After two years of not being in the office, I don't see how anyone can justify going into the office without putting themselves into a quagmire of hypocrisy and contradiction.
When I've lived train distance, a 20min commute has been quite fine. I'd say neutral, which is sufficient to make the point.
Most of my hobbies would be in the city as well (meetups, concerts, board games, dating). All that has took a massive hit but the city is slowly coming back.
My current team prefers working remote and TBH I don't like it. I want to be in an office with others. It's nice having a clear separation of work and home. I don't like how companies are able to subsidize business costs (electricity, rent, maintenance, food, internet) through my home. They aren't reimbursing me for this, nor would I expect it.
IDK, I just miss the old ways.
I wonder how much of these remote vs. office convos are effected by the maybe unstated fact that commuting in the Bay is maybe especially bad?
Never once have I pointed out an obviously ridiculous contradiction in practices "but won't this actually hurt our customers?" and had the response be anything near "oh no! you're right, better fix that!"
Remote work is a great example: long before pandemic most C-level execs and other important personal were almost never in the office, always attend meeting remotely (sometimes even just by phone), and yet love to talk about how work can't happen without everyone being in the office. Trust me if you can manage the entire company from your Florida vacation home, I'm sure we can get these models deployed to production from my home office.
I hope everyone gets to choose their option, but I find it really tiring to be told by either side that I *WILL* be more productive or be happier one way or another. I'm perfectly capable of figuring out that myself.
Obviously upgrading to a place with a dedicated office would probably be comparable, but that makes some assumptions on my part that might not be accurate or reasonable.
I've been a member of several manager-centric forums since before COVID.
This was definitely not the case for most teams. The sudden switch to remote was not a productivity or even a morale boost for most.
Average employee: "I am just as productive (or even more productive) working from home than when I was at the office. This is totally sustainable."
Average Manager: "I've noticed a huge drop in productivity from my employees since they have been working from home. This is entirely unsustainable."
This is what I hear from friends in other occupations, not just software, but also from my friends in software too.
Of course, both can be true if just a small percentage of employees drop productivity immensely while everyone else's remains the same... But it's probably more likely that the employees are... not great at judging their personal productivity.
I just find the dichotomy fascinating. - I don't have a race in the horse as I never went remote.
> it's probably more likely that the employees are... not great at judging their productivity
At my company "let's get everyone stuffed back into the office asap because productivity" was mgmts slogan, but that position became pretty much indefensible after they announced that 2021 was literally the best year ever (highest revenue, highest revenue rise yoy absolute and %, largest increase in headcount, highest number of projects shipped, highest number of new projects etc.)
I personally prefer working from home, I have my test devices here, I set up my own home office, I don't need to waste time commuting, I have more time to take care of things around my house and/or my family if needs be, and I actually find myself working more focused and wasting less time than I did when I was in the office. I know this is not for everyone but the fact that my other team members might or might not be in the office has pretty much 0 effect on my work performance because I wouldn't even know nor care about.
Just my two cents.