[Adutude]

In the article it references a Gallup poll and says, "Nearly two-thirds of employees who have been working remotely would like to continue to do so"

So the Majority of people want to continue to work remote, I would put out there that the only people that want to go back into the office are are busy bodies and control freaks. (Lookin' at you Satya)

IMHO Working from home solves the problem of, "Stop the chitty chatty and get back to work", and it partially solves the problem of "Hey man, stop riding me like a rented mule".

So spending less time polluting the planet travelling in shiny metal boxes to go to giant concrete boxes to sit in tiny metal and fabric cubes is a bad thing?

I'm going next level on remote. Got a sail boat and I'm going full water world. I'll say hi to Kevin Costner for ya.

[snarf21]

Quite a presumptuous statement. I'm not a busy body nor a control freak. I would always prefer to work in the office. It is a preference, stop presenting it as right/wrong.

Here is why I prefer an office. It gives me a hard separation between work and home. It forces me to be on a schedule (which I prefer). I have a short 20 minute commute so it is a time to listen to podcasts I otherwise wouldn't make time for. I like the camaraderie of a team, wfh feels lonely to me. I enjoy grabbing lunch with co-workers and then we often play a game before going back to work. These things work for me and enrich my life.

[derefr]

> hard separation between work and home

A lot of people prefer that, but solving that doesn’t require “an office” (i.e. a place far away from at least some people, causing at least some long commutes), but rather just that your job give you a stipend for renting a hot-desk at a work-sharing space that’s near to you. (Basically equivalent to them paying to have an extra room built into your house that you only go into to work, but for urbanites where that’s impractical.)

> camaraderie of a team

I don’t know about you, but my work Slack has about a similar level of camaraderie to any Discord group-chat I share with my friends.

> we often play a game before going back to work

Online games exist!

(Though arranging this is kind of finicky; it requires that everyone already have a particular online-game client installed and signed up. There’s no “pick up and play” kind of group gaming available here.

IMHO there’s a niche to be filled in collaboration software for one that seamlessly supports sharing entertainment — playing games together, watching TV/movies together, etc. — embedded within the workspace view itself.)

> grabbing lunch with co-workers

I mean, you could just keep talking to your coworkers while eating lunch, if you like. Make a #breakroom or #lunch channel.

You could even make it a video call, if you want to induce the same physical pain in people with social anxiety at the idea that people are watching their eating habits. :P

Certainly, none of these things are low-friction at first, or particularly low-friction even in the steady-state today. But they’re things where the friction could be greatly lowered. If tons of people are going to stay remote, that’s going to provide a good market for companies to create new products for.

(I’m betting on VR groupware, myself. Some spiritual descendant to the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croquet_Project, for an age where that actually is something most people might want. Literal “virtual offices”, with an unlimited number of unboundedly-large virtual spaces in which to position whatever shared or private app-window views you like. Especially if consideration is made for it to also gracefully degrade into a less-immersive analogous view — e.g. a 2D infinite-zoom layout of all the open app-windows — for people accessing it on screens.)

[derefr]

> the only people that want to go back into the office are are busy bodies and control freaks

Or, y’know, people whose whole job consists of “chitty chat”, such that remote is making them less efficient at doing what you pay them to do. The type of people that, when given the choice between individual offices and a private group workspace room shared with their team, choose the shared workspace, because their work actually occurs entirely on the shared table while talking to their colleagues, not at their own desks.

Basically, think: people who brainstorm all day; people whose productive output is either ideas or decisions.

Academic researchers are like this—90% of their work is figuring out what to try or how to try it, and this process is accelerated by bouncing ideas off of others; and, in the end, actually attempting something often requires many hands to set up the required apparatus.

Marketers are like this, in pretty much the same way: ideas percolate, reach consensus, and then applying the chosen ideas requires horizontally-scaled grunt-work.

Executives are like this. What is an executive but someone who sits in meetings all day? Managers may interface with people actually doing work, but executives only interface with other executives. They may as well all be co-located, so they can continue to bump into each-other and argue/negotiate in smaller groups “after work”—like a legislative body when it’s in session.

[rchaud]

Counterexample: I have been WFH since March. I live in a small condo and having to turn my also small dinner table into a cluttered office (USB mic cable, laptop power cable, notepad, external mouse) just makes me feel like I am never really not at work. Even when sitting by the TV, the 'work' is but a mere 6 feet away.

Ironically, my productivity has also been getting measurably worse.

I've realized that I need IRL interaction with my co-workers that's outside of scheduled Zoom calls. I like running into them in the break room and making small talk while making a coffee. I am in a large organization, and having that interaction also gets me talking to people who aren't my direct co-workers.

[delfinom]

>I would put out there that the only people that want to go back into the office are are busy bodies and control freaks. (Lookin' at you Satya)

Pretty offensive to those of us that literally can't sustain ourselves mentally in isolated environments. That or we are ADD like rabbits so we either start drugging ourselves heavily to "take part in work from home culture" or well, welp.

[hoot]

With high-speed satellite internet via Starlink on the horizon, the prospect of cruising full-time while maintaining a remote job is becoming more and more realistic. Good luck on your ventures!

[learn_more]

How are you planning to handle Internet access on the boat? Starlink being the ultimate solution is still probably years away for ocean coverage.

[0xffff2]

I've only really scratched the surface of what it would take to move onto a boat full time, but my impression is that the vast majority of boat dwellers have a permanent slip in a harbor where they spend the majority of their time. Given that, depending on location Starlink might be practical sooner. (Although as a land dweller who owns some rural property I'd like to make better use of, I'm getting a little tired of living on Elon time.)