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Comment by whistlerbrk | Hacker News Reader

Working from home for me was likely slowly sliding into a deep depression with no one to talk to. I understand many people pull it off but I fundamentally believe we are social animals who benefit enormously from being around other humans. I don't think that means you need to work in a dedicated office, but an office / studio / around other hackers (regardless of who they work with) is a huge boon to life style and learning.

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I think everyone has a different optimal balance. I prefer being in the office at least 4 days a week, while my head developer seems to excel at one day per week, with others somewhere in between. I tend to get more distracted at home then most (I have a pretty large property that always has some kind of chore or new project to be worked on), but not everyone has this problem. I think the flexibility to find a happy equilibrium is the key ingredient.

Hearing that some demand it be all-or-nothing is a bit puzzling to me. Though I have my suspicion that recent high profile moves to eliminate telecommuting (Yahoo and Reddit come to mind) were really just stealth layoffs. A way to reduce FTE through self-selection.

This, I think letting individuals/teams figure it out is the best option. Some projects, and even specific times within a project, call for being physically with the team and other times i am more productive being able to just focus on a task at home.

Also I find that my time spent in the office depends on the season. During the Spring and Fall when it is a perfect temperature for being outside i love going into the office and being able to go out for a nice lunch outdoors somewhere with coworkers.

There are definitely some of us whose balance leans toward "leave me the heck alone." I work at home in a rather remote location. I often don't see anyone besides my wife for weeks at a time. (and I love it).

Completely agree. I've worked every WFH arrangement possible: had an office in San Jose I'd visit once a month and worked from Portland the rest of the month, worked from home 50% and traveled 50% for consulting, worked from home 2-3 days a week, and now I technically work from home in the sense that our startup's HQ is in San Jose but I live in Seattle. As I have two kids under 3 1/2 and the home office is mid-conversion to toddler room to make way for the third- working from home is a no-go so I rent an office space in a Regus building (love it BTW and the price was surprisingly competetive to the other options).

I miss the office environment and creative boost that checking into my last employer's office gave me. The employer before that? The space and people in it didn't do anything for me. I missing having some people around for the general BS coverslip a that get your juices flowing again but I wouldn't trade it for having a really nice office in a really nice building that is only 4mi from my house that I can ride my bicycle along a beautiful river bike path to get to.

For me, I think it really boils down to who I'm working with. If the office space sucks or the people don't really do it for me in general, then I could be fine on my own. When I actually get some energy from the people in the office I desire to go in a certain amount because it provides a value, even if only emotional.

Two things. First, there's a weird genius loci factor in humans. I used to think that not having to switch context would allow for more throughput, but more and more I love splitting things in rooms, places. It allows for single task deep focus, and when you do something else, you're into that other activity. Be it eating, reading whatever. Going to an office can be part of that.

Secondly, isolation can lead to depressive states, but being surrounded by people is also a burden and some times worse. I can remember the feeling of joy when my floor left the workplace as I had to stay longer. I felt my spirit grow and fill the room, ideas, drive and motivation came back strong.

Yes, but working remote does not mean having no social life.

While it's convenient due to the time spent together, I think enmeshing your personal and work life until they are inseperable is not healthy. Especially since companies fold, etc. It can be very traumatic, and have been through that during dot-com years. I greatly prefer working outside the office now.

I, on the other hand, hate feeling pressure to socialize.

Indeed. My friend phoned me once "how did you stop going crazy working from home" (I did it for 5 years) and all I could reply was "I'm not sure I did".

I went for days when the only speaking I did was "just these please ... thank you" at the store.

I had to get out in the end. Quit my job (the office 150 miles away and they wouldn't be able to pay for me to move to & live in London).

Saved my life I think.

this is why the language we use to describe the phenomena is so important: "remote work" is the correct way to describe it in my opinion because the phrase does not exclude the possability of working in a co-working office space.

With remote work it's entirely possible to work from a social business environment or "hacker space". The difference in this situation is that the individuals who you socialize with at work, aren't always working on the same project as you, or employed by the same company.

In other words remote work need not imply a life-style change or a work-style change, so to speak, but the people who blog about this stuff often ignore this and get it wrong. As an aside, in Manhattan there are nice co-working spaces which are not cheap and increasingly what you'll find there are individuals who are working remotely, but who prefer to do so while hanging out around other startup developers. I think this is the kind of thing we're going to see a lot more of rather than the idea of working in pajamas

To me the goal is clusters of living units around a coworking space and a more specialized work space for some business. That way you can freely choose to be at home, get the benefits of an office without physical interruptions from your coworkers, or commute to your employer's cluster to get full coworker immersion. Some vacancy minimum would ensure as your family (or chosen family) shrinks and grows you simply switch to a more appropriate unit. Any extra inventory could be rented.

If a cluster was attached to a bakery for example, ideally it's super baking nerds who want to wake up at the bakery plus people who work in other domains but have a secondary interest in baked goods or eating them.

Doesn't have to be either or.

I now work ~2 day per week from an office and the rest of the time from home & am much happier to cut my time commuting by 3/5th and spend a lot more time with my wife than when I was working from an office every day.

I love how the standard practice for people is to think "this is how I am, therefore I intuitively know this is how it must be for everyone"

I find this is true across all humankind, and I find myself doing it a lot. Pretty easy to do.

Great minds think like me.

If you don't have friends you meet with outside work or roommates I imagine that would drive me crazy. I have teleworked with a roommate present, alone and married and the only time I felt depressed was when I was trying to do it alone.

I do agree that completely killing off offices or coworking spaces seems like something that will (hopefully) never happen. It is nice to work in a space where everyone has the same energy and interests. I find myself needing to recharge off that periodically.

This is why one of the possible futures is houses where people live and work. Not uncommon in the SV even today, to my understanding. The only problem in that case is the boss :)

Ugh, lots of more problems. Now the company prescribes what you can do or not do at home. Quit your job? Well, you lose your home as well.

Still it can work well for early stage startups and provided that they won't hire those who have children. They don't anyway (it's a discrimination, a big topic, but a different story here).

Quit your job? Move on to the next one, you will have some buffer time.

As a father, I find that kind of brushing off the needs of people with family decidedly distasteful.

As a father of 3 I even wrote an article about ageism in this industry and especially the so called startup culture. Why are you downvoting me?

That place should be relaxing and should feel like home, because it is. Keeping different levels of authority separated in different houses would be mandatory. Additionally workers living in the same house shouldn't be working on the same project[0] , even if that sounds counter-intuitive. The reason is that it diminishes possible conflicts, because in the case of unsolved argument, there is nowhere you can go, and humans can't always solve them.

[0]: but should certainly work in the same field.

There are also co-working spaces. And plenty of ways to socialize online with co-workers or friends or new people over video chat, text chat, reddit/Hacker News, and other options. And lots of ways to meet up for non-work-related activities with existing or new friends.

Many people aren't doing it right if they aren't regularly interacting with co-workers online.

I discussed this a bit in a recent article I wrote. Hoping to have time this spring to write extensively about the social aspects of remote work http://w.ryansrich.com/2016/02/16/remote/

Be careful extrapolating from "I" to "we". You have realized you need to be around other humans to thrive. That doesn't mean everyone needs the same thing.

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