[hn_throwaway_99]

> Offices are full of people trying to give each other eating disorders through passive aggression, politics and generally pointless power games.

Seriously, does half of HN work in the real-life equivalent of "The Office"? Yes, office politics exist, but this idea that it's some sort of scheming, back-stabbing environment is a caricature I have never experienced in my nearly 30 year career.

[vkou]

The bigger caricature is imagining that it all goes away if you just WFH.

It doesn't magically go away, it just keeps happening, almost certainly to your detriment.

[nklop]

I didn't write or imply that WFH provided that protection.

[nklop]

So you've not seen layoffs? I have. It was a mad scurry of people running around looking busy and indispensible.

Bullying? I've had it done to me and another time had to sit in with HR on someone else's behalf.

People being performance managed just because? I saw a bunch of 40 somethings get targeted and zeroed out. It got ugly.

30x1 is not the same as 1x30 or 6x5 or 15x2 or 10x3. They all look like the same equation but the experiences can be vastly different.

[forz877]

None of these things are solved by WFH.

[gowld]

Is WFH layoff-proof somehow?

[nklop]

Why would you ask that? I didn't imply that. No guarantees with WFH either.

Inserted edit: I notice you didn't comment on bullying. That's awkward over a zoom. At least one boss of someone I know has found out the hard way. Especially on playback.

The mind set changes when you start self organising because you're alone in a room. It's a different dynamic.

The gig economy has a lot of twists and turns. Less old guarantees but some interesting new ones.

[jackson1442]

The inverse is also true- I've found it significantly harder to get to know my coworkers over Zoom at my current shop than I have in the past. Granted, this is my first "office job," but at the jobs I've worked in the past it's been super easy to meet other people and get to know each other.

I get that some people want to put their head down and grind for 8 hours a day then move on with their lives, but I tend to prefer at least knowing who I work with. I work at a small company, well under 100 people, and haven't met half of them.

[nklop]

I think the future for a lot of businesses will still be in-office. Having the team in one room has its own benefits. Plenty of others will be remote since that also has benefits. A lot more will be somewhere in-between. I think that will be more common. 100% remote won't suit a lot of businesses.

But 30% of the time? Or 20%? For plenty of people this won't seem weird. Spending two days per week working from home won't be strange.

I work remote now. While I still see a need for in-person catch-ups this doesn't include any need for the classic daily commute. That, for me and many others, at least, is now dead.

[jackson1442]

Exactly. My ideal setup would be a flexible week where I could come in between 2-4 days each week and work from home the rest. Maybe have everyone on the team in on a specific day and the rest are up to me.