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Yes, I was pretty on the side of the remote work until the pandemic. I don't think it's mentally healthy for most people. Long commutes aren't mentally healthy either though, so I understand people that want to leave that behind. I've got a less than 10 minute commute and I can easily bike that if I need to.

Society is already too segregated with technology and I really do not think it's a good idea to move all of our in person communication to zoom calls. I really believe a lot of our current issues are due to the face people aren't communicating face to face enough and they've don't think of people on the other side of their screen as real people.

I think a hybrid work setting could be great in the right circumstances, but 100% wfh just isn't a great idea imo. If you are 100% wfh you need to force yourself to find some other social group.

Additionally, I'll add we have whole generation of kids being brought up on primarily electronic communication. They're not getting appropriate social skills to begin with and then we're talking about throwing them into a remote work world for their entire lives. I think this is just a recipe for increasing their already poor mental health.

> Yes, I was pretty on the side of the remote work until the pandemic. I don't think it's mentally healthy for most people.

I think we would need to somehow separate the mental unhealthiness of remote work from the mental unhealthiness of dealing with a worldwide deadly airborne pandemic. It could be that remote work in and of itself is great, but remote work with the additional mental/emotional toll of a pandemic is not so great.

I suspect that remote work was great before the pandemic, and will be great after the pandemic, and that in fact the pandemic is what caused our growing cultural communication issues (not to mention the other things that coincided with the pandemic: worldwide political turmoil, for example).

The pandemic was so bad for mental health due to he fact people were locked down and unable to socialize. If it wasn't for that, the majority of people wouldn't have been affected so badly.

It was the social impact and not the disease itself that caused so many problems.

> The pandemic was so bad for mental health due to he fact people were locked down and unable to socialize.

That's what needs to be removed from these calculations. Now, you can have that social life outside of work.

Why do you cut time going to shops or whatever out of work time, but not commute times? I have a feeling in a lot of cases the two balance out. And one of those things doesn’t make people miserable and obese. You also make the claim that your teams remote work has been less productive and in the same breath that there’s no good way to quantify it. It’s entirely possible your gut Feeling is just wrong.

Let‘s say productivity is the same remotely and in person.

Would that not make remote automatically better because of all the pollution and time lost commuting?

No. Because in your made-up equal productivity scenario we can just as easily make up the idea that people are less happy working remotely.

The reality is that some people like remote work and some don’t. Some organizations have chosen to be remote and some haven’t. Nobody’s right or wrong. They can make the choice that they believe is best for them — sometimes that choice requires trading off things they like for things they don’t. For example, I work for a remote company and I really dislike remote work. But I really like the company I work at, so I choose to work there.

This dilemma is precisely what people who benefit from remote work went through when most companies weren't remote friendly.

My honest opinion is that most people that enjoy the office enjoy it because it's where they've gotten most of their socialization in their adult lives. As a result, they haven't built up lives outside of work. To make matters worse, our communities haven't developed to support people having "lives" outside of work (at least out here in the suburbs).

My hope is that as remote work becomes more prolific, people will rely on their local communities more for their social lives and all of these wonderful small towns will thrive again.

It surprises me that the biggest knock on HN against people who prefer the office generally boils down to "get a life." Honestly, it's pretty insulting.

And I've never seen someone comment, "I'm pro-office because I have no social life." So why is that the prevailing sentiment?

To me it's more like those in favor of remote work find people who prefer office work very threatening and really look to knock them down a peg or two and discredit them. And what better way to do that than ad hominem'ing and insulting their social life?

> And I've never seen someone comment, "I'm pro-office because I have no social life."

It’s not that surprising because it’s difficult to admit to oneself.

It’s also difficult to admit to oneself that one is just insulting others because one dislikes the others’ opinions and has no evidence to back up one’s insult.

Just one’s observations though.

You're taking what OP said in bad faith. But in my experience most of the people who want to come into an office is precisely because they're lacking a certain social component in their normal lives.

There are so many quantifiably superior reasons to want to work remotely:

- Commute time

– gasoline savings

– can walk one's pets

The only pros I can think of for going into an office are a little more contextual to the specific employee:

- Poor home environment (noisy, distracting, etc)

– Loneliness

> Poor home environment (noisy, distracting, etc)

> Loneliness

I mean those can be pretty huge issues.

And no, I’m not taking what OP said in bad faith. I’m taking it as exactly how they meant it.

They have no actual evidence (besides their keen observation and desire to discredit in-office work) and to say that people who prefer office work have poor/nonexistent social lives.

Yet they claim that people who prefer office work have poor/nonexistent social lives. I’m not sure but the traditional context of saying someone has a poor/nonexistent social life is rarely that of a compliment.

This conversation was in the context of OP

> I wish people would stop posting articles that imply that remote working is somehow objectively better

> we can just as easily make up the idea that people are less happy working remotely.

We can make up the idea that the sun is blue, but I think you missed my point. Please note I talk about productivity.

In the context of people claiming remote/in-person work is more productive and asking each other for proof, discussing about burden of proof, why not simply assume that remote is exactly as productive as in-person? Unless some undeniable proof is presented.

I find it an elegant way to diffuse this proof-of-burden.

Personally I decided a long time ago which one I prefer.

> I find it an elegant way to diffuse this proof-of-burden.

I can see why.

OK, let’s assume you’re right and they’re equally productive.

But who actually cares about productivity? Many individuals and individuals who speak for organizations say they do but their actions don’t match that.

And OK, let’s say people actually care about productivity. Remote work isn’t automatically better because you guessed that the pollution savings are large. Now, you can just kind of handwave that away and say of course it’s large.

But aren’t there other changes that result from remote work? How do you rank those vs. pollution and commuting time?

It will be quite easy for you to win this argument when you assert that all your assumptions are correct.

After having worked remotely since the beginning of the pandemic, I’d say that I’m not totally against working in the office but I am going to avoid it if there’s any significant commute whatsoever. If I could arrive with a mere 10-20 minute walk, it wouldn’t be so bad and I could maybe even see opting into being there at least part time. My patience for commuting is gone though.

> I work really effectively at home", it doesn't mean that there are people who are not taking multiple trips to the shops, to school etc. since they can

If you don't pay hourly, who cares how people manage their salaried time? You should measure by outcomes whether people are sitting there all day in the office too.

How about we treat adults as adults and let each one decide for themselves?

Everyone has an opinion on remote work and I’m fine with it, my problem is when PHBs mandate work from the office and make that decision for everyone regardless of personal preferences and situations.

Giving people the option to work remotely is objectively better, because it satisfies both parties.

Well it's not because there's no point going to the office if your team still WFHs

So you think the solution is to force a bunch of people to hang out with you? I'm sure they'd be thrilled to stop doing what worked for them so as to please you.

Such a tired, lazy retort. Why is there always this false dichotomy?

How is it a false dichotomy?

People are either allowed to stay home or not.

I don't wanna be forced to go in so other people can feel good about me being there.

Why don't we ask people what their preferences are and organise teams accordingly? People who prefer remote can work with others remotely, while those who prefer more time in the office could work with others who'd prefer that.

Ok not all teams could be reorganised, but I expect in reality a lot could be shuffled around.

So why did you object to my statement that giving people the choice is better for both parties? You’re suggesting the same thing.

> I really miss the contact from the office but since most people don't go in any more, it is not worth much of my time to travel there.

So you are saying that working from office is objectively worse.

I think that is subjectively worse as its applying it from his viewpoint instead of an objective measure.

Regardless. In order for people like OP to feel subjectively better, they want to subject their colleagues to daily commute / office restraints.

Or maybe, just maybe, it's not really possible to solve that issue once and for all for all companies in the world, but is rather dependent on team culture and can differ between teams and be a factor in why some people choose one job and others choose another one.