Hacker News Reader

Comment by bvanderveen | Hacker News Reader

Is there an official party line that wfh is in every way for every person everywhere always better, and it’s best not to kick that hornet’s nest? Asking for a friend.

View on HN

The option to WFH, and avoid commuting, congestion, pollution, higher costs, disruptions, be closer to your spouse/kids, and don't lose an additional 2 hours every day is indeed inherently better for anyone, everywhere.

If someone likes socializing, they can do more of that when WFH too (especially since WFH really means: working from anywhere, be it a cafe, a coworking space, a village, or wherever they like).

Except it their have issues at their home. But going to an office is not a solution to that, is sidestepping their real problem...

The only place where that's not good is when you need expesinve resources to work (e.g. access to labs and machines).

From an environmental impact perspective alone, the opportunity to free the planet from emissions, lower the demand for vehicles, improve pedestrian safety by staying off the road, and lower commute-induced stressors on our bodies should be enough of a reason to WFH whenever possible. And those are only the first benefits of the practice.

You are conflating automobile transport with working from an office. They are different issues.

Not really different, because a huge part of automobile transport (when it comes to personal cars) is about going to and from the office, not running around for personal enjoyment.

The solution to the issues that the OP posted will persist regardless of the popularity of WFH. The true solutions to those issues are better infrastructure and improved modes of transport.

The emissions impact of WFH is far from clear actually. In many cases lots of people staying home running their domestic heating and cooking etc systems consumes more energy than them using the big efficient industrial ones at the office, enough to outweigh transport emissions. (Especially since the industrial ones are still running in many cases, because people still come in a few days a week.)

You've described a bunch of specific constraints that don't apply to "anyone, everywhere".

None of those items apply to me. It doesn't cost me anything to go into the office, it doesn't take hours, there's no pollution involved (at least, none over just the base rate of me being outside).

The idea that not wanting to spend every day Mon-Fri constantly around my SO means I have "issues at home" I can only really imagine is projection.

I don't particularly care if you like WFH, but pretending no-one actually likes working in person is denial of reality. Hi, I exist.

I don't particularly care if you like working in an office, but pretending everyone likes working in person, in a shared office, is a denial of reality.

People who do better at WFH have had to put up with and deal with the "butts in seat" work mentality for decades, even after remote work has been a possibility, especially in tech. Not everyone wants to be in an office, not everyone wants to be WFH. We shouldn't be forcing people to do either, if they don't want. Choice would be nice, but I'm way beyond dealing with being forced to come into an office as an employment requirement too.

Some jobs require employees to work in person, some jobs require them to work from home.

There is no force involved, that's hyperbolic.

I'm not aware of anyone arguing that everyone enjoys working in person. That would be daft. The existence of this thread disproves that.

>None of those items apply to me. It doesn't cost me anything to go into the office, it doesn't take hours, there's no pollution involved (at least, none over just the base rate of me being outside).

Then you already WFH, or from "next door to home".

What's more, you're an exception, in a world with billions of commuters.

>*The idea that not wanting to spend every day Mon-Fri constantly around my SO means I have "issues at home" I can only really imagine is projection. (...) but pretending no-one actually likes working in person is denial of reality. Hi, I exist."

Again, not everything is about you. For some people WFH is bad because of a bad home environment. In good home environments, the ability to spend more time with kids/spouse is a good thing.

Note also how nothing about WFH means that you need to work from your actual home, or that you need to spend "every day Mon-Fri constantly around your SO".

Its not that wfh is better in every case, but it does seem to be the case for a large number, if not majority, of people. The other issue is that the office crowd is dependent on others being at the office. I can't count the number of times I've seen someone say they prefer going to the office, but because everyone was working from home, there was no point. The burden being placed on others to satisfy personal work preferences seems heavily asymmetric, with the in-office crowd requiring a large number of others to also come into the office to make it work. If a company can make both work-styles viable, that's great. But too often it seems like the requirements for a bustling in-office environment end up meaning the WFH crowd are forced to come in as well.

I feel the problem is that many people in healthy offices already have a productive relationship with WFH, and understand the inherent costs and benefits. But there exists a large group who work in inherently toxic environments with sociopathic management for whom WFH is an essential component towards stability and is also the first places trying to force them to be in person.

If you have 3 roommates who are also WFH, is WFH better for all of you?

Part of the reason why WFH seems so much better is that companies made working in the office so horrible. Anyone who promulgated open floor plans should have been summarily fired.

Alas. Here we are.

Add zoom meetings and dogs to the open floor plan, and the office is a terrible place to get anything done.

Dogs? What? I still find it insane that any workplace allows non-service dogs and even more bizarrely, some recruiters list "dog-friendly" as a perk.

Crazy.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com