[redleggedfrog]

I'd also add that healthcare is serious shit-show as it currently stands and the best strategy is to just stay as healthy as you possibly can to avoid having to go to the doctor, if you can even find one who will see you.

Remote work is an interesting one. Before you had 8-9 hours a day of serious social activity, and if you were lucky, people you enjoyed. Even if you didn't enjoy the people, you were at least social. Remote takes that away, and as the article noted, social contact is a definite plus for well-being.

[marcus_holmes]

> Before you had 8-9 hours a day of serious social activity

This is a major difference between US and Euro workplaces that I have noticed. In the USA, there is plenty of time for chat with colleagues, and everyone stays at work longer. In Euro workplaces it tends to be more focused on work and then everyone goes home at 5.

The most extreme example I've worked in was in Dublin, where there was an explicit "you are given 8 hours of work, and 8 hours to do it in. If you need to stay longer than that then you must be incompetent", and the entire office, everyone, emptied into the pub at 5pm. All the socialising and "cooler chat" happened over pints of Guiness in the pub. The folks with kids would have one or two and then go home, or not drink at all and then go home. The less attached folks stayed on for several. But everyone came to the pub at 5, regardless.

I've worked with German colleagues who were ex-large-consultancies and they all said the same thing about working in the USA; that Americans spend a lot of their day chatting and stay in the office much longer. It drove the Germans crazy, "they would be so much more efficient if they just stopped talking and did the work!".

I'm not holding Europe up as an example to emulate; I don't think Europeans are that much happier at the moment, particularly the UK, but I wanted to push back on this idea as work == social space.

[disgruntledphd2]

> The most extreme example I've worked in was in Dublin, where there was an explicit "you are given 8 hours of work, and 8 hours to do it in. If you need to stay longer than that then you must be incompetent", and the entire office, everyone, emptied into the pub at 5pm. All the socialising and "cooler chat" happened over pints of Guiness in the pub. The folks with kids would have one or two and then go home, or not drink at all and then go home. The less attached folks stayed on for several. But everyone came to the pub at 5, regardless.

I want to call out that while generally, Irish working hours are pretty capped, most people at most companies definitely don't go to the pub at 5pm. I am Irish, and work in Ireland (but mostly for multinationals) so 5pm pub time (unfortunately) doesn't work when you need to talk to California.

Additionally, I normally agitate for the whole 8 and only 8 hours of work, as lots of professional people in Ireland are quite driven (or people pleasing) and tend to work longer hours.

That being said, there are some employers where this definitely is a thing (particularly on Thursday or Friday), but it's 100% not the standard.

[marcus_holmes]

I've only worked at this one place in Ireland, so there was definitely a tendency to say "the Irish" when I actually only knew "this one workplace in Ireland". Thanks for the clarification :) From now I'll preface it with "it's not the norm, but I worked at this one place in Ireland where...".

[disgruntledphd2]

> I've only worked at this one place in Ireland, so there was definitely a tendency to say "the Irish" when I actually only knew "this one workplace in Ireland".

To be fair, this does happen a lot if there are visitors to the office. I can certainly believe everyone going out in that case. Alternatively, if the team is pretty young and single this would definitely happen. When I worked at FB there was a big drinking culture (not just in Ireland), so again I'd believe it of there.

[decimalenough]

YMMV, but the fully remote workers I know (I manage a few and am married to one) seem very happy about it, largely because they get to spend a lot more time with their families than they otherwise would. They're anxious mostly because they're afraid they'll have to forcibly RTO.

[seanthemon]

I and my wife have been fully remote for over a decade, absolutely love it and I can't understand the whole going to office thing or people pushing for it.

[denkmoon]

Some of us just need a different space to work, I can't wfh - my living space is too small to have a dedicated area and I can't discipline myself without said dedicated area.

The "leaders" forcing people into it though are just petty fiends. Linking bonuses/compensation to in office days is just punitive because you want to see bums on seats, nobody will convince me otherwise.

[wildrhythms]

Anecdotally, my manager is a rabid RTO advocate, he's a gen X man and messages our team sometimes at 1am, is working on the weekends, schedules early morning and late meetings that extend well past 5pm. He has kids that he never mentions. We don't work on anything mission critical whatsoever.

[diogenescynic]

It's for the people having affairs at work and who hate their families.

[hirvi74]

Small sample size, but of the people in my office that really prefer in-office to WFH, the two archetypes I have noticed are those people are either single and have no family, or they wish they were single and had no family.

[bdangubic]

my sample size is similar but "gender"-based - single women and married men prefer in-office

[Aurornis]

> largely because they get to spend a lot more time with their families than they otherwise would.

This is a big YMMV, but you accidentally hit on something I've observed over my years of working remote: A lot of the successful remote coworkers I've had have been people with families at home.

There is a lot of demand for remote jobs from young, single people who think it's going to be the best thing ever, but then many decline into a funk that they don't really understand. The social isolation starts to wear on most people like that.

There are very obviously ways to theoretically avoid this, like having an active social life during the work week. I know many people who fit this description and love it. However a lot of people think they're going to do that and then just don't really keep up with it. They go from bed to remote job to Netflix on the couch to sleep and repeat, then wonder why they're feeling so blah.

[redleggedfrog]

I agree, for many it's wonderful. If you've got family at home I can see that being a real attraction. When my kids were little I'd have liked that as well. I also had wonderful office-mates that are now life-long friends, but I mostly worked non-corporate nearly mom-and-pops so we were a close knit group. I realize I am an outlier. I just wonder if not being in an office is 3% (or whatever %) of the unhappiness problem.

[zingababba]

If your company culture fully supports it it's great. Unfortunately because of all the half-assed RTO the employees still remote often feel both resentment from employees that had to RTO and anxiety about being first in line to get cut.

[scottyah]

Yeah, but those people were previously burdened by helping their coworkers be less crazy. Now they remain blissfully isolated as their coworkers spiral into unchecked weirdness.

[skirmish]

I would much rather talk to my family at random times over the working day than listen to the guy at the next desk who is always on the phone blabber on (and it always happens when there is a pressing deadline, and your boss is checking every 15 minutes: any progress on this?).

[MrDrMcCoy]

The fully remote teams that I have been a part of all started a tradition of leaving a persistent ${VIDEOCONFERENCE} running that we can just hang out in. It isn't perfect, but is enough to retain the sense of community and support from an office.

I'd love to see a dedicated tool that does "virtual office hangouts" well, where you can spin up rooms, share screens/files/text, easily drop in and out, and see where people are. There are a few out there that come close, but I haven't seen any that let you browse to see various groups/individuals to match walking the halls.

[tharkun__]

Meh. YMMV as always.

We tried that on the team when Covid hit and we all went remote. Lasted like a week and we were sick of it. Never reintroduced.

[coldtea]

>social contact is a definite plus for well-being

If you have asd or adhd (not uncommon in programmers) it can be a definitive minus for well-being. But even if you don't, between office politics and idiotic corporate mandates, it can be draining.

Especially as for the average office worker, originally you had an office of your own or at worse with one or two other people, then starting from the 80s you had a cubicle, then we got the hellish open plans. You're asked to focus on a screen and a codebase in an environment full of distractions, and full of activity around you.

And that's before we added any commute, and preparing for the commute, which can easily eat an additional 1-2 hours of your day, every day.

[tempaccount5050]

This is me. I'm not anti-social by any means, and I like people, but constant chatter around me drives me nuts. So I put my headphones on and now I'm unapproachable. It's tough.

[tharkun__]

This. And on top of that, headphones at office suck, at least for me.

They don't drown out enough even with large, well insulated cups. So you add noise cancelling. Which drowns out more but not everything. In fact it keeps some very annoying stuff around that is suddenly actually audible VS being drowned out without the headphones. And having noise cancelling on for 8 hours straight for days in a row actually creates some significant pain in my ears. The next idea is music to drown out what's left but that just distracts me too.

Remote is the only good way.

In fact, being remote means I have "social interaction budget" for the family again VS it all having been used up during work hours (being an introvert)

[imtringued]

Wearing over the ear headphones all day can contribute to cranial pressure, tiring out your jaw muscles and strain your temporomandibular joint.

It can also encourage ear infections and clogging of the eustachian tubes, because covering or plugging your ears slows down the self cleaning process.

At first you won't notice, but after a decade, these problems will slowly creep up on you and fixing them is very expensive, because you're basically slowly deforming your bones.

I personally wouldn't let kids/teenagers use headphones that apply any amount of noticeable pressure.

[lawlorino]

> The next idea is music to drown out what's left but that just distracts me too.

You could try using white noise, either an app or if you have a Mac or iPhone they have native white noise generation (Accessibility -> Hearing -> Background Sounds iirc)

[tempaccount5050]

Get a pair of Sony WH-1000MXs. The noise cancelling is nearly perfect.

[tharkun__]

Maybe I'll have to try something new at some point. Fair. It's been a while.

I just googled this and what I found was this for example:

    The Sony WH-1000XM3 is much better at canceling noise above 100Hz than the Bose is. However, because the Bose QC35 II can block out more sub-100Hz noise, it does a better job at killing unwanted car engines and low rumbles.

So sounds like it's just gonna be a different kind of noise that will still come through. So instead of still hearing voices, but much clearer I might hear more of the AC humm. Sounds like a wash unfortunately. And one the company won't pay for ;)

One thing that immediately turned me off when finding the Sonys on Amazon: It says "Alexa". Sorry, immediate and 150% no thank you, see you, bye.

[tempaccount5050]

No, just try a pair from Amazon and return if you need to. I can mow the lawn with these on and it's nearly silent. There's a feature to recalibrate for air temp and ambient noise (use this every time you put them on). They are really good.

[hirvi74]

Yep, ADHD and God know's what else here. Oddly enough, I am too gregarious, and it often gets me in a lot of trouble. So, by being WFH, I am not surrounded by distractions, and I am much more productive.

[maxerickson]

Staying as healthy as you can is the best strategy with perfect healthcare too.

[Aurornis]

> Remote work is an interesting one. Before you had 8-9 hours a day of serious social activity, and if you were lucky, people you enjoyed. Even if you didn't enjoy the people, you were at least social. Remote takes that away, and as the article noted, social contact is a definite plus for well-being.

Remote work is an interesting topic in this debate because any change in any direction (more remote work or less remote work) provokes claims that it's the reason for declining happiness.

I've managed remote teams for years, and I lean more toward your interpretation: Over the years I've seen a lot of people turn over in remote roles because they thought remote work was going to be the best thing ever, then they slowly slid into unhappiness in the isolation. (Before you downvote, I'm not claiming this is true for everyone. Remember I work remote too!)

[nurumaik]

> is to just stay as healthy as you possibly can

I think it's a good idea regardless of healthcare availability