Hacker News Reader

Comment by awillen | Hacker News Reader

I don't understand why we can't just all agree that some people are more productive at home and others are not. It depends on personality, type of role and type of business.

We're literally talking about hundreds of millions of people here, so pretty much any universal statement is going to be wrong.

View on HN

The problem is that a lot of people are productive WFH but until very recently, this contingent had little to no sway or voice. With the pandemic, for the first time there's a major shift to WFH and now some companies want to start reigning that in. People who much prefer WFH are fighting not to lose the momentum of the last year.

Yeah. I highly doubt there’s going to be some massive shift where offices will suddenly disappear. People that prefer working from an office should just work from an office once they’re vaccinated and local pandemic restrictions end.

Because, at least in tech, many who insist that one or the other are absolutely superior are motivated by unstated resentments against higher cost of living near their employers' offices, or sometimes by cultural or political aversion to the majority culture in those areas.

There's nothing wrong with either of those motivations, but often the WFH versus office debate is a smoke screen for one of them.

I think one reason we argue about this is we're trying to understand which factors affect WFH success, and if/how we can control them.

For example, your post seems to assume that wfh aptitude is a fixed quality of each worker. But after more discussion, it seems clear that the home office environment is a major consideration as well.

I see this as exacerbated by the lack of anywhere to go and do work for people stuck in quarantine.

Some people despise work-from-home in it's current manifestation, but might not hate it at all if they could rent a quiet coworking space near their gym or something. Instead everybody's stuck at home, so the people who don't necessarily enjoy being at home all day are losing their minds.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com