[devnulll]

> [...] found it very weird, and outright unbelievable, that someone was arguing that commutes were "far more effective for unwinding".

Ex (multi) FAANG engineering director here. I personally find that a 30 minute commute home is more effective for separating work and home than just the clock. The data published (by MSFT) shows employees are working more hours now than ever before.

Now, those pale in comparison to things like on-call rotations, email on Cell Phones, Slack & Team's notifications on mobile, etc. The Amazon practice of "DevOps SDEs are always on-call" that's spread across the industry makes disengaging from work in order to engage with family & friends generally impossible, even on vacation.

[wdb]

I like to go for a short walk after work to the local supermarket or walk to the local parks (like Hyde or Regent's Park)

[rewma]

> Ex (multi) FAANG engineer here. I personally agree that a 30 minute commute home is more effective for separating work and home than just the clock. The data published (by MSFT) shows employees are working more hours now than ever before.

Current FAANG engineer here. I totally disagree, and the numbers support my case. My organization saw a jump in productivity when switching to WFO accompanied by a considerable increased in job satisfaction.

WFO, accompanied by flexible work hours, allowed everyone in my team to benefit from more personal time and also opportunities to research topics of interest, which already paid off in the product we developed.

[devnulll]

> Current FAANG engineer here. I totally disagree, and the numbers support my case. My organization saw a jump in productivity when switching to WFO accompanied by a considerable increased in job satisfaction.

You're moving the goalpost on this. For me, as someone else stated, the separation between home life and work life is a bit easier with a commute. That's not touching on productivity, overall job satisfaction, or anything else.

I'm not even talking tradeoffs here - there's no "I prefer to work from the office because XYZ". I prefer working from home, for a variety of reasons. However, I do recognize that in this one specific area - separation of work/home life, the commute was beneficial.

Were I to list 50 pros/cons of working from home (which I've done), the winner is WFH. That doesn't mean an absence of positive aspects to the "work from the office" column.

[rewma]

> You're moving the goalpost on this. For me, as someone else stated, the separation between home life and work life is a bit easier with a commute.

The point is that separation from home and work life does not require or mandate a commute or even getting back to the office. That position is indefensible. Being forced to endure something unsavoury against your best wishes ever single work day is not easier nor the only effective way to get some separation between your personal and work life. That's something you do, not something that's done to you.

Some people are quite happy with a home office, some people opt to work anywhere. I have a team member that works by the pool, and another team member who worked while travelling through Europe. If you are not forced to be present on a specific cubicle in a specific building for X hours a day then you have quite literally the whole world at your disposal, and your imagination is the only limit.

And you know what? That reflects on quality of life work/life balance, and overall job satisfaction. Your life matters and enjoying how you live it matters. That's the whole point of working, not a whimsical position where a post happened to be moved.

So no, being packed like sardines along with dozens of depressed and tired and often smelly fellow drones in a train or subway or bus, of being forced to endure traffic jams or road rages, is neither the only way to separate work from personal life, nor the most enjoyable or even effective at all. There are far better things to do in life, and you're free to pick them all.

[hnlmorg]

> That position is indefensible. Being forced to endure something unsavoury against your best wishes ever single work day is not easier nor the only effective way to get some separation between your personal and work life

The position that everyone should have to work from home even if they don't want to is also indefensible. What myself and others are saying when we argue the benefits we get from office work is that employees should have the freedom to chose the flexible working arrangement that works for them

There's a real tone on HN lately that everyone should work remotely and anyone who doesn't support that is against them and frankly I find that attitude to be just as toxic as the CEOs saying everyone should come back to the office.

Even yourself are saying all the reasons we like office work can be replicated when working from home -- maybe that's true on some level but it doesn't matter. If some of use want to come into the office then why can't we?

[hnlmorg]

I'm getting downvoted again but it's quite true.

Flexible working is the approach we should be striving for. Those who can work remotely can continue to do so. And those who want to come in to the office can do so. We shouldn't assume that remote work is a one size fits all and that's exactly what comments like the GPs does. Furthermore we should assume that those who do like office work are the unreasonable ones. We're not. We're still happy for you to work from home. We just don't personally want to do that every day ourselves.

This isn't just theoretical. I run 3 teams of engineers and push this rule onto them. Thus far it has been very successful.