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Comment by lo_zamoyski | Hacker News Reader

You're reducing WFH to just avoiding a commute. In my case, I found that WFH only was isolating, impacted focus, and cut me off from the information flow of the organization, something electronic means cannot really substitute. I have a sense of being more involved and informed about the business instead of being plugged into the Matrix and receiving a paltry trickle of information over narrow channels. The benefits of hybrid for me offset the burden of commuting enough to justify coming in.

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> In my case, I found that WFH only was isolating, impacted focus, and cut me off from the information flow of the organization, something electronic means cannot really substitute.

I worried about feeling isolated but found I didn't feel that way. And I think generally WFH has improved my ability to focus. My company is fully remote so there are not many in-person channels for information to flow.

Before the pandemic I would not have taken a remote job, I would have not been sure it would work out for me, but having done it for 3 years now, I'm real happy with it.

I do still like seeing people and will go out to work occasionally or cowork with friends. Traffic where I live is horrible though and avoiding a 30 minute dance with death twice a day is an amazing reduction in stress levels.

I guess it's going to work out that this is just one other thing to consider about a workplace and there's no one right answer where all businesses should do the same thing, people need the options.

I always felt more connected to my coworkers when we are regularly working from home. The office is such a false environment people just act very differently.

The office is the real environment. When working from home, people are more isolated and heavily restricted by silos and tracking systems. That’s the false environment. Compare talking to a friend in person to texting them from miles away.

That’s far from my experience. It sounds like you’re dealing with a horrible job / company here.

> I always felt more connected to my coworkers when we are regularly working from home. The office is such a false environment people just act very differently.

Jokes on you, I don't care if my coworkers get hit by a bus either way! I cannot stand anyone I work with. Every meeting that should be 15 is now an hour minimum why? People want to chat and I sit there with my soul leaving my body totally unable to do anything but smile fake and try not to look like I'm dead.

As hard as it may be to hear, to some extent that is likely a “you” problem. Start a culture of not having to have the camera on, figure out good reasons to have to exit such wasteful calls, etc. Continuing the same thing and whining about it melodramatically is unlikely to be fruitful

> As hard as it may be to hear, to some extent that is likely a “you” problem. Start a culture of not having to have the camera on, figure out good reasons to have to exit such wasteful calls, etc. Continuing the same thing and whining about it melodramatically is unlikely to be fruitful

I wasn't being melodramatic.

It is a me problem. Everyone else seems to love this random assortment of asinine "culture" and "team" concepts. I've worked at my share of places and it's always the same. "Standup is like 15 minutes." and it is. but then you have the 45 minutes leading up to it where they talk about what they did the night before or what their kids are doing or what life is like with their pet they've had for a decade. Everyone else seems to care and care deeply. I do not. At all. I just wastes my time.

We just assume the guys who have that zone out and work on things, we ping them when they need to be active. Easier to do with cameras off.

One day hopefully I'll manage to find one of these magic unicorn positions that y'all seem to have around these parts. Until then I'll have to do with wanting to die rather than be at work.

In my experience, the office can be even more isolating and mentally taxing. I rather just type out my thought process if I need to talk to a coworker.

Like cool, I can spend an hour getting an overpriced lunch with my coworkers and push the "going home" aspect back another hour.

I haven't found RTO to make the information flow happen, at least not the way it used to, where I could just listen to all the background noise of people talking, and occasionally overhear something of interest.

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