Hacker News Reader

Comment by paulcole | Hacker News Reader

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.

View on HN

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.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com