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Comment by emptyfile | Hacker News Reader

As opposed to the usual grind of commuting and spending 8 hours a day in the office? I really don't get it.

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.

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It's not just discipline. It's also partly how associative memories work (aka how the brain accesses memories). I have an office in my house that I can work from. It's a privilege to have this much space. But because I don't solely use the office for work its actually harder to focus while I'm in here. As soon as a task starts getting hard, my brain immediately goes, oh, you could play with this toy, or that toy, or do this other thing. Part of why I like to drive into the office is to have better control over the types of things I have access to, and to become conditioned to avoid certain types of distractions. That said, I've worked in openish offices, and found that to be a nightmare. So I'd take my office distractions over the distractions of a full on open office plan any day...

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.

I notice this too. A ton of mental energy gets siphoned due to just corralling and confining my thought processes. I think at work office it's just easier to a) be mentally primed for work b) stay on task and not get distracted.

Yes, I'd rather spend my working hours in an office surrounded by people instead of alone in my apartment.

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.

Here's an idea. Why not eat, banter and play ping-pong with your friends after work? You could also go for a 2 hour drive on your own every day if you miss that commute.

> go for a 2 hour drive on your own every day if you miss that commute

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.

I don't think anyone is arguing against you being able to go to the office. Just don't expect me to come and keep you company.

Shoot. Was really hoping to have some company here :)

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.

Yea, you can't generalize. Different people are different. Some people are able to work from their quiet home office and have never been more productive and happy. Others have 4 year olds with no energy relief valve, bouncing all over their living rooms which double as workspaces. Some people are naturally solitary and find stay-at-home a great break from the enforced socialization that comes with working at an office. Some people are extroverts and are going absolutely bananas every day that goes by where they don't see another human being.

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.

> Why not eat, banter and play ping-pong with your friends after work?

Personally, it's because of the global pandemic and travel and meeting restrictions that have come about because of it.

I don't get it either. This is by far the most productive i've ever been at work and on personal projects. I don't miss spending 60+ minutes in my car 5x a week to sit in a cube with headphones on or sit in a meeting where we all look at a shared screen on our laptops... I start my workday when I wake up and finish working at the same time i'd normally be arriving home after my drive.

Not everyone spends 60+ minutes in a car? My commute is a 20-30 minute bus ride, which is just long enough to mentally separate "home" and "work." Plus since someone else is driving I can do basically anything I want to pass the time, other than reading a book since that gives me motion sickness.

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.

In the USA being able to use public transit is very rare and most commutes in major cities are long. I used to have the good fortune of being able to commute by train for 20-30 minutes and had the option of biking as well. I loved that commute but I fully recognize most people are not so fortunate. I had co-workers in the same office who drove 2 hours each way.

People's feelings of sameness everyday and of time dragging goes beyond the 9-5 schedule. I'm at home all day every day. After hours time doesn't matter because I have limited options for what to do and who to do it with. Same with the weekend. I am home doing the same things I did at home last weekend and the one before and the one before.

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