[wdhilliard]

Working from home has been nice, but I have enjoyed the freedom of flexible working. I am not surprised by the overwhelming amount of people who never want to return to the office again. As someone who was often in charge of organizing team and social events pre-pandemic, I have been aware of the amount of people who think of social time as an unwanted obligation vs fun. Still, not everything about working from home is better. Here are a few thoughts of my own: - My commute is only 15 minutes. Despite environmental impact, which I can appreciate, I enjoy my 15 min in the car - drinking coffee, thinking about my day. I wouldn't call it meditation, but it's close. If your commute is 2 hours a day, good riddance. You probably should have been considered a remote worker all along. - I truly enjoy interacting with my coworkers. I am a single, mid-30s guy who likes to socialize. It's a nice break and gives me reason to get up from my desk. There are lots of studies on how short breaks impact productivity and mental wellness. I was acutely aware of my declining social skills as I worked from home. I became easily agitated and curt with people. If you consider all forms of casual communication as "small talk", consider that you might be more about the effort you're willing to put into people vs. how innately boring everyone else is. - Scheduling online meetings and Zoom calls IS a pain in the ass. Everything revolves around a calendar of 30min blocks. 5min convo? 30 minutes. I also can't help but get the feeling that many of my coworkers are not actually engaged on calls. If you're colleagues are honest, you have most likely heard them say at least once "sorry can you repeat that. I was distracted". Many issues simply don't get addressed because it's not an appropriate text chat, but it doesn't seem big enough to put on someones calendar. - I am arguably less productive at the office, but my days feel shorter. - I never really wanted my home to be a working environment. This is probably my biggest issue with working from home. My office is an office. My living room is an office. My kitchen table is an office. It feels really nice to come home and have it feel like a home. Not to mention the privilege of even having space for a real office vs having to work from my bedroom like many people do. - There are introverts and extroverts, but being anti-social is not a positive thing. If you believe in mental health, this is not an argument. There ARE plenty of ways to be social online, but many people are bad at it. The ability to be a passive aggressive asshole seems to increase when you know the only way for someone to talk to you about it is over text. - I worry about the impact remote work has on employee appreciation/value. Workers seem more like a commodity. I think this is easier for someone to understand if they have ever worked on a team with distributed contractors. This isn't