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Comment by booleandilemma | Hacker News Reader

What’s this obsession with working from home? Does no one else like going into their office and seeing people face to face?

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I d like to reverse the question. What s the obsession with going to the office to see other people? This seems to be particularly endemic to west/USA. There are lots of countries where , due to high unemployment , people have accustomed to having a life not provided by their employer. That's why remote work seems to fit well in europe/eastern europe where tech industry is scarce.

HN (and the tech industry in general) has a bias for being introverted, computer-focused workers that, if they had their way, would spend 10 hours a day heads down with a technical task and no interaction with other human beings. They live in a bubble where they assume that everyone else is the same way. As evidenced by the comments in this thread, many of them have trouble understanding that other people genuinely do enjoy socializing with their coworkers and going to after-work happy hours, and actually dread the thought of spending their entire workday alone without anyone to gossip with in the break room.

I think it greatly depends on where you work, the group of people you're around, and if the atmosphere is open office or something more discrete like cubicles.

My open office division of where I've been assigned, has a group of people that aren't very social and conversations usually end with I need to get back to work. They're all great people but totally different experience compared to previous socializing at work. I typically can get my "social fix" by visiting a different area of team members and that are way more toned down on just writing code all day.

This sort of solution isn't pleasant at all and makes me just want to work from home. In general I could just stay home, code and nothing would be missed.

The first part of your comment is true. I certainly prefer no interaction when working on some challenge(unless I'm working together WITH someone on the same challenge). I also enjoy socializing with my friends at work. The problem comes when I want to focus on the challenge at hand but am forced to hear all the noise around me. Various conversations, and random words/laughter/clomping pulling my thoughts away from what I want to be working on.

I just want to be able to focus on something without all the unnecessary distractions. I can socialize anytime.

If I had a door I could close (that actually blocked the noise), that would be different.

This site has its own version of Godwin's law in which as any submission gathers more comments, the odds go up that someone will draw a contrived link to remote work.

I definitely like going to an office more than I like sitting home or at a coffee shop all day. It's important social ambience that I can participate in as much or as little as I want on a given day. And I'm not in the minority, though it can seem so when tolerance for going to a regular job is more implicitly assumed than something that needs to be posted about regularly.

> it's important social ambience that I can participate in as much or as little as I want on a given day.

If I had this luxury, I would enjoy working in an office too. Unfortunately, I'm stuck in an open office plan without that benefit.

Godwins law (the remote work version) on HN exists because the current open-office trend is absolutely hated by many.

I would be interested to see actual numbers on the like or dislike of open-office plans.

Working in the office has become frustrating and tiresome even for many non-introverts in recent years, due to the prevalence of open-plan offices.

I don’t think it’s actually that widespread. You’re looking at a vocal minority; most people on balance enjoy the social (and other) benefits of co-located work, they just don’t blog about it.

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