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Comment by tartoran | Hacker News Reader

I got the taste of remote work and nothing’s gonna convince me it’s better in the office. Im more productive remotely, I save money on transportation and food, I save time, I am close to my toddler son, I could save the company a lot by not wasting the office space on me and most of all Im an introvert and for a long time I haven’t felt so comfortable. Why change that? I will seek a remote position other place if my company returns to office work.

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Completely depends on the person though. I wouldn't be surprised if companies end up with some remote orgs and other office orgs someday. Everyone wants their ideal working environment and, imo, ought to be able to get it simultaneously... By matching people into the right jobs.

One thing I find interesting is that individual contributors always seem to feel they are more productive when WFH. But at least anecdotally the upper management I have talked to in tech companies are saying that WFH has dropped productivity significantly. Now maybe this is just WFH w/ all the stresses of a pandemic vs. WFH in normal times, but it is interesting.

Perhaps each of these cohorts are speaking out of their own biases and not any kind of impartial findings

It’s bullshit. Their “asses in chairs” metric that they use to measure productivity is not working anymore.

> But at least anecdotally the upper management I have talked to in tech companies are saying that WFH has dropped productivity significantly.

Well you need to actually do work to be productive remotely. Upper management doesn't really do anything.

As a tech lead, I totally understand that. I'm way more productive at IC work from home, but I really want to be able to meet with my team in person, at least sometimes.

That’s reasonable. But warming up an office chiar for 40 hours a week is the other extreme I don’t want to go back to.

It's a culture and communication issue. Many middle managers are used to back to back meetings and full calendars and hallway conversations and constant face-to-face. Of course it'll be an adjustment. There's no innate limitation of WFH in this scenario, but folks need to adapt to the technology.

Some of the best managers I've ever interacted with managed remote ICs or were remote themselves. Their communication skills were excellent. The average manager I've worked with has poor communication skills (sure, lots of meetings though) and won't adapt well.

Also anecdotally, upper management I've talked to has noticed little to no difference in productivity.

> But at least anecdotally the upper management I have talked to in tech companies are saying that WFH has dropped productivity significantly.

Curious: has any major tech company yet publicly provided numbers showing WFH negatively impacts productivity or profitability?

Same here. I'm already full remote, but if for any reason I weren't, I'd be looking for a new job immediately. Nothing is going to convince me to go back to open office plans. No amount of money will convince me of that. I'm happy to earn less if that's the necessary sacrifice.

It gets old after a while. The first 8-10 years are fun then you just want a change.

Sure. But after 10-20 years of office I’ll take this change. Working from home doesn’t mean that i have to stay home either. Last week I worked from hotel room and from a swimming pool in Orlando. It was wonderful to change the settings and weather (I live in NY) and got to enjoy the the evenings as if I was on vacation. It was a part time vacation to me while not wasting my time off.

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