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Comment by progman32 | Hacker News Reader

A coworker of mine recently pointed out that not only are businesses saving money by closing offices, they're also offloading other costs to the employees. Things like:

- Water, electricity, HVAC, sanitation

- Desks, chairs, ergonomic equipment, safety equipment

- Telecom, networking support

- Physical security

- Office supplies

- Misc. amenities like coffee and snacks

Some companies are taking this into account, but not all.

A personal anecdote: we had an all-hands meeting today and the amount of emotion on display when the topic turned to returning to the office strongly suggests people want to go back. Whether or not that's temporary nostalgia for a previous life or an enduring need is an interesting discussion, but there are definitely people wanting to go back. I for one am even more in the no-remote-only-gigs camp given recent events.

edit: formatting, I'll learn eventually

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I am more that willing to take on those costs to work from home forever because I get the freedom of no commute which not only incurs an obvious cost but puts me at risk each day.

I also find my costs reduced because now I am no longer eating out for lunch, let alone because I felt pressure to do so daily.

However there are companies that are overly proud of their head quarters and other real estate and are going to be loathe to give it up; this includes elite addresses and locations

Many people in big tech hubs don't pay for lunch. Work provides it. Now, they all have to pay for lunch that they weren't paying for before because the office is closed. Sometimes this isn't just lunch - but up to 3 meals a day. Same is true with transit. They took a company bus or work paid for public transit.

Now, people who were living in spaces where they didn't have a dedicated office space are dying for one. (like myself) And, unfortunately, the competition for homes with more bedrooms has skyrocketed. I'm looking at paying $2000 more a month just so I can get a couple more bedrooms for office work! Moving away for a year or more isn't a real option either.

If my time's worth $50 an hour, it'd have to be a damn good free lunch or a damn short commute for the free-lunch-for-unpaid-commute trade to be a good deal.

Don't forget the huge benefit of lunch just being there.

I spend a lot more time dealing with food now (cooking, cleanup, groceries) than I spent on my commute. I could go to a restaurant, but if I don't want to eat the same thing every day, getting there and back and waiting for the food is going to take more time than my commute, especially if I do it for more than lunch.

Even purely from a time perspective, free-lunch-for-unpaid-commute is an EXCELLENT deal in my case. I can totally see that being different if your commute is longer than 30 minutes.

I kinda agree, except that I actually like cooking.

Even still, I've been working later (7pm approx) as I've started with a company based out of California (I'm in Ireland), which sucks for eating food.

Slow cookers/crockpots are kinda ace, you can dump all the ingredients into it in the morning, and have a meal when you finish work. As a bonus, the smell of the food is nice in the afternoons.

But unless you're actually paid per hour...

I mean - I'm not really arguing that you should commute just for a free lunch. If anything - I was making a bigger argument in regards to the office space part. I'm fine with the lunches at home right now. (I can only blame myself for the poor lunch options on any given day) The $2,000/month that I'm looking at spending just to have office space is a bit of a bigger deal, imo...

I doubt if I spend $5/day eating lunch at home.

And it's really not the norm for companies to pay for meals or commuting.

But, yes, if you want to continue living in an expensive urban area, the cost of an extra room is significant. I do consider myself fortunate that I live in a semi-rural area and have a dedicated office. I know a number of people who are fleeing city apartments to more rural areas.

I pay $2150 a month for a 5 bedroom 3100 square foot 4 year old house in the burbs of a major metropolitan area and work for $BigTech remotely. I wouldn’t trade the arbitrage opportunity for anything.

and do you also get the $BigTech 400K/year salary? that would be sweet.

Do I get the $400K salary? I’m not at the $400K salary level but neither are most people who work for $BigTech. The salary bands for the AWS consultants/solution architects/engagement managers are the same as the equivalent SDE roles. I would think the same holds true for GCP and Azure.

I can tell you according to levels.fyi that my salary is the same for my level as someone living in Seattle. I also know an SA living in MiddleOfNowhere Nebraska who is making the same for his level as someone in Seattle.

This is a good reply. At 400k a year, expenses really cease to matter. But at 180k a year, there is a difference between Seattle and Nebraska.

More like $210K -$250K for an L5.

Edit:

Would I move to the west coast for $225K compared to what I could makes locally? Heck no, $400K, maybe. At this point in life, even my local pre-Covid salary was “enough” for us to comfortably meet our short and long term goals.

The extra $70K-$80K basically just gave us enough to tell my wife don’t worry about going back to work surrounded by Covid when school starts back and the rest is going straight to long term goals - save more for retirement, pay off the house faster, etc.

Doubling our income wouldn’t make any lifestyle differences. What are we going to do travel in a post Covid world? Buy a larger house for three people and within a few years 2?

Thanks for the data :) For me, extra savings would just go towards automating more things in my life. All of the things that are broken or malperformant in my house could be resolved with a few phone calls. If I still have money left over after that, then it would probably be invested to generate more secure and reliable income. If I only have 500k in the bank, I feel weary about putting half in dividend stocks that might not pan out like I hoped. But if I have 2 milliom in the bank, then $200,000 in dividend stocks feels like child's play in terms of risk :)

That brings up another interesting and off topic aside.

I made plenty of $bad_life_decisions until 12 years ago. So early retirement is out of the question. But that’s okay, I’ve never hated my career, my previous jobs at times definitely.

But, with a paid off house, the amount of savings I should be able to amass in 20 years by the time I’m 65, and hopefully social security is still a thing. With today’s rules, your spouse can either collect their social security or half of yours while you are both still living. We could easily live off of an (inflation adjusted) $4500 SS + the hopeful retirement savings.

> I pay $2150 a month for a 5 bedroom 3100 square foot 4 year old house in the burbs of a major metropolitan area and work for $BigTech remotely. I wouldn’t trade the arbitrage opportunity for anything.

Congrats, you don't live in silicon valley. Woohoo. Your life is not everyone's nor is it representative of what everyone can get.

My employer will only keep people who will show up at the office. If I found employers regularly paying $400k+ for remote - I'd consider it... But I don't see them often.

Well, most people aren’t making $400K at $BigTech either according to levels.fyi

I had two choices when I could see myself topping out locally as a bog standard enterprise dev - either I could go the r/cscareerquestions route and “grind leetCode” so I could reverse a binary tree on the whiteboard, and move to high cost of living area or I could focus on gaining experience so I could be an overpriced “digital transformation consultant” somewhere where most of the jobs are remote with travel.

Right when I was about to pull the trigger and start applying for local companies, Covid hit, the local market dried up and I got an email from an Amazon recruiter.

I thought I might as well try. I can answer the “tell me about a time when...” questions with the best of them and I had the relevant experience.

I am shocked there are people who get 3 square meals a day all paid for by their job

I'm apalled that there are adults getting 3 free meals and are upset that they now have to get those meals themselves

And why would you pay $2000 for a "couple more" bedrooms? You're telling me you can't put an L-desk in your living room? This thread just has ridiculous scenarios upon ridiculous scenarios, like the guy who would need to take a "40k pay cut" to get a home gym and a 3D printer.

I live in a small (400-sqft) 1-bedroom that has no internal doors. It was never rented as a WFH space. If you and your partner are both on calls a lot of the day - it's kinda hard to do them if you have to talk over one another. It used to be you had 8-hours of separation a day. Now, you don't have any. More bedrooms would provide some of that.

Some people like having living rooms without office furniture jammed into them - go figure. Most people I know would have to get rid of some furniture in order to fit a desk nicely into their living room.

> I'm apalled that there are adults getting 3 free meals and are upset that they now have to get those meals themselves

The 3 meals a day thing just sounds like gatekeeping. "You must not be a real adult because you want food that's included in your benefits instead of having to labor over it like the rest of us who don't have such benefits!" (Or you have to pay for those meals to be delivered - which is very costly on an individual scale)

What if you can't go get your oil changed now? Should I say, "I'm appalled that there are adults getting oil changes at service centers and are upset that they now have to get those oil changes done themselves"

There has long been a debate if these free means actually count as a form of reimbursement (and are therefore taxable).

https://www.wsj.com/articles/silicon-valley-cafeterias-whet-...

https://www.businessinsider.com/irs-and-free-food-at-tech-co...

Or you can move somewhere where the cost of living is 80% lower...and still work remote.

Until you have to go back to the office whenever that is... And say goodbye to all of your friends/family.

How many people who work for BigTech have family there and didn’t relocate?

Of the Americans I know - quite a few. Of the foreigners - obviously quite a bit less.

Beyond that - friends can also be more important than family. I know plenty of people who won't move because all their friends are where they currently live - and they're fine with not being close to their family.

If tech companies don’t adjust for cost of living and you move you can save money on housing and get more space.

Isn’t that the point though? If the worker has to move in order to get more space, the worker is bearing the costs (literal and opportunity).

This is a very localized issue. Most people (I included) do not get even free lunch at work and there is no free transit to office either.

Both are cheaper than average (I think the buss is 1/2 the normal ticket price and the lunch is 2/3 of normal "take out" price) but certainly not free.

Everyone is also thinking this the wrong way around. People are thinking "how would this fit my current lifestyle" instead of "if this is the new normal, how would I change my lifestyle and would it be better over all".

I don't live in a big city even now, my commute is about 20minutes each way with a car. As it currently stands if I can stay working completely remotely I probably will and I will be selling my apartment and looking for a house in a more rural area. Something larger than my current apartment so I could have an actual office (in an ideal world there would be a separate building that would act as office / workshop). Currently I'm struggling with no dedicated office space, but that is because being 100% remote wasn't an option.

I get that many people have grown to expect free lunches and whatever from their work, but in over all work force thous people are in tiny margin group and while it sure would be sad if they lose the privilege, but needs of the many and so on.

Fringe benefits should always be expected to be transient (meals, commute transportation), and it isn’t wise to include them in total comp calculations (as they’re easier to do away with than your comp).

>Fringe benefits should always be expected to be transient (meals, commute transportation), and it isn’t wise to include them in total comp calculations (as they’re easier to do away with than your comp).

Yet places like Google would argue for them as part of their TC. The companies that tend to offer these benefits don't usually get rid of them until they're going out of business...

Nobody in the management of a company like Google would ever breathe a word about meals and transportation being part of comp, because if they are part of comp then they need to pay taxes on them. The two companies where I worked that had expensive on-campus meals both had systematic approaches devised by corporate lawyers to make sure that meals did not appear to be compensation.

It’s your job as an employee to not drink the kool aid and to properly value benefits provided, regardless of how they’re marketed. Cash is king, everything else is window dressing.

No one is drinking any KoolAid. I care about the fact that I don't have to go through the cognitive load of figuring out every meal. This is a benefit I personally experience and so I factor it in my analysis. I don't care how my employer reports it in their taxes or balance sheet.

Also, cash is king but companies can offer benefits at scale that will be much harder to access for me as an individual.

Mostly healthcare in the US. And a few other things that are tax-advantaged by being benefits from an employer (like 401(k) matching). I'm not sure that I can think of much else, other than negotiated travel and other discounts--which I don't really consider "benefits"--that are harder for me to access as an individual.

Sure but it is not just the $ sum but also $/h and $/sweat and tear. Having eg. parking lots even if you arrive at 10 aclock is also a big deal.

I have a hard time relating to your comment.

Why do you need a couple more bedrooms?

Can split a bedroom as an office with the other person in your house.

If you have kids you can pair them up in the same bedroom with bunk beds.

You could spend the money on a Murphy bed that folds up and turns into a desk.

I have co-workers who even work from their dining room table for the time being.

Moving is always an option every excuse you have just follow up with, "and...?".

A dedicated personal office is very nice if you full-time work from home. It's much nicer than working out of a bedroom, especially if the bedroom isn't that big.

I'm on board with you on not wanting 100% remote anymore. I used to want to work 100% remote but this pandemic has shown me that working in any sort of team remotely is hard to get right (most companies don't). I've come to the conclusion that 3-4 days/wk max is viable and can be healthy.

The problem is there's so much information and communication that happens implicitly through our day-to-day actions that when you're remote, you have to make that information explicit. It's tiring as hell.

For example, meetings. In person, you can look at a room and understand some basic relationships-who is talking to whom, who is laughing, who is avoiding, etc. This gives you valuable information on the shape of the team and how to navigate and work best with each other. Turn that into a zoom meeting, however, and that information either has to be explicitly pointed out or it is lost. This kind of thing eats up valuable cycles for information that could have been communicated in a literal glance.

Remote meetings work best when they're frequent, short and small groups.

Good remote teams have better communication in my experience because very often "implicit" communication in an office means you think you communicated something but did not.

Making all communication explicit is a useful habit to into, and overall improves everything.

Your coworker is totally on the money with this analysis.

More so, I think folks like me that had a 5 minute walking commute are losing out a ton of benefits by not being near the office anymore.

I'm lucky the weather's been cooperating but if I had to have the A/C on for days I would easily be spending $60-100/mo just for HVAC, forget the extra water, electricity and other utility costs for the extra usage at home.

We got a $500 WFH stipend but it definitely won't cover 12-16 months of this.

Overall though, I realize I'm in the minority and most people are winning back their time and money.

At least with my own company, the approach has been pretty reasonable.

They know they're saving money in the long term on space, and they're splitting that with employees pretty fairly. $1500 up front for all existing employees and all new hires to provision a space to work remote, and a $125 a month in reimbursement for internet/phone/electricity, no questions asked.

Frankly, it's made the transition pretty positive for all parties. The company saves a ton in the long term on rental space, and employees get a nice perk.

There are still folks that would prefer not being remote, but most folks are pretty happy without a commute.

Does this mean that the you could go remote permanently? Looks like a great deal.

I can take public transportation which is $2.50 a day. If I don't then parking downtown is $150 per month in our current building, but no one is allowed to go into the office. We're getting a new building next year when we do return to the office and parking will be $250+ across the street or $300+ for garage attached to the same building. That's what it costs me to run my ancient, inefficient 220 volt window unit and keep an uninsulated wooden garage apartment cool in the summer. I will gladly go back to the office when it's allowed.

> I for one am even more in the no-remote-only-gigs camp given recent events.

I don't understand this, why?

Regarding the rest of your comment, I totally agree. My mom and sister both work for a large, old-fashioned company, and the company didn't even let them take their dual monitors home with them when WFH started. They both had to buy setups out of their own pocket, and these are not people making tech salaries.

Really the biggest cost you're leaving off is space though. It's really preferable to have a dedicated space for an office, and this is not free. It's one thing for someone who made a choice to go remote, but for people forced into it, it feels unfair to me.

It wouldn't surprise me if in the new world, offices are viewed as a perk rather than a requirement due to all this. I personally work remotely for the record, but talking to many people in my life, it's clear this is not for everyone.

>I don't understand this, why?

My sentiments are similar to OP's, and for me a large part of my job satisfaction was getting to hang out with really incredible people all day, getting lunch with those people, getting afterwork drinks with them, etc. Hanging out on video chat just isn't the same.

Of course, an argument can (and maybe should) be made that it's smarter to to keep your work focused on the work, and find your social outlets elsewhere. However, the unfortunate reality is that for those of us far removed from school and our home towns, work is where we tend to make our friends.

On top of that, I just enjoyed the change of scenery in leaving my apartment in the burbs to go into a nice office space in the city. Feeling restricted to the same space for 24 hours a day is driving an unhealthy level of cabin fever and boredom. For the first time in my life, I envy those with the big house and a yard.

Of course that later point would be somewhat mitigated in a world where I could work out of shared space or the local coffee shop, so I'm not sure if that's an indictment of remote work in general for my purposes.

> Feeling restricted to the same space for 24 hours a day is driving an unhealthy level of cabin fever and boredom. For the first time in my life, I envy those with the big house and a yard.

This is because of corona, not because of working from home.

True, hence my follow-up sentence on this point being mitigated in a world where we felt more free to work in alternative work spaces.

It's not like I don't get out to run, go to the park, or even occasionally meet a friend for a drink on a spacious patio. So my comment was somewhat hyperbole. But sharing the same space for work and sleep is still driving me a bit batty.

We all have different needs of course. I recognize I don't share the same needs as many. Hence I'd never advocate for a workplace that didn't accommodate those that did prefer to work remote.

I used to work remotely and really disliked it. Not talking to coworkers and being stuck at home all day were the two big reasons. I'm right back there now due to the pandemic, and it's much the same, the evenings and weekends are somewhat more boring than before but we still manage to get out and do stuff because the weather is nice this time of year.

I think this could be different with a complete overhaul of corporate culture but I haven't seen it yet in 20 years of employment with "teleworking" being an option at least part of the time. Perhaps remote-first teams really are different, but you're still stuck at home all day, or spending time and money going to a coffee shop and maybe finding a seat+wifi, etc.

I was working remotely for a few years and in my opinion coworking spaces are the best of both worlds. I like to leave my apartment for work, I need a environment where I can concentrate and I like to see and talk to people, making friends. But I also like not having a boss around and being able to come and go whenever I want. You have all this in a coworking space and if you move to the opposite part of town (or change the city) you just change your space so that your commute never gets more than 10 minutes. Best of both worlds!

People say this but I don't really see the alternative. I can't imagine going to a coffee shop to loiter every day. The reality is I'm gonna be at home in my office, and that is tiring.

>and the company didn't even let them take their dual monitors home with them when WFH started

That is such a low life mentality. Not to give two screens worth $200 to someone who's probably making 10-20 times that a month.

What I envisage is super localised hubs,or small office spaces in residential areas. Small building nicely fitting into the area and offering local people some level of office like environment

My company wants us to go through 20 years of back emails Because it will save money when they love them to “the cloud”

Penny wise pound foolish

> I don't understand this, why?

As far as I can tell, this seems to be an introvert/extrovert thing (for the most part). Extroverts miss being around people they can engage in conversations with, while introverts love not having extroverts around trying to engage in conversations with them. I think both camps have valid needs and right now the extrovert's needs aren't being met to their satisfaction.

This isn't always the case. If you are an introvert, work often is your main contact with other people. Work at home would be like working third shift for me, no "sunlight" of contact with other people. It'd be way too easy to be alone.

Well said. This is a point being missed by many here. I feel it too!

Given that the whole world is geared towards extroverts, I'm happily drinking their uncomfortable tears for the time being.

I consider myself an extrovert and I love wfh. I don't consider conversations at work to be socialising. I guess it helps that I live with a few other people and play games with friends after work so I don't really feel alone or stripped of socialization.

I can see the opposite as well. Extravert people can socialize more easily outside work. Introverts still need to socialize if they are not antisocial. For me(introvert) it much easier to socialize at my workplace: No need for smalltalk, we already have something in common. Outside of work you have to start a conversation with a stranger which can be really hard for an introvert.

Exactly - I'm lucky in that I made a deliberate decision to have a slightly longer commute because it meant a bigger house and closer to an amazing school my children attend. I'm fortunate to have a proper office that I can enter at the start of the work day, and leave at the end - separating my work and home life.

Having to work from your lounge, or kitchen, or worse bedroom makes it much harder to switch off.

Yep. The people who optimized for space at the cost of a longer commute are the winners here. Those of us who prioritized a short commute with the expectation of not being home every day for months on end are losing.

Another personal anecdote: in my company nobody wants to go back to the office.

In my office the parents and people that have their own offices as opposed to cubicles are the only ones looking to return.

Sure says a lot about open workspaces.

No it doesn't, it's just one anecdote. Anecdotally, most people in my office are excited to return, including those who work in an open workspace.

My open office already has a voluntary return; but you gotta wear a mask and get temperature checked. I’ve already been on multiple calls with people in the office.

I just wanna add one thing to this list:

- Physical space. If you've got a small home without a spare room to turn into an office, have fun working on the kitchen table!

Long ago I made the decision to live in a smaller house close to work. My company's office is 15 minutes by bike from my house. Riding through the cool air every morning was a great start to my day. The office is perched above a canal. As I worked, I'd watch the boats go by and the bascule bridge go up and down. It was a great life.

Now I'm working in windowless cinderblock closet in my basement. I live near family and friends so just uprooting to a mini-mansion in the country isn't really a workable option. Companies clearly valued nice offices as a quality of life benefit to their employees, but now providing that nice office experience is squarely on my shoulders.

If my partner and I are going to be working remotely for the long term we'll probably need to move to a bigger house that can give us both better work spaces, which will probably cost $200K-$300K more than our current home. $250K financed at 3% interest over 30 years is $1200/mo plus things like heat, maintenance, furnishings, etc.

I don't expect my company to pony up a $15K/year remote work stipend, but also I see this a WFH future as a net downgrade from my old way of life.

True, but if you were remote only, you could live in a low cost place and afford a bigger space.

The place is chosen not only for the cost. Some people like to live near the park, or downtown, because theaters museums movies bars dancehalls are all there.

Those of us who genuinely prefer city living and amenities seem to be relatively few among the crowd on HN.

I used to work full-time remote, and had the choice to go anywhere I wanted in the world. I still landed in NYC, and stayed because I loved a diverse, walkable community with amazing nightlife, culture, and parks all around.

I eventually took a job in an office in the city because I liked having an occasional social environment with coworkers, both in the office and outside of it. Working at home full-time as a person without a family and more social needs than I was willing to admit for a long time was extremely isolating, but I don't want a family yet.

I'm eager to go back to the office as soon as it is safe at scale for all the same reasons I was eager to leave my remote job and go into an office again most days originally. Moving somewhere cheap and more isolated to have more space to work at home is about the lowest thing on my priority list.

(But I recognize that I'm fortunate to work at a place which always had pretty good tolerance for remote work, even pre-pandemic, even if I didn't take advantage of it... and also lucky to have coworkers who I generally enjoy being around and working with.)

I could but I just do not want to. This pandemic definitely stacked the cards against my living preferences

If that fits the rest of the family. Moving around is easier if you are alone.

@notjim @chosenbreed37 - I chose not to expand because it's specific to my own situation, but: I found remote work isn't for me. A selection of reasons (from pre-and-post covid experience): I find my communication stilted, I really miss hanging out with my colleagues, online whiteboards aren't the same, we have beer and board games, aisle conversations are useful, it's easy to see if it's OK to interrupt someone with a question in-person, and frankly it's motivating to have people bustling around working on stuff directly related to your own work. Half-and-half remote and in-person is probably a good balance for me. Yes a lot of the above reasons are a) privileges and b) can be mitigated with good remote work discipline, but again, it's just my preference.

> Really the biggest cost you're leaving off is space though.

100% agree. Many people are literally working in closets or worse, if they even can.

@taurath - "Quarantine Work Is Not Remote Work" good point. People are learning to support their remote colleagues right now, whether they intended to or not :) So "normal remote work" might be even better after this chapter concludes.

I think it depends where you live and your situation. I have coworkers in small NYC studios who just want to get outside. I have others who don't mind not taking the train for an hour a day.

Many coworkers have a nice big house to work from. The ones with kids most want to come back, because they appreciate the mental separation they get.

Remember, Quarentine Work Is Not Remote Work - https://www.hanselman.com/blog/QuarantineWorkIsNotRemoteWork...

This. People with many young kids, especially, seem to be absolutely miserable.

More interesting than remote/in-office is that we don't seem to be acknowledging the inevitable permanence of social distancing measures. No more four-dudes-in-an-office. No more coming to work with mild cold symptoms.

Maybe, oh goodness please, the return of actual OFFICES. With DOORS. Thats the only way you're getting me to come back into a work office, barring a rediculous raise.

I went into the office this week as I had physical work to do in the equipment rooms. Very few people are there (normally 7k, now it’s more like 700 across 10 floors)

It’s been so long since I wore headphones I forgot how bad it was. Zooms were difficult as other people in earshot (only 4 people, all about 4m away) were talking at the same time.

But if I had an office with a door (like I have at home) and a fixed deal with monitors rather than hunching over a laptop (as I do at home) maybe things would be different.

I'm in a one bedroom Brooklyn apt. Any time I open up my laptop, my 2yr old daughter climbs onto my lap and repetitively hits the caps lock key (it lights up on my laptop). Luckily, I've found alternative places to work from, albeit with less than ideal setups.

We run two office buildings on the same road: we went to the main one to collect all the IT equipment,pack it up and put it in the other,smaller office. We used to run fully in house. Yes,some people do want to go back to the office but the main reasons are: we were all stuck at home for months,so people do want to regain some sort of normality. Some have difficulties at home,so going to the office is better. Me personally? I run a 10 people team that will be half that size in a few days. I live in a 1 bed flat,so writing unit tests and dealing with dodgy suppliers,while Peppa Pig is blasting in the background can be challenging. However,I don't want to spend 3h on commuting daily.Screw that. The desk cost was about £3K a year,so I'm sure there will be some negotiation space to get something arranged for WFH.

I love working from home but I’m about 30-45 minutes out of central London and friends and family often ask me why I don’t want to go into an office in town for the buzz, it must be difficult working at home with a baby running round, etc.

I honestly wouldn’t give up working from home for triple my salary. The flexibility to come and go as I please, not losing time to a commute, watching the kid grow up. All priceless to me.

However, I have enough bedrooms to use one as an office, a garden I can work in during summer. I can understand if I had to work at the kitchen table with the family making noise around me I would be yearning to go in to the office.

I stayed in a hotel at Blackfriars at the start of the week. A supplier took me out for drinks, we went to the Cheshire Cheese, it was empty. And closed early.

Riding around was an interesting experience, London isn’t too bad at the moment with very few people there, certainly different to pre covid though

> I run a 10 people team that will be half that size in a few days.

Is this something that is coming about as a result of the pandemic?

We were very reliant on consumer credit, while selling services almost twice the going price,which has now gone,so the sales won't be anywhere near of what it used to be.

> the amount of emotion on display when the topic turned to returning to the office strongly suggests people want to go back.

Could also be the most vociferous or those worried about losing jobs to outsourcing? Also there's morale at play which could be people wanting to showcase they're all-in for facetime and not wanting to be the only ones without team spirit. imo people will vote with their feet re: remote work by not interviewing or accepting offers at companies that force back to the office.

Agree there's a nostalgia factor at play and need for ongoing discussions, I think overall things are going to move towards greater flexibility and maybe flex days/time etc.

I worked at a job I loved pre-Covid - great coworkers, freedom to tinker, a large amount of autonomy, admin access to our AWS account so I didn’t have to worry about the infrastructure gatekeepers (I was hired as the de facto “cloud architect”), etc.

But, I couldn’t stand the loud open office. One of the reasons I changed jobs was because there was talk about us coming back into the office by the end of June.

My job (for a FAANG) now was always designed to be fully remote and I couldn’t be happier. I’ve job hopped for the last decade, but there isn’t a dollar amount that would make me go back into the office.

I'm not experiencing this and I would assume anyone employed at a larger or established company would mirror this.

I've seen our company quickly react to the reduced office related costs and have reallocated that to cover employee's home office needs: internet service, phone, supplies. If you needed a desk at home, that also was accommodated.

Being able to take our work computer(s), including dual monitors, was also immediately available to everyone.

Definitely a trade-off, as the costs previously mostly foisted off on employees were related to commuting to the office (time, car, parking, public transport, etc.)

The leading companies would take account of those costs. One would hope they would also adapt to take acct of home office costs

I'm seeing/expecting people will want to go in some, but not back to 5-days in the office. 2-3 days, when necessary to really do things together.

If this reduced office loading prevails, it'll also help everyone from workers to cities with the misery & costs of commuting (tho I did read that NPR has lost huge audience due to loss of commute-time listeners).

I find that the costs of all the things outlined in your list are either:

a) Things I would be paying for anyways as part of maintaining my residence

b) Vastly outweighed by the savings in time and vehicle wear/tear by not commuting to and from an office 5 days a week. If we use a figure lower than the official IRS vehicle cost reimbursement, $0.50 per mile, and my commute is 20 miles one way. That's 200 miles a week, same as $100.00/week vehicle expenses, or $5200/year.

Today I realized what I want most out of going back to the office is just going to lunch with my coworkers. What a nice experience to break up the day.

I had the best of both worlds, I went in once a week - but I loved going in. I met with my team, talked with our people outside my division. Grabbed some good "city miami" food, no "suburb miami" food. It was like a mini-vacation, every week and it energized me for the following week.

Hard problem to solve. Other people in the company had to go in every day, and I'm sure they LOVE not having to commute, and for good reason.

Companies can't really "rent an office space" for one day a week can they? It's not realistic. I wonder what will work look like in the next 2 years. I'm glad I had a chance to experience the office setting for a year at least.

> Companies can't really "rent an office space" for one day a week can they?

Not exactly but they could get 1/5 the space and rotate people onsite one day per week.

I was already paying for all those things, and they were sitting idle during the day while I was at the office using another set of them that my employer was paying for. Except the snacks, I miss the free snacks, but my waistline doesn't.

I'm curious what the IRS will have to say about it. If self-employed people can deduct a certain amount of their square footage as an "office expense", can I do that too? All those things you just listed are now part of my employment.

I’ve been saying this for months on HN and it hasn’t been very well-received. Maybe such a large percentage were already remote that it seems obviously better to them?

> A coworker of mine recently pointed out that not only are businesses saving money by closing offices, they're

I hadn't considered this. I've always thought that many companies are tied to long leases they wouldn't be able to get out of that quickly. I can imagine some savings on the other associated office costs.

> I for one am even more in the no-remote-only-gigs camp given recent events.

Interesting...could you please elaborate on this?

My company was at the end of their lease for several office buildings. They’ve since closed all but our largest offices. We have some jobs that can’t be done remotely (security and certification requirements precludes outsourcing.) The remaining offices are running skeleton crews with the heaviest precautions we can do while remaining operational.

Those costs really doesn't add up to much for me. Most of the stuff I would have anyways (internet, electricity, HVAC). There's some small marginal increases I suppose. And I would bet that the costs are less than the savings from not commuting (especially if you include the value of your time), not needing new work clothes and not eating out.

I think saying they're offloading those costs is somewhat unfair since almost all of those things you would be buying anyway even if you went into the office. When I started working from home the only cost that changed for me was buying more coffee, and that's maybe 10 bucks a week.

My brother is also in the "I wanna go back to the office" camp. He misses his co-workers, and it's hard for him to get stuff done with a few young kids at home. I can understand it. Hopefully we just get to the point where people can pick. Seems like the easiest solution.

And the government.

You can (Please check with a CPA before listening to this rando on the internet, I did my homework but it's a big deal and you want to do it correctly and legally) deduct any single purpose office space that you use at home from your taxes.

The company already offloaded the cost of travelling to and from work. My choice to live with a (reasonable) commute, but savings in petrol since March have more than offset other costs.

Yes there are trade offs..

> 4. I am eating healthier

Agree with most of these, but man do I ever miss the free and very well provisioned salad bar at the office :( I've eaten more grilled cheese and peanut butter sandwiches during WFH than any self-respecting adult ever should.

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