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> I'm not coming in, ever.

In my experience working remote for the past decade "remote" usually involves coming to the office or having an offsite once a quarter. I don't think that's unreasonable at all.

I've been doing remote longer than a decade and never ever had to come in to the office when designated as such. Might be reasonable for you, but that's up to the individual and at the very least needs to be disclosed in the interview stage if it's mandated. Some people work remote because they have debilitating anxiety, phobias, or mental health issues. Others are single parents that don't have the ability to offload those responsibilities. There are valid reasons for never going in.

I respectfully disagree. Traveling to the office or for an offsite once a quarter is totally reasonable and when planned some three weeks ahead or so, should pose no issues whatsoever.

If you are unable to fit this in your schedule, or are actually that mentally unfit you cannot oblige your fellow humans in your job... Every once in a while? Then you should not have that job. This should be considered reasonable by any standard.

Not wanting to deal with humans most of the time... Fine. Not being able to deal with your human colleagues, who do want to deal with each other, ever? Not fine. $0.02

I don't get the absolutes here, this can easily be discussed during interviews and before signing anything. Either the company and the future employee agree on what's reasonable and they sign, or they don't, and that's it.

You can disagree all you want, but at the end of the day it's still only your opinion and is unrealistic.

For full disclosure, I have a neurological disease with physical ailments, I have digestive medical problems which would make it embarrassing for me and very uncomfortable for them, and I have a personality disorder which includes anxiety and depression as a bonus. All of which makes onsite participation literally torture for just a few hours, let alone a whole week of it. Clearly I've done my job so effectively for so long that I can work anywhere in tech and demand top salaries, so your comment about "not having that job" is not only extremely lacking in empathy, but downright wrong.

EDIT: just to clarify, this is only relevant for employers that do not disclose the requirement during the hiring phase. If they disclose it ahead of time, then I might agree with you.

Sorry to hear about your issues, and good for you you have enjoyed, and feel assured you can maintain, good paying work fully remote. I indeed assumed full disclosure, both ways. When you have explicitly agreed you will never come in, this should definitely not become an expectation later on.

For the vast majority of jobs though and in the vast majority of cases I still feel it is very normal for people to expect to see each other every now and then in person. Even when the work itself can be done equally well remote and even when there is a significant effort involved.

In that case I apologize for making a bad assumption and wording my response in an emotionally charged way.

There will be in person positions for people like yourself. A remote position means no traveling either.

Of course the terms of the role and how much travel is required should be disclosed up front.

That said, for a highly paid role at a company like Amazon one should expect that they'll have to occasionally travel. Demanding that you never visit the office is unreasonable. The job is not simply sitting in your room shipping code—it also involves in person conversation from time to time.

Coming on-site once in a while isn't only not unreasonable, but an incredibly good idea.

Ought to be well-structured to be productive. My old employer used to set up a full day of 1:1 or small meetings with folks, end-to-end with short breaks in between. These were pretty informal (often walks) and cut across the company (not just my part of the org).

That is completely unreasonable.

GE burnt me out within six months doing the same crap. In my case I was coming in as a contractor for six months (and then on to FTE) and the original contract mentioned "travel" which I had them remove and they told me no travel ever...not a big deal.

Whole story changed when it came to hiring on as an FTE. Occasional travel was required and no guarantees on getting hired with some wired interview process that they actually took seriously. Total bait and switch trash.

I went through with it because I had already left my previous job fucking six months earlier. I hired in at, as I come to find out, some illustrious Senior Staff level that is nearly impossible to achieve for people starting thier career there. I was soon meeting people who had been kissing ass for a decade who were getting denied senior level.

I spent the next six months telegraphing my lack of enthusiasm for the company and was laid off when the pandemic set in. People were offering me other jobs etc but I refused and took the package...which was very nice at my level. I had just been paid full bonus and I received a bonus the following year for time I spent with the company on the next bonus cycle. A year after being laid off another $5k drops in my account. These people are batshit.

What led you to go from a cushy job to a sweatshop, if I may ask?

Sure thing. Going in I knew I would hate working at a FAANG, so there were a few factors really: 1) my old job loves what I do and I can easily return at any time, 2) I literally doubled my salary, 3) polish up my experience, and 4) it would bullet-proof my resume.

On that last point: I haven't had issues getting in the door anywhere for the last decade, but I think if the industry were to sour, it would help my resume stand out from other candidates.

Being assigned an office doesn't mean that it's not remote. It entirely depends on the team. I worked for a team that wanted me in office for three days a week last year. My current team is entirely remote, but I'm still assigned to an office that I can go to anytime I want, which is totally optional.

On the other hand, I had exactly this sort of issue with Amazon subsidiary Zoox a couple months ago. We had verbally agreed on terms that would have me doing primarily remote work. When they finally sent me terms, they specified full time in-office and changed a few other things like salary. The excuse was that some higher-up wouldn't approve remote right now, but they were trying to convince them.

No, but here's the catch that I learned about: if you're assigned to an office, they can make you go into that office at the same frequency as in-office workers. You'd basically have nothing in writing that states you're a remote employee (I specifically asked the recruiter about this, and he confirmed). Otherwise why would being fully remote need "special approval"? That doesn't make any sense.