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Comment by stupidcar | Hacker News Reader

If my employer tries to remain 100% remote I will leave and go somewhere with an office. I find working from home too lonely, and I detest spending hours of every day on video calls. Of course, I'm just a single data point, and perhaps not representative, but I'm also generally less social than other people, so I find it hard to believe there won't be a lot of people feeling the same.

I'm sure that there will be a much greater prevalence and acceptable of working from home after the pandemic, but I'm equally sure that there will be a gradual but significant shift back to large numbers of people working in offices. The only way this won't happen is if there genuinely is a major uplift in productivity from remote work, and I'm incredibly sceptical about that. Self-reported improvements in productivity are worthless, IMO.

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I suspect that even if you go back to an office, you'll generally still spend hours of your days on video calls in most places because others won't be in the office. And, TBH, I already was because I work with people all over the world.

Half of my Google meetings were over video because we didn't want to blow a half hour getting to the other end of the Mountain View campus.

Yes, it's a very small company view of the world that everyone was a few minute walk from each other. I would sometimes walk into co-workers now and then but I haven't been in a situation where I was really co-located with people I worked with for years.

It's the opposite for me. If my employer requires me to come in, I'll quit on the spot. I'll take a paycut to not go in, I'm sure I'm not alone in this. No amount of money is worth commuting times and being forced to be in a packed office for most of my waking hours.

Working from home before and during lockdown were totally different, as something to consider. It was very social seeing my neighbors, dropping by the coffee shop, taking a stroll during lunch, and so on.

Not saying you won't enjoy being back in the office, but it's something to consider that maybe you could fill that commute time and your social needs with something more local once your community reopens.

Do you think that lockdown remote work involves more video calls than pre-lockdown remote work?

Another commenter mentioned they saw more meetings during lockdown as a way for their managers to feel more in control, though for “real” remote companies I don’t see this being the case.

Yes, that's my personal experience. Companies with more experience doing remote do MUCH more async, and I think a lot of companies who are now pushed into remote are creating tons of meetings as a sort of crutch for not knowing what else to do.

Oh yeah. I’ve worked remotely for over a decade. I didn’t even have a webcam on my primary computer until the pandemic started.

Now everyone wants to have a video call for things that used to be emails or slack conservations.

Where are you even going to take your video calls from? Everywhere I've worked constantly runs out of conference rooms. Are you going to take your video calls from your desk, and disrupt the work of 30 people around you every time you have a meeting?

I feel like a lot of companies are making way too many unneeded meetings, and almost doubling down on them for remote workers as a way to feel in control.

Same, and I have quite a few people on my team who can't wait to get back. A few days a week working form home, fine, but I'm certain most companies will come back to the office for this reason.

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