/executives view their office as ideal, and therefore (rightly and justifiably) want people to come in. The people actually working in said office see the flaws, understand it's less than ideal, and know they can be more productive from home.

[muzani]

I mean to say that offices are wonderful things when done right, but cities are broken.

A lot of great startups start out in garages, but frankly most of us can't afford a garage, and some even sleep in less space than that. If we could afford homes that have garages, that would likely beat working in some big city skyscraper.

[BjoernKW]

> Working from home is a lot less efficient than an ideal office.

Only if you try to reimplement the traditional office and its processes in a WFH setting. That's an endeavour that's bound to fail.

In remote-first settings communication works differently, especially in that ideally it should happen mostly asynchronously, i.e. as written communication, which has the huge additional benefit of avoiding information silos through readily available documentation and decision records.

[toomuchtodo]

> Working from home is a lot less efficient than an ideal office. It's harder to debug things or pair program when needed, it's harder to grab someone's attention, it's easier to miscommunicate, and communication is a lot slower. You also don't get the same camaraderie as you would face to face, but the upside is that you also don't get distracted by attractive coworkers.

YMMV. Your home can be your ideal office, and is for many of us working remote (myself included). There are technology companies with hundreds of employees with billion dollar+ valuations who are fully remote. There is no proof they would be more efficient if you colocated all of those folks in person.

[edogg]

I’ve been WFH for 10 of the past 15 years.

It is much harder to create a new billion dollar company if everyone is WFH, especially if there is a physical product as opposed to something that only manifests on screens.

It is much harder to on board and mentor new co-workers.

It is much harder to make a transition to the next position in your career, like a promotion or move within the company.

It is much harder to develop and maintain relationships that result in respect and trust for coworkers.

All of the above especially if most people are in the office.

I’ve become a bit like a contractor grinding through a series of similar projects, my career growth has stalled, and my only interactions with my coworkers who used to be friends now always boil down to ‘when will X be done?’

I would avoid WFH for anyone not in the sunset years of their career.

[BjoernKW]

Well, those might be dismissed as anecdotal examples but Automattic, Zapier, Basecamp and GitLab clearly show that remote-first or remote-only companies can be highly successful and efficient businesses with friendly, conducive work environments.

[rapjr9]

I worked from home for 15 years and found it to be much more efficient than going into my office. The slower communication is a great benefit because people are forced to think before replying rather than just reacting. Tutoring students worked much better because they have your thoughts in writing rather than having to quickly takes notes or remember what you said. You now have a timestamped record of activities that you can refer back to. You can record a Zoom conference for those who were not able to attend or to create a video for disseminating new information.

I think that one of the main reasons some people, and some professions (like banking), prefer working in person is because it is less accountable without the written/recorded history.

[goatcode]

Many of the issues stated about the bad points of offices are mostly to do with city-based offices. Companies like Google were smart to move even slightly outside of a packed metro. Parking and the commute are easy for companies that choose less expensive and less horrendous settings than metro centers.

[gauchojs]

My ideal situation would be to share a small office space (or room) in my neighborhood, with 3-5 colleagues that also live around here. I can't really work from cafeteria types of places.

[whereistimbo]

GitLab has always been remote and working well so far.

[croh]

You attend meeting for every 30 min.