This is an excellent example of the difference between "working from home" and "working remotely". Those two terms unfortunately are used interchangeably as synonyms.
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.
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.
I don't know why this is like this, but it is true for me.
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.
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)
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...
Through most of things China itself had a zero covid approach too.
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.
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.