However, consider the fact that the old status quo of working in open concept 'feed lot' style office spaces makes people feel awful too.
I do not mean to discount your experience or feelings. Just pointing out that people are different, and you are just on the other side of the fence post shift.
For some, it is exactly the opposite.
That sounds unhealthy. Do you have family and community relationships? Work should be professional relationships. You provide services in exchange for money. If you are getting anxious and depressed from not seeing the people you work with, I think something is wrong with work life balance.
By the way, it is the company that benefits from this one sided attachment. If you feel emotionally attached to the company you are less likely to leave for higher pay or tolerate more abuse from the company. Believe me, the company will have no regrets parting with you if they feel you are not adding to their business value.
Companies love selling their employees on how they are a part of a family and how they are all on mission together. They are trying to inspire loyalty. In reality, the company has pretty much zero loyalty to you.
I think one of the reasons companies are trying to get rid of WFH, is that it is harder to make people emotionally dependent on the company and inspire one sided loyalty if they are working remotely.
This is kind of risible. No, it does not sound "unhealthy" to express a desire to spend time around colleagues as part of the work day. I can hardly imagine a more natural or healthy desire.
When someone implies it’s a character flaw or because you don’t have a social life it’s offensive. My life is fine outside of work.
Sounds like a cultural thing.
One of the best periods in my life was working with people who became my friends.
> Believe me, the company will have no regrets parting with you if they feel you are not adding to their business value.
"The company" doesn't exist. Its a somewhat useful abstraction. The people involved can and will keep people on long after they "should" have been fired. At least here is Europe.
Learning to WFH is as much a skill as learning to operate in an office environment. The difference, when you learn the former you also have increased freedom.
Any net new work is too abstract and complex for the HN CRUD engineer crowd to be central too.
Go find a local job onsite. No one is going to miss you at your office because we all know implicitly this is just busy work to preserve nation state status quo.
People aren't obligated to shut up and tolerate working conditions they dislike. Changing their lives outside of work won't make them enjoy those working conditions more.
When you spend 40 hours of your week doing something, it's going to influence you.
No amount of "satisfying life outside of work" can make up for a workplace that you don't enjoy. That's true for toxic workplaces, it's true for people who can't stand in-office work, and it's true for people who can't stand remote.
It's unfair to try to blame it all on the person's personal life. Different people work well in different environments. The WFH maximalists and in-office maximalists need to stop acting high and mighty like their way flawless.
It also depends on the crowd. On old jobs (public services) I felt there was more warmth (a lot more problems but still) whereas as a dev the spirit is a lot more dull and nerdy. I don't miss that.
> How about a face to face meeting once per quarter?
The problem comes when you try to stop what others want.
2.Even if your job is forcing you to do something you don’t like, that’s not a problem. If I want to use Windows and the company only lets people use Macs, then that’s not a problem. It’s a rule that either I’ll comply with or I won’t work there anymore.
If a company decides to be in-person-only then the people who want to work at a remote-only company won’t work there (or they will).
To sum up your summary, that’s why we’re seeing companies lose employees faster than they anticipated.
From the perspective of those who prefer in-office work, how is this any different from forcing a WFH policy on everyone? Why is that not tyrannical behavior?
For many people the separation between home and work has real value and for many people (particularly younger people with roommates in smaller apartments) their homes don’t have a dedicated workspace with a desk.
The WeWorK I go to has nicer furniture, Internet, and lighting than my home. It is in no way logical for me to work out of my apartment.
Even an apartment bedroom 10x12 can accommodate both in an L. Gig internet is also a lot cheaper than commuting or we work. If you are a professional there is little excuse not to have a desk and fast Internet at home.
Doing tech support I was always shocked to see some folks including techies angry that their elcheapo Internet plan with 10 year old rented equipment downstairs wasn't working well for their hyper important job.
Invest in yourself a bit.
Jesus Christ, here’s my excuse: Before the pandemic I didn’t work at home. After the pandemic, I work at WeWork.
WeWork is $150 a month btw and includes free coffee and A/C in the summer (my apartment doesn’t have A/C) as well. Plus I can walk there in 30 minutes so the dollar-cost of commuting isn’t an issue.
I hate remote work but I happen to like my current job enough to stick with it despite it being remote. My next job will be in-office.
You don’t have to. Somebody at the company (owner, board, leadership team, etc.) decides if they want to be remote, on-site, or hybrid. Then leave it up to everyone who works there to make a decision about whether that’s something they can live with.
Five days in the office would probably grind me down but 3 has been a great hybrid for me.
It depends on the team and work but I definitely feel a lot more disconnected being fully remote these days. Seeing my team (and broader org) every quarter was a nice compromise that combatted this somewhat but I miss the energy of the hybrid model.