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Comment by atribecalledqst | Hacker News Reader

At least for me, my primary hangup for going back to the office is that COVID -isn't over-! Since I can do my job just as well from home as from the office, I'd far prefer to stay in an environment where I have control over my level of risk. (I realize not everybody has this at home, but I live alone)

For this reason, when I hear corporate taking advantage of the between-wave lull to trumpet going back to the office, it smacks to me as corporate deciding their need to see butts in seats is more important than my desire to not get sick. Long COVID is a scary thing and AFAIK we don't know any predictors for it!

If it weren't for COVID I would likely prefer to be in the office for the reasons OP lays out. (though now that COVID has happened, I think I'd try to make my commute shorter than it is now)

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At this point COVID is about as over as it will ever be. So do you plan to continue living as you are for the rest of your life?

Depends on where on the covid-panic-scale your local government is. In Germany there is still talk about waves, mask mandates and possible restrictions.

do plan to continue living without chronic fatigue?

I dunno, that seems reasonable. If you're were already on the fence about working in the office, and there's a new risk of getting terribly sick for 2 weeks, that could swing the chances. One of my biggest pre-pandemic office frustrations was how often I got sick from the train ride and from obnoxious coworkers who would hover over me with audible congestion.

You can pick and choose what you want to be exposed to, and how often. Like I'm willing to risk being exposed with a few friends once a week to play board games, dine indoors every once in a while, preferably during a time when they're not too busy, meet up with family once every month or so, shop in some stores sometimes, depending on how widespread it is currently, how long it's been since I've been vaccinated, etc (I just got the new booster so I'm a bit less strict recently), etc.

If I have to go into the office every day it's extremely difficult to manage that, especially since I know most of those people aren't going to be taking it very seriously.

Also there's been so many 'Covid exposure' emails from my workplace it's been ridiculous. They stopped bothering to report it a while back, but it was already in the double digits.

Downvoted for implied reckless disregard for others’ lives

I'm going to add... since I stopped going into the office, I stopped getting the flu.

I have a crappy immune system, and some auto-immune disorder stuff. I would get the flu for about a week, three to five times, every year. Given I'm in the U.S., that also means I would usually need to get furloughed for any kind of Christmas holiday.

Now... I get to not be sick (inevitably from a co-worker coming in sick, saying 'I'm fine, I can push through', then coughing all over the open floor plan) and I get my vacation time for vacations.

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