I've said similar things, but it's very important to note I'm saying that OTHERS should not force ME into the office to fulfill THEIR social needs. I'm happy working from home, and if push comes to shove, I'm saying that people's social needs should not be a consideration when deciding whether we all work from an office or from home.
I think it's great for people to fulfill their social needs at work, but I have a problem if their social needs become the reason I'm force to set aside my own needs and go to the office.
We don’t have to be best friends, but yes, showing up is part of the “teammate” package. You don’t get to withdraw that part and still demand all the same things from me.
I think both our preferences are legitimate and people should be able to sort themselves into teams that suit their preferences.
I understand people are distressed about commuting and the office. I’m also distressed about the prospect of spending the majority of my waking hours over the next 30 years on Zoom. If that’s the way things are shaping up I need to go be a farmer or something.
Is this something you entertain as an actual possibility or shudder to think about?
If a company stays remote because you do not personally need social interaction at the office, what has just happened?
Your personal needs have been put above the personal needs of other employees.
(IMO companies stay this way because it’s simply cheaper and the hiring pool is bigger, but that’s not important in this discussion)
It just happens to benefit those whose prefer to stay at home.
In the US, this is only a benefit to bigger businesses or businesses with a presence in multiple states already (or those willing to take on quite a bit of new administrative work).
I work for a 15-person remote company based in a single state and the additional overhead required to understand taxation, labor laws, and other issues in even neighboring states is higher than you might think. We're putting it off and just hiring locally for now.
I’m in Portland, OR and pre-pandemic, we’d have no issue hiring someone in Vancouver, WA, because they’d drive 15 minutes to our Portland office. Now, we choose to turn them away because of the bureaucracy and worry that we’re going to do something wrong. One day we’ll have to cross that (metaphorical/physical) bridge, but we’re not there quite yet.
It’s really easy for big businesses that have big HR departments and/or already have a physical presence in another state. But for 15 people, one doing HR part-time, it’s just not worth it right now.
Also there are probably a number of firms that specialize in dealing with that kind of situation so you can get outside help affordably.
There's a difference between "just let me work the way I want" and "just make them work the way I want".
Ideally, those who want to work from an office could, while others on the same team could work from home, and everyone would be considerate enough to make it work. This is working well enough at my current company.
Again, this is putting the personal preferences of one group above those of another group. What you describe is only ideal if the office people don't mind working with the at-home people and vice versa. You don't have to be considerate of someone else's preferences if you're willing to leave for another job.
Personally, the next job I have will be office only with 0 off-site employees. It's my preference and hopefully I'll find a company whose preference aligns with my own.
Every decision a company makes treats people differently. The goal should be treating everyone fairly. If a person disagrees that they are being treated fairly, they can make their case and try to get something to change or they can get a new job.
The teams are going to be companies, in my opinion. There are going to be 'remote' companies and 'in person' companies. That's the only way this type of self-sorting will work, people won't join a company not knowing for sure whether they're committing to an in-person or remote working experience.
Thinking about it more, I guess you're right. There will always be sectors within organisations where it's considered that face-to-face meetings and working physically in the presence of other team members is necessary to make effective progress.
… but they arn't.
The person who has meaningful and deep relationships outside work isn't demanding all the same things from you.
Most work are in dense cities and cities are inherently expensive. For the commute to be meaningful, everyone in your team has to be within a short distance of these dense cities.
The “teammate” package you propose is pretty expensive all things considered. You might not realize nor care about the expense but the teammates might.
In the end, the company cares about productive output. Mercenary or not, companies that have the most productive output that makes the customers happy are going to win.
My money are on companies that go remote, keep costs down and pass on those savings internally (employees) and externally (customers).
My money is not on companies that are forced to hire people within driving distance of some arbitrary office.
After a certain age, you realize you can only form certain kinds of friendships by spending a lot of time with people struggling on similar problems. Granted, last year I attempted to start a company full remote and I was able to build sort of similar bonds, but it's way too hard to gauge people. Those efforts sort of faded after one of our founders turned out to be too emotionally unstable. But yeah.
edit - but maybe at 27 this is really just me realizing I'm not that social, don't really like people and should maybe just move on from some kind of idealized social life...
Right now I’m assuming you’re the CEO of Metaversal, a fictional metaverse startup that wants to compete with Facebook via a subscription only model (open source code tho, ofc). Best of luck in your endeavors
Go do it. Now. Spend your free time chatting on the chairlifts and the whitewater parks and backcountry campsites.
Covid lays bare like any other major tramaua to ones life would. 10yrs ago i did my back in; that was my kick start. I said if i could ever feel normal again, i would use that to go explore. and i did. Listen to your covid trauma, if its telling you that you have spent too much time chasing the rat-race, and lost the opportunity to nurture those life connections. dont wait. go connect.
The meaning of life to me is love. No matter how much money you have, without love (of a thing, a friend, a person, a stranger) you have nothing.
To me this was a major benefit of remote. We went from a place with informal rules and influence to one that is more formal and thus easier for me to understand. The motivations of mercenaries are nice and simple and straightforward.
So what started as a way for a team to gauge the abilities of the candidate and more importantly if the candidate will play well in the team is now an examination with right/wrong answers supplemented by a half-assed "behavioral" interview with some canned questions.
Everything else hinged on the leetcode/Java or Python trivia.
I understand why the 100% remote gang don't like hybrid either because it still forces you to stay close to work. But if you want to be a digital nomad, you might as well freelance and not do full time. My opinion.
Shameless plug: We are hiring in South Jersey/Philadelphia region for my edtech startup and if you are interested, hit me up. Various roles. Hybrid would be awesome.