This can indeed work well for some people, but for others it's the worst compromise. It means they can't benefit from moving to a lower CoL area or nearer to family etc., because they still have to be within a reasonable commute distance. But at the same time, it can mean they still have to keep the necessary equipment and space setup for remote working at home, may no longer have a permanent desk/office, lose the benefit of reduced-cost season tickets for public transport etc.

It's hard to come up with something that's going to work for everyone.

I agree, as an employee. I mentioned this to my director and he also agreed with me but brought up some logistics I hadn't thought about because it wasn't my job to care.

What do you do about office space? The company is paying a ton of money to give everyone their desks. How do you handle the logistics of having people coming in on random days? Share desks? What if you both come in on the same day? Have unassigned desks? So you're sitting by random people? But the point of coming in is being with your team. But how do you coordinate that? What if half your team chooses monday/tuesday for their office days and the other half chooses something else? None of these are show stoppers, but I also can list a bunch more little "paper-cut" problems with the hybrid approach at scale.

At some point it's just fully-remote with an expensive office. I think those things will naturally work themselves out. But it makes sense why someone who's job it is to care will not know up front to solve it. I think the solution is to not try and solve it ahead of time.

At some point it seems we'll naturally converge on smaller office spaces with more OFFICES and less "open". Some people will always want to come into the office. Those people will be supported. Some people will never want to come into the office. Those people will also be supported. Teams will figure out what works best for them.

For me, I plan to work fully remote the rest of my career. And right now that's a sword I'm willing to die on. Do I miss some things about in-office attendance? Yes! So I plan to go in occasionally. I'll plan that around the schedules of people I want/need to see. Also, sometimes I just need a freaking shared whiteboard. And no, Draw.Io and digital whiteboards somehow just don't work the way I want.

> This is the perfect compromise.

Except then you are geographically tied to a location.

I've been working remotely for about 10 years now, so well before Covid.

I now prefer to live in a low cost of living area, or travelling and working from places with a low cost of living.

As a software engineer, every single thing I do is timestamped, logged, reviewed, deadlined, etc ... so it's not like I can be lazy and slack off. I still have to work, I should be able to do it from anywhere.

Not sure if we are going off topic, but doesn’t it make you sad to miss 2+ years of life experiences to save a relatively small chance of injury or death?

Most people are doing all of the things in your list by now.

I can’t comprehend hiding from this thing for years. Would feel like an awful waste of some of my prime years. I got bored after a few weeks!

I'm in my office (Google Waterloo) about 3 days a week and yeah, it's pretty quiet. Maybe 20% capacity and I can always get an EV charger, which isn't normal.

Right now this is awesome. I'd like to see more of my teammates, but I don't look forward to when the crowds return.

> Is everyone back there?

To some degree yes, everyone had at least back to the office to some extent on weekly basis, but people aren't all appearing at once on a single day, so it is still pretty nice and quiet.

Definitely not crowded, the utilization isn't even close to 10% per my current experience.

Yup

To see colleagues face to face, from time to time, it is really chill.

I don't realize how much I miss that experience until I did lol