[tn890]

Isn't it funny how just a few years ago the eternal HN discussion regarding remote working always took place in the same way: about half of commenters for, and half against.

The typical arguments of social interaction, in person brainstorming and so on, vs free time, no commute, can work from anywhere, "zoom is just as good" always went round in circles.

Now I see those in the mainstream and HN seems to have cross over almost completely to the WFH side.

I wonder how "converted" HN-ers got where they are. If you're here and changed your mind regarding remote work since the pandemic started, I'd like to hear why; what, other than the obvious pathogen, has caused your change of heart?

[bertil]

There are patterns and practices that make working remotely possible: document with context, clear pull requests, share your intent more deliberately, written stand-ups, give meetings detailed agendas, etc. Those are good habits when you share an office, but they can easily be complemented by sharing the same workspace and whiteboards.

Many teams had to discover those practices during the pandemic; companies that didn’t adopt them effectively likely lost a lot of people to frustration or apparent underperformance. After two years, many people have had the time to find places where those practices are understood and practiced, or at least have met people who know they can be.

The half that thought those were impossible or unlikely discovered it was possible, even enjoyable way of working.

There are still people, many of them my friends, who know and practice those deliberate communication patterns and who still prefer an office—–in particular for small start-ups. In some cases, those make more sense. But they are now a minority.

Other companies haven’t transitioned because they never really tried; many blamed the circumstances for the increasing disfunction of their teams, rather than learn and adapt. With some team members remaining remote, or contagious, unavailable, companies that have not adopted at least some learnings from the forced isolation can now seem very frustrating places to work. Fewer people are going to defend what they increasingly see as a suboptimal system.

I don’t think that the breakdown is as strict as you say. I think that many people have had the opportunity to see the benefits not of remote, but of a way of working that doesn’t rely on the crutch of an office. Some do it well, but a few still prefer the ease of interactions——a minority that typically don’t have time to comment here. Many haven’t learnt but won‘t comment either, because they don’t know what good should look like anymore.

[timr]

> Many teams had to discover those practices during the pandemic; companies that didn’t adopt them effectively likely lost a lot of people to frustration or apparent underperformance. After two years, many people have had the time to find places where those practices are understood and practiced, or at least have met people who know they can be.

I feel like the real story is something like this: a lot of people on HN are folks who have a highly introverted nature and work in jobs that demand extensive quiet time. Also, most are pontificating on the internet, but still haven't returned to the office. They have almost completely forgotten the velocity achievable when a team works together.

Can you overcome the limitations of remote work with better, more intentional documentation? Yes, to an extent. But my experience is that once you go back to working as a group, you'll re-discover that in-person communication has orders of magnitude more bandwidth. And if you have those best practices in place and work in an office together, you're even more efficient.

I don't hate remote work -- I do it myself, sometimes -- but nothing works as well as in-person communication. I forsee a future where most companies embrace a hybrid schedule, but demand in-person attendance on a regular basis.

[scarface74]

One man’s “collaboration” is another man’s constant interruption and having to deal with a loud open office.

[ipaddr]

Is there a need for a greater communication bandwidth? In person you get many additional signals but often your goal is to reduce these signals. Going into the office can be fun but you can have highly productive and close relationships remotely.

[timr]

Yes. Communication is the O(n^2) problem in group work. Everything else you do is limited by the efficiency of your communication.

[NeverFade]

> They have almost completely forgotten the velocity achievable when a team works together.

Your comment simply assumes that superior "velocity" to exist. Many of us have not seen it. For myself, and many of my fellow engineers in other companies, I found that I'm much more productive in remote settings. Our team's productivity objectively increased after we went remote. Conversations with colleagues shows this to be somewhat common in many other teams and companies.

Maybe your personal in-office experience has shown this fabled "velocity". For many of us it never existed, and instead we experienced constant low-value interruptions leading to inefficient loss of focus, lots of time spent "at work" but not actually working, instead socializing or wasting time in other ways that feel good.

[anaccountexists]

When you have to coordinate between AU, US, CA, and UK time zones and do 100% async communication to resolve conflicts during a project, getting everyone into the same physical space for a few days to work through issues saves so much time in the long run.

I don’t really care where I work, but I’ve come to strongly value travel / face time with my coworkers given that my team is fully distributed and Google Meet is just not the same as meeting someone face to face. For example, I ended up having a 5 hour rambling conversation about the history of our company with another coworker which suddenly shed a lot of light on why I wasn’t able to make progress pushing for certain org-wide changes. This would’ve never come up in a WFH context, since it’s “inefficient socializing,” but in the long run it’s going to help my communication skills a lot.

And the last thing: whenever I’m in the office, I get lots of interruptions, mostly from other ICs (I’m a tech lead). Although my personal progress slows down, I’ve noticed that my coworkers all move faster because they tend to be more likely to ask questions in person than scheduling meetings to pair. In person we tend to dive a bit deeper into the “why are we making this change” which helps people grow more than a direct answer to the “what”. To be honest, Slack and email are far worse distractions for me than the office ever is.

[Andys]

Theres truth here but it only really applies to people who have trouble doing effective group work over the Internet.

Other people seem to be wired differently.

[timr]

Maybe some people are better at it than others, but my core point is that most people are worse at it than they think they are. And for those who have the most limited work experience...well, they don't really have much of a comparison, do they? I'm not terribly surprised that they might claim they're uniquely qualified to do it...

In other words, remote work is a lot like multi-tasking. People swear that they're uniquely good at that, too, and insist that it's only the old farts who can't get with the new trends.

[huynhhacnguyen]

That setup sounds realistic, and I think the general idea is for the company (and other employees) to give employees what they want and recognize how they want to work. If someone prefers working at the office, it would be terrible to force them to WFH. However, it would also be unreasonable to force other people who enjoy working remotely to come to the office with them.

Regarding productivity, if someone does their best work at the office communicating with other people but prefers working at home, wouldn't they fall behind their colleagues when they opt for a WFH setup? And if they're still happy in that case, who are we to say they have to change the way they work? So let people realize that the decide for themselves instead of doing the reasoning and making decisions for them that they may not agree with.

Regarding social interaction, getting surrounded by other people at times is nice, since we're inherently social animals, but why would we utilize work to fill in that need? Getting isolated for an extended period of time would drive me insane, but getting surrounded by other people, who I may not be comfortable with, would also do the same to my mental health.

As for my case, I have found that people can disregard the practices we have developed in the WFH era since they can "communicate faster" now and that has been giving me lots of headaches lately. So when people say they are more efficient at the office, I automatically associate that with the tendency to ignore clear, coherent documents because people think they are "cumbersome".

[timr]

> I think the general idea is for the company (and other employees) to give employees what they want and recognize how they want to work. If someone prefers working at the office, it would be terrible to force them to WFH.

> Regarding productivity, if someone does their best work at the office communicating with other people but prefers working at home, wouldn't they fall behind their colleagues when they opt for a WFH setup?

Generally agreed, but caveats apply here: a lot of folks may prefer to work from home, but don't necessarily prefer the approach that leads to their greatest productivity. Also, most people don't properly account for intangibles, such as the creativity benefits of an environment where people spontaneously interact on a daily basis (it's famously the entire reason the Pixar studio building is designed as it is), or the mentorship of new people. Costs like this may be OK for a year, or three, but will eventually come back to bite you.

Finally, many people have reliably mis-aligned notions of what "productivity" is. For example, when a junior engineer disappears down a dark hole of code, it's usually a bad sign, even though they almost always think they're being very productive (I say this from deep personal experience, having fallen into this same trap many times over). The danger of this one is that even if you're evaluating by "outcome", nobody really knows if you're unproductive because you're drifting, or because you're distracted, or because of something else. And if you're far from the group, it's even harder to tell what might be wrong.

Remote work feels bad for junior employees, for exactly this reason. So many times in life you're stopped from going down a dark path not because of a meeting or a status update, but because you started chatting with the other people on your team over lunch, and found out that Bob had an idea the other day that would make your change ten times easier to implement, and Alice was refactoring some other bit of code that solves the bigger problem. And oh yeah: haven't you heard that the manager of the Chaos team is talking about eliminating that use-case anyway? Spending too much time there would be toxic for your career!

I haven't found a way to replicate this with zoom.

[huynhhacnguyen]

The point about junior employees is reasonable. In such cases, we may have to find ways to really mentor them, not just to evaluate their performance, so listening and understanding their struggles would be of utmost importance. During a 6-month period when we had to adopt a full WFH mode, I've had to conduct a dozen sessions like that, and had some promising results so far, so progress while small are made. In time, even though they may not be able to improve on all their shortcomings, they start to realize when they need to reach out to other experienced members of the team or when to raise their concerns. Anyway, the point of working remotely is not to eliminate communication but to filter out the necessary from the distracting ones. That being said, a team consisting of mostly freshers will surely fall apart in either a WFH or an office setup.

[fpig]

> Remote work feels bad for junior employees, for exactly this reason. So many times in life you're stopped from going down a dark path not because of a meeting or a status update, but because you started chatting with the other people on your team over lunch, and found out that Bob had an idea the other day that would make your change ten times easier to implement, and Alice was refactoring some other bit of code that solves the bigger problem.

This sounds like a lack of technical leadership. If the junior's boss is an engineer, and they do their job, then this won't happen. The story reminds me of my first job, which wasn't even remote, where my boss was a non-technical person and I was going down "dark paths" constantly because he couldn't recognize it as he lacked the expertise.

[ipaddr]

Stop using zoom to recreate the office.

Juniors aren't going down a darkhole. They are asking on expert forums and trying out different things. It's part of becoming senior. They don't need someone to rescue them.

People interact on a daily basis remotely. It's form is different but it matches the medium.

[mark_l_watson]

+1 good idea: written standups.

[21723]

+2 better idea: no standups.

[bamboozled]

We did written standups for about 2 months, they just died, everyone stopped doing them.

I think discipline is important, but I can also see how they must not have been adding enough value for them to remain a thing.

[ipaddr]

I love the idea.. daily is often too much or not enough. Blogs are written whenever something needs to be said.

[tomrod]

I prefer M-Th standups, hardstop at 15 minutes, with a weekly owner that rotates.

That way I can get quick heads up and plan to ask others for assistance, as needed. Get all the shouldertaps done quickly.

[sarchertech]

We've recently switched to written standups with threads organized by sprint goals. It's worked out fantastically so far.

[faitswulff]

Slack threads? I'd be interested to hear more about how this works on your team.

[sarchertech]

Yes every morning someone posts a comment for each sprint goal, and people post updates in the comment threads.

It would be nice if we had bot to automate posting the original comments, but we haven’t got around to that yet.

[faitswulff]

This sounds like it might work nicely with zulip's topics feature (explained in the carousel on the homepage: https://zulip.com/)

[strken]

I hate it. I get less work done, drop out of my schedule and start waking up five minutes before standup, don't recognise half my the people I work with, and just generally don't have a fun time.

My commute is a 10 minute train ride followed by a 30 minute walk. I never realised it was actually a net positive, but it forces me to do a minimum amount of exercise every day, which significantly improves my life now we're back in the office.

[GekkePrutser]

That 10 min train ride is pretty exceptional though. I had about 20 on the metro + 20 walkwhich was amazing.

In other jobs I've had 1 hour driving commutes which could go up to 3 hours due to heavy traffic in the area. It was absolutely exhausting and depressing.

So this depends a lot of your circumstances. Also, many people love to drive. I hate it and it stresses me out especially when I'm stuck in traffic.

[strken]

It's either a 40 minute commute with a 2km walk at the end, or a 40 minute commute involving a changeover to a bus. I never realised I could just... ignore Google maps and walk.

Prior to this I've done 1hr+ public transport commutes, and I'm not willing to say they're a net positive, but they're better for me than no commute.

[GekkePrutser]

Oh yes I often ignore the whole metro and just walk. Especially since Covid.

It's actually better than it sounds for me because the metro makes a huge detour during those 20 minutes. Walking is a lot shorter than the metro route. It takes me about 1 hour. 7km or so (some uphill though :) )

Problem is where I live it gets quite hot in summer and it makes a 1-hour walk after work exhausting. In winter I do it more often.

[julianlam]

Agreed. In my situation it's an hour long train ride that I use to do email catch up and general community engagement, so by the time I'm at the office, I'm ready to work.

Whereas at home I have a toddler and a newborn climbing on me.

[sarchertech]

If you were considering 2 equal job offers, one that was 5 minutes away, and one that was an hour away, you'd take the farther offer?

>Whereas at home I have a toddler and a newborn climbing on me.

You could always find a co-working space.

[julianlam]

No, I'm not insane, all things being equal of course I would take the closer job :)

A co-working space was considered (and is still being considered), though we find our current strategy of 4 days wfh and one in-office day to be a good mix. Additional considerations involve the geographic make-up of our staff. This context, of course, wasn't in my original reply up above.

My main point in my previous reply was to provide a counterpoint to the argument that a commute is completely wasted time, in specific situations, it can be very useful, and not wasted at all.

[GekkePrutser]

Where I live in a busy city these are also ubiquitous. But many people live in small towns where people have never heard of those. Just saying :)

[sarchertech]

The small town where I grew up in has one now.

Also if you’re in a small town without a co-working space, there probably aren’t many software employers either. So you’re either working from home, commuting to an office, or commuting to a co-working space.

[Apocryphon]

I understand kids can be a big distraction during the work day, but isn’t a good thing to have more time with them after work, without the hour lost to the commute? Isn’t it desirable to be nearby during their formative years?

[julianlam]

No. On the train ride home I sleep, because without it I am a literal zombie and one could make the argument that I am a worse parent.

As is typical, another drive-by HN commenter will now say I should plan my day better, but without knowing my day, how can one judge?

[Apocryphon]

I don’t know anything about you, nor am I saying anything about you. I am simply speculating that parents would seek to maximize time with their children, having seen my share of poor WLB that keep parents at the office and away from their children.

[julianlam]

Yes, I know. I'm just being rather cynical at the moment.

Given I'm at 50% work capacity right now, I actually do spend many hours of most days of the week with my children.

I'm not saying there's a recommended maximum of time to spend (24 hours a day seems to be the ideal number recommended by mommy blogs), but after a certain point, I am out of energy to thoughtfully and meaningfully engage with my children.

It really puts into perspective the work childhood educators do on a daily basis, actually.

[pklausler]

I work with a group that's widely distributed around the planet. Prior to March 2020, meetings would always be in conference rooms with buggy videoconferencing gear. Now we're all remote, nobody has to commute to a local office to videoconference, and until we switched to MSFT Teams the experience was at least as good as it had been pre-pandemic. The food is way better at home, too. I might see myself going into the office again to conduct an interview, but otherwise, I'm completely sold on permanent WFH.

[mynegation]

I changed my mind about remote. Before pandemic I have been considering some fully remote roles, after pandemic - very unlikely. Working from home made me realize how much I miss talking to people at work in the meatspace. Going back to office in April and cannot wait.

[tartoran]

Assess again in a about 6 months to a year. You may change your mind. I started back in the office in september last year and I’d really like some kind of hybrid home/office type of situation. If I were to choose one or the other Id go WFH.

[MathCodeLove]

Same. Hybrid is absolutely my ideal, the office can be nice in moderation, but if it had to be one or the other then my preference is WFH

[teirce]

Don’t discount the part of the equation that the WFH crowd is very vocal (as well as preachy). So much as suggesting you miss going to the office or seeing coworkers in person is met with an incredible amount of vitriol.

And I don’t mean suggesting being in the office is better. I mean expressing a personal opinion on the matter makes people defensive and hostile.

[bradlys]

Correct. It’s basically the extrovert vs introvert thing as well as many other dynamics online.

You say you enjoy talking to others and would like to see people more often. Introverts will chime in and say, “but that’s not everyone! Not all of us enjoy idle chitchat! Oppressor!!” Yet - you never said you wanted to force anyone who wasn’t into that into that situation… And never implied it either.

It’s weird reactionary shit that adds nothing to the conversation. Expressing a personal opinion must be met with an equal or more severe personal opinion of the opposite. No circle jerking allowed anywhere!

I’m sure someone will chime in now that this isn’t actually how things work so that we can prevent any circle jerk.

[gilbetron]

I've found that the in-office crowd is the vocal, preachy group, always trying to convince people who are happier than ever that they are wrong. The in-office crowd are the ones trying to get everyone back to their way, rather than finding a new compromise.

[ptx]

> So much as suggesting you miss going to the office or seeing coworkers in person is met with an incredible amount of vitriol.

This might be because some of those of us who want WFH perceive this as, in practice, carrying the (unintentional) implicit threat of forcing us into physically mingling with the crowds again. After all, you can't see us in person without us seeing you in person, and on the way to that in-person meeting we're seeing a substantial part of the city's population in person.

[jdrc]

is it? people who wish to remain at home are most likely more introverted than the opposite.

[asiachick]

It's not clear to me there is a correlation. Introverted so doesn't have many friends. At work, people who are into the same thing (coding here on HN) are like minded people that an introvert can get some socialization from. Where as an extrovert has a million friends and zoom calls them one after another, filling their socialization quota.

[teirce]

I've spoken a bit on HN about this in the past. I would consider myself an introvert, but one that needs some sort of social interaction less I go crazy.

If you are interested, I wrote a lengthy bit more here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28831828&p=2#28836750

[MBCook]

I can sort of speak to this. I was NOT looking forward to working from home two years ago. I had always worked in the office and was happy with the social interaction. I worried about communication.

And that was actually very reasonable. My only experience before was being on a team where one or two people were WFH out of 10-12. They dialed in to our meetings and it was a mess. They couldn’t hear us well, we couldn’t hear them at times, lots of interruptions. It always felt to me like “we” were having a meeting and they were occasionally butting in. It was really hard for them to be truly included, and they were cut out of in-office stuff. So I didn’t want to WFH and get left out, or have others do the same.

But that’s not the case anymore.

In the time since then EVERYONE was WFH. We quickly got used to it. And we got some team members in other locations. Now that some people are back in the office it’s more even. It’s not the one or two people who aren’t there, it’s half the team. So the WFHs can’t be ignored, everybody stays in the discussion. It works far better than that old arrangement ever did, almost as well as when everyone was in office.

As for me I’m happy. I still get my office social interaction for the most part, it’s just often over chat/video. I feel more “free” because I can work where I want at home instead of at my one little cube in my one little chair. I can use better equipment (like my personal nice monitor vs corporate standard issue) in some cases. I don’t need to use headphones for music/podcasts.

And no commute.

At first I was unhappy “playing office” at home. Stuck at one desk, in one chair, with nothing to look at but a PC and a wall. As soon as I realized I didn’t have to do that I started to really enjoy WFH.

[GekkePrutser]

Having a nap during lunch break is also pretty refreshing. And not possible in the office.

We had a callcenter in Romania where they had a "relax" area and people used to nap on the couches there during lunch but it's always a bit awkward. And my office had nothing like this.

[tbrownaw]

In the beforetimes if I went for a walk around the parking lot at lunch time I'd usually see a couple people napping in their cars (and of course burning gas to run the ac if it was summer).

[QuikAccount]

I'm still really indifferent but you could almost say I'm converted in the opposite direction. I realized how awful my co-workers are at communication, especially asynchronous communication and it makes me want to pull my hair out.

[garciasn]

That’s an organizational and leadership/management issue at your current company and/or group/team; it’s not ubiquitous.

It’s time for you to find a different company that hires people who can communicate or teaches them to do better.

[gnulinux]

Not everyone is suited to work from home. I hated working from home, it destroyed my work focus and I think it put a good hole in my career. In the future, I'll prefer companies who offer in person (or hybrid) employment. Everyone is different.

[macksd]

Some people are good at the discipline and self-motivation required to make this work and like the situation where you're more isolated except when you go out of your way not to be. Some people are much happier and productive in an environment where face-to-face communication can happen frequently and when unplanned, and when you can have more personal communication. Obviously it's not as simple as those 2 categories, but as some companies embrace WFH and others go back to in-person, we're going to find that people gravitate towards environments that are one or the way other and find people that are like them. I wouldn't view one as worse or caused by a "leadership / management issue".

[Bizarro]

...as opposed to walking over to their cube, standing behind them for a few seconds staring at their screen before they realize you're behind them, and then interrupting their work by asking your question?

[QuikAccount]

No? There are ways to collaborate in person that don't require acting like you have 0 social skills.

[ilaksh]

Most people don't really evaluate things on their merit in a logical way like they think they do. Most behavior and opinions are picked up subconsciously based on what seems to be trending around them. Then comes the rationalization.

In other words, the herd moved towards WFH and got used to it. Now there are less rationalizations for commuting.

The few actual thoughts based on real-world observation now have actual experience of WFH to reference, which means fewer made up nonsense reasons to dislike it.

One thing that always stupidly gets left out of these conversations is the radical difference in situations for some people. Before, when kids were at home also, some parents were literally required to do two jobs while at home -- teacher and their normal job.

Or some people had spouses who did not understand WFH and did not respect boundaries.

But with the kids back in school it's a totally different situation for many.

[bengale]

Seems to have helped a lot that people are back socialising with their friends so the cabin fever has lifted and they don’t feel the desire to get back to the office to scratch that itch.

Also, kids are back at school.

[cmrdporcupine]

That doesn't sound very scientific. I personally suspect if you took a proper poll you'd find the numbers about the same as they were a year ago.

Myself I'd prefer to be back in the office. Just not the office I was in that was 45 minutes away. Working from home was dragging my soul down.

So I quit, living off my RSUs for the time being. Wherever I end up though, I will be asking for some kind of office, even if it's just me in a WeWork or whatever paid for by the company. That's just part of negotiation for me now. Being at home with the dogs and the kids and the distractions is unbearable.

[cortesoft]

One big thing for me is that EVERYONE is remote. It is way harder when some people are remote and some people are in the office. If some people are in the office, they are going to talk in person and make decisions in person. Remote workers can be left out.

I remember an old adage about adding a remote team member... "if one team member is remote, all team members need to behave like they are remote"

When some communication is electronic and some is verbal, the team members who can only see half the conversation are going to be left out of decisions.

[deathanatos]

> I wonder how "converted" HN-ers got where they are. If you're here and changed your mind regarding remote work since the pandemic started, I'd like to hear why; what, other than the obvious pathogen, has caused your change of heart?

The pandemic forced me to build a home office, of sorts. I don't actually have an "office", per se, as real estate prices are bananas. I have a corner in the living room. But my corner has: 1. a window 2. a desk that's about 2× bigger than what my employer would provide 3. more space than what my employer would provide 4. is often, but not always, quiet

Also got a nice chair, which improved the WFH situation greatly. Need a second monitor, at some point.

But also my company keeps thinking not of a full return-to-office, but "oh, maybe like 1 day a week with hotdesking" and … no? I don't particularly want to haul things like my keyboard back and forth, & the company laptop is a MBP, so a. it's keyboard induces RSI and b. it's got those butterfly switches that fail easily, and mine have failed.

I do miss my commute, when my commute was a bike ride.

Unlike the article's survey, I think people absolutely can be convinced to go into the office in exchange for a salary increase. If the survey is getting "no", well, you're just not offering enough money. But, they never do.

[Isamu]

Before the pandemic I was able to WFH but usually didn’t, because as luck would have it, it always seemed like a crisis would occur and everyone would be looking for me. Now it’s more normalized and not a problem.

It’s less my attitude, more managing other’s attitudes (esp management)

[gkop]

Am management, can confirm. I preferred the office for personal happiness reasons, but seeing the sustained high output [0] during WFH, why would I risk messing that up?

(I don't stop people from going in to the office of course, I just don't push them to, and the company has told us "do what works". I just started going in one day a week, and it's been nice. We will do a week-long in-person gathering later this year and include the remote folks we hired since covid.)

[0] Yes, high output even when normalized for various factors that were dramatic early in the pandemic, but are tapering back to a new baseline, like people not taking vacation, or working longer hours because there was nothing else to do. Yes also, my team reports many downsides to being distributed. But the sustained net output is high, and we're hiring great people twice as quickly.

[mlazos]

For me it just wasn’t as bad as I thought. I do miss hanging out with my coworkers but now if we’re local we just hang out. Being able to commute from bed is just so much nicer. And also being able to take guilt free ad hoc breaks during the day is just unbeatable.

[vanilla_nut]

In my case, seniority. I’ve only been working in industry for around 5 or 6 years, and when you’re new, working remotely is inconvenient — it’s hard to ask impromptu questions, or set up “brain drain” sessions, or even get into the mindset of working. You feel like you need to work those full 8-9 hour days to prove yourself.

After a couple of years, I changed jobs. I realized open offices aren’t that pleasant, the food kinda sucks, the beer fridge is full of trash, and my coworker relationships are very superficial compared to my actual friendships. I started working from home 2-3 days a week because my slightly longer commute time on the subway just wasn’t worth being in the office.

Then covid hit. Everyone started working from home. I pooled resources with my significant other to put together a great coffee setup at home, nice desks, cooked lunch together every day. I moved cities to be closer to things I want to do (and cut down on the NYC drinking culture). Now I’m actually planning another move to be someplace where I can actually afford a house in the next year or two.

I changed, the work environment changed, the world changed, and… work from home works better for me now? When I first started, I had a remote teammate, and it actually really bothered me — I felt like it ruined our team culture because we couldn’t include that teammate in lunches, he forced standups to be on zoom, etc. But now that I’m more established in the field I totally get it. If I had a family, no way I’d want to raise my kids in a US city right now. I’m sure it could work for other people with different preferences but to me it’s just too expensive, too much driving, too dangerous when you try to walk or bike, and cuts me off from the things I really enjoy, like biking on dirt roads in the woods, cross country skiing, downhill skiing (when it’s not busy), and easily visiting family.

[city41]

I have found I am more productive from home and I can do things like laundry. It's far from perfect but overall I have found it to be a win.

I think my ideal would be wfh 4 days, office 1 day. But I totally understand companies not wanting to maintain a building that is only used 1/5th of the time.

[julianlam]

This is a prime opportunity for five businesses to share a single furnished space.

[Aperocky]

There was never a change of heart, but never did I realize how truly awful commuting was, and how truly awesome the lack of it is.

[gnulinux]

At the beginning of pandemic I was neutral... Now I passionately detest wfh and I will never even attempt to do it again until my scars from last two years heal. I had a lot harder time to communicate, stay in the loop and focus on correct things.

[GekkePrutser]

I totally agree with the scars. I'm still heavily depressed due to the whole COVID situation. It feels like it will take years to recover even when the restrictions have lifted. I hear your though and I wish you well.

But WFH was a net win for me. At least it gave me some freedom in other ways. People no longer interrupt my concentration, they consider my status on teams more and ask before calling.

But these things are highly personal. I had other things that did and still do depress me heavily about the whole situation :(

[asiachick]

I hate work from home. Absolutely hate it. I'm willing to bet there will be an reports of an epidemic of suicides and/or depression from many people being isolated. Some of you have families or whatever and that works for you but lots of people do not.

Further, many people find enjoyment in socializing both at home and at work. Removing half of that socialization is also a problem for some. I know indie game collectives and they love their work and love doing at an office where they all collaborate. That feeling doesn't come from zoom.

[timbit42]

In my country there has already been a report come out. Suicides were down but depression was up, but this is temporary depression due to the pandemic, not chronic depression due to chemical imbalances in the body.

[sokoloff]

Early March 2020, I was not only in "prefer to work in office" but "will only work in the central corporate office, not a satellite" (after being burned by too many satellite office situations).

By August, I was enjoying forced-WFH. Around November, we went into the office to collect our belongings and during the 8.5 mile drive over there in zero traffic, I thought "damn this is taking forever, I hate this drive!" :)

Now, while our company is remote-first forever, I just got back from a 3 day in-person offsite in FL with one of my leadership teams and have had a few others over the last year since the vaccine was widely available. They are irreplaceable and I'd take a full-time in-office job before taking a all-remote job where in-person meetings a couple times per year was not feasible.

[syshum]

I think it more a changing demographic of HN, as well as people that dissent from the WFH support seem to be blasted so they just do not speak up anymore.

2 years of "if you do not want isolation you want to kill grandma" will do that to you.

For my part my mind has not changed at all, I have no strong opinion either way, WFH or In Office has no impact on if I will take a job or not.

Salary, benefits, Vacation, etc are all 1000000000000x more important to me, and I will drop a WFH job in a hot second if the in office job pays more or provides me with something else I need / desire

[popularonion]

I didn’t mind working in an office, but I went WFH in 2018 because it was the only way to live where I want to live and buy a home without taking a 70% pay cut.

[starwind]

that's because all the people who want permanent wfh are browsing hacker news upvoting pro-wfh articles and comments while working from home with no one looking over their shoulders