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Comment by kibleopard | Hacker News Reader

A pattern I notice (not necessarily directly related to this article) is that the people who loudly exclaim “I don’t want to go back to the office ever again!” are usually older folks who: > have a house > have a family

As a 20-something who lives alone in an apartment, I don’t get the luxury of having a nice backyard to go work in (like someone mentioned doing in another comment thread here). I don’t get the luxury of having a bunch of space to set up an office. And for that reason alone I’m excited to go back to an office setting. It’s nice that older people who have their lives figured out are enjoying WFH, but let’s not discount how WFH disproportionately is worse for early in career people.

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Parents with small children at home often prefer the office because it provides some context switching.

It’s really difficult to explain to a toddler why a parent is home but cannot play with them for half of the day.

That said, you’re not alone in preferring to work in an office. It’s actually very common outside of Internet forums for people to prefer working in an office. It’s just not a popular opinion online right now. To each their own, but let’s not pretend like one working style is inherently better than the other for everyone.

> It’s really difficult to explain to a toddler why a parent is home but cannot play with them for half of the day.

I've worked from home through 3 toddlers, and very rarely had a problem. But I've worked from home for their whole lives.

This is probably something harder to transition into. Kids only really know what you introduce to them. If you've worked from home their whole lives they don't know anything different. If they're used to mommy working from home and them not being able to play with her, then they pretty much accept it.

We never tried to explain, we just said: mommy is at work, you cannot play with her, you can see her at lunch/after work.

Wow, I am amazed that worked for you. Maybe cause the kids can entertain each other.

We have a 3 year old and restricting him / telling him that he cannot do something makes makes that his entire focal point. Hell, he might even be playing by himself or with me but if the Mom disappears even for a cat nap, he has to go interrupt/play with her.

Has caused a huge amount of stress between my wife and I this past year. Thankfully the day care has opened and they are very careful & rigorous.

Related,

- I think 20-somethings gain more from in-person interactions given they have less experience so are regularly bumping into people with more experience. For the more experienced these interactions feel more like a tax/interruption, but for the person just starting out, they're often missed learning opportunities that add up over time.

- In-office amenities like free dinner are more valued by early-career folks who are less likely to have a family they need to go home to. Even the free drinks/snacks.

I'm a 30-something and married, so my situation isn't completely analogous to yours. But we have no kids and live in a pretty tiny 1br apartment with no backyard or other private outdoor space or even a balcony. Before covid we didn't really care, but covid makes us yearn for bigger, detached housing.

My home "office" is a corner of our tiny bedroom (that said, my home office setup is still vastly superior to my work office setup).

That said, I still vastly prefer WFH. I don't have to waste time on a miserable commute, and my office environment is just plain old dreary, depressing - probably the case for most offices for "old school" companies (vs. hot and hip Silicon Valley style tech companies). I've mentioned this in other posts, but I can imagine being happier at the office if the environment wasn't so depressing and dystopian.

Before covid we didn't really care, but covid makes us yearn for bigger, detached housing

Wouldn't full time WFH make that easier to do? Presumably you live in a small one bedroom apartment because it's within commute distance of work. If your employer stuck with WFH, then you could move to a house in a small town, probably for less money than you're paying for the apartment.

I have been noticing a line like this in job ads lately:

"this is a remote position but candidates must be able to commute to the office"

As long as they are up front about the commute requirements (once a week, once a month, once a quarter, whatever), that's fine. Employees can decide how far away they are willing to live.

I might be willing to do a 90 minute commute once a month, but not once a week. If once a quarter, then I'd even be willing to fly in at my own expense.

Doesn't relate with me. While not 20 anymore, I live in a solo apartment and Covid has killed all my social life. Still never want to work in an office ever again. And I'm not going to. Despite the commute, everything about offices feels and is restricting. At home, I can work however I want. Way more productive. Way more hours of the day to myself. Never understood people who have their social life at work. You work there all day, interactions are limited, polite, professionell, uninteresting. The fun starts afterwards with people of your choice.

I am a 20-something who lives alone in a small studio apartment. I work at a tiny desk and barely have room for all my work equipment. still, I love working from home and I hope never to go back to the office. as soon as I get the message that this situation can go on indefinitely, I will buy a bigger desk and possibly shop for a larger apartment when my lease is up.

your experience is valid, but don't assume you speak for everyone in our cohort. I hope once quarantine is over, you and I will both have the freedom to find the work environment that suits each of us best.

> WFH disproportionately is worse for early in career people

Based off working with a bunch of younger co-workers (the average age of my co-workers is in the early/mid 20's) I'd say it's worse for people whose primary source of social interaction is work. They didn't have social contacts they could lean on outside of work.

Without the office, they were alone.

Those with spouses, or friends outside of the office, all did pretty well, and aren't clamoring to go back to the office.

Personally, I have a spouse and a number of friends who I continued to interact with outside of the office. This saw me through the coronavirus better than any house or a yard could have.

Just to offer a counter example, I'm in my mid 30s and engaged. I'm an introvert, but my fiancee is an extrovert, so I have a big social circle and even during the pandemic, I've had more social commitments than I can handle.

Our office opened last week and I've been back in every day (and am sitting here now).

For me, going back into the office has nothing to do with my social life. Even prior to the pandemic, for the last 4 years, I've had the option to WFH as much as I wanted and I was still in office 3-4 days a week. I feel less productive at home and I miss having the division between work and home. My commute is my wind down time that allows me to turn my brain off work mode at the end of the day.

I think after COVID is gone, the name of the game will be flexibility. Treat people like adults and, as long as they're getting their work done and not negatively affecting the team, we should let them work where and when they want.

Nobody wants to force you to work from home. I think if you work better from the office you should work from the office, and if I work better from home I should work from home.

The execs advocating for work from office aren’t proposing this though: they are instead insisting everyone work from the office, regardless of preference. That’s what chafes people.

There are two facets to this.

First, productivity concerns are (mostly) an excuse. The real important thing that is desired is to be able to exert managerial control over employees. This is more easily done when you have employees in the office under watchful eyes.

Second, in an ideal world the people that like the office will commute to the office, and the people that like WFH will WFH.

The prefer-WFH people don't lose out either way from such a setup. However the prefer-office people still lose out, if, for example, the majority of a team chooses prefer WFH. What happens to all the social and organizational benefits of working in the office if you're in a team of 10 and only 3 people choose to come to the office? Or worse - if you're the only one? So it becomes an all or nothing scenario.

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