I really hope it doesn’t. I miss the office. Workplace environments prevent myself from socially isolating beyond weekends at best — I know I’m not alone in that.
I look forward to the office because I’ll always live 15 minutes away. I’ll either take my bicycle or a motorcycle. (Both of which can be fun - wheelies on either are great!)
The in person meetings were more frequent for me because I could just stop by a persons desk to see how they were doing. I can’t do that online and the culture is much more closed down. Forget about going offsite to get lunch and really hear how things are. No weekly basketball games with various people from other departments to see what’s brewing.
There are plenty of benefits to the office and I would like them to still exist. And they won’t as soon as you go remote because they rely on everyone being in one area. If you go remote, chances of seeing anyone in person will fall off a cliff compared to office life.
I’ve made some of my best friends through work and I plan to continue doing that.
If you live in a small enough place where everyone is 10-15min from the office then you can easily organize the after hour events post covid.
But let’s not force people to spend hundreds of hours in their cars, risking their lives and the lives of strangers just so we can have the convenience to interrupt their deep work in person.
I highly recommend seeking relationships outside of work. Jobs don’t love you (back).
I have friends outside of work. I’m just saying work is also a great way to make friends for certain types of people.
Not everyone lives near the office. That’s the point I’m making. I chose to live near the office (some of my coworkers chose to live further away - it is a choice, they all can afford living near the office like I have). If we start going down remote, my coworkers will move away to other states because the cost of living in the Bay Area is too high for them. Also, many of them prefer to be near old families or friends. So, their likelihood of staying near work is relatively low.
Even during covid, about half the company has moved away from the bay. Many going back to another country or moving to another coast, etc. They’ll only come back if they absolutely have to.
I think saying that living away from the office is a choice is an incredibly privileged worldview.
I live only 40 min away from the office but will rent forever and never own property. Yes that’s a “choice” — a forced one given my preference to avoid an insanely long commute in one of the largest cities in the U.S.
If I could I’d work remotely and buy a house, possibly in a different city and maybe even country.
Permanent wfh would be the real amazing choice that opens so many possibilities.
When most of my coworkers either work for FAANG or have in the past and many have a net wealth into the millions, it’s a choice to live away from the office.
Even then, you have a choice. You can live with roommates or downsize your apartment to live closer to work. That’s just how it works. It’s still a choice. It’s not like there’s 0 available options for software engineers in most any major city in the US when it comes to living near work.
Permanent WFH means you’ll never see your coworkers in person. You will not live anywhere near each other. Again, if you have no interest in seeing the people you work with then fine. But for those of us who like to create bonds with our peers, who want to know everything going on in a company, and want to climb the ladder fast... it’s gonna suck. You won’t get that in a remote company unless it has a truly radical culture.
I miss parts of the office. But I sure as hell don’t miss commuting, staying until the of end of the day because I feel like I need to, and being forced to wear pants.
What might your (social) life look like without work? It's good to diversify opportunities to socialize. Better to avoid putting all eggs in one basket.
I’m with you in regards to missing the office. I posted this before but I wonder how many of the newly WFH are merely in the honeymoon phase of remote work.
The thing with "flexibility" is that it may mean that you can come into the office but a lot of your co-workers won't be there. (Of course that is already the case with people who work on very geographically-distributed teams.)
I think it can be done right. My situation before I went fully remote a few years ago was a pretty flexible policy where you could wfh 2 days a week. I think you could extend this to 3 days a week or maybe even just have a mandatory 2 days at the office.
The effect is you spend most of your time at home but still get to go into the office. Think everyone is in office T W TH or T W F or something. I miss that setup and have since returned to that job and I hope I can go back in this year.
Yea I personally think a lot of the WFH hype is just people wanting to do it because times are stressful and its still new. I have a feeling after the pandemic is over and times seem more "normal", many people will want to return to work because it can provide a decent social setting throughout the day.
> Workplace environments prevent myself from socially isolating beyond weekends at best — I know I’m not alone in that.
Can't you choose to go out and socialise if you want to outside work? (After COVID.)
If we get rid of working from an office, then people who don't want to go out don't have to, and people who want to can still do anyway socially. Doesn't that sound like the best solution? Lets everyone choose what they want nothing forced.
When I commuted to work, I was already in the centre of a huge city with lots of social opportunities after work (with friends who are nearby in other jobs). If I wanted to socialise daily it's likely I'd be doing something akin to a work commute anyway. That's partly why I enjoyed going out to work in the first place.
There will always be jobs with offices. There just may be fewer of them, which is a good thing, because it means there are more jobs that allow for flexibility of location, which benefits those who are disadvantaged in where they happen to choose to live.
Conference room meetings felt less organized than web conferencing.
Saving 80min in daily commute on top of that gives me over 7 free hours per week, over 250h per year, enough to get an extra education.
30% or more of my colleagues commute over 2.5h per day, 12.5h per week, 48+h/month.
To send emails and make phone calls from an office.
Let that sink in.
No way.
Maybe also because I don’t come from a culture where work expands to take 100% of someone’s life. Work is work. Socializing is outside of that.