I’ve been spending most of my time cooped up in my apartment like a hermit, ordering food online and going outside on weekends. Every day feels the same. The sooner this ends the better.
I'm back in the office today after 2.5 months of remote work and it really bums me out. 1 hour of my life daily spent on my commute because colleagues aren't disciplined enough to communicate/work remotely and need a babysitter looking over their shoulder.
As a side note, it's not just spacial either. There's a body of evidence that shows time matters too for associative memories. Things like measuring test scores show that the brain is much better at testing in a given subject if the test is at the same time as the classwork. This also leads into other theories of learning, which suggest that if you really want to learn something well, do it in lots of different contexts at lots of different times so that you have a lot more neural paths to access said knowledge/ability.
Maybe you're looking at it the wrong way. It's not about needing a babysitter. My coworkers and I get lunch together, we banter, we play ping pong. Things like that are not possible when we work from home every day.
Also, have you tried having a happy hour over Zoom? It sucks.
I didn't sign up to be a monk and work in silence and isolation all day.
I have a fifteen minute commute door to door. Up until a couple years ago it was a five minute commute.
People's work situations are different. Just because you don't enjoy going to the office doesn't mean everyone feels the same.
I've been able to come to the office still through all of this and it's been a godsend. I have a wife and three young kids at home. Being around and trying to work is just an exercise in frustration for everyone.
Personally, I'm more productive now, but only because I'm not wasting 4+ hours each day on my commute. If my commute was under 30 minutes each way or less, I probably would prefer to be in the office so that I could actually see and socialize with people.
To clarify, I've been the only person coming in to the office. The other four people I work with have been staying home. Just figured someone might as well use the space. The kids have been coming here every day for lunch as a way to get them out of the house as well.
Personally, it's because of the global pandemic and travel and meeting restrictions that have come about because of it.
I still have the same meetings I had before, just now I get to stare at a tiny 13-inch screen and squint instead of having it projected onto a wall at a reasonable size.
In general I would like offices to move to "remote if you want so long as you're meeting your work KPIs", but I would hate fully remote work.
Dance on that keyboard, office monkey.