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Comment by jacksnipe | Hacker News Reader

I don't want to discount this kind of reason for wanting to "return to the office", and I think it's definitely part of the cause.

However, speaking as an Individual Contributor, I want to be back in the office so badly. I miss feeling really, humanly connected to my teammates. There's just no positive sense of camaraderie. Sure, we can bitch together about things, but I just find myself unable to connect with my coworkers as fellow human beings in my monkey sphere.

Before we went WFH I legitimately loved my job. Now I hate it.

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As an IC, I fully support extroverts going back to the office. I just want introverts like myself to have the option to never go back to the office. I don't understand why people think it's either one or the other

As an introvert myself, I think I totally get your take on this.

But I've also been the only remote member of an otherwise in-person team. It was a truly terrible experience (as many others have written). I fear that the policy you're suggesting would make everything better for those in the office (the extroverts) and worse for those working remotely (the introverts).

I have been in that position before, and with certain groups it has been difficult. My, perhaps optimistic, hope is that post-COVID even those that return to the office will be more understanding for the challenges of those that are remote, it is an experience we have all lived now.

Frankly there's not much I dislike more than having to be in the office. I'd take the risk any day of the week.

FWIW I'm definitely an introvert and I can't wait to get back in the office. I don't want to have to talk to people all day but I really want some actual meatspace interaction. Being locked up for a year with two small children and only my wife as the other adult to talk to has not been good for my mental health.

Is this perhaps a COVID specific issue? Even during COVID I've kept in touch with a group of friends, albeit smaller. I still have the chance to go get a coffee or head to the gym, but I get to decide what those interactions are now.

Maybe there are different types of introverts. The pandemic has been by far and away the best time in my adult life, even when I only spent time at home with my partner. As long as I can spend time with her I'm happy never seeing another human.

You're advocating for a position as "a guy in a room" [0], and we've all been taught how dangerous and harmful that person ends up being for an organization that's trying to ship good software on time.

What you're asking for is, frankly, not reasonable. You want to be left alone to code, and that is simply not how software development works anymore (and arguably it never worked that way).

    [0] - https://blog.codinghorror.com/dont-go-dark/

> You're advocating for a position as "a guy in a room"

No they aren't. They just said they want to WFH.

I think some additional context is probably necessary to understand my response:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27465169

Nonsense. When I'm coding I want to be left alone to code. Often I need to talk to people as well, and I can do this very effectively over Slack, video meetings and screen sharing. I work on a team that was mostly in-office before COVID but I was one of a handful of remote people. Everyone was able to collaborate effectively when needed. Prior to that I've also been in the opposite situation where I worked in the office with teammates who were remote. It's really not that hard.

There's a vast pool of people to hire that don't need this special treatment, and can produce quality code on time as well. How are you going to compete with them?

Not sure what you mean by “special treatment”. I’m well compensated for the work that I do, and remote positions are not exactly hard to find these days.

It's the other way around. How are you going to compete with remote-friendly employers if even FAANG benefits aren't good enough to interest me in their non-remote openings?

I don't think I've said anything negative about remote working, I've cautioned against the, "just leave me alone" attitude that seems to come with the desire to be remote.

And for what it's worth, any company you can trick into just leaving you alone won't be a good company to work for in the long term, because since they're not shipping quality software on time, it's very unclear what it is they'd instead be valued for.

The original poster you replied to expressed a desire to "never go back to the office". That's a personal preference and a totally reasonable position. By bringing up Atwood's post out of nowhere, you're building a strawman.

It'd only technically be a strawman if I were arguing that working from home was bad. It's probably a non sequitur, if anything, but the specific person I'm replying to had made comments elsewhere in the thread that create additional context.

Honestly, I think my mistake was replying to you at all, since you don't have all of the context.

Because it is one or the other. If office-first people are allowed to regain preeminence in a company, then that company will be back to abusing engineers by sitting them in hot-desk open office situations next to shouting salespeople in short order.

As an IC and an extrovert, I also never want to return to the office. I crushed a ton of hard work this year that I would have been incredibly distracted from by in-office activities otherwise.

Because you’ll miss out on in person discussions, not be in sync as a result, then leave because of communication issues.

Mixed working is the hardest to get right I think

This already happens in-person and is another example of why most of the problems people point out about working remotely are just problems with poor communication or workflow at a company. Working remotely isn't inherently more or less effective.

Imagine a non-pandemic environment where you could go to a buddy’s house and work. Or for many people, their closest relationships are with their spouse and family. You no longer have to be separate from them for most of your waking hours. Work picks your “friends” for you and in many cases you won’t get along. It seems like you were lucky to be in a good situation.

I wouldn't want to mix friendships and work. I'd also be wary about alliances forming outside of the workplace.

I think they meant working at a non-colleagues house. At least, that's what I plan to do when it's possible, every now and then. I think the change of pace would be nice, back at university I'd do the same with people not on my course. Being genuinely fond of each other makes time go faster.

Of course, I'd also want to work outside of the office, with my colleagues too. A change of environment every now and then can't hurt.

> Imagine a non-pandemic environment where you could go to a buddy’s house and work.

I'm imagining it and it sounds like the literal worst thing.

You could, not have to. You would have the option to, while for most people they simply do not.

Pre-pandemic I used to occasionally do this with my coworkers and my boss, it was nice. Of course now all my coworkers and many people I knew have left the city and moved out of state, so this won't be possible again.

Of course, you're depending on your coworkers feeling likewise.

Instead of 100% return to the office how about having (optional) get together offline meetup every once in a while, it can be about work or simple lunch.

How do you do that when everyone lives x,000 miles away now?

Why would I stay in <big city close enough to commute> and pay <outrageous> rent/mortgage if I'm remote?

(Honest truth: that's what remoter weeks are for.)

Could flying the remote staff to an in-person meeting every 1-2 months be a good balance? As long as the flights are reasonably short (e.g., within the continental U.S. or within the E.U.), it's probably still cheaper than maintaining office space for the remote workers.

Quarterly is more doable. That's basically what my extended team did pre-pandemic.

And now you are discriminating against senior people with family/kids who just can’t fly out of town for a week every couple months.

at some point, you just have to say : well that's too bad.

Quarterly (or less often) is every 3 months. And at least all the senior people I work with already travel a lot more often that that under normal circumstances.

People can and should absolutely pick the jobs that work for them. And that may include positions where you go into an office daily and rarely travel. But, traveling to an off/on-site every few months for a work week is probably one of the costs you pay if you want to be remote.

If you want a position that is 100% remote that never requires you to physically leave your home, you're welcome to look for such. But don't expect a lot of options at a well-paying tech job. Unless you can do something as a remote consultant.

> If you want a position that is 100% remote that never requires you to physically leave your home, you're welcome to look for such.

Every job I've had from 2010 to 2021 has been like this. Some had optional but not required in person meetups, some had no meetups. These jobs are not hard to find if you have a good reputation for being effective remotely.

I don't disagree. But being well-known as a good 100% remote worker will be a high bar for a lot of people. (As is, at least your implication, of relatively short-term stints.) Most of my jobs have been in the ~10 year range.

Just chiming in to say some of us live in the big expensive cities precisely because of the life we lead outside of work. Otherwise, agreed.

Because there is more to life than work and cheap rent. Large cities are cultural hubs with thousands of interesting people and many wonderful things to experience.

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