I don't want to go back, I can get my day job done in < 5 hours. I intend to start a couple of fun side businesses and it's easier to do that with no time (and emotional exhaustion) wasted on commuting and sitting at my desk trying to look busy.
Do your tasks in as little time as it takes leaving more room for leisure, this is the first time I'm feeling the benefits of that 'increased productivity per hour'[1] economists talk about.
This made me laugh. I am totally with you. I burn myself out by stretching 3 hours of work into 9, punctuated by podcasts, reading the news, doing household chores, ... basically whatever I can find that will allow me to avoid what important work I have in front of me.
That always feel so unrealistic to me. Do you guys really feel recharged after a 5 minute break? Thats just enough to visit the toilet and get a drink. It would mean you are focused 7 hours out of 8. Seems very unrealistic to me.
The usual "pomodoro" schedule I see also includes a half-hour break every 4 or so focus sessions. The 5 minute break is more to remind you to stand up and get a few stretches - and also to give your brain the prospect of the break as a "reward" if only you start now.
When I was doing it consistently for a while, a productive day looked like a 30-45 mins of emails + standup, 4 pomodoros, lunch, 4 pomodoros, break, 2-3 pomodoros. However, there always seems to be meetings scattered around, and a more typical day would only get 6-8 pomodoros of focus time.
> I intend to start a couple of for profit side businesses
Not saying this applies to you, but a thing a lot of people are going to find out is how little they actually accomplish with the extra time. It's so much easier (and fun!) to dream about going to the gym, having a garden, and starting a business while stuck in traffic than to actually follow through and do those things.
I don’t know about that.
Start small work up from there.
I started with just a small walk each day, fast forward a few months and I’ve taking up ruck marches and lost all sorts of weight.
I’m exceedingly undisciplined.
I would encourage anyone to take a bit of that free time and take a step in the right direction.
I wanted to go back to the office up until a few months ago, but then I escaped from lockdown countries and have now actually re-established a proper social life.
The interesting effect of this has been that said social life, which in pre-lockdown days involved many people from work, is now 100% happening with friends from other contexts.
This has made my work relatively less relevant in my life than it used to be: It's no longer a part of my identity, it's no longer a driver for socialisation, it's just a thing I do for some hours during the day. A change in environment has also meant that instead of spending my evenings at tech meetups or pubs I'm instead out scuba diving, working out and so on.
Overall I don't feel like returning to what used to be normal and have pointed this out at work. One response I got was "maybe that feeling is why they want you to come back", but the threshold for where that would've worked on me was crossed months ago.
Firstly, I won't be convinced that we've beaten the pandemic and recovered until we get through a major holiday without a surge. If we make it through January after both Thanksgiving & Christmas/New Year's (with all of the travel and open-for-business states) without a 5th wave (or whatever the next surge is by then), I'll finally start relaxing and think about going back to the office on some sort of schedule.
Until then, we've already shown that (for tech workers) we can work from home. There's no point in going back to the office just to sit at every-other-desk, have limited conference room occupancy, and wear a mask all day.
Many people have challenging home situations and the office is better for them - that's fine, go to the office. But companies shouldn't be requiring a return to the office until we can all return "normally" and safely. Even then, personally I don't want to be in the office 5 days a week. I'd prefer 2 days a week for facetime/meetings/socializing, and 3 days being productive & meeting-free at home.
If you're personally vaccinated it kind of doesn't matter if there's another wave amongst the unvaccinated, no? Plus tech workers probably have a 90% Vax rate.
I have cautiously considered at least two more years of dealing with pandemic in all my plans because we can't confidently say anything now. We're still learning how long COVID-19 vaccines protect people which has a direct impact on how long it will take to get rid of it properly.
I may be the malcontent, but I'm tired of being at home. I want to keep the option of being at home, but I miss the community I found at work, I miss the non-work adventures our team had, and frankly, I think the new folks joining our teams are not nearly as integrated into our family as those of that came before the pandemic. I've worked remote for a decade and the option to work remote for 2ish days a week makes life incredible, but beyond that, teams I've been a part of tend to be less cohesive.
Your coworkers are not your family, unless they are literally your family business. Most people don't learn this lesson till the first layoff and they watch those warm and friendly relationships sublimate in an instant.
> Most people don't learn this lesson till the first layoff
You hit the nail on the head. While I definitely feel for all the early-career folks out there who are genuinely missing out on the camaraderie of working together, I urge all of you not to fall into the trap of thinking that your employment relationship is anything more than mercenary.
They will cut you without a moment's hesitation. Buying into the "we're a family" propaganda makes them rich and makes you dependent on them. Use the learnings of the Pandemic to redefine the future of work on your own terms. It's time we all flipped the script. We're the ones producing value, and from now on we're going to do it on OUR terms.
I strongly encourage every one I know to prevent this through continuous learning, skill acquisition and savings. Take it from one who is somewhat dependent. Work toward financial independence not for the goal of 'retiring' (aka doing nothing all day) but the goal of not having to do a job you don't want to do. In my mind, that is what it means to be financially independent.
> Buying into the "we're a family" propaganda makes them rich and makes you dependent on them
I agree that one should not overvalue work relationships, but it doesn't seem like there's a "we're a family" propaganda/conspiracy designed to lure people in. It is just human nature to look for connections, regardless of the work environment's friendliness.
That seems somewhat overly general and pessimistic. Some of us develop strong support relationships with our colleagues on our teams, which results in conversations and activities that happen well outside of work hours or premises, and lasting friendships that remain strong even years after they've parted ways with the company that brought us together.
It's the grown-up version of school as a substitute for parents. In grade school, school holds your hand and ideally teaches you how to be functional in society and in groups. In college, the school holds your hand through learning to be an independent adult with freedoms and responsibilities, but shielding you from real consequences: bad grades? Probation. Drugs or alcohol? Deal with the school, not the cops. The office is just another iteration of that: can't meet people on your own? Just come to the office. Can't find meetups despite infinite facebook groups, subreddits, etc? Come to happy hour.
I understand why people like the office, but it's frustrating to be forced to go into the office just because other people aren't able to have a social life without an office holding their hand through it.
Companies know this, and depend on this effect. It keeps most of their employees "loyal" to the company at an incredibly low cost, since our social instincts are doing most of the work for them.
I think your own experience isn’t always what others is. I’ve seen lots of people make lasting friendships through meeting at work.
My best friend is someone I met at work 6+ years ago. I’ve got plenty of other people I stay in touch with. Not all relationships need to be everlasting too. Sometimes work relationships are fun and the authenticity is still real. It’s just that now you’re both not working together, you can’t have the same level of a relationship.
Just because things don’t progress once you’re outside the workplace doesn’t mean it’s not real. Sometimes people have different priorities.
I think it takes both parties to maintain a connection. I'm part of several Slack groups with friends and acquaintances from old jobs. We aren't as tight as we were while working together, but we aren't radio silent either.
I've had lifelong friends come from every job I've had. I can name many people from my last 3 jobs that I would want to (and will) get a beer with after the pandemic.
But the relationships are largely fake, constructed out of easy chit-chat, and often quite manipulative of the politically clueless and naive. I've had worthwhile relationships at work, people who have deeply influenced me, but it's not the norm and they are not my family.
Remember when your schoolmates were your best friends at the time, then you changed schools and their friendship sublimated? I guess they weren't worthy of being your friends after all.
Where were you when I was 35 and let go from a company I had worked at for 10 years. I was invited to coworker weddings, birthday parties, helped them move, you name it. Soon as I was let go, I never heard from them again. That really hurt for a long time.
Me too. I'm more productive at the office, the daily routine helps me get into "work mode". Home is my place to relax, working at home was a dissonance I never quite resolved. I think many people at my company struggled with this, even managers, because they started working at home late. We ended 2020 with our days being a mishmash of personal and work activities 16/7, it was horrible.
If there was another lockdown, I believe we would manage it better, but I'm convinced remote work is not everyone's best scenario.
Things I have avoided over the past year: wearing uncomfortable clothes, being unable to use a restroom because it’s occupied, sweating from the heater, shivering from the AC, being held hostage by coworkers who talk at me about their personal lives and grievances, unpleasant noises, unpleasant smells, being asked trivial questions, the drama of coworkers who can’t behave professionally, ugly decor, uncomfortable seating, traffic, car troubles, parking woes, and unhealthy lunches. I realize these are small problems in the grand scheme of things, but we’ve proven we don’t need to deal with them, so I just won’t from here on out.
Ron Swanson put it best. I don't have coworkers, I have workplace proximity associates. I don't particularly care to be around the people I work with so being at home has probably kept me in this job longer than it would have otherwise. Also they built us a new office building right before they sent us all home and they're taking me out of an office where I can close the door and putting me in an open air cube farm. I always said if I had to work in a cube I would quit. They're looking at us going back in July and that's about the time I hope to have a new job.
I have a few fantastic co-workers that I'd happily spend a day in the office with. Unfortunately, I have a few fantastically terrible co-workers that outweigh the benefits of being with the good ones. I've become incredibly office averse.
Fewer restrictions and less questioning of your use of time and your activities is typical the higher one observes the class ladder. WFH (absent remote monitoring tools, which take it back down below an in-person job without such tools) is like bumping up to the upper-middle, or professional, class, which most programmers are not in, ordinarily, socially speaking.
... and yes, a taste of class privilege is, frankly, wonderful.
You nailed it. I may never have much class privlage, but I can emulate it with WFH, location flexibility and by cultivating small amounts of financial independence.
I truly think class-anxiety will make the freer kinds of WFH fairly uncommon over time, if it persists on a large scale at all, the more savvy managers get to it. I'm seeing non-programmer, bog-standard office drone friends get their work done in a couple hours and have the rest of the day basically to themselves (though no fault of their own, as they've sought more work in the past and found no-one to give it to them, and just happen to be way more efficient than some of their peers). They did the same in the office, but they weren't free there. I don't think managers will like mere office drones, or even huge numbers of programmers (just office drones they have to pay more, while resenting it every day, really), gaining those kinds of privileges, which ordinarily aren't available to such a degree even for middle managers.
I expect work spyware and spying services to be a booming market, even more than it has been. :-(
The relationship between employer and employee is founded on control and power. The employer is absolutely going to claw back as much of that power as possible post-pandemic. More spyware is a possibility. Even more likely is that most roles will switch back to on-site because control over the physical bodies of others is the most primal kind of power. One WFH insight I've had is that at home you are able to control your physical comfort to a much greater degree. You don't have to dress like they tell you, you have control of the thermostat, your chair, desk, keyboard, mouse, monitor, noise environment, air quality, odors, food, lighting, body position, and so on. This is an enormous bodily freedom and it won't be continued to be given without fighting for it. People go on about the social benefits of work, though I think back to Maslow's Hierarchy and that the social is less important if your office is noisy, freezing and your chair is causing severe back pain.
After 7 years of remote work, the times I have spent a few weeks or months back in an office have been an enormous shock. You always feel what you are currently missing most strongly, so I suspect once most people get back into the office, the enormous lack of freedom will weigh more heavily than they could have realized before experiencing it.
Why don't you consider most programmers to be upper-middle class? The only explanation I can come up with is that it is based on the fact that most programmers are junior level due to the rapid growth of our industry and that junior level professionals haven't made it to the upper-middle rung yet.
Class isn't just money, it's habits, attitudes, and the way others treat you, some of which are related to money, in a necessary-but-not-sufficient way. Besides, the vast majority of programmers in the US, let alone abroad, don't make enough money to sit in that class comfortably.
Upper-middle is "why of course our kids are going to a private prep school, what else would they do?" and "oh, where will you Summer? We're planning to just do Nantucket again" territory.
The dude who's made it at age 45 running a plumbing business is his own boss, has employees, has maybe triple or quadruple median take-home income because he's decent at business and works hard—but will still almost certainly not be perceived, or treated, by anyone, as "upper-middle". Not like a surgeon would be, almost by default, even in residency, or perhaps a junior investment banker.
My observation has been that programmers are mostly treated either as just expensive middle-class office drones, or pandered to as a substitute for actual upper-middle treatment. One key indicator, for office workers like us: where the hell are our private offices with doors that close? (yes, I know some places have them, but they're rare) Oh but we have foosball tables and catered lunch, so oh, look how respected you are, you little programmer.
We're probably closest to accountants, overall, in the social class we're treated as inherently belonging to and the class toward which admitting to being a "programmer" will drag you in most anyone's mind. Solidly, solidly middle.
Which, maybe, who'd give a shit, except that you actually do get treated better as upper-middle.
I don't want to go back. Commuting is a massive waste of time. Assuming 261 workdays in a year, I will save 783 hours a year. I get over a month of my life back. I can run errands whenever I choose and work whenever is convenient. I can help care for my children. It's a no-brainer for me.
> Assuming 261 workdays in a year, I will save 783 hours a year. I get over a month of my life back.
You can also save days by brushing teeth while pooping.
But on more serious note.
I never liked this kind of an argument/math, its not like you will magically get a 13th month in a year by not commuting.
That said 3hrs commute is crazy, I did it (3.5hrs of total daily commute) as a teen during a summer job.
I leant then that its not worth it. Its draining + expensive. Also it cuts into so much of your time that your quality of life will suffer as you have to choose between recovering your energy levels or social life.
Ever since I have a rule to not consider a job if its too far away.
Ok, I chuckled. But it's actually true. Time is finite and time not spent sitting on a commuter train or waiting for subways is time that used for other things. And I agree 3 hours a day is NUTS, but unfortunately pretty common in large metro areas.
3 hours commute is probably very common if you're working in Manhattan (NYC) which is probably the biggest concentration of tech jobs in the Northeast. Most Manhattan workers don't actually live in Manhattan or even NYC.
I'm not sure what traffic/commute patterns are like in the SFBA, but some of my friends/coworkers who've left NYC for SFBA seem to love their new commutes. Well, as much as one can like a commute anyways.
I sincerely don't, I don't see a reason to waste time and money commuting every day. As is I hate driving, but even with public transit why do I want to waste an hour or an hour 30 per day.
I've been able to save so much money in the last year, for the first time in my life I would be fine for good amount of time if I got fired today. I very much do expect big companies to force workers back in the office, tons of middle managers don't feel like they're being effective if they can't stare at you typing for 8 hours
100% remote was always a goal anyway and my company right now is 100% remote. We don't have an office to return to and we're spread across the country anyway. This was a change, though. Before switching jobs, I worked in a SCIF on classified projects, which can't be done remotely so I had no choice.
For me, it's barely even really a choice. Thanks to spine problems, I can't sit for long, but of course standing all day is too hard on the legs, so practically speaking I took frequent resting breaks and was lucky there were places to lay down, but no work could be accomplished while doing that. Now I can work from bed and actually work. I was also limited because I can't realistically commute by driving myself, so that meant I worked at a place that was near a train station. Also meant I needed to live near a train station.
No longer having those kinds of restrictions on my life is tremendously liberating.
I've been working semi-remotely (at least 1, but often 2+ days per week) for a large majority of my career. I honestly cannot imagine a world where I would actually show up to a cube situation or "open office concept" 5 days/week.
The supply/demand curve for the talents most of us here have simply don't require us to bend to this type of ridiculousness, and the employers that enforce arbitrary location rules under the guise of "better culture" or "collaboration" are going to find themselves lacking engineering talent eventually (or rather immediately after this pandemic has normalized remote work for so many of us who perhaps were not previously accustomed to it).
I don't want to go back to any situation that requires me in the office physically more than maybe once a week/max. Honestly once per 'iteration' is probably _plenty_ sufficient to get some face-time with coworkers and establish those more human bonds. I might be willing to bend a bit if the office is very close to my home, though I am not willing to accept zero remote regardless of the opportunity.
I want to go back. Maybe not for 5 days a week, but probably 3-4 days.
A week ago, I was in the office for the first time in a year. The entire floor with 100+ desks was completely devoid of people, save for one person that I passed by in the hallway. It was not a completely novel sight; I had been to the office on weekends before, for instance to pick up item that I forgot in the drawer the day before.
What I did not expect is how quickly I got nostalgic about the office experience. I'm quite well-adjusted to the home office situation at the moment, but I absolutely don't like the lack of physical separation between home and work. A separate desk is just not enough for me.
Also, working from home as a single is really lonely. At work, I can passively fulfil my social needs (and still block out the noise with headphones if I need to focus). At home, I have the non-choice of "alone with music" and "along without music". I have a colleague whom I hang out with on a Slack call for hours on end just for some of that office vibe, but it's a subpar replacement.
Also, something that's specific to my situation: The office is in the city center, where all kinds of amenities can be reached quickly. My apartment is in the outskirts of the city, so there is not nearly the same density of services and amenities. For example, the office is 10 minutes by foot from a public indoor swimming pool. A few months before the pandemic, I was taking up a habit of going there once a week during lunch break, and that's something that I want to go back to doing.
I'll be getting my first shot this weekend, so I've been starting to think about how to go forward once my immune response has built up enough. I'll probably be one of the first to return to the office on a regular basis. Even if it means having to wear a surgical mask inside the building, I think it'll be psychologically significant to me as a physical step back to a sense of normality.
Pre-pandemic I already had the career goal of a fully remote position. Working remotely for the past year or so has confirmed to me that I prefer working remote. It's going to be disappointing when I have to return to my old office in the coming months, but I plan on keeping my eye open for alternative positions which allow my to forgo the office experience completely.
I might not necessarily want to go back to the office full time (I always had the possibility for part time remote work anyway), but I'm missing my bike ride commute and some off-record discussion with colleagues that are harder to have over Teams.
I'm really enjoying working remotely, and in-fact my company is allowing people to work perm. from home, a hot-desk system where you can book a desk, or if you want to work three or more days a week, you can get a permanent desk.
A couple of friends and I decided it'd be nice to go in once a week to catch up, we all live quite locally (15min cycle for me) so for me it's a nice idea that would work for me.
I will probably never work in an office again. Work from home provides so much more freedom to facilitate my kids schedule and ensure that things around the house are taken care of. The flip side of this though is that now I have almost zero in person communication with people that are not my family. I lost touch with friends many years ago for various reasons so not being able to chat with work people in person essentially kills that important social interaction. Covid has also put a damper on that so now I actually struggle to make conversation in real life. Not really great all things considered.
I don't want to go back on a daily basis, but I would love to go back twice per month or so (to socialize, mainly).
I don't want to go back because:
- I waste time while commuting (~30min. each day)
- I waste time socializing. Not bad, but hey I would prefer to do it at the bar not at the office and not everyday :)
- I waste time trying to focus. You know, open space office
- I don't feel comfortable in "office" clothes. It's not that I wear a suit or anything, but at home I am: barefoot, I don't wear underwear (I wear pants only!)... I hate wearing shoes and/or socks
- I wast time pretending I can work 8h/day. C'mon, it's 2021, no one (at least in my profession, IT) can say that it's possible to work totally focus 8h/day five days per week. That's BS. I can work fully focused 4h/day and call it a day. At home I don't pretend, so I have more time for myself
- I eat better at home. At home: Healthy snacks, plenty of fruit, small meals. At the office: kinda the same, but I don't get to pick which fruits and the like; besides they are gone fast (I do miss not having to pay for them, tho)
It’s human nature to exert the least effort possible to obtain resources. Over time, employees will find more ways to slack from home while looking productive.
Corporations will make decisions based on what maximizes productivity.
I don’t think remote work will persist to the extent people believe.
There are exceptions to the first rule - when an employee is especially motivated. Even then, they’re one bad managerial decision away from checking out.
I’m aware of studies that support boost in productivity over covid, but I believe this is bc there are fewer distracting things to do during covid than normal.
If workers refuse to go back into the office, then the corporations will have no option but to support WFH. I for one would never again work somewhere that didn't offer 100% WFH. It would be the first thing I asked about in a hiring interview.
I have more focussed time; more control of my own life; more time with my kids; less time wasted in meetings and drive-by chats from project managers; no-one glances at the clock if I need to leave early - nor do I feel the need for theater when I have to work until late; I enjoy cooking much more (and can put a stew or the oven on, then get back to work); I've saved incredible amounts of money that were otherwise apparently spent on my day-to-day life in the city-center; I no longer waste an hour each day getting to and from the office; and I've lost lots of weight getting up early in the morning and taking a brisk walk outwards in the forest, listening to birdsong and being aware of the changing seasons, instead of inwards with car exhausts and scooters riding the pavements.
REALLY hoping we're not forced back to the office at my company - along with 75% of the other developers at my place (we did a Slack poll).
What a wonderful summary of the benefits this change has wrought. I feel the same, but haven't maximized the opportunity as much as you have! I might head out to listen to some birds right now...
My company is rumored to bring us back soon. I've got my 2 weeks notice written and am actively interviewing for 100% remote positions. This pandemic has made me realize how much of my life I have thrown away to commuting over the past 10 years. I have no plans to return to an office.
Surprised to see so many people in this thread who don't want to go back to the office at all, but I do understand.
I've been given the flexibility to define my own schedule with regards to when I'm in the office and when I'm working from home. I can't WAIT to go back: it's great having a dedicated work space, I like hallway conversations and in-person meetings, and it'll be AWESOME to be able to snag a hot meal at our cafeteria without having to prep or think about it.
BUT, I'll probably never go in for a Friday ever again, and realistically I'll be working from home 2-3 days/week.
So yes, I feel very fortunate my employer is extending that flexibility post-COVID.
Seems strange to comment that you can't wait to go back in a discussion about people who don't want to go back to the office. Surely you meant to post in one of the other dozens of WFH threads?
Given the OP is asking for opinions on said issue, this seems incredibly normal?
What would be the point of a thread where only people with an opinion/preference on one side post they all feel the same way? The point is to get a discussion and understand where everyone stands and why, at least it seems to me.
I think you've fallen into trying to moderate the internet as a user here. The verbiage of this post just isn't that strong, as evident by the primary reply being far from alone
I am in office but I love it. But I am a founder and I have a great office where it is not crowded and with kids at home, I really cannot get any work done at home.
Fundamentally this is about respect for the autonomy of my time. I am paid to deliver value. Sometimes that is best served by direct in-person collaboration, but not every single day. The deal I offer to prospective employers is this: I do my best not to be a blocker when I can't be physically present, and you realize that I am a whole human being who does not exist solely to pad your bank account.
Pre-pandemic, I had a CFO say to me "I don't pay for all this expensive office space so you can work from home." I had a CTO tell me "WFH sends a message to your reports that you don't want to be here." I was too obsequious at the time, not to mention afraid to lose my job, to push back, so I relented despite a punishing balance of childcare when my son was very young. But today I call bullshit on this ancient relic of Taylor's "scientific management" peddled by the HBR-reading neocons populating finance departments all across tech. A job that requires my ass to be in a seat is not a job, it's a prison.
When I worked in the office, I thought I could never work at home because I'd be too distracted. Once I started working at home, I realized that WFH is really good for me and that I'd never want to go back to the office. I suspect that if I do have to go back to the office, I'll find some advantages to being back in the office and enjoy it.
I had already worked remotely for years and loved it. On average, I would travel to the office every 2-3 months. The trips were always a fun change of scenery (other than dealing with the TSA) and often found that all the face time and in-person planning / design sessions were key to keeping me productive the rest of the time. But overall I hated the trips because I wouldn't sleep well, I'd work extra long hours, and I did actually find all the interaction exhausting. Given the choice, I would have stopped the trips altogether, and I wasn't that broken up about mass quarantines.
Now that it's been over a year, I absolutely yearn for a trip to see my coworkers in person. And I think the needs of people vary in this regard: my heart breaks for some coworkers who have clearly struggled through all this and who feel extremely isolated. I'd gladly inconvenience myself regularly for them to stop feeling like that.
I don't want to go back. I feel more productive being a digital nomad, staying in a different city every month, meeting different people, eating different food, in different climates.
I stay in the best neighbourhoods around the world, walk to coworking spaces, eat out almost every meal and still spend considerably less than what I did in Sydney.
After a year+ of fully remote work, I think I'd fall into the hybrid camp if it wasn't for commuting. I work the same exact hours I used to work but gain about 90 minutes a day cutting out the commute.
The reasons hybrid appeals to me is I do miss the casual interactions that happen when working in an office or grabbing lunch with random coworkers. I miss having a frustrating day and going to happy hour with someone to commiserate. I miss being able to jump up in a meeting to share something on the whiteboard.
But the trade-offs are great too. My commute now is one flight of stairs. I'm saving money on lunch. If I have to pop out to pick up a prescription, it doesn't involve planning my day around the pharmacy's hours. I can take a nap if I need it in something more comfortable than my car.
All-in-all, I don't think any of the three options is "perfect" as they each have ups and downs.
Why would I go back? My personal productivity and team productivity has soared AND I'm working fewer hours! Add in that I no longer have to commute, pay for parking, pay for lunches, pay for "business casual" clothes, work in an open area - this just gets more and more appealing!
Now I work in an office. With a door. Work-life balance? Never been better! I'm healthier, I exercise more, lost weight.
I can go on and on but no, I'm not going back.
My team has talked about meeting once-per-month or at the start of big initiatives to nail down some ideas. That's really about all you need for meeting face-to-face. We don't need the office anymore. It's over.
I started a new job last November. When I was looking for a job, a requirement was permanent remote. I enjoy not having to commute. I have an office setup in an extra bedroom. It is so much nicer than dealing with the open floor-plans that companies like. For lunch I can just cook something instead of going out an eating fast food.
I find communicating with the team works pretty, we just chat or call on teams. Some people don't communicate well, but from what I've learned, they didn't communicate well before COVID either.
I'm not saying I'll never go back into the office, it will just have to be one heck of an offer.
I don't want to go back. The one bright side from the last 14 months was getting to experience working on a remote-only team and discovering that it's great. We have a team distributed across offices anyway, and meetings go a lot better when everyone is using the microphone on their laptop instead of a terrible conference room setup. It's also tamped down somewhat on "let's have a meeting to talk about that" in favor of asynchronous communication.
Unfortunately, while our leadership hasn't said anything official yet, there's so much writing on the wall that you'd have to be illiterate not to see it. They're making anyone who has an office go back full time next month and have been pretty much ignoring the employee surveys saying people want remote flex and a hybrid policy.
My wife is job hunting right now so I'll grudgingly go back so as not to disrupt my family's health insurance, but once she finds something, I'd say it's good odds I'm going to start looking. It's a shame because I like my team, but I don't feel a need to actually see them in person more than once or twice a year. I'd much rather work in my nice home office where the bathroom's never occupied, people aren't walking around/talking and being distracting, my dog wanders in occasionally to see what I'm doing, and my daughter runs in to say hello when she gets home from school. None of the office "perks" measure up to those, for me.
I never want to work in an office or around other humans again (besides loved ones). I never enjoyed it at work or in school. The pandemic has been the best time of my life because I've finally gotten a break from having to be around people unless I choose to. I'll probably be going back to the office, and I'll definitely be looking for fully-remote opportunities moving forward.
WFH makes the days easier until I can buy a house in the country and hopefully go days without seeing other humans.
I don't want to go back. The toll of going back to office affects my life and literally my body.
I get things done much faster at home and I have lots of energy and extra time left for myself and my family. Commuting was a waste of time and energy. So much unnecessary overhead and stress going to the office every day.
I do like the idea of meeting my co-workers from time to time, but I definitely wouldn't want to go back to the office on daily basis.
I heard some people struggle with their productivity or loneliness. We should research and find out the causes and help them to get over it, or give them the option to work from the office. For some people it's perhaps as simple as bad habits or bad home office setup. For others it might be lack of enough space, or having too many kids around.
I live in Fremont and had a job in Los Angeles. Had to fly in every week. It was exhausting. Then Covid came and got rid of the flight and commute. It was awesome.
But after a year of being cooped up with a wife and a 4 year old, I yearn to be back at the office about twice a week.
Really enjoying working remotely. Looking back in time, it seems silly that people at my company were disallowed to work a few days from home whenever they asked. When I think back to the time I was in the office, I believe I spent roughly 80% of my time focusing on what needed to be done, and the remaining 20% in face-to-face discussion, whether casual or not. That 20% is very valuable and I would not want to replace that. Based on that, and what my team needs, I believe it would be optimal to come into the office 1 or 2 days a week. It should be easy to defer the necessary conversations and face-to-face meetings to those days. But of course, everyone's needs are different and a balance must be struck.
I really miss working from the office and am eager to go back when it is safe.
Unlike others that have posted here with that opinion, I hold no view that my coworkers are family or even close friends. Regardless, even the small face-to-face socialization I get as part of my work in the office is something that fulfills me. I am invigorated by being able to go into a conference room and stand at a white board or just walk to someone's desk, and try to hash out solutions to problems we are working on. It's just not the same on Slack.
I am single and live alone, so that is a big factor in that.
I also live within a few blocks of my office, so re-adding a commute into my day is a healthy thing, not a huge environmental and personal time drain.
I'm interested in an adjusted schedule. Like all Fridays WFH or something. I imagine my work will eventually bring us back to the office but I'm definitely interested in working from home in some capacity.
I had a series of arguments with the boss in the weeks leading up to the first lockdown and WFH order, i remember feeling as if I was being gaslighted. Neither me or my team would come into the office but he forced us back; despite our "remote-positive culture", no one was allowed to unilaterally work 100% remote.
I'll keep my options open, but I never want to find myself in a situation again where I am expected to sacrifice my health for the insecurities of upper management.
I am currently looking for a work from home job making games or other complex systems...
Reason is that when I did that in a office little would get done, not just endless meeting but people interrupting, distractions, and weird office-only issues (like drama, office politics, HR nagging people because they left books on their desk, etc...)
At home even with family around, I can tell them it is my worktime, and then focus on work, and they will respect that.
>> HR nagging people because they left books on their desk
You just reminded me one more reason for me not to return office - we have policy that when leaving for the day employees must remove all extra items [] from the desk and put that into personal cabinet.
extra items - everything apart from phone, display and keyboard + mouse.
In one workplace of mine was because the office was built deliberately with glass walls, so any random visitor would see everyone working.
So HR wanted the tables looking always pristine and organized, shockingly the team that made the company most of their money, made a cool castle using tictac boxes, and HR during a performance review gave that particular team a smaller raise than planned, and told them it was about of the "objects in the table looking unprofessional", when they asked if it was the castle, HR comfirmed yes, it was the castle, and they would get further punishments and maybe even refused promotions if they didn't put the castle in the trash.
EDIT: I wasn't part of that team. Only thing I left on my table was books.
Pre-pandemic policy for more efficient utilization of office space.
Reasoning: it's never the case that 100% of staff is in the office - there's always be someone on sick leave or vacation or working from home. So let's rent office for say ~90% (I don't know what exact number was) of employees and let them use places on first in-first served basis.
While I get why it's needed by it's still very annoying carrying all my stuff back and forth every morning and evening.
Yeah, absolutely no interest in going back to the office unless they make me, or they pay me considerably more. Maybe not even then.
I save at least two hours and $25-$50 a day by not commuting. No wear and tear on my vehicle, no wear and tear on me. I can pop out for a half hour and putter in my garden or take a walk with the dog.
Of course, I don't really enjoy people at the best of times.
Really we need to end office work to do something about climate change and out of control housing prices anywhere close to an urban center.
"Well lets go back to destroying the environment and making cities unlivably expensive, because I need to be forced to have 40+ hours a week of socialization"
Not to mention it is all open plan offices that everyone is so desperate to get back to.
I really enjoy office culture when you have a good set of people, but it gets distracting from actual work. That being said the real detractors to office life for me are having to commute and any sense of being geographically bound in order to be near the office. So the compromise is every other week I go to a coworking space where I know the regulars.
I was working remote before the pandemic. No intention to find an in person job, but partly that’s a function of not living in a tech hub- my remote opportunities are better than in person ones.
Getting to work with a geographically diverse set of people is also pretty cool. I get to hear about gator hunting in Florida, dirt biking in Utah, Italian food in Jersey, etc.
I love working from home and would never work in an office again. I prefer the freedom of schedule, quietness and lack of constant surveillance from my bosses.
It feels like the office was geared 100% for extroverts and finally introverts have an option that works for them. My productivity has never been higher and my stress has never been lower.
The commute to & from work is 2.5 hours of my life for which I don't get paid. This is time away from my school-age kids. Not to mention everytime there is a Covid scare in any one of their classes, I will have a kid who has to transition to online learning. No, I really don't see how I can justify going back
As an engineer I have never felt more productive, everyone on my team agrees that a return to office would dampen productivity, and at a startup even a temporary "re-adjustment period" at the wrong time could turn into a disaster.
I worry about my colleagues outside engineering however.
I wouldn't mind going back to work in the office. But I have several coworkers who don't want to come back and at least two who physically moved too far away to commute. I see no reason for me to make the effort to be back in the office just to be the only one there.
Most of our division doesn't want to go back. We put together a group to survey all teams and start planning for a post-covid workplace. For tax purposes we have to be in office 20% of the time, which sucks, but better than 100% of the time in office I guess.
I want to go back 2-3 days a week. And I would stay home from Nov to Feb as I usually get sick around that time. The usual culprit is coworkers get sick and decided to come to the office. A week later I come down with the cold. Every single year.
I'm 100% remote these days and would 200% prefer to stay that way. Maybe commute once a week to an office, but generally I do not want to do so every day, ever again.
That said, I do have the huge advantage of having an entire room for my home office.
I have structured my entire life around not going into an office since about 2004.
I am looking forwards to finally getting off my ass and finding a new pole dance studio to keep myself in shape, though. I moved just before the pandemic.
WFH is great but I'm concerned it would hinder career advancement.
I think managers, given two equally skilled and productive staff, would be more likely to promote the one they see more (whether consciously or subconsciously)
I like working from home, I can do my job whenever I feel like it. Also, it allows me to take naps, eat healthy (cook fresh meal) and go for a walk.
Plus I don’t have to deal with the office politics
Pre-pandemic, we were remote by default with quarterly “offsites”. I’d love to go back to that. A few days of intense collaboration and alignment once per quarter is a pretty nice rhythm.
Commuting by car when remote is an option is environmentally irresponsible. It's also bad for my health and I hate doing it. I'm never going back to the office.
WFH in a small flat and a child is much harder than the office. The commute provides time for podcasts, music and gradual transfer from work to family.
It goes without saying that everyone's situation is different, both at home and with their employers.
I work in London for a tech company. Prior to the lockdown we mostly worked out of a very nice office in the square mile. Lots of dedicated meeting rooms and breakout spaces with good sound isolation, good Herman Miller chairs, automatic standing desks, excellent coffee machine.
* All video conferencing software is terrible
We use a combination of Microsoft Teams and Zoom. Both have the same problems. For one-to-many meetings it is passable, but anything involving group discussion breaks down quickly. There is just enough latency that you can't talk with multiple people without stepping over each other. A year and a bit in and people still talk with mute enabled, or forget to mute themselves while not talking. Conversations that would take minutes in real life take an order of magnitude longer.
Everyone I work with has given up on video calling, so it's become glorified conference calling. I'm half Italian, having to talk without using my hands is like only being able to communicate with morse code. It's so low bandwidth, communicating anything with nuance just becomes frustrating.
* Meetings for everything
This is calming down a bit, but my company seems to love sync-up meetings. I think I've had more meetings in the first year of lockdown than I did in the proceeding two years of working from the office. Because outlook prefers 15 minute intervals for scheduling, everyone overbooks the time they need for meetings 'just in case'.
* Being pulled into meetings without any notice
This used to happen in the office, but at least you'd see it coming. Now people have figured out you can invite people into an existing meeting, such that they get no warning whatsoever. Good meetings never start with "Joe Somebody is calling you from a group chat".
* Despite the meetings everyone is more siloed than ever
Having everyone work from home has made it easier for teams to become isolated from each other, only communicating by Jira and poor video conference meetings [in emergencies]. I almost never get to casually talk to anyone from the rest of the company, which is really isolating. I don't feel like I work with anyone outside of my immediate team anymore. I've seen this sentiment echoed by my colleagues.
* I miss going to the pub with my colleagues
This is half caused by lockdown, but the other half is everyone working from home. I used to run into people from other teams at the pub all the time. Nowadays everything needs to be booked, scheduled, and planned out which means no spontaneity. My immediate team have a weekly pub night zoom call, but we can't expand it to include other people as you can only really have one conversation at a time.
* Not having to commute is great
I really hate commuting, so this has been great for me.
* My home workspace is a mixed bag
I finally have a decent chair at home, but don't have the space for a good desk. My partner works in the same room as me, a few meters away, and so I still have to wear headphones all day. The best situation is where I have a set of tasks to work through. Sadly my work is not usually that straightforward.
* No family or friends nearby
This is mostly my own fault, I did move halfway around the world as an adult. If the last six years in London has taught me anything, making friends outside of work is very hard. Part of the problem is you're unlikely to live near anyone you meet. London (like Sydney) is a very large city. In the before time socialising with my colleagues was enough for me, but I feel like that avenue will be permanently closed if we all keep working from home.
* More scope for hobbies
I've taken up wildlife rehabilitation in my spare time, which I would never have been able to do while working from the office. It's not so much time consuming as it needs regular intervals of time throughout the day. I can easily feed an animal while attending a meeting now, or take little breaks through the day to take care of things.
I have no desire or plans to return to the office. Everyone's experience is different, but for me remote work is a net positive.
- Instead of commuting for two or more hours a day to travel a mere sixteen miles, I use that time for weight training. I'm now stronger than I have ever been and no longer experience back, neck and shoulder pain.
- I can keep my office at a temperature that is comfortable for me. Usually offices are far too warm in the winter and far too cool in the summer.
- I can actually understand people in meetings. I am hearing impaired and in person meetings are difficult for me because many people mumble or are low talkers and I can't understand them. For some reason people always like to ask if I have hearing aids. Of course I do but they aren't like wearing glasses. It is fatiguing to use hearing aids and they are uncomfortable to wear even though they are fitted for your ears.
- No more office drama. For years I was subjected to daily passive-agressive slack messages in the general channel about not leaving dishes in the sink. They were never mine. I always brought my own, but I had to hear about it nonetheless. For a while I had a co-worker who was apparently allergic to green bell peppers and had to do listen to an onslaught of complaints and warnings about not eating green bell peppers in the office. I didn't eat a green bell pepper for two years. I felt for them, but it was exhausting to hear about because even though I didn't do anything wrong I still had to hear about it. I really can't stand that kind of stuff.
- I can actually get stuff done at home. Offices are places of non-stop distraction. One time my desk was by the restrooms and I was constantly distracted by a stream of people going to the bathroom. The air moved by the walking by also had the effect of blowing all the papers on my desk around. Some people had streams so forceful even I could hear them. For over a year the office above us was being renovated. Once the renovation was done the city started work on the street below. On the flip side, I don't have to worry about being a distraction to others. I have a loud voice and can't play the whispering game because I can't hear people when the whisper. If someone wants to have a conversation with me it has to be a full volume.
- When I need to take a break I can take my dog for a walk. He's the real winner here.
- I eat much better at home and have time to cook.
There are some things I miss:
- Quarterly all company meetings can sometimes be fun and informative. I would not mind attending those in person again.
- Happy hours and team lunches are always fun. I don't buy in to the narrative that co-workers aren't really your friends any more than I buy into the narrative that they are your family and you need to see them every day. I don't see my family every day. I also have remained friends with plenty of former co-workers.
Do your tasks in as little time as it takes leaving more room for leisure, this is the first time I'm feeling the benefits of that 'increased productivity per hour'[1] economists talk about.
[1] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/exports/labor-productivit...