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Comment by neilwilson | Hacker News Reader

The 'hybrid model' is just a marketing trick to try and force people back to offices using the Fear of Missing Out routine.

It's classic foot in the door sales psychology.

Go find a firm that has genuinely embraced full remote and understands that remote can only work properly if everybody is operating in the same mode - precisely to avoid the natural tendency of people to ignore others that aren't in the physical room.

A good way of judging all this is to start costing your time from the moment you start getting ready for work to the moment you stop thinking about it and start doing something else.

When you do that, you'll often be shocked at your hourly rate.

We all have a finite life. How much of it do you want to spend incarcerated needlessly in a transport device?

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> We all have a finite life. How much of it do you want to spend incarcerated needlessly in a transport device?

Assuming that there is ~260 working days in a year, subtracting 30 years for holiday we have roughly 230 days that one would have to commute on.

My average London commute was 1 hour each way. That's 2 hours per day. That's 10 hours per week. 460 hours per year. 4.6k hours over a decade. This is not a chill "going on a trip" time in a train - it is stressful rush hours madness, breathing underground air and constantly bumping into a crowd of frustrated commuters who happen to be power walking the opposite way.

To put this into perspective and assuming that an average working day is 8 hours, over the last 10 years I could've easily spent 19 months of full time work commuting during rush hours.

Also ironically ~20 years of commuting adds to almost 10k hours which supposedly would put me on a world-class expertise level in terms of being a train passenger. The problem is I'm a Software Engineer, not a professional underground train passenger.

> Also ironically ~20 years of commuting adds to almost 10k hours which supposedly would put me on a world-class expertise level in terms of being a train passenger. The problem is I'm a Software Engineer, not a professional underground train passenger.

Oh wow, that's such a good way of looking at it! I used to have a 3h20m daily roundtrip commute. Now our office is permanently closed. I work on a treadmill desk, have lunch with my wife, and after work I walk a block to my baby's daycare. I can't imagine ever going back to an office.

> to the moment you stop thinking about it

In that case, i work 168 hours a week and i’m the most productive when walking my dog.

This is the truth. Measuring work in hours only makes sense for work that you can only do when 100% applying yourself to the task (like brick laying or stacking shelves). Most of my high value output happens when I'm in the shower, riding my bike or going for a walk.

If that's your "consideration" then charge for it.

It's what other time based professionals such as lawyers do.

e.g. https://sherborneslaw.co.uk/pricing/

> natural tendency of people to ignore others that aren't in the physical room

It's not just ignoring them, but making it hard for them to get a word in edgewise, or sometimes even to hear what others are saying. Most of the time it's not even intentional. It's getting caught up in the moment, and/or failing to adapt to an environment where different etiquette is necessary.

> Go find a firm that has genuinely embraced full remote

Just to be clear, truly embracing remote works means more than just having butts in seats in homes instead of in an office building. There are still plenty of people out there making most decisions in the same kind of clique-only conversations they used to have in the office, excluding not only people in different time zones but those who are just more socially/culturally distant from the inner circle. Truly embracing remote work means adopting an asynchronous workflow that makes information and conversation available to any team member at any time. Requiring them to be in the right place at the right time to gain full participation isn't embracing remote work, even if that "place" is a videoconference call.

Even US federal employment has started considering remote work as a permanent policy (where possible).

I'm currently looking for new work, and full remote has become a _hard_ requirement. In addition to the great point that you've made; if an employer is insisting on in-person work, there exists a strong signal of deeper issues. For example: dogmatic/discriminatory thinking, egoistic processes, stifled/silenced innovation.

This certainly isn't universally true, but it is a giant red flag.

There's also my responsibility. This is my responsibility by choice, and I'm not out for anyone who doesn't make the same choice. If I am hired by said in-person employer, then I am supporting and perpetuating that behavior. The transport device also happens to be destroying the planet: I would be supporting that. The transport device is a luxury: I would be supporting discriminating against people with no access to it. Some jobs are by definition in-person (doctors, baristas, cleaners, etc.), and I would be consuming their transportation resources (whether that's room on a train, or a road). The housing market madness has been driven by access to in-person work hubs.

In-person work, where it isn't actually required, is a terrible idea. It's bad for you, and it's also bad for everyone around you.

Have you considered that some of us actually see the benefits in a hybrid model? There are downsides to working remotely, just like there are downsides with working in the office. Some of us just want to get our work done.

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