[FreakyT]

I feel like most tech-workers can be divided into two camps:

Type 1: "It's obvious that remote work is the future, and anyone who thinks otherwise is stuck in the past"

Type 2: "Remote work is infinitely inferior to office work due to the lack of socialization/collaboration/food/etc"

Evidently the leadership at Docker is type 1, based on their "step 4". The part I find particularly interesting about this trend is that both camps can't seem to fathom that the other could possibly exist (see: any HN discussion thread about remote work)

[Teknoman117]

I wonder what the general split is.

As a single person who does not have a family, working from home permanently sounds horrifically lonely. I only made it a month of solitude before I terminated my lease and moved back in with my parents (the rest of my siblings joined as well).

I also have ADHD, and sharing a space for work and play has been terrible for my ability to focus.

That being said, I totally understand the other viewpoint(s). I watched my father spend 3 hours in the car every day to commute to offices he hated for the majority of my childhood. He worked from home during the first few years after the dotcom crash, which was a wonderful opportunity for him to spend time with my siblings and I when we were young children.

My response to seeing that as a kid was making the decision that I would do whatever I could to avoid commuting. Since I'm still single, this has meant living in an apartment a short walk from where I work. Admittedly, I'm lucky in the sense that the office is in a relatively suburban setting. We're outside the city, so it's not city life but it's not suburban sprawl hell either.

Obviously the dynamic may change if I meet someone and have kids in the future and decide where the office is is not where we want to raise kids.

We don't gain anything from just having a knee-jerk reaction to the opposite solution. You just have a different set of happy and unhappy people.

[XorNot]

For me it's that I don't want to socialize in the workplace. I need that space for money, which is why I want to know as little as possible about anyone else there.

Which then makes the daily commute essentially all this time that keeps me from being with people I actually want to be with like my partner.

Couple all of that to the observation that ultimately in the tech world its a lot of work just to move me from sitting in front of one desk to sitting in front of another, and its really hard to muster much enthusiasm for the alleged benefits of being in an office - particularly when I can supply better and more ergonomic hardware and software for myself.

[kag0]

I think you've answered your own question.

People who feel positively about their home life are inclined to maximize it by working from home. People who feel negatively or have little home life are inclined to get out and seek social/private opportunities at or around the office.

Note that feeling negatively or having little home life is meant to encompass a range of situations that don't necessarily mean someone has a bad private life or that they're unhappy with their private life.

[tshaddox]

It doesn’t seem like it’s that simple. The fact that I enjoy my home life is precisely why I don’t want to work there. Maintaining an office space at home is a significant expense and I don’t hear much about tech employers paying for it.

[meheleventyone]

Anecdotal but my employer is perfectly happy to pay for all our home office equipment as well as stuff like co-working if people don’t want to or can’t work at home. The worst part of the pandemic is that remote has meant home for most people without necessarily planning it from a work point of view. I’ve been working remote for three years and the pandemic part has been a low point for all sorts of reasons. I worked from a coffee shop for the first time in over a year last Friday and it was great.

Basically remote should mean flexibility.

[flukus]

> I only made it a month of solitude before I terminated my lease and moved back in with my parents (the rest of my siblings joined as well).

The problem there is the solitude, but during normal non-covid times this is orthogonal to working from home. It sounds like you and many others are missing social outlets outside of the workplace and these are important to have whether you're working from home or not, just part of a healthy work-life balance. Jobs change, companies go bankrupt, bought out, close offices, fire people, etc routinely and you don't want to lose your entire social circle when these things happen.

I'd look into ways of expanding your social needs outside of work, be it The local pub, church, sports club, makers group, library or whatever else, I'm sure there's something around that fits your needs.

[notatoad]

> I'd look into ways of expanding your social needs outside of work, be it The local pub, church, sports club, makers group, library or whatever else, I'm sure there's something around that fits your needs.

This is fair, but what you have to understand is that you're taking away something work used to provide, and asking the employee to provide it for themselves. There is a group of people for whom "work friends" are really important. Whether work friends are their only friends or just a subset of friends, the low-pressure friendship of only socializing with somebody because you have to is a different relationship to clearly indicated socializing with somebody because you want to.

And so for those people who really value the "work friendship", that is essentially part of their compensation. Companies need to understand that for some demographics (especially the young nerds that make up so much of the workforce in tech) if they aren't providing low-pressure socialization opportunities, they need to consider what alternative strategies they can use to retain staff.

[lostcolony]

So you touch on something - work friends are really important only because they're lacking social connection elsewhere.

But...work friends aren't friends. It's very rare to stay in touch if you change jobs. In fact, that normalized relationship is a tie keeping you at a job that may otherwise be bad.

As a reason for why to be in the office, I feel like it's a coping mechanism, rather than real fulfillment of the need. I can't say "better to rip the bandaid off" or similar, but I can say that the 'right' solution is to find connection outside of work. Even if you're in the office, you have to do that for the friendship to persist should you ever leave.

[legostormtroopr]

> It's very rare to stay in touch if you change jobs.

I'm going to disagree here. I have plently of friends who I met through work. Some including former direct reports.

The same goes for many people I know. I don't keep in contact with everyone I worked with - but there are a key few who I'm happy to hang out with.

[lostcolony]

"A key few" - out of how many coworkers? That was my point; you may walk away with a person or two per job on average, but you interacted with, likely had lunch with, made small talk with, far more.

[Mehdi2277]

I've mostly kept a couple work friends per job but I'm also more proactive than most people on staying in touch. When I was a kid I was awful at it and was a loner and eventually decided I would try harder to stay in touch with people and not let friends disappear because of a move.

But regardless of whether you keep them even with an active non work social life I want also want a work social life. I have your solution but that still doesn't remove my desire to have work friends too. I spend 40ish hours a week on work. I don't want that to be with people that I can't call several of them good friends.

[scatters]

> But...work friends aren't friends. It's very rare to stay in touch if you change jobs

The exact same holds for other situational friendships. Stop drinking, stop going to church, get injured and stop playing sport, and see how long those friendships last. That doesn't make them any less real.

The connections you have with work friends from previous jobs persist; you can catch up about old faces, industry and workplace goings on, and career progression among people who understand the situation intimately.

[lostcolony]

But building connections over more permanent parts of yourself will last more than something that is likely to change every couple of years. Yes, losing the thing you connected over is going to make it so only the best friendships last, but that's just it, you can lose work just like you can everything else. Do people who -don't- go to a bar regularly to drink necessarily have limited social lives? No. Well, same with work.

Work actually makes it -harder- to really connect with people. The norm is to keep personal stuff personal; you don't bring up the difficulties you're having with your SO, and they don't give you advice or commiserate.

[vladvasiliu]

I mostly agree with other siblings' comments, but your turn of phrase has actually made me think of an angle which I haven't seen discussed in this context (emphasis mine):

> what you have to understand is that you're taking away something work used to provide, and asking the employee to provide it for themselves. There is a group of people for whom "work friends" are really important. Whether work friends are their only friends or just a subset of friends, the low-pressure friendship of only socializing with somebody because you have to is a different relationship to clearly indicated socializing with somebody because you want to.

The thing is that "work relationships" aren't like material objects. Work doesn't actually provide them, not in the sense that work provides you a desk, a chair and probably a computer.

Those relationships are actually provided by other people. And while some of those people may actually enjoy being there, maybe others would much rather not be there and not endure this forced socialization. On the face of it, it doesn't seem fair to me to force me to come to the office, so you can have a social life, if I don't enjoy it. Why would your preference override mine?

I actually like my colleagues and have enjoyed the occasional after work drink and chat with them until the bar closed, but I don't consider them my friends and, most importantly, I absolutely hate having to waste more than an hour of my life every day commuting. I can see how working 100% from home would have prevented me from building some relationships I have built, but like everything, it's a trade-off. Who knows what relationships I could have built had I been free to live further away from my office.

As someone higher in the thread said, not all people have the same preferences, and I realize that it may be hard for the company to organize work such that everyone is happy. But maybe in the end, people should choose where they work based on those preferences. Like working alone? Join a remote-only company. Love open-spaces and chatting with random colleagues walking by? Join an on-site-only company. We shouldn't expect there to be a single way to work.

[luffapi]

> There is a group of people for whom "work friends" are really important.

These people are generally very disruptive and a huge burden on people not looking to mix their social and professional lives. The reason they’ve been encouraged to build personal relationships at work despite the disruptions is that their goals aligned with those of sociopathic middle and upper management that puts their personal desire to see their “resources” churning away IRL ahead of actual productivity. The move to WFH is going to expose the whole “office culture” mindset for what it is.

> And so for those people who really value the "work friendship", that is essentially part of their compensation.

Will those of us who are forced to play the role of emotional caretaker of our co-workers also be compensated for our labor? For having to navigate office romances and nepotism? Time asked to drink after work?

I actually think the Gervais Principle is a great way to look at this:

https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-...

In short, the sociopaths have the clueless building their entire lives out of the office. The losers until now have just had to suffer, but WFH is the first chance in a long time for them to score a win.

[himinlomax]

> I also have ADHD, and sharing a space for work and play has been terrible for my ability to focus.

I have ADHD, and sharing an open floor plan is much, much worse. At least at home I can organize my surroundings to encourage productivity, whereas in offices I'm stuck with what's available; and for almost all the jobs I've had, it was just terrible.

[sidlls]

Unmarried, childless, 20-something me would have loved nothing more than to have that kind of isolation. I love my family, but I could very easily picture myself not interacting directly with people and being very happy.

[eythian]

I thought I'd be cool with it too, and for the first few months I was. I'd occasionally meet up with friends, but in general would go weeks and not see much of anyone. However after a while this situation started taking a fairly significant toll, and I started making a point of arranging something with someone every weekend, just to get some non-video-chat interaction.

[sverhagen]

It's not that I can't fathom that the other one exists, or even that it would be attractive to significant parts of the population, it's that I can't fathom that I'd ever change my personal preference, no matter how much of the other one I get forcibly exposed to.

So, I'm expecting a reality where, for workers with the luxury of this sort of choice, this will become an early "disqualifying question" while job hunting: are you remote or on-site? (It probably already is that disqualifying question, just not quite as prominently yet.)

[rsynnott]

> for workers with the luxury of this sort of choice, this will become an early "disqualifying question" while job hunting: are you remote or on-site?

For companies that are strictly one or the other, yes, definitely. It already is.

[hallway_monitor]

Maybe I'm just old but I want to share a space with the people I'm working with and, yes, it seems obviously superior to remote.

I wouldn't say it was the deciding factor, but when I got an offer from a smaller place working in person, I took a significant pay cut to go back into a (very cool) office.

[luffapi]

I’m older and would never work in an office again. It feels like a lot of those who want to go back in the office want to do it for social support reasons (lonely, single, don’t get on with family…).

The thing is having to be the social support for co-workers is one of the things that makes working in an office so horrible for many of us. It feels like a lot of people want to burden their co-workers with social roles that are better filled pretty much anywhere else.

[ClumsyPilot]

"burden their co-workers with social roles"

Some folks are looking for new relationships, especially those just starting their career or moving to a new ciry. Ideally they find other like them, rather than 'burdening' people who don't care

[luffapi]

Cities offer many opportunities to socialize outside of work. Especially when you’re wfh and can go out and mingle with people as needed.

[yellowfish]

It depends on the work, there are a lot of dev jobs out there that are boring tech, boring co-workers, boring managers, boring problems

[baron_harkonnen]

I certainly hope you at least pay your coworkers the modicum of respect of getting vaccinated first [0].

There's a surprisingly large population in the tech community that want to follow your approach of "don't get vaccinated and hope everyone else does". I can respect that a bit if you at least want to continue to adhere to basic social distancing and pandemic safety guidelines.

If I do return to an office it would certainly only be for companies that require a vaccine before returning to an office.

[0]. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27570389

[Ozzie_osman]

I hire for a startup that was remote first before Covid. In the first conversation with any candidate, I always ask "have you worked remotely before or do you know what it's like? Are you confident you can both be happy and productive working remotely?"

[stadium]

There a middle ground. As a remote worker I have to seek out opportunities for socialization outside of work. I miss being around actual live humans (besides my immediate family). And at the same time, I'm not willing to lose 1-1.5 hours a day commuting. I don't need or want to spend that much time commuting just to socialize and collaborate. I'd rather socialize with people that share a common non-work interest or hobby after spending all day working.

[cdrini]

I think most people actually fall somewhere in between and understand both. I think the people who are at the extremes are the loudest because they feel passionately. Don't let the internet convince you that everything is 100% polarised and black and white. It's a biased lens.

[luffapi]

I can’t speak for the pro-office crowd, but as a strong wfh advocate, I’ve been extra loud about this because for the first time in my life, there’s a dramatic phase shift that looks like it can change our global work habits for the better. We’re also seeing a lot of execs try to wind the clock back and force people back into the office, so it feels like there’s a legitimate and yet to be decided battle taking place.

[rsynnott]

> The part I find particularly interesting about this trend is that both camps can't seem to fathom that the other could possibly exist

This bit is weird. I’m in the “I’ll never voluntarily take a remote job” camp, but… I get that some people like remote work, and that’s fine.

Some people seem to be positively evangelical about it, though.

[hpoe]

I am evangelical about it simply because my camp of remote first is not the default and as a result I have to make sure I am always pushing against in office, if I don't evangelize it hard I risk it not coming to pass.

I also feel that many of the people that argue that they need the socialization that comes from being in the offive just really need to spend time outside of work finding a way to socialize and they could meet that need.

As someone else pointed out tieing your friend circle to your employer seems like a bad move when the time comes to change employers.

[rsynnott]

> I also feel that many of the people that argue that they need the socialization that comes from being in the offive just really need to spend time outside of work finding a way to socialize and they could meet that need.

On this bit, some people find spending the day alone difficult, even if they have social outlets outside work. This shouldn't be surprising; historically the vast majority of people see other people during the working day. Being completely alone for minimum eight hours a day (and in practice more; the evidence is that people tend to work longer hours when WFH) is not a particularly normal human behavior and many people don't deal well with it.

Again, it works for some people, and that's fine. What irritates me is people (rather dishonestly IMO; they don't really believe this generally) pushing the line that it works for everyone.

[nucleardog]

This. I’ve been arguing for years that I can do my job effectively remotely and now that it’s proven and I’ve seen a drastic improvement in my mental and physical health I really feel like I need to fight against giving even an inch against the default to have a hope of landing somewhere in the middle.

While I respect and understand (even if I disagree with) people that say they need an office, they’re just really not my concern right now. There will no doubt be office-only jobs for the foreseeable future if for no other reason than inertia. Without the fight, remote-first jobs won’t be there for those that want them.

[rsynnott]

"Have you heard the good news about our lord and saviour 'never leaving the house'"?

See, this is exactly what I mean.

[CodeGlitch]

If I was unmarried and in my 20's I definitely pick Type 2. Now I am married, live in a nice house, picking Type 1 is a no-brainer.

Coupled with the fact that in 2019 I was working in an office sat next to someone I absolutely detested, and realising that I was spending more waking hours with this hateful person then I was with my own family I will never want to go back to an office.

I imagine my career won't be as fruitful, but then again I get to take my daughter to school.

[benhoyt]

I'm a Type 1 & 2 combo. I currently work full-time at home (with Canonical, which has been "remote first" long before Covid) and I love the flexibility and the fact there's no commute, but I do miss the office interaction and being around people. I think my ideal would be 2-3 days a week at home, 2-3 in the office.

[chippiewill]

> The part I find particularly interesting about this trend is that both camps can't seem to fathom that the other could possibly exist

I don't think this is true. That being said, I think the most vocal are going to be the most evangelical (for either option).

[tshaddox]

> Type 2: "Remote work is infinitely inferior to office work due to the lack of socialization/collaboration/food/etc"

Or, ya know, just not wanting to either pay for an extra room at home or work 8+ hours a day in my bedroom.

[Galaxity]

Yes, I don't care about any of that. It's as simple as: do I have a nice house with multiple bedrooms I can use as an office and a garden to work in? Hell yeah I'll work from home. Do I have a studio or one bedroom? Hell no, I won't work from home.

[bookofsand]

Remote work has been around quite a while. Used to be called 'offshoring'. The main driver is raw economics: the price of tech labor is too high. 'Social distancing' is simply an excuse to push it into overdrive.

[wpietri]

To me they're very distinct. I'm part of an all-remote team, but we're all employees and we keep common core work hours so we can have lots of interactive time. I'm sure my employer saves some money on office space, but we also spend more on travel so we can get together in person regularly.

Offshoring in my experience is a very different set of relationships. It tends to have a significant power differential and to be much more distant, both physically and emotionally.

[toadi]

I moved to a country where I need less money. My life style is actually much better while making a little bit less money then I did in my own country. That works for me and not for everyone that want to stay close to family or/and have kids.

But remote working does. I spend more time with friends and my significant other then I did before. Because now I have more time to engage in social interactions I prefer. Work social interactions for me are just to a level of professional courtesy. It is more fun to interact with people outside of my field....

[tharkun__]

This is my problem with it.

I love my new life. Don't ever want to go back to the office.

Actually I would. If I can stay out here in the burbs and work is just a 10 minute drive or bus ride from the school/home. But I hate city life so I have to live so far that the commute sucks.

I totally get the offshoring thing tho. The only thing remotely (no pun intended) 'preventing' that is timezones. But once you offshore _all_ the jobs, timezone are much less of a problem. I hope they still would be enough of a problem that we can have the cake and eat it too.

[thisarticle]

At that point why not just ship the whole company off overseas?

[ItsMonkk]

Why not both?

Long-term I want to live on a college campus(except it's filled with other like-minded adults) like environment where my peers are not my co-workers so if I switch jobs I don't lose contact with them.

[scatters]

Isn't that called a city?

[ItsMonkk]

The main distinction between a campus and a city is its ratio of shared spaces to private spaces. A campus has 10% private spaces and 90% shared spaces, a city has 90% private spaces and 10% shared spaces. They are completely flipped.

Campuses are also built to be completely walk-able once you park on the outskirts.

[a_imho]

Office vs remote is a red herring.

The fundamental question is whether an employee should be free to pick their preferred workplace. Is is a superset of regular office work.

[bradleyjg]

It remains to be seen what will actually work in the long run.

It’s been a very good demonstration of confirmation bias. I’ve seen very few posts that say I love working at home but it just doesn’t work as well and I can’t see it lasting or vice versa. Preferences and predictions seem to like up almost perfectly.

[geoduck14]

> The part I find particularly interesting about this trend is that both camps can't seem to fathom that the other could possibly exist

Maybe I should speak up. I keep my mouth shut because I could go either way.

[phendrenad2]

I'm in the #2 category, but I'm dreading going back into the office. I just know they're going to pack us in like sardines. C'est la vie, I guess.