I personally would rather quit than stay remote indefinitely, I can tell you that.
Some people would prefer to never go in, some people (like myself) would prefer an office presence but no requirement to attend and others would prefer to eliminate remote work.
I find this interesting because we tend to extrapolate our own thoughts and preferences to the general public. And this is kind of why working together is sometimes hard! We all want/expect/prefer different things in a working environment.
What does this really mean in practice, though? I ask this as a person who just applied to a remote position at a company based in the city I live in. In theory, I'd be glad to come in in-person during the early months to facilitate training, but in practice I wouldn't trust the company not to stop viewing me as remote during that time.
If the majority of tech companies had gone fully remote, or even "1 day a week in office" the housing market would look very different right now.
I am kind of sad that didn't come to pass.
I am the exact opposite, and the year of remote working has probably been the best and most healthy year of my work life.
Those variables tend to make all the difference between "happy to work from home" and "about to experience a mental breakdown".
they have and I didn't care, because I don't need to leave my home to enjoy my life. If anything a fully remote world would be even better because then I can go live in the countryside and have my own land without having to see other humans
> do you have a small apartment and/or your spouse working at the same time in the same space
yep, and we get along great. I love spending all day with my partner and we've never been happier individually or as a couple
> young kids?
I choose not to have kids specifically so I don't feel like I have to get away from my own home and family to feel sane.
I've gotten the impression that the lockdown, pandemic world has been a brief breath of fresh air for the hermits, introverts, misanthropes of the world, and a taste for extroverts of how miserable it is for many of us to adapt to a world that doesn't accommodate our personalities and social preferences
If I could I'd spend most of the day enjoying time with my daughter and give my employer about half an hour of my attention. Sadly, I need a full time job.
If you can go live in a cabin in the woods, congrats! You're part of the elite. Please understand the rest of us who aren't.
It makes all the sense in the world that affluent people with large houses or living in beautiful locations, without kids, or with antisocial tendencies ("hermits", as you put it) are doing well during this pandemic. What about the rest of us?
In that case it's a very different point and I understand the difficulty. But what does that have to do with remote work? Assuming the coronavirus is eventually under control, why not just work remote and send the kids off to a babysitter or wherever they would be while at the office?
> and a couple sharing very limited space working at the same time (just think of Zoom meetings!).
I feel like I often spend more time on meetings than actually coding so I can relate. Just buy a headset with a mic. Just like it's reasonable to invest thousands in a car if you have to commute to work, I think it's reasonable to invest at the very least 20 bucks on a convenience store headset to be able to focus a little better. If you can even splurge 100 bucks it's a big improvement. I'm physically closer to my partner than I was to my coworkers at my previous job, so I understand the concern, but I haven't had issues by just using headsets and muting as needed.
> ("hermits", as you put it) are doing well during this pandemic. What about the rest of us?
That was part of the point of my post. You've only had it rough for a year. What about us hermits for all the rest of human history when fully remote work has been a very rare luxury? For some of us, it's a countdown until we go back to a world that makes us as miserable for a lifetime as you've been for a year, except we won't have anybody fighting to let us keep the isolation and comfort we've been enjoying, whereas you have every world government and relevant expert sprinting to end this current way of life. It's frustrating to see people complain about being unhappy for such a short time and completely disregard how unhappy many people were with the old way of things and for how long
Until very recently day care was closed by law (actually, worse than closed: you had pointless "Zoom hours" which don't help at all, the baby bored looking elsewhere and I still cannot work) and babysitters forbidden. Now that they are temporarily allowed, I breathe a bit more easily. They are threatening with forbidding them once more if the second wave hits as seriously as the trends seem to indicate.
Once COVID19 is under control, if my wife and I can work remotely with comfort, and I can go to the office maybe once or twice a week just to hang out with my coworkers, I'd be delighted.
> What about us hermits for all the rest of human history when fully remote work has been a very rare luxury?
I agree that people who want to permantently work remotely should be allowed to. This seems something else to me, the pandemic changed everything, in some cases for the worse. It's not a choice anymore.
One more thing: we both use noise cancelling headsets. Believe me this isn't enough for two people holding Zoom calls at the same time if located in the same room.
Also: local internet connections suck. There's no way out of this because every provider sucks. I've called tech support during the pandemic multiple times, and they are clueless. I suppose they just cannot cope with so many people working remotely -- though they do manage to raise the price of my plan regularly!
* Having any kind of separation between work and home.
* The requirement to have an office space that you likely pay quite a lot of rent for.
* Lack of spontaneous interaction with co-workers (especially new ones)
Sure there was a commute involved, but I enjoyed getting out of the house. Hopefully things will be better post-pandemic and I'll get some of the social interaction by working out of coffee shops and from parks, but the quality of life improvement from changing from a "5 days/week in the office" to "3 days/week in the office" was substantially larger for me than going full remote.
If your office experience was blah, or you had a long commute, you likely realized a lot of utility and benefit having your employer forced to support remote work.
My office (investment bank) is dull, dreary, depressing, dystopian, Dilbertesque. Everyone must wear at least business casual (dress shirt, dress pants, dress shoes). We have none of the perks mentioned above. The commute is miserable. Very little sunlight. Even our coffee is an atrocity. This is probably standard fare for most old school non-tech companies.
I've visited the offices of quite a few Silicon Valley tech companies. The atmosphere could not be more different.
If I had to use an analogy, coming into my office is like checking into the local cheap motel. Going to a SV tech company office feels like it would be akin to checking into a hip and luxurious boutique hotel.
I've said this before, and I know grass is greener on the other side, but if my office environment were better, I could imagine myself enjoying being at the office more. As it stands currently, it is outright depressing.
I've heard some stories about Steven Cohen's office suite at SAC for example.
Despite being wealthy, tech company execs don't seem to be at that level of ostentatious old school display of wealth.
Edit: I've been at some hedge funds too - and most of the lower employees, especially in tech (cost center) still get the cheap motel experience.
My current org was 90% remote to begin with, there was just a "main office" with a few dozen employees working out of their casually, and regular department gatherings in the space when a number of people had to be in SF. So going full remote was easier for our org than others, but I wouldn't mind a few days back in an office.
Personally I think cities are overrated anyway and this is why:
- heavy traffic hence heavy pollution
- huge commute times to work
- need to pay lot more for home (both buy/rent, may even have to take loan)
- everything is expensive. My current expenses are 1/3 of that of city and I already have a home. I live in a town since pandemic
After graduation I probably knew dozens of people who moved to Manhattan or nearby. I'm not sure more than one couple I know is still there.
In that case if you want in-person interaction with like-minded people, or to attend specific facilities, you need a big enough population that the relevant small percentage of people becomes a significant community.
I socialize by going to conventions, events, clubs, parties; with people I want to be around.
Outside of tech work, consider how many professions depend on communication where this lossiness is unacceptable. So I definitely get that there's a wide spectrum of preferences towards telecommuting.
I'm not at all saying "Be antisocial at work". That just makes for a shitty time for everyone. What I was trying to get to was "dont use work as a way to make friends as well", since many of those relationships are predicated upon working said job. It's all too easy to lose a job and be simultaneously be isolated by having all your 'friend network' in a group that no longer talks or relates to you.
By having people who are your friends outside work, how you change jobs doesn't matter. It's a discussion with your friends about that place. And talking ill about that workplace can be done, and not alienating or as sour-grapes.
Now, for the few people that do cross over to non-work, it's awesome. Welcome them as a friend, and not a "work-friend". But I find that I've only had a very small handful of people whom that happened with.
I've worked for four companies in my career. I'm still great friends with my coworkers from my first company.
I don't talk to anyone from my second and third companies at all - not because I don't like them, but because we just never built rapport or "jived" with each other beyond work. Our relationships amounts to at best, liking each others' posts on social networking and saying happy birthdays.
I'm still good friends with some people I worked at in my current company that have since left.
Then again, I'm fairly introverted. YMMV if you are highly extroverted. I know some people that can quickly become best friends with a room full of strangers.
- I'm far more productive in an office
- Onboarding remotely really doesn't work at all
In short, working from home is boring, lonely, and stressful all at the same time.
I stopped building my social life through work `n` companies ago; I'm way more productive at home and my setup is way nicer; I have onboarded many engineers in person and remotely and find onboarding remotely to be much easier and less of a drain.
This only confirms the line that my coworkers and I are noticing as folks make their decisions as to return to the office or not. The older (married and (some) with children) engineers are staunchly in the WFH camp, while the greener hands are enthused about working from the office.