Ask HN: How to find a job in 2021 if I dislike remote? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How to find a job in 2021 if I dislike remote?

266 pointsthrowawayfrmt261 comments

I am pretty extroverted and derive a lot of meaning and enjoyment from working with people IRL, not just across a Slack connection. My previous job went from tolerable to intolerable as a result of the pandemic caused 100% WFH. These days it's hard to find an in office job, and even when you do, it feels like that would be s red flag anyway, since WFH is seen as a perk by most, or realistically I worry I'm going to go in to the office and be the only one there.

I just like being able to grab lunch with coworkers and shoot the shit. I find i care more about my work when I feel more connected to the other people who are affected by it.

(BTW I don't mind partial WFH, thats just obviously beneficial for everyone.)

Are those days just over? Am I doing / thinking about this wrong in some way? Is it not as bad as I think? Are there places out there for weirdos like me?

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Before pandemic I started working remotely and soon noticed that, like OP, working alone doesn't suit me.

I solved this by joining a co-working hub that offers offices to remote workers / entrepreneurs. My employer pays for the hub membership.

I drive to our offices around once a month, but rest of the time I sit in a room with an accountant and gym owner. They are fun to chat and go to lunch with but they don't interrupt me with work related things.

As a bonus I get to meet and hang with professionals in many different areas and I find that really satisfying.

If I change company I work for, I just get the new employer to pay for the office. If I need to move, I prefer cities that have this kind of co-working place.

This is quite doable, here in Finland at least and while it has some downsides, it has worked for me!

This is an excellent example of the difference between "working from home" and "working remotely". Those two terms unfortunately are used interchangeably as synonyms.

Yeah this is true. When I say people I'm working from home, they look with pitty. When I say, I'm working remotely, people's impression change.

I don't know why this is like this, but it is true for me.

But then what s the point ? We re forced to work from home to avoid contaminating our colleagues but it s fine to crowd a coworking space ?

Sounds very inefficient to me but I guess people like us are a minority.

Gladly in my country we have 0 case (Hong Kong) so we work at the office now, thank God.

The point of co-working space combo with "WFH/Remote" is that you potentially get benefits of both WFH/Remote and Office.

Being in co-working space/office gives you some social interaction, less chance teenage neighbor is blasting latest trance tunes on really loud speakers on one side and another neighbor is tearing down/renovating his apartment with loads of jack-hammer action, perhaps you just don't have enough desk space at home, maybe it's easier to switch between work and personal life by having some (short) commute ...etc. Some of those might be all the time - and some might be every now and then.

Meanwhile not being in same "central" office with colleagues give you more independence/autonomy. Beyond having less interruptions (e.g: it's easier to avoid/ignore a chat/email than a physical shoulder poke), some people prefer (or actually perform better) when interactions are less "real time" and more async, or perhaps they just concentrate better at 4am or 10pm ...etc.

And in general idea is that co-working offices don't need to be as big/crowded nor as far as big company offices.

Though I'm not sure how much last part applies to places like Hong Kong (many people, relatively short distances)

Good luck with that approach, I hope you enjoy your office.

Yet the [zero covid] approach has largely cut off Hong Kong from both China and the world - a severe blow for a place that built its success on global connections. Even more than recent political changes, the authorities' refusal to adapt to living with the virus is eroding Hong Kong's viability as an international city, according to almost two dozen diplomats, chambers of commerce, recruiters, pilots and other expatriates. ....

In a survey released this month, the British Chamber of Commerce found that 70 percent of respondents hoping to add staff in Hong Kong had encountered difficulties, with many citing quarantine restrictions. ....

Jan Willem Moller, chairman of the Dutch Chamber of Commerce, said that about a quarter of Dutch businesspeople have left this year, and that the departures would "increase significantly" if the quarantine rules stay in place ....

At least 240 Cathay pilots have quit since May, according to employees who reviewed internal numbers. The carrier is reeling, with staff morale at "rock bottom" after hefty pay cuts last year and more departures imminent, several pilots said ....

Resentment spilled over last month when more than 120 students were ordered to a government quarantine camp known as Penny's Bay after they were deemed to be contacts of a pilot who was among three who tested positive on return from Germany

https://www.yahoo.com/news/hong-kong-clinging-zero-covid-132...

> Yet the [zero covid] approach has largely cut off Hong Kong from both China and the world

Through most of things China itself had a zero covid approach too.

I assume the suggestion is that the co-working space will be used when the rules/conditions allow; which is no different to the prospective employer's own office OP presumes to look for anyway.

> When I say people I'm working from home, they look with pitty.

That sounds odd. Pity is usually expressed when you're in an unfortunate position you had/have no control over. Most people (should) understand that most people work from home not out of force, but out of choice.

When work and home become one, it gives the impression you're always on call / aren't able to separate the two. Could be an issue the other people have, so they imagine you being the same.

I do remember when enforced work-from-home started almost two years ago, a lot of people didn't have a ready-made space like a home office and complained about exactly that problem.

Well, in the beginning this was the case. But as time passed, some people returned to the office, our office didn't. Working from home has its benefits, but it also isolates you, makes it harder to seperate personal/professional life.

It’s because 99% or more of remote workers are working from home.

Coworkers spaces are basically micro remote offices for 1. Much of the remote discourse has been about avoiding offices and commutes altogether, not replacing it with a different micro office that you commute to alone.

It’s reasonable to assume that remote and work from home are the same thing unless someone explicitly says they’re working in a satellite coworking soave.

Touching on your points:

1. "99% of remote workers are working from home" - we're in the middle of a massive pandemic so it's hard not to.

2. "(...) avoiding offices and commutes altogether, not replacing it with a different micro office (...)" - if you happen to cowork, there is a massive difference between being able to choose the location of your office (or whatever we'd like to call the place where the work happens) vs being dictated one by your employer. You're in charge of your physical location and you have the freedom to optimise your commute and context that works best for you. Cutting your commute by 1 hour a day and assuming that you do 260, 8 hour working days a year yields over a month of work freed up (~32 full-time working days).

3. "It’s reasonable to assume that remote and work from home are the same thing" - I think that this way of thinking is not only grossly inaccurate but will also hurt remote work trends in the future. WFH and remote work are two sets that sometimes intersect but are not equal. They're not the same thing. To clarify that, a couple examples:

- Most of my family are artists (painters) working from home. They're not working remotely because there is no remote entity that they are answering to. They have their art studios where they live. It's WFH, not remote.

- Let's say I have a client, employer or any entity that I answer to that's in a different location. I have a contractual agreement which states I don't need to appear in their place of work and everything happens over the internet. I choose to work from an office that I have rented. I am working remotely but not working from where I sleep. It's remote without the WFH.

- I got stuck at home working remotely for my employer because we're in a nasty lockdown or I simply chose to do so. In this case, those sets intersect. It's WFH and Remote.

Maybe 'working anywhere' would be simpler than 'remote' to the average person.

What a great solution - will keep this in mind!

How many (online) meetings do you (and the others) typically have? How do you manage the resulting conflicts around quietness, background noise, or even confidentiality of meeting contents?

While I like the idea of shared co-working, the reality is that my current job works best in a room on my own. And it doesn't even involve more than 10 % meetings plus some ad-hoc calls with coworkers.

I'm also in a co-working space. Mine has two main rooms, one is a free for all and the other is a silent area. I'm in the silent area, and if I need to take make a call I take my laptop to the other side so as not to disturb anyone. I get very irritated by office noises, and this works pretty well for me.

My work consists of ~30% of meetings and ~5% of phone calls. We have a rule with my "roommates" that short calls (< 30 min) can be made without leaving the room. Luckily for me these are mostly internal (and non-confidential) ones.

If it is a customer meeting, then I go to a phone booth that has a standing desk, and for longer ones I book a meeting room where the setup is little bit better.

In previous co-working space was this big hall and distance between tables was something like 5 to 10 meters (15-30 ft.) and almost everyone made their calls on their desks, even though phone booths and meeting rooms were available.

One's mileage may of course greatly vary :)

I am glad to hear I'm not the only person with this idea. I just walked away from 10 years at Google in part because the last almost-2 years of remote just killed my productivity and motivation completely and I need to reset and find something smaller with a higher velocity and creativity and without the 45 minute (one way) commute I had to Google. I didn't like remote, but commuting in also sucked. And even when I went into the office for hybrid, 90% of my coworkers were never there to collaborate with anyways.

So my thought is that in my job hunt even if I find something that's remote (likely given where I live) that I will rent myself an office space nearby where there's other humans, better Internet, and no distractions from wife, kids, dog, garden, skis, bed, living room, TV, etc.

+10000%. Coworking is, for me, remote working done right: you get to separate your "work family" from your employer/clientele, which means you can change one without changing the other at your discretion.

Not knocking what works for anyone else, but for me this really doesn't at all address the "working remotely" issue.

Working around a bunch of strangers is better than being alone in my apartment all day, a bit better still if we're in similar industries, but the real thing I want is being physically present with the actual people on my team that I'm working with.

Right now I'm working from my company's local office, but my team is located elsewhere/working remote. It's definitely better than a coworking space IMO, but after one week of flying out to HQ and working with my actual team in person, even just 1-2 of them for most of the week, I realized working from my local office doesn't even come close to how much I enjoy actually being physically present with the people I work with.

This is definitely one of the bigger downsides of remote work, so I fully agree.

If you or anyone else has the time I'd love to talk about what in your opinion makes a great co-working space. Looking into setting up one in the rural region I'm in.

IMHO greatness comes from the community.

A mental checklist when looking for one (not necessarily in this order)

  Need:
  - good internet
  - own desk
  - place to securely store laptop after hours
  - fridge
  -  phone booth / meeting room

  Plus:
  - coffee, tee etc.
  - tableware, washing machine, someone to operate it
  - 24/7 access
  - printing

> These days it's hard to find an in office job, and even when you do, it feels like that would be s red flag anyway, since WFH is seen as a perk by most, or realistically I worry I'm going to go in to the office and be the only one there.

> Is it not as bad as I think? Are there places out there for weirdos like me?

Preferring in-office work is actually very common.

Take the news headlines and internet comments with a grain of salt. Even many of the big companies that have temporary WFH are still moving back toward in-office work.

The internet comments and anecdote-filled news articles would have you believe that office work is dead and everybody loves WFH, but my actual experience with companies suggests that a lot of people are realizing they aren’t cut out for WFH or they prefer being in the office. It’s just unpopular to say as much online these days because the people who do prefer WFH are sensitive about any suggestions that it isn’t universally superior.

Frankly, looking at job listings lately I still see far more office jobs than full remote jobs. If you’re looking for a normal office job it shouldn’t be hard to find. However, if you’ve been convinced that non-remote jobs are “red flags” by some of the recent internet hyperbole, this could be clouding your search.

> It’s just unpopular to say as much online these days because the people who do prefer WFH are sensitive about any suggestions that it isn’t universally superior.

Maybe it's because people WFH don't care at all if you want to spend 2 hours commuting, or that you don't mind getting covid by staying 8h a day in a closed office with tons of people. But people who doesn't want WFH, not only want to be in a office, they also want the other people in the company at the office too, because otherwise "I worry I'm going to go in to the office and be the only one there".

> the people who do prefer WFH are sensitive about any suggestions that it isn’t universally superior.

But I don't prefer WFH.

This is the real crux. It's not that people who hate wfh want to be in the office, it's that people that hate wfh want me to be in the office.

It's not that one's superior to the other, it's that one wants to force itself on the other.

I don’t want to force anyone to do anything. I want to find a team that has the same primary work mode that I do: in-person collaboration. My current team has a loose agreement that this is how we’ll work after covid, but I just joined in the last year so we’ll see. If there are also teams (or whole companies) of people who work best over Zoom, then that’s great.

Of course I can be flexible about things like covid variant surges or natural disasters.

> I don’t want to force anyone to do anything. I want to find a team that has the same primary work mode that I do: in-person collaboration.

I think of this the way I think of full-time pair programming: nobody should be forced to do it, but it's perfectly fine to form a team where it's a key part of the culture, as long as it's made abundantly clear to new hires before they join that it will be expected of them.

To be fair, both want to force themselves on the other. Compromise is really important when considering how people work. The all-or-nothing attitude is unproductive and doesn't help either acheive their goals.

That's what I've found: People who like being in the office and socializing want to force me to commute for several hours a day just so they can yak at me, disrupt my concentration, and "see" me work. No thank you.

If the in-office people would just go into the office together and then deal with the remote people as we are, things would be fine. But no, the in-office extroverts want to force us all into their mold.

OP is, very explicitly, trying to find a workplace ith people who prefer being in the office.

We could easily rework this kind of statement:

> People who like working from home want to force me to spend hours on Zoom, and subject me to constant Slack interruptions, just so they never have to "see" me, or interact with me as a complete human. No thank you.

> If the remote people would just work remotely, things would be fine. But no, when a single team member is remote, everyone has to adopt their preferred ersatz remote practices.

Of course, this is silly, nobody is trying to force anyone into a work environment that they hate--why would I want my colleagues to be miserable ?

I believe we'll end up self sorting, so everyone can be happy, and to that end there is absolutely nothing wrong with asking advice on how to find your preferred work environment, whether that's in office or remote.

I’m not sure that’s true; some people do get weirdly evangelical about WFH.

Personally, I’m glad that people who like WFH have increased opportunities to do it now, so long as I never have to do it again myself. Worst two years of my life.

> I’m not sure that’s true; some people do get weirdly evangelical about WFH.

I don’t think its evangelical as much as protective.

I for one have had to endure grueling years of working in open office environments. I’ve got pretty severe adhd and anxiety, that’s not a good place for me.

With covid, the world shifted to working how I prefer. I’m terrified it’ll go back to how it was.

So I’m sorry it’s been a rough couple years for you, but please understand that it’s been a rough lifetime for people like me.

Because office work is still the default mentality for most people, this new world that’s aligned to my needs is in constant jeopardy.

Amen.

If people like being in the office, fine. I don't understand it, but that's okay. I have ADHD and have a large startle reflex - I hate open plan offices, I dislike commuting, and I get more done from home.

If the office people stop trying to force me into the office with them, we can get along. Otherwise, no. For once in my life I can work in an environment that works for me. I'm not going to let some extrovert ruin it if I can avoid it.

This is a perfect example of an evangelical WFHer spamming threads trying to convert people

Just want to say you are not alone. I too want to have a place to go. Whether it's a co-working space or an office for the company I work for, waking up and working in the same place every day is slowly driving me crazy.

The WFH people are probably the most vocal online (especially on Reddit as subreddits tend to create echo-chambers), so it feels as though _everyone_ wants to work from home, but ultimately I think/hope most people understand the social benefits of working in an office.

> ultimately I think/hope most people understand the social benefits of working in an office.

As far as I'm concerned, there aren't any.

But you know what? At the end of the day I don't care where someone works, as long as they extend me the same courtesy. The last place I worked at (before the lockdowns) gradually eliminated WFH, converted to an open plan office, and generally made life miserable for software devs who prefer peace and quiet over socializing at work. I'm much happier working from home, although I have some uncommon advantages there: no kids and amazing internet.

> But you know what? At the end of the day I don't care where someone works

I think this is the most pragmatic way forward.

Given my own company, I suspect that there are about 10-25% of tech that want to work fully remote. That is, never work in the office again, save for specific times (internal conferences, and the like) equally there are 10-25% who hate working remotely and want to be in the work office.

The rest are either ambivalent or want something truely (ie 1-3 days a week, but with the autonomy to choose)

However for that to work, there needs to be a revolution in how we share knowledge, spread ideas, and plan. At the moment none of the tools we use appear to be particularly efficient. VC is largely half duplex, slow and draining. 1:1 video calls feel invasive, so you don't want to start them unless you really have to. Where I work we have "workplace" but the signal to noise ratio is really quite terrible. I suspect that half of that is down to culture of present $company.

Slack is a much better at instant chat, but workplace has better layout for semi ephemeral messaging. None of them are good for longterm documentation.

This. I hate open plan offices, I hate commuting, I don't feel the need to socialize in my job.

If an extrovert gets energized and inspired by working in an office, great. But don't expect me to do it just because they want company to talk at. There are plenty of extroverts that can share the office with you.

IMO, all the extroverts can drive over an hour a day to yak at each other in open plan petri dishes, but count me out.

Presumably you're an introvert then? As OP said, they're extrovert, and hate being on their own.

And as I said, if OP wants to hang out and work with other people, I'm fine with it. Medical reasons aside, I wouldn't force someone to WFH any more than I'd want someone to force me into an office. However, work culture (until recently) has catered exclusively to "extroverts".

To me, "social benefit" implies being able to make friends, real friends not token friends. In which case, then it would be worth going to the office. Granted, not all companies are good for that unfortunately.

I’ve decided to switch career because WFH has made me depressed. I simply can’t stand looking at a computer anymore. Working for a company was bearable when I used to be able to get human connections in exchange. I haven’t tried joining a coworking place because I didn’t really have the opportunity, but I think I wouldn’t get the same connection with people who don’t work for the same company as I do.

> I think I wouldn’t get the same connection with people who don’t work for the same company as I do.

Mentioned this in another comment, but I'm working from my company's local office while my team is mostly elsewhere/remote. We had an in-person onsite at HQ recently though, and I realized even working with other people at my company is peanuts compared to working physically with the actual people on my team I work with day-to-day. (Obviously this distinction is only meaningful at larger companies).

> Are there places out there for weirdos like me?

I think the discourse is heavily biased towards pro-remote. We've been working from offices for years, so the pro-remote crowd has been vocal for a while, whereas most pro-office people are only just beginning to realize that they even prefer an office, let alone how much.

But so basically I think it's a completely false notion that preferring remote work is the norm. That sense comes purely from noticing percent of talking.

FWIW I'd generally described myself as pretty introverted, in the sense of finding that social interaction is draining, but I'm considering moving across the country to be closer to my teammates.

It’s fun to sit in the same room/office and brainstorm and actually build something together.

Gives that sense of camaraderie, we’re-in-this-together feeling, if it’s with the right people.

I also think it’s about 20x more productive if in a high-stakes, high-uncertainty regime.

But the median remote work is probably better than the median in person work, even if the very best work is in person.

Try to imagine starting SpaceX or Apple as a remote company… I think that kind of magic just wouldn’t happen.

> the median remote work is probably better than the median in person work

What makes you say that?

I guess a lot of office environments kinda suck (noisy, lots of Slack and Jira and Zoom even though you are sitting right there, distractions, lukewarm small talk, etc), so if you are remote you can set up a good environment that is better.

But the best offices/teams are awesome, and you can’t replicate that remotely. I worked on a team like this once, you get that platoon-in-a-foxhole, us-vs-world vibe, people are pushing hard to make the team and mission succeed, there are always interesting debates going on, the team is going out together as a crew after work, or on trips etc.

It’s awesome but it doesn’t last forever, and it’s hard to find. But I think on a team like that you accomplish 10x, and you also grow as a person and become much smarter.

I think there will be plenty of traditional “come to the office 200+ days a year” tech jobs once COVID is endemic. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if over half of tech jobs offer an in-office experience for employees who want it. For those companies that do, I’d expect over half of employees will choose 100+ days a year in office.

If you want a 5 days/week mandated in-office in Jan 2022, you’re going to have slim pickings. If you want that in Jan 2023, I sure hope that’s fairly common again (just for the implications on C19 endemic status, not because I want to go to an office).

This depends on broader society accepting that COVID is endemic though, and the cessation of all sorts of regulations. I don't doubt it will happen eventually, but I'm not sure if another year is enough time. There has to be some sort of common knowledge catalyst that changes the general approach; as long as events are still being cancelled due to COVID cases, we're not out of the woods and "living with the disease" quite yet.

Additionally, I think "undoing" the remote workforce transition is going to be nigh impossible for many companies. How do you get your employees back to the office? You probably tell them their employment is contingent on being in the office; that's the only leverage you really have as an employer. Many people have moved since the onset of the pandemic, and with the labor market as tight as it is, few companies are going to be able to stomach laying off employees who moved away and don't want to move somewhere near a physical office location.

So companies have a Hobson's choice: declare an "on-site" culture and axe all the people who no longer wish to be on-site (with no guarantee that you'll be able to hire replacements in a timely manner), or declare a "hybrid" culture and allow people to opt into coming into the office instead of having it mandated (with no guarantee that people will actually show up to the office and make your real estate expenses worthwhile).

I think a lot of companies are going to choose option #2 now, and a lot of those who choose #2 are going to reevaluate that gargantuan office lease expense in a few years' time when comparing the cost with the actual utilization of the space. I think a not-insignificant portion of the option #2 companies will end up being "full remote" companies as a result, it'll just take them a few years to get there. I think the option #1 companies will probably be fine if they're in cities where there's enough talent, but their long-term success is kind of a toss-up in my opinion. It truly depends on whether the social benefits of in-person interaction gives them a competitive advantage versus world-spanning remote companies who can be more selective with their talent.

Endemic is not a social condition that people "accept".

It means the virus is found at a baseline level without external inputs (wikipedia).

It doesn't really matter how wikipedia defines it, what matters is how governments and companies are going to behave, and how long it takes them to realize covid is here to stay.

It matters as words are useful for communication only if we can come to some agreement about what they mean.

What you're suggesting is that people accept that the cost of avoiding COVID and "flattening the curve" isn't worth it, and that we just let the curve do its thing. Hopefully the result that it will either become endemic or extinct, but neither of those are certain.

All you guys living with the virus are going to enjoy the decreased life bars of everyone in the office thanks to long COVID. Enjoy having 20% of your friends disabled and early onset dementia with sporadic large outbreaks of system overwhelming disease.

What the heck are you even talking about? Dude. Covid is here forever. You are vaccinated and possibly boosted. You are as safe as it is ever gonna get. Move on!

Omicron has already demonstrated that vaccine evasion is inevitable, we are vaccinating against the extinct Wuhan virus. Global human elimination of SARS2 is necessary or you will see in both your personal life and in the broader economy continued disability, death, and drags on productivity.

There is some speculation that the "worker shortage" is due in part to workers with long COVID who want to return to work but can't. I do not know how large of an effect it is, but I can promise you it is real.

My perspective is we are living in a time of crisis and we must muster the reserves to forcefully challenge the problems of our time. Furthermore, COVID-19, a mass disabling event, may take years to resolve. If it takes 5 years to avoid catching it, I will have decades of healthy life remaining.

>Global human elimination of SARS2

Yawn. This will never happen, and no one even cares. Long covid is just 1% of 1% cases that are psychosomatic and way overblown.

In unvaccinated cases, persistent symptoms appear in ~20% of mild cases, 50% for hospitalized [0]. Vaccines prevent contracting the virus, but afaik similar rates for those that contract it.

Long COVID symptoms range across many body systems including pain, fatigue, brain fog, inability to stand, heart damage, tinnitus (one CEO to the point they committed suicide [1]), kidney, and pancreatic damage. More results are being found routinely.

Your attitude is quite callous. I hope that if you were on the receiving end of the stick, other people will not dismiss you the same way you've dismissed them.

[0] https://s3.amazonaws.com/media2.fairhealth.org/whitepaper/as...

[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/ninashapiro/2021/03/21/texas-ro...

Plus you have a % the vaccinated population COVID with similiar symptoms or in other cases different issues. So many unrelated things seem to be failing right after the vaccine from failed root canals to general aggressiveness to people forgetting things. It seems to be hitting the above 60+ population the hardest.

Things aren't going back anytime soon.

I haven't read anything credible indicating the vaccine causes problems like that. Can you cite a source?

The first long term studies are due in 2024. You didn't expect them to be ready yet? The trials are ongoing now with large groups testing 3 doses. Some leading edge countries have moved to 4 doses. The data will be available/peered reviewed.

So no.

While yours is one possible assessment, I don’t think that you have the full picture and it is at least partly driven by fear. Read up on societies that are already over Omicron. For example in South Africa & Namibia basically everyone got it in a short time and the wave is over. Omicron is mild in basically everybody.

Problem with this is that you don't want to just work in an office, but also have other people from the company work with you at the office. It's different from people who prefer WFH because they don't care if the other guys also work remote or not.

Anyway, at this point of the pandemic, I'd still not feel comfortable having lunch with coworkers in a closed space. I just prefer to have lunch myself alone, or at home, than risking getting infected.

> It's different from people who prefer WFH because they don't care if the other guys also work remote or not.

But lots of remote-evangelists will say things like "If anybody is joining a meeting remotely, everybody needs to call in from their own separate computers". I might able to come in to the office but it still affects my experience.

People can join a meeting from their own computer in the office. They can still get your social time around the water cooler/break room/foosball table. But I see no reason that I should have to be miserable and come in to the office just because they want to see my face in person and yak at me when I'm trying to work.

I see no reason why I'm required to be miserable to enhance their "experience".

I worked at a "campus" where we all called in anyway. It wasn't that bad. Arguably better because if the meeting starts to suck you can read HN or play solitaire.

I have accepted a (slightly) lower pay for a job where I can walk to the office (5-10 minutes) instead of being full remote and monthly fly-ins, or +1 hour of commute each way.

I have to say, this setup has set the bar pretty high. I manage to go the gym before work, have lunch outside with coworkers or have a beer after without being too tired from the commute or too isolated in my own apartment.

It helps a lot when you're living in the center of a city.

> Are those days just over?

Depending on your job function and industry. For tech, yes, those days are over for at least for another 5 to 10 years, is my guess. COVID has generally proven to both employers and employees that productivity doesn't drop that much. It will also weed out bad people managers who need to "see" people physically who need to "get a feel" as a management metric.

The only major factor that would swing the pendulum back into offices, is when future diseases get under control much more quickly - whether that's corona virus or the next version of it, H1N1, avian flu, MERS, covid-19, etc. When the population is smart enough to win those battles quickly, and that there's a company where in-person teams outperform remote teams by a large margin, that's when in-person will be back and the pendulum swing again.

"COVID has generally proven to both employers and employees that productivity doesn't drop that much"

Is that a personal observation of yours, or has this now become "fact"? The reason I ask is that I would like to find studies - not just surveys or anecdotal evidence - that attempt to quantify the quality and productivity of WFH since the recently pandemic changes.

At work, we've had countless discussions about this and the jury is still out. The introverts claim to be no less than twice as productive, the extroverts claim they are lying and they really miss leaving work early on Fridays to go to the pub - somehow that makes them better employees. Management hate not being able to peer over your shoulder (although they have recently installed "security" software on everyone's laptops for "security purposes"). But I have nothing to point to other than my own experience managing a remote team of devs.

I've yet to come to a solid conclusion as to how it works for others. I only know that my productivity and depth of work has never been greater. So if there are any resources you could point me to I'd be grateful.

>"really miss leaving work early on Fridays to go to the pub"

I used to have this when I was employed (about 20 years ago). Somehow my personal take was that it gets tiring pretty fast. I've had enough friends outside of employment and wit the very rare exception would very much prefer to socialize with them rather than coworkers.

I then went on my own and have never looked back. The fact that I am doing quite ok means that I am productive. I design and implement new software products for my own company or for clients.

A lot of people don't have enough friends outside of employment.

Surely OP, who is "very extraverted" in their own words, would not lack friends outside of employment. Even if they did, they could always go out and make new ones.

People have become much more insular since the pandemic. I live in the night life district. Nearly two years in, the neighborhood is still clearly far less lively than in 2019, despite the fact that at least the businesses that didn’t go bankrupt have all reopened at 100% capacity, and our neighborhood has a 95%+ vaccination rate (meaning vax mandates aren’t keeping people in, and vaxxed folks should feel safe going out).

> vaxxed folks should feel safe going out

This might be over-estimating the numeracy and relative risk-judgment of people.

True enough. But is this a problem with WFH vs in-office? Or this just an issue of people not prioritizing having a life outside of work? For most of us, it won't happen unless we actively commit energy to the process.

(I am commenting outside of the constraints of the pandemic. Covid obviously makes it much harder.)

Even "extroverts"?

Anecdotally, this has been coming in waves.

Early in the pandemic ( Mar 2020 ) -> no one knows how to WFH as a team. There is insanity in the world and work takes a backburner for most people.

Mid-Pandemic (Fall 2020) -> Companies push workers to get back to productivity and deliver. Workers are used to the remote world and productivity returns to normal.

Current ( Fall 2021) -> Workers just seem tired. Retention is through the floor, leadership is skiddish of pushing new projects in case people leave.

I'm not sure where we'll be in Summer 2022, but my suspicion is that workers aren't getting something they used to have in the office. Personally, I'm probably signing up for a co-working space in the new year to have something vibrant to look forward too and hopefully some other engineers to chat tech with on occasion.

I do miss the whiteboard and "bouncing idea" conversations.

Hey, lumost,

I agree with most of your assessment. I particularly like the focus on fatigue. I think this tiredness (in oh so many ways) has yet to be fully understood - not to mention, addressed. If I may be so bold, I'll go one step further: something has got to give! People can't be tired all the time. Something has to (and will) change. Here's hoping that in 2022 it'll be largely for the better.

As for the whiteboard, I humbly offer our team's answer: https://sharetheboard.com We too couldn't bear to be whiteboard-less and have come up with at least a partial solution. If you have time to kick the tires on it, I'd love some feedback.

All the best in the New Year!

Hey Marcind! this is an interesting app a few questions that I wasn't able to get a clear answer on in your FAQ.

0) What data is shared through your servers?

1) What video conference tools does this support?

2) Can I use a mobile phone to capture the whiteboard?

0 is the most important part for my current employer as we can't use any tools which share any data with third parties without a lengthy approval process. If there is a guarantee that the app doesn't share data with a third party then it can more easily be tested at a team level (somewhat of a unique requirement for large tech companies).

Feedback on the experience: I tested out the tool from my personal linux machine (Razer blade 15) using a hand written note pad.

0) The experience is really promising

1) I can't hold a notepad steady enough for the video to capture the text appropriately, flipping the notepad around to write more text removes the existing text from the space.

2) I had to hold the notepad within ~6 inches of the laptop camera to have the pen/handwritten text appear clearly. This could be due to the quality of the laptop camera - which is certainly inferior to my iphone 12 pro's camera, and my work machines MBP 16 inch camera.

3) Overall I'd give it a proper test with my coworkers if not for the data sharing/video conference requirements of my current employer.

Hi, lumost - Happy New Year!

Thanks for taking the time to test out the app. Really appreciate the thoughtful feedback. In answer to your questions:

0) In short, unless you volunteer to share data - to get a discount or to use the free version - no data is shared (for your company test, simply use a Trial of the Starter version and you should be good to go).

We do track (anonymous) UI clicks, essentially to make sure the app is working. If this is prohibiting you from a broader pilot, contact me and we'll figure something out.

1) "Integration" with video conferencing currently relies on screen sharing: so.. it supports all tools! We are working on a few platform-specific integrations and would love your feedback here.

2) The primary use case is board (whiteboard, blackboard, flipchart, etc.) sharing - usually via a laptop or some external camera. We will be supporting a mobile version but to do it justice we'll need to release some apps. The amount of real-time processing going on already is quite ambitious; adding a useful image stabilization or surface detection to be executed in a browser has proven too heavy for most devices. That said, we may release a thinned-down version for mobile capturing before we do the apps (waiting on some POCs to inform this).

To sum up, for your broader test, I'd recommend: - using the Trial (of the Starter version) - using a laptop (or external cam) pointed at a whiteboard

And contact me at "marcin" [at] sharetheboard.com if you have any special requests or follow-ups. Would love to get feedback from your team!

I too am curious, but its going to be very difficult to measure, and as you say, it it absolutely not a fact.

Lockdown has certainly damaged some industries, but it has also taught a generation of people tech things they probably would have retired without learning, and the value of that may exceed everything else long term. It is very difficult to isolate things like this, and we wont get another sample, even if we get another pandemic later. I totally get its been good for some, but it was bad time for me, though people are terrible at self evaluating stuff like this.

I know that students at my university did worse the past two years than they did the year before. And by worse I mean substantially beyond the typical variance. This is in terms of student results like course completion and grades. As well as mental health metrics such as surveys on stress etc, and in terms of the number who seek aid through uni services. But there are confounders everywhere. The way they did worse differs in character more than magnituide as well. It looks like the majority did just about normal, with what looks like a small minority doing very badly. However, this is just one uni and it will be another few years before it gets collated, anonymized further, and published. It also may not apply to real work.

Leadership overall seem to be somewhere between cautiously neutral and rather pessimistic in the organisations where I have insight which is a bad sign, as except for the ones who personally wanted to work from home, no one seems to be happy with it, including showing up in management stress level surveys. The snooping management meme does not apply. Most of us researchers had permission to work from home before we started too.

Schools and learning social interactions for young people def. is taking a significant hit.

It’s close to two years. If WFH increased productivity, the entire front page of HN should be blitzed with studies and metrics proving that. But all we have anecdata from a population highly biased to lean introvert.

Tangent: I guess this is maybe just the term "introvert" being overloaded, but I don't see the introversion => likes being alone connection. I'm absolutely an introvert in the sense of finding that social interaction requires energy, but the past two years have proved beyond a doubt that I'm absolutely miserable being alone for long periods of time.

As someone once said, I hate people, but I don’t mind working with other people who hate people.

I mean I also wouldn't say I hate people though. Just because something requires energy from me doesn't mean I hate it.

/s ;)

Anecdotally - again, at least for tech and not the whole market.

It does really boil down to if your company has a culture of documentation, reading and writing, before needing to interface with someone in real-time.

Anyone who’s contributed to open source software understands this style of “remote” working, as that’s the default.

>"Depending on your job function and industry. For tech, yes, those days are over for at least for another 5 to 10 years"

I think for a good percentage the option might be forever except some once in a while gathering in some local bar / event place / rent a temp workspace / whatever else can substitute

I'd say it also depends a lot on location and its prevalent culture.

Over here in France, most French companies (as opposed to US companies operating here) have to be dragged kicking and screaming into WfH arrangements.

Ever since the pandemic started picking back up steam this autumn, the government was "encouraging" companies to allow people to work from home, but there were no firm directives.

Most companies figured having their employees pile up in the metro (yay covid!) and congest the highways (yay pollution!) wasn't that big of an issue.

They also asked companies to try to stagger arrival / departure times to reduce the number of people in the metro. Didn't work any better.

In my opinion, if OP is living in France (or willing to relocate here), it should be extremely easy to find in-office jobs.

Yeah but then you have to work with French people, which is a tradeoff I wouldnt do anymore, as a French myself :p

Why is that ?

I was finding it quite ok to work with French,some were even fanatic about their work. What I liked most about them was that none of them drank cool-aid and could easily spot corporate BS.

> What I liked most about them was that none of them drank cool-aid and could easily spot corporate BS.

This may be true, but the issue I usually have is that they seem to not do anything about it. Not "rocking the boat" and "yessir" are quite common approaches here, to the point that a lot of people are under very high amounts of stress.

Disclaimer: I've never worked outside of France, so I don't know how people here actually compare to other places.

I was working in France at the start of the pandemic, only managers had access to the corporate VPN. When we were forced to WFH in the first lockdown we had to email our manager (who had VPN access) each time we wanted to access or save a file and send it as an attachment. This worked about as well you as would expect, and they were in the process of trying to drag everyone back into the office as an essential worker when I left.

Looks like a company with poor tech culture, I am not sure it is specific to France and could be seen in any other places.

True, but in my experience many French companies were perhaps old-fashioned and extremely hierarchical, which doesn't really mix well with WFH.

I can confirm this testimony. Managers and directors are doing everything they can to keep people in the building, despite more than 10% of employees testing positive for covid last week.

> When the population is smart enough to win those battles quickly

Don’t hold your breath.

> COVID has generally proven to both employers and employees that productivity doesn't drop that much.

I know this is the popular sentiment pushed by remote work fans, but in offline contexts I hear the polar opposite: Productivity struggles are ubiquitous during COVID WFH.

Even the most pro-remote people are quick to admit that COVID WFH is not like normal WFH. Some places even had school closures which meant parents were juggling kids schooling and their jobs. Maybe you worked in a company that didn’t have a lot of employees with these problems, but it has been a significant challenge for many people and companies in the past year and a half.

I managed remote teams long before COVID and even I wouldn’t ever suggest that remote has no effect on productivity. Remote is hard and I’d even say that most people aren’t cut out for it, at least not without significant mentoring and additional management attention.

I completely agree with this.

Certain phases of work and types of teams do alright remotely - typically a team with a lot of senior engineers in mid-project flow with few external dependencies. But a team with a significant number of juniors, faced with multiple blockers or external dependencies will underperform badly compared to in-person working.

Whole days will go missing because of a lack of effective communication - the simple ability to lean over and check or ask how someone is doing. Not to mention the inability of learners to just pick up information through incidental conversation and overhearing other people talking.

> Whole days will go missing because of a lack of effective communication

A friend in the construction industry has been dealing with this since COVID WFH started. He works with a lot of different architects, designers, suppliers, and so on that have to coordinate work. He also has to track the costs of mistakes and extra time lost due to drawing issues, errors, missed change orders and so on.

As soon as COVID WFH started, the rate of errors spiked upward. It didn’t decline until companies brought their employees back into the office. He now goes out of his way to work with companies that have gone back to in-office work because it’s the simplest and most predictable way to reduce the amount of money he loses to simple errors.

Sounds ripe for disruption for a coordination app of some sort to track different progress of things…

Not all problems can be solved by technology. Not all “problems” are actually problems either.

"But a team with a significant number of juniors, faced with multiple blockers or external dependencies will underperform badly compared to in-person working."

So, like every corporation.

That really falls on management and having the right docs and communications written ready before the juniors need it.

All the good docs I have seen were written by an engineer who captured their own knowledge for themselves or others. I have been at several corporations where I was able to onboard myself or resolve specific issues by searching confluence or whatever wiki was available. Totally different teams/divisions/departments.

Juniors need seniors more than they need docs.

This doesn’t seem like it’s a matter of being WFH as much as not using chat tools effectively.

It’s very possible to just shoot the juniors a DM asking how they’re doing. or having an active team channel where people can ask for help or offer direction.

Isn't the same as being sat next to them and being able to lean over or just ask though is it? You can keep your code on your own screen and just nod in.

The screen context switching is a killer.

leaning over is just as much a context switch. “just being asked” something is often a rude interruption of concentration.

over chat i have the opportunity to take a minute to wrap up what i’m doing. I also walk away with a written record, so if ive asked for help, i have reference to go back to. which can then serve as a starting point for documentation. or others in the chat can read and passively absorb information. or contribute to the conversation.

Not everybody’s brain is wired to monitor chat tools, streams of jira tickets, and piles of email. Many are much more effective when they can just roll their chair over to their colleagues desk and work something out.

> For tech, yes, those days are over for at least for another 5 to 10 years, is my guess.

I'm kind of wondering are half of these comments from an alternate universe. Most tech companies either are planning to reopen their offices or have already reopened their offices. There are a few companies going remote-only, which I suppose is nice if you like that sort of thing (I would quit immediately) but most companies do plan to go back to the office, albeit likely with more flexibility and some permanent-remote employees.

Don't get it. Even if remote is becoming more common, the vast majority of tech jobs out there are not 100% remote.

Note: a lot of companies are advertising themselves as "100% remote while corona lasts" though.

Agreed. I think the OP might be reading too much into HN comments and headlines. Remote work is nowhere near as ubiquitous as HN likes to suggest.

> Note: a lot of companies are advertising themselves as "100% remote while corona lasts" though.

This is the thing that gets me...Haven't people in tech figured out how exponential growth works? Covid isn't going away, ever.

> Haven't people in tech figured out how exponential growth works?

Mostly, it doesn't. Pretty much all initially-apparent exponential growth in things that aren't human-created abstractions is, at best, logistic if conditions are constant, and usually is just the net of a large number of Ransome events that averages to that growth curve, but features gambler’s ruin and collapse to zero eventually, or collapse to zero due to changing external conditions before it hits gambler’s ruin.

I think you’re taking that a bit too literally. “While COVID is a massive office-closing problem” might be closer to the mark. Before Omicron showed up, a lot of places were moving to re-open everything mode. Omicron will slow that, but probably not by much.

Conversely, I think others are taking it too loosely.

There’s going to be a continual stream of new variants, and vaccines will always lag behind them. Reopening everything will always accelerate this.

Gathering is always going to be a mortal risk for the rest of our lives. I just wish the world would accept that and adapt rather than resign to it and downplay it.

I dunno how to put this but consider seeking therapy. 2 years of constant fear being cranked out by public health “experts” and the media have done a number on people. Fretting over Covid forever and trying to usher in some “new normal” is not rational thinking at all. I know plenty of smart people whose brains have been seriously messed up by all this Covid crap.

Learning to live with Covid doesn’t mean accepting some crazy dystopian “new normal”. It means accepting the small risk of Covid and going back to 2019 living. The one where you didn’t spend all your brainpower on “slowing the spread” of other viral diseases like the flu or the common cold.

We have vaccines for Covid now. It’s time to move on.

> I dunno how to put this but consider seeking therapy. 2 years of constant fear being cranked out by public health “experts” and the media have done a number on people

No, two years of half the population refusing to wear a fucking mask did a number on people. “Some crazy dystopian new normal” would actually be an improvement.

… Eh? No, that seems highly unlikely. Decent therapeutic drugs will be available from next year (in quantity; homeopathic quantities are already available but not to the point where they’re particularly useful). Increasingly few people are totally naive to the virus. Over the next period of time there’ll be precautions to keep the hospitals operating and the death rate down, but that will tend to get easier and easier.

If you look at hospitalisation and death figures from heavily vaccinated countries, each wave has generally been less severe even as variants get nastier and restrictions are eased (you’re not seeing March 2020 restrictions pretty much anywhere today). It remains early for omicron, but initial signs show the same pattern.

I do think that places with this kind of politico-cultural objection to vaccines (parts of the US and Eastern Europe, for instance) may struggle.

> Haven't people in tech figured out how exponential growth works?

What are you even taking about? We have marvelous vaccines that knock Covid to the level of a cold or mild flu for most people in the “office worker” demographic.

Did you worry about “exponential growth” of the 2019 flu season?

Because part of saying “Covid isn’t going away ever” means “get on with your damn life”. If Covid is here forever it becomes just another minor risk in your life like driving, swimming, or catching the cold.

Do you understand the difference between a novel virus and the flu?

> We have marvelous vaccines that knock Covid to the level of a cold or mild flu for most people in the “office worker” demographic.

And now we have omicron, which is still quite infectious in spite of the vaccines. Thankfully it seems less dangerous than delta. Who knows what the next variant will bring.

> Because part of saying “Covid isn’t going away ever” means “get on with your damn life”.

Part of “getting on with your damn life” includes accepting that there’s a new endemic virus that the population has no natural immunity to, and changing behavior appropriately.

Sorry, but time marches forward — 2019 is a thing of the past.

I prefer office-based work but it's not the top thing on my list of priorities. I've found that a really high number of companies that otherwise have what I'm looking for are remote, so I've had to compromise.

You’re not alone. My startup is specifically going against the trend and trying to hire in just two locations (Austin and SF), because our founding group feels the same as you. So far when we’ve been recruiting people we lead with “we have two offices and strongly prefer candidates work in one of them.” It either ends the conversation or is our #1 selling point.

I think over time the market will discover what percentage of people want remote and which percent want in-person, and then whatever that percentage is, the distribution of companies going remote or not will match.

Indeed. You are not alone @OP.

BTW, pretty neat trick to help with culture fit for a start-up.

What percentages are you seeing?

So far about 1/3 of candidates aren’t interested in any on-site, while 2/3 are saying either that’s fine or that’s a positive. Of the 2/3 who are interested, the ones who really pursued the job and we ended up hiring all we’re excited about us prioritizing in-person work. Small sample size though, so I don’t think our experience is enough to extrapolate to the preference ratio among all workers.

Find a company whose product is primarily physical. I work at a robotics company and much of our staff never went remote.

My team is primarily remote but I’m actually hiring an on-site person for IT.

This is the best answer. In the U.S., something over 2/3 of the populations works non-remote, and always has. The "everything is remote now" perspective is a very professional-class one. So, if you work for a place where most of the jobs by their nature cannot be remote, it will not be weird to want to be at work, it will be standard.

One bonus is that a lot of these places need IT help, and you may be appreciated more. Plus, a greater diversity of backgrounds among the people you work with.

Agreed. I am also at a robotics company (see profile) and most of our staff only had a brief time at home and have been working onsite for almost all of 2021. I joined half way through the pandemic and was surprised to find that I was very happy to return to the office.

Our challenge, as I'm sure you've guessed, is finding smart, motivated people like yourself who would prefer to be in the office. We are finding that many people, even those local to our market, would prefer to WFH.

I suspect it depends on where you live. I live in Massachusetts, but because I live too far away from Boston, I need to primarily work remote. (And, oh, I'd much rather be in the office 80-90% of the time.)

Believe me, it's easier to get an in-person job than a remote job! Most positions that I see still want staff primarily in-house.

Do you live in the Bay Area, or in a generally high cost of living area? I suspect the push towards remote in those locations is actually cost-saving, and not a "perk." When I lived in the Bay Area, every job I worked involved working with a lot of remote people who lived in cheaper areas.

If you're willing to move, there's a LOT of on-site work in Massachusetts in and near Boston!

I've seen this for Boston specifically, and a bit for New York, but I don't think it generalizes. I live in a MCOL area and 90%+ of the jobs I see are remote. Controlling for the ones outright lying and the ones that think remote means coming into a main office every MWF, let's call it 75% are actually remote. However, most of the jobs I've seen posted from Boston companies seem to require in-person for some reason. And a large number (30-40% or more) of NYC ones I've seen have this weird "remote until COVID is over" nonsense.

Maybe it's a northeastern thing? I saw it a bit in Philadelphia too but much smaller sample size there.

Many Boston companies work with physical items and high-cost assets and thus have a real reason for in-person work. Also, even though the cost of living is high, it's well-balanced with wages, so someone doesn't have to telecommute just to afford a decent home. (Unlike the Bay Area where your huge paycheck hardly covers a reasonable apartment.)

But... There's also a weird "prep school" attitude where someone's thinks they're "the boss" instead of a manager. (These are usually people who micromanage and have bad leadership skills.) These are the managers who insist on no remote work, or put weird rules on it, because they just can't trust their team or won't hire people they can trust.

Fortunately, the shift to remote work has made these kinds of bosses easier to weed out.

Strangely enough, I can't find a remote job (EU). Since the pandemic started I had about 10 solid offers BUT they did bait-and-switch to 1-2 days a week on-site, and I just find a PITA to move my family to get crumbs of remoteness. The ones I'm sure are fully remote tend to only like candidates who are 100% match, as the pool for remote is much bigger.

Similar happened to me with Stripe, an out of left field "by the way we need you in the office for 3/4 days per week when we return". Goodbye and good luck.

To throw shade (probably will get some down votes here!), I would have nodded my head in agreement... but keep your samurai sword close at hand. When they start to push you to return to office can use all sorts of stalling tactics. At worst, make up some crazy situation where you "need" to WFH due to elder-care/illness-care/single-parent-child-care. As long as you are highly productive, it will be hard for them to fire you. If they are especially horrible and pressure-cooker-like, start looking for your next role. Plus, you'll have Stripe on your CV!

Or just get a better job, it's a workers market at the moment

> Strangely enough, I can't find a remote job (EU).

If it’s any consolation, that’s not strange at all. Full remote jobs are actually very rare still, despite all of the headlines and comments suggesting that office work has been ended by COVID.

In-office or partial in-office is still the norm for the vast majority of jobs.

The latter point makes some sense and is a benefit often pitched to employers considering going remote.

On the general search, “EU” might not be specific enough, as different countries in EU still have wildly differing employment policies, some of which are uncompetitive when an employer can easily choose to avoid them. The Netherlands and France are both “EU” but worlds apart in terms of employment policies.

I'm in the same boat. I found that becoming a regular in a coffee shop and working from there kinda works for me. I take my breaks with the baristas, have chats with other regulars, and I have access to good coffee. Sure, it's not the same as having colleagues but there's still human contact and you meet interesting people from different industries. Alternatively, I was thinking of joining a co-working space but for now the coffee shop works well.

I'm curious: how much do you end up spending on coffee while at the coffee shop, and in how many hours? I find sitting in a coffee shop with a laptop comes with the expectation that you'll keep buying coffee, food, _something_ at regular intervals (which of course makes sense). The accepted intervals tend to vary between coffee shops. I was also thinking of working from coffee shops more at some point, but then I wonder how much I'll end up paying for the privilege..

When I visited Paris a few months ago, I found a coffee shop that was specifically targeting people who wanted a place to work, and turned the business model upside down: instead of selling you drinks, and you getting the place for free, they would bill you by the hour, and the drinks were free (and good!). Of course, that means you get to stay as long as you want, no questions asked. The prices were 5€/h or 24€/day, which was totally OK for me as I just needed to work for one day.

What's the name of the coffee shop? :)

I think I know the place he is talking about: HUBSY café & coworking | Saint-Lazare. Been there several times, you pay by the hour with unlimited drinks and some snacks. It's a small place but it is nice and was life-saving for me.

There's also l'Anticafé.

It was Unicorners, on Rue Beaubourg.

There is a similar space in Nice: https://www.canafe.fr

But it could be kind of expensive if you're an entry level developer at Paris or Nice salaries.

Yep these are anti cafe models (HUBSY is one) you can find them on google maps. On my side I find paris too expensive I moved to Estonia where any normal cafe is cool to hang out at or co working are at a descent price too (aorund 250$ a month) including free coffee (Palo Alto labs is one)

With an average price of 2.5€/coffee (just DDG-d it)... I couldn't drink that much coffee over the course of a day.

I would say I usually spend around 7€ for an entire day. But there's a mix of common sense and also agreement with the barista. I will generally consume more or leave if the coffee shop gets really busy, or change my seat to the least used one (next to the noisy coffee machine). The baristas also think I'm good company, so that also plays in favour of me staying longer without consuming excessively. And from time to time I help them out if there's something they can't do alone.

I also found other coffee shop that are more work focused. They are usually more spacious and with big shared tables. They mind less if you don't consume regularly. Of course, that's always as long as they don't get overly busy. In general you will notice if your presence is a "problem", you will be asked if you want to consume more.

Edit: I'm located in Prague, CZ.

Also in Prague, which cafés do you like?

My regular one is Republica Coffee, but I also go a lot to the café in Kasarna Karlin (my favourite spot but a bit further from home). Occasionally, I also like to work from Mama Coffee, Miners and Super Tramp (in summer, the outside area is cool).

That's why Starbucks is so popular for work and some locations redesigned their sitting area to fit remote workers better. At Starbucks no one cares how much money you spend vs how long you're sitting there. I like working from coffee shops but it's more for a change of scenery for a few hours when I don't have meetings. Besides the meeting issue, it's not the most comfortable setup.

How do you take meetings? I’d love to work from a cafe. But I just have too many calls or people asking for help on a 1:1 to be comfortable being “that obnoxious guy” on the phone all the time.

I've been working remotely for nearly two years now. Working form a caffe is the equivalent of passively reading emails whilst drinking coffee, anything beyond that requires proper work environment whether it's a room at home or the office.

That's one of the downsides of coffee shops. Luckily I only have a daily standup that lasts 5 minutes. For the rare longer meetings where I need to talk a lot, I tend to arrange them so I can take them from home. If they are mid-day, I take them outside if it's warm enough.

Do you live in/near a big city? If you do, there should be enough in-office jobs there.

I feel similarly about remote but with a couple of differences:

- I'm not extroverted all, I still vastly prefer office over remote.

- It's not about socialising, I find the work itself much better when I can meet my coworkers in person.

I am the same. Introvert, but prefer to work around people. When we started SimpleLegal, for 2 years we were just working from home. I ended up getting a desk at a coworking space just to be around other people. If for no other reason than to commiserate with others.

You wrote: <<If for no other reason than to commiserate with others.>> I do not see this expressed enough, and thank you for your comment. Yes, I agree. Even when I am pissed off by the "sea of mediocrity" a couple of levels back, it really helps to halve(!) my blood pressure by agreeing with co-workers about the terribleness of X, Y, or Z!

> I find the work itself much better when I can meet my coworkers in person

Yeah I think this is an important point. I would still kinda call this "socializing" I think, but there's a huge difference between "just having people to talk about random stuff with" socializing and "interacting with the people I'm spending most of my time working with, talking about the things we're working on" socializing.

I don’t see any solution, just want to mention you are not a “weirdo”, and it is not weird to feel that way.

Could you find a large, fun coworking environment? The right place could quickly give you the same benefits.

I feel somewhat similar. Ironically before COVID I really wanted to go remote but was reluctant because it seemed few of the "good" jobs in my time zone were remote. They were lower pay/lower impact.

Now the job market appears to be reversed and the in person jobs are not the best. And, after a year and a half it seems evident that I don't really like remote work as much as I thought I would.

Per Scott Galloway's latest slide deck (it's on YouTube), he's convinced me the WFH push is an opportunity for those willing to work from work to lap the WFH crowd. Companies actually do still need people to work from the office/place of business. A worker willing to work at the office/business is thus at a competitive advantage to the much larger population of WFH-ers.

(However...I really would prefer a hybrid mode. But after having the economy jettison me in 2008/2009 it's definitely past time to exploit any competitive advantages for me...)

I don’t know who Scott Galloway is but I can see that being true where the executives are being dragged into wfh against their will. If you have a remote first command and strong support from the top I think that wfh employees can still succeed.

Join any of the companies attempting to force a return to office. When all of us who refuse this nonsense quit, the companies will be hungry to hire anyone.

That's the truth. Any recruiters offering a half hearted "hybrid for now" approach will get quite a shock in the next six months.

HFT and finance are still mostly in-office. If you join as a front-office dev on a trading team, chances are you will not be remote much and people will be in the office trading.

Generally true, but working from home is also becoming increasingly common even for front office roles (at least in the UK, not sure how that generalises).

And also front-office dev isn't everybody's cup of tea (though I am sure this can be said of any type of role).

(Source: worked in finance/trading for 10+ years before jumping ship.)

I've never been too interested in working for HFT/traditional finance, but depending on how office trends continue I might change my mind (especially living in NYC, though I'm also considering moving).

Chicago, London and Singapore are also good places, although nowadays there are funds everywhere (Boston, SF, Miami).

This is a wild overgeneralisation but in descending order of fun levels/friendliness of HFT teams it goes Chicago, London, Singapore, NYC.

Seems to hold across most HFTs I have met/worked at. Not sure about hedge funds or other finance roles.

Edit: Crypto HFT firms also abound but they are generally more remote-friendly than TradFi (the latter have regulators that need you to have an office and stuff).

For those saying there are many people working in office now (I've been remote for the last 2 years without an office to go into), are your offices requiring employees to wear masks in office? Are coworkers having lunch together?

There are definitely some things I miss about having the option to go into an office, but I think any enjoyment I may have derived from that in the past would be negated if myself and coworkers were masked at all times, and ate lunch separately.

I do think that's the responsible thing to do though. Unless working with a very small group of people, I imagine that would be the expectation for in-office workers now (especially with the Omicron variant spreading). Which makes me dislike the idea of working in-office even more.

Yes we’re required to wear masks, be fully vaccinated and we still have lunch together. This varies by company though.

Required to wear masks outside of your personal space or office. If anyone comes to your space you need to put a mask on. We had some company lunches where we all took masks off but then go back to wearing them back in the office. It’s a bit of a show. I know some offices require a daily Covid test and temperature reading. We had been doing temperature readings but those stopped at some point. The bizarre thing about it is that for productivity and expressiveness, zoom/teams conversations are actually preferable to masked conversations, especially if you’re trying to show someone something on your screen. Masked conversations in groups are still more free flowing than a video chat though.

In NYC: until recently we didn't need masks in my office and you were allowed to eat lunch together normally (you were required to be vaccinated, though enforcement was just an attestation). With omicron my company (not the city) has decided to add back masking for now.

At HQ in the Bay masking indoors was still required by the county, I believe. Though people are still able to eat lunch together.

For what it’s worth, you aren’t alone. Not every role in software is amenable to WFH. In fact most roles aren’t. Developers have it easy. They can do remote all day long… or at least they think they can but they still have to have high bandwidth interfaces with the rest of their team.

It’s very very hard to replace sitting with all your teammates and rapidly working through a problem. When everybody is remote everything has to be scheduled and calendared.

I dunno where I’m going with this ramble but I strongly suspect two years from now will look a lot like it did back in 2019. People will still WFH some days like they did in 2019 but all these companies trying to go hybrid or whatever will discover that it just doesn’t work.

> When everybody is remote everything has to be scheduled and calendared.

This is simply bullshit.

I work on a remote team of ~6-7 across all 4 continental US timezones, where most (not all) work from home most of the time. There is almost always a video bridge open for pairing, chatting, “rubber-ducking” and so forth - especially across the common hours. It’s the most productive environment I’ve ever seen by a very long way (and have run the gamut from in-person-on-trading-floor to remote-first).

If I were to go to the office, it would be the same since the team itself is distributed (the SMEs live where the SMEs live), but with more ambient noise and an hour each way for the 7 miles to the office. Nothing would make me quit faster.

In 3 days, the monthly HN "Who's Hiring" thread will have job postings where the vast majority will be for predominately in-person jobs.

If you have trouble beyond that, look at any big company not in tech, where they returned to the office in 2020.

I too prefer the office. I also interview people and and tend to look for people willing to come to the office at least once or twice a week. It makes a world of difference when you can ask someone a question across the desk as opposed to scheduling a call (or two, or three) and forcing everyone on the call to drop what they're doing. I get why people want to WFH, but I feel a couple of days in the office works wonders for efficiency; maybe one week wfh/one week at the office or any other combo would work, but it depends on the stage of the project. The more technical/business unknowns, the more it makes sense to work in the same space, imho.

I've been fully remote for 5 years. For me, life feels more like retirement now than it ever did in the office. Despite having full income.

I do various hobbies, take better care of my home, spend time with family and pets. Before the pandemic, I would go to events, happy hours, brunch, parks, etc all the time. Not to mention the extra time for side projects.

I'm loving the cushy life remote work has afforded me - things really change when you spend < 3 workdays a week intensely working. Your week becomes majority yours again.

So I guess my question is, why do you want your job to be such a big deal in your life?

I feel the exact same way as you. This wfh life is not for me. I think it's cruel to force it on young and single employees.

I'm having trouble finding a new job that has employees on site. I appreciate you posting this.

I've been working 100% remote for over 5 years and I feel like my skill set is becoming rusty because I'm no longer able to work directly with people and I'm also becoming even more of an introvert because I can't grab a coffee or a lunch or even a drive-by conversation with coworkers. I desperately want to return to an office environment and I feel like my home office has become a prison for me. There's no start or stop to my days and I feel like I'm working 100% of the time due to a lack of transition from work-life to home-life. I've been trying to work out of a local hackerspace, but because of the pandemic there aren't a lot of people that go work from there.

Even in-person jobs now have all the terrible aspects of remote work.

You go to an office full of strangers that you don’t work with, just to fight over a few private phone booths to take meetings at with your distributed team. There’s still a JIRA sprint board where you have to write bloviated stories for everything that you do. And then weekly, monthly and quarterly status updates. You still get hundreds of emails a day from automated management tools. You still have to live on Slack or Teams or whatever. Your day is still consumed by pointless 100-person meetings.

But now you’re stuck in an office. Woohoo.

There is no in-person work anymore for white-collar professionals. The good news is that blue-collar work now pays more, you get lots of people to talk to, as long as it’s about athletes or exes or politicians, and you don’t have to worry about getting fired for anything you do say.

I’ve considered the possibility of a strict office-only policy. As in, common hours, in-person only, no laptops, no phones, no remote meetings, no chat rooms, no management tools other than maybe GitHub, no social media, no non-work at work. I realize that you’d probably have to do on-site daycare, and today that implies liability.

I'd imagine that's an easy "swapsie" with someone equally skilled considering the demand for remote jobs.

I think you'd be overwelmed by offers.

Some people have to spend 1 hour in a vehicle to get to work, plus extra time to get ready for work. You can rather spend that same time with your family, or exercise, or learn something new, or sleep, or whatever.

Going to work every day is such an spectacularly awful way of spending resources just so that you can be in an office sitting in a workstation that is inferior to what you have at home.

Apply to work at Google. They have never embraced WFH and probably never will.

yeah but then you have to work for google.

big companies have a _lot_ of baggage.

Not denying this but 0.02: after working for Google and another "big" company (>5k employees) and two small (<50) companies, I was much happier at the big companies.

sorry I should have specified how big is big. I'm talking >35k.

even a 5k company, its perfectly possible to change the company in one specific way. (Even I managed it, by accident)

at a 25k company, that's hard. 50k+ almost impossible, unless you have a posse of cheerleaders.

I think at a certain size though a large enough company starts to approximate a conglomerate of smaller companies. Sure, maybe you can't change the entire company, but you could change your smaller org.

I am not sure that's true anymore. Every single application to work remotely that I know of (including mine[*]) has been approved.

That said, most people are choosing to continue being based at whatever office they were based pre-COVID and will return to office once the public health situation permits (some already have been choosing to come to the office, though the situation is obviously highly location-dependent and fluid).

[*] In my case to relocate to an office of my choosing, though the outcome would have been the same had I applied to permanently WFH.

At our site (Google Waterloo) we're nowhere close to a return to office. In fact with numbers skyrocketing here we just rolled back a bunch. Most people are still fully remote. I was working hybrid coming in 2-3 days a week but nobody was ever there to collaborate with. People on the whole seem to want to return to office but not with the way things are. Many people seem fine with remote.

I'm not. My motivation suffered. I need contact and engagement. And driving in 45 minutes to sit at a desk with nobody around didn't help. So I put in my notice and after 10 years at Google this week is my last and I'll be looking for a job where I can be more engaged again, which unfortunately also probably means compensation cut.

Even the BigCorps are stuck in a remote morass. But even worse because they're not fully committed to it.

If he’ll bent on getting back to work checkout Excelitas I’m your neck of the woods. I am in conference call with them every week and they are in the office and so am I. Or why not come work for our company. Molecular diagnostics is hard, not adtech and we need all the xooglers that we can take. A guy just relocated from st.Louis.

Thanks. I'm not in a rush, have some savings. Might start my own thing, but even if I don't, I likely won't do anything until after ski season. Relocation is off the table.

You're conflating remote work with WFH. You could remotely work in a shared office space that isn't your company's. You would gain some of the benefits you seek from that. Meanwhile, WFH is defined as working at your actual domicile and that's definitely not a socially engaging time.

Maybe you need more extroversion sources outside of 9-5. Places like gyms, classes, sports clubs, cycling clubs, hiking groups, hunting and fishing with others, I'm just spitballing some COVID-friendly solutions. It doesn't matter if you're bad or noob, just getting some shared time with others having fun, that's the rub.

I'm no extrovert but I love leaving my home every day after work, either to buy groceries, play music with friends at a folk jam, go for a hike, see family, see friends, anything to get out of the house, really.

Last point, ask your HR or managers to set up in person events. We meet IRL about once a month and it's just right for my job.

I'll give you an anecdote for my company (we're a software firm with developers, support staff, and sales reps):

We offered hybrid and remote options to all of our employees once lockdowns ended. All of them (except for one) wanted to come back full-time, with some notable exceptions for hybrid. Some employees have kids so they went hybrid, but once schools reopened they all went back full-time in the office. The lone person was extremely freaked out about COVID and still wants to do full-remote, and he's now working hybrid where when he's in the office he's in an isolated room away from us.

All of them disliked the lack of communication while remote. We implemented Teams, had our daily/weekly standups over video chat, and talked a lot using remote tools. But that significantly slowed things down and it was hard to figure out what people were doing.

Remote does have a place, but I think hybrid is the way to go.

> All of them (except for one) wanted to come back full-time, with some notable exceptions for hybrid. Some employees have kids so they went hybrid, but once schools reopened they all went back full-time in the office.

We had the same opportunity to choose at my workplace (130+ employees) and ALL BUT ONE of the tech-team chose hybrid. Most of us are effectively working full-time remotely still, but have the option to meet at the office when we want (this is currently discouraged until we see how omicron pans out).

The sales and management teams were more in favor of working at the office, but even there many chose hybrid. Amazing that two companies can have such a totally different outcome - although I must say the company I work for is an exemplary example of a diverse workplace, with a great mixture of young and old, parents, and singles of all genders and from a variety of cultures and backgrounds.

Is it the lack of communication or the lack of spontaneous socializing with coworkers? Dont get me wrong, I think the latter is probably underrated, but I dont know if thats what you are missing?

I think there’s also another aspect that gets missed; the lack of being around other humans, which is subtly different to socialising.

Pre-covid, most people were around multiple other people for most of their waking life. I don’t think it’s at all surprising that a mode of working where you spend every working day without seeing another human is causing some people difficulty.

Thats a good point! It is difficult to explain what is missing when the less social half of the office is missing, especially as it seems like even the absence of people you dont speak to, is felt.

It is hardly fair to expect people, especially who dont want it themselves people or aren't even friends with to not work from home for such reasons. Though it may well be that many introverts need on this more than extroverts, despite often wanting remote. My point is that leadership is primarily ensuring a social environment where people work well, and the ones who figure this out will benefit greatly.

I think it's a mix of language and company structure. We are a bilingual company where people speak a mix of Mandarin and English, and sometimes it's just too much of a pain to communicate to someone in English in text when you've been primarily speaking to them in Mandarin. That and a lot of technical terms are in English, so that also adds a layer of complexity in remote work when trying to mix English and Chinese.

Our company also is on the older side (in longevity), even though we're a small business the company has a lot of systems in place that's not equipped for remote work. I'm really trying to change this since I firmly believe hybrid seems to be the way to go moving forward.

> These days it's hard to find an in office job

I’m not sure that’s true; most companies do plan to re-open their offices if they’re not already open.

It probably is harder to find an in office job that is in-office today. Virtually impossible in some places, depending on government guidelines. But generally the intent is to go back.

I’m in the same boat; can’t stand working from home, and wouldn’t take a remote job. I had eight days back in the office this year, after which the government advised offices to close again… (Ireland has been particularly aggressive about this). During the brief window we were allowed (though not required) to go in, lots of people do.

I do hope and expect to be back in the office properly in 2022, though.

My impression is that the average person would prefer part in office, part WFH. I’m an outlier, strongly preferring all in office. I think full WFH may also be outliers; most polls seem to have flexible as the preferred option.

> ...if they’re not already open

It's not the same when the office is "open," but only 5% of people are coming in.

I mean, I can only speak from personal experience, but when my office reopened (very briefly due to bad timing wrt government advise) it was about 25% full (the maximum then allowed in this country by government guidelines). I don't think, had the capacity limit not existed, that everyone would have come in, but I also think your 5% estimate is very much on the low side.

Yes there are jobs that require you to be onsite but you might have to consider switching and I am hiring though for a relatively junior role. I work in the molecular diagnostic industry( COVID test) and you absolutely have to be at work if you want to interact with hardware. There are plenty of other companies out there in the medical/ biomedical/ space(astranis)/ auto( Tesla/Ford) that require you to be present at least 50% of your time( hybrid). I can help you guide you in that regards if you would like. This is assuming your are a software engineer employed here in the us. All other cross functions(Marcom, accounting) is still remote. Also if you are in the Silicon Valley checkout Apple. Seems like they are hell bent on getting everyone back in to the office, though you won’t be shooting the Breeze at work, won’t have time to even breath.

It's really depend on where you live and want to work. I suppose that even in the US you'll find a vast difference between companies in different regions. There are many companies that are going hybrid and allow to workers to choose how much time to spend in the office. I'm sure it will be very useful to you.

Join a company that is intentionally in-office. I work at Dexterity Capital. We have an intentionally in-office culture with our offices in Seattle and San Francisco.

If you’re in San Francisco, we work down by the Salesforce tower. If you’d like to grab a coffee or say hi, e-mail me (address in profile).

Tim Cook, is that you?

Seriously, as an extrovert, have you actually talked to any of your fellow extroverts? All of them want to be in the office at least part time. You’re in good company.

However, many people want full remote. And we all want more flexibility than FAANG is currently willing to provide.

(shameless plug) I work at Yieldstreet. Our company is filled with people just like yourself. Our policy is 3 days a week from the office and 2 days remote, so obviously we tend to attract people who like working in an office - in person collaboration, grabbing lunch, etc.

We have engineering offices in NYC, Miami, Boston, Malta, and Brazil (Porto Alegre and Florianópolis). Many open engineering roles (recently raised a $150 million Series C) https://www.yieldstreet.com/careers/

Absolutely not a "shameless plug"! Thank you to share.

Thanks for sharing. I really like this new wave of private investment startups. 13% annual return sounds really good. Is that guaranteed? How do you guys make money?

We pulled together several lists of recently posted roles at mid size tech cos. While many of these (most?) include remote option - my guess is reaching out to the team to see if folks have an in person option could be a good signal on being serious about to role etc. For companies that are building their culture around remote they may be turned off by such a questions but you aren't looking for those anyway.

https://www.kiter.app/lists

Anything requiring a security clearance

That's strange, because what I've seen all the time is companies don't prefer remote. Both big ones and startups. I thought I am the minority to want forever remote.

You'll likely have to adapt. Personally, I'd withdraw from a position search that required in-office work with no option for working remotely. I find co-worker distractions detrimental. The water cooler is grossly overrated. And I certainly don't want to spend my lunch hour talking about work or trying to make small talk when I really just need a few minutes to recharge for getting through the rest of the day.

I suggest looking at more traditional work environments that hire tech roles such as banking, they’re conservative and more likely to be pro-office. I have a friend who works on the C# UI of a coffee machine for Costa Coffee in the UK and that’s an in-person role because they need to interface with hardware.

Come to France, companies hate remote work. You have to negotiate pretty hard to work remotely 2/5 days a week

Naively, this actually really surprises me. My sense of French working culture is that it's very much "live to work", very strong WLB. What's driving France to be more pro-office than more "work-focused" countries like the US?

edit: Sorry, meant "work to live".

Hi, I had questions about finding a company in France, would you be able to answer any? I’ve my email in my account if you are.

I interviewed with quite a few companies in the SF Bay Area for firmware and embedded software engineer positions since August. Most of them require onsite from 3 to 4 days a week. I think you can definitely work onsite software jobs in firmware and embedded positions.

If you are in the US and willing to relocate, the national labs are not remote. Other government jobs too.

Electric utilities are fairly old-school as well and will lean towards in-person and hybrid work. They will have a few dev / architect / web jobs on the IT side, but definitely not top-tier pay (although an actual 40 hours a week would be typical in the industry).

I hope we’ll eventually be able to find a hybrid approach, where some teams at a company can be fully remote and others can require presence in the office. As long as this is all communicated up front, I think it would cater to folks with different preferences.

There are still jobs that require physical presence. Find an IoT/Electronics company or any hardware company which provides that.

Also, try to join the local library and start working from there. You will meet a lot of people and you will not feel alone or anything like that.

LinkedIn has made the process of finding an on-site position more difficult.

They will list a position as being local to your search, but when you view the listing, it will actually be for a remote job. There is no way to really search for on-site jobs in LinkedIn.

This is definitely a recent change they did, because I had a job alert that went from getting a new truly local listing every few weeks to 50+ listings a day with all of them being remote.

In the "All Filters" section, there's a new On-Site/Remote section where you can exclude remote listings now in the job search tool.

Thanks, that appears to work. Although, LinkedIn will reset the filter if I change another part of the search in attempt to increase results.

Offices are still closed, so many companies still do not know how they will truly operate once they will re-open.

Right there with you (although I’m introverted). WFH has sapped me of all work motivation and has definitely had a negative impact on my mental health. I have flippantly considered changing careers but that may be a bit drastic…

It doesn’t really suit me either, but the long term massive benefits of earning a big city salary, without having to live in a big city, seem to be the solution to the urbanisation that’s been forced upon us in recent decades

Are you willing to relocate?

Is there a particular place you recommend moving to for being in-office? Or you just mean your options open up a lot in general when you're willing to move?

Both. Countries that have pursued a zero-covid strategy have normal office culture these days.

As someone who loves remote working, the fact that this question exists makes me incredibly happy. Also as someone who enjoys not starving while all in-person locations close.

There are plenty of jobs in the service industry that don't make sense to do remote.

Might make sense to look there, because you can't be forced to work remote ever.

Quite hard to take this comment seriously given that this forum is dedicated to the software industry. Not to mention the significant pay cut.

Sorry, but for me it's the other way around.

I always get an astro-turfing vibe when reading such posts.

Such as mine you mean? I'm actually not sure how to interpret your comment.

Service work in my country is a 0.25x or 0.1x reduction in income compared to software. Americans are much better off working in tech from a financial perspective.

I think the parent means that they work in the service industry?

Are you a software developer? I'm in an engineering role that requires lab work and work mostly onsite from the office/lab/factory.

Aren't there numerous companies trying to force a return to the office? Filtering by "Remote" on LinkedIn wipes out a lot of positions.

This isn’t as effective as you’d think. There are a ton of positions listed as a physical location, like “Portland, OR.” But then the job title has “(remote)” added to it and there’s no mention of any on-site work.

I think companies are doing this to just show up in more searches.

Yes. OP has clearly not talked to any FAANG recruiters, for example. The default assumption is still that you’re moving to the Bay Area for in-office work, like it or not.

You can’t...because it’s almost 2022 already. :-D

Many banking jobs have been vocal about trying to keep offices open despite Covid. I’d expect adjacent industries to be similar

The last two satisfying jobs I got were acquired by going to see the CIO/head of department with no prior engagement.

Go into nursing

It really depends on the country, trend of number of corona cases and progress of vaccinations

if you are in the US, we already start to see some of the big corps (not only FAANG) start to talk about return to office and sanctions vs non vaccinated workers (probably "prep work" for return to office)

optimistic POV - more and more companies will open their offices on non-mandatory basis in H1. Every new variant and every new case in some office will delays/pause this but it will happen

Conversely, I was just visiting one of the biggest fintechs (so not California culture), and after Omicron hit, they nixed their return to work plans. We were almost the only people on the entire floor.

Try at companies developing military devices. You can’t do this from home (I hope).

Don't worry, most of the adds that say 100% remote aren't remote at all.

Hey there, I was like you - a few months ago, found a great job at a start-up in Seattle (Fremont) that really prioritizes the in-office work community, while still allowing flexibility. For example, I haven’t seen two of the engineers in basically a month.

How did I do it? I was up-front with recruiters and HR - I am looking for a place that prioritizes having a vibrant, in-person work community. I filtered until I found a few places, interviewed, got an offer. It exists. If you live in Seattle (or are considering moving) send me an email at mikhael@hey.com - we are hiring, I think (though we did just hire like 4 engineers).

I wouldn’t have it any other way. I am much more productive in the office, and enjoy myself much more. Homo sapiens are social creatures.

So funny to read this. I'm thrilled that I have more free time and have been able to meet so many more people outside of work. The last thing I want is to feel more tied to my employer.

Become a medical worker.

You're definitely not the only one! We [1] have been in-person in San Francisco predominantly, at first due to visa sponsorship rules, but also due to the energy you get at a fast moving early stage startup, allowing us to scale super fast. We've had to constantly evaluate whether we are making the right decision, especially as we say no to really talented people who are remote, but some of our early engineers put their foot down and let us know that they chose us /because/ we were in person. And time and again we've seen that there's plenty of people like you who want to be around people and feel connected to everything happening, especially those who are looking at series A/B startups. Frankly, it also just seems that you need to be a lot more rigid, focusing on specs, structure, documentation, when remote-first and that is not as fun when hacking. We of course are flexible about work from home, or traveling to see family or be in other places, but last time I was with family I definitely noticed that working over zoom and slack was way more exhausting.

[1] https://parafin.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/buildparafin

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