Ask HN: Are you tired of being fully remote?
I think being remote worked for me for a while. I have a kid, I totally get the freedom and flexibility of it, but I also miss being around and working with human beings in person. Coffee shops and co-working spaces are no substitute for this. Interacting with people in other social settings is also not a replacement for this. I miss a team dynamic and one that's in person. I miss going somewhere that's out of my house for the purpose of doing a job that's fulfilling or at the very least in the service of something.
Not knocking the choice of being fully remote. It works for people and that's great, I still take advantage of that freedom, but there is something hugely lacking because I'm not going somewhere to work with people. And I think some of that will entirely change how and where I work next e.g do not want to work in a fully remote company, do not want to work across timezones, preferably want to be in a team of less than 10 people.
Who else is with me?
78 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 139 ms ] threadI totally agree with this - after 20ish years of doing 5 days a week in an office in the city, I was majorly burnt out with that lifestyle and remote was a massive relief for the first year or two.
For me, that doesn't mean 100% remote forever is an appealing though, I think 3-4 days week with a bit more flexibility than pre-covid is probably ideal.
Yes there are some circumstances where being in the flesh is better, particularly in intensive early design and architecture meetings. You can achieve a creative flow that's harder when apart. But that's always been a small part of my job, and the longer march of building the thing benefits from slow, separate thinking and prolonged focus that's harder for me when together with a team. I love to have the flexibility to respond to someone in minutes or hours instead of seconds.
But for me the lifestyle thing is bigger. I love my rural life, nowhere near an office building, let alone my other team members. In particular I'm a dog person, spend all day with my mutt, and couldn't bare to leave her alone all day. I'd rather not have dog than do that to it. What an awful prospect.
My commute is about a 30-40min drive one way.
My team is fully remote, and if I was to be totally honest, we would be more effective if we were all in the same space. Maybe other remote teams are just better at being remote than us, I don't really know.
I really like having lunch at home, napping if I want, etc. It's not socially acceptable to be so relaxed in an office.
People are constantly arguing back and forth about whether WFH or office is more productive and the various pitfalls but actual evidence is sparse. And second order effects just throw everything out. I think we'll be talking about it for a long time and it's still company and personal preference.
Edit: I don't miss the noise of young trainees treating the office space like a party room, the desks with poor ergonomics for programming work, or the annoying commute. So there are definitely advantages to counteract the loneliness.
Out of interest, what are you hoping to learn? Your feelings about remote working are valid regardless of whether 10 people agree with you, or 10,000. You do you!
These were my reasons. Since all that "be in office" was an utter load of shite and corpo toxicity (managers wanted to see you sitting at your desks or call for pointless meetings which could've been an e-mail), I am also extremely toxic about "return to office" unless it's guaranteed that the whole team is in the same office (which, in larger companies, doesn't happen).
If you, asim, want to work from the office and prefer real human contact (which, TBH, cannot be replaced by Teams, I agree with that - I spent my fair share of time away from my wife (luckily no kids at the time) and yes, a Skype call and couple of dungeon runs in World of Warcraft can't replace the experience of being at home :-D ) that's absolutely fine. I wish you find a workplace which suits you (that shouldn't be so hard these days). Do you really need a couple of weirdos on HN to assure you that you are correct? Guess what, speaking of the WFH, hybrid or "office" crowds, we all are! These are our preferences. Mine is different from yours. That's all. ;-)
My previous job had some mandatory travel every few months which was great to get out and be around the team I worked with. My current job is happy to never get everyone together and I miss it.
That said, its not worth trading even 1 hour of commute time per day. I can play with my kids the moment I close the door to the office. It's awesome.
Most people tend to disagree with me, though.
Long commutes to long days in a few square feet in a field of desks in a big room is quite unpleasant for me, but I still like being around my coworkers... getting lunch, speaking in person, etc.
Give me a 4 day work week and one week out of 4 in office, that'd be pretty ideal.
Meta comment: Maybe it's not the best use of "Ask HN" if you only want to hear one answer. IMO this really isn't the place to go if you just want validation.
This Ask HN feels like "What's the best programming language? Please don't say anything except Rust."
I suspect the range will be 2 to 3 days a week in the office and very few will be more or less.
I am exhausted by the people on the outer edges of the range arguing that their preference is the one true path and that nothing else is acceptable. Just because it (WFH or WFO) works for you doesn’t mean it works for your team, your division, your company, your customers, etc. Stop being selfish and accept a compromise in the middle that strikes the right balance of freedom.
I just absolutely marvel at this attitude, like it is such a massive put-out to have any form of inconvenience by the entity paying you. The entitlement in this industry is going to bite a lot of people in the ass.
I assume you're in the first half of your career. In the second half, looking where you can settle, or settle kids (if you have them) becomes important. Can't kick back or enter retirement with a living-space debt. So unless you can safely move to a lower-cost area with a lot of equity, you have to factor in picking a place you can pay off.
I don't think developing technically complex software is something that is driven by lots of interaction. The design might be, but its implementation requires patience and concentration. Rands and others talked about maintaining flow or state and interruptions take time to recover from.
I'm not so excessively introverted or withdrawn as to dislike being around people so I don't understand the things people complain about with regards to being in an office. Since I have free will I never chose an unacceptable commute. And yeah, open office plans sucked but this contrived zoom shit is worse.
Is your view that people take unacceptable commutes because they think they have to?