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Comment by itohihiyt | Hacker News Reader

I currently work somewhere where I can't WFH. And as a counterpoint to pretty much everyone here I prefer it. My last role I was able to WFH.

Reasons I prefer going into the office:

- when work is done, I leave, and it's done.

- not using my resources (electricity / broadband / etc) for work.

- easier interaction with colleagues.

I liked it at the start, and liked the flexibility, but after a while hated that my home was also my workplace. I also found it was too easy to do unpaid overtime from home. After a while my productivity fell.

Caveat is I live within cycle distance to work. I hate commuting too, and wouldn't do more than 30 minutes.

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Tell me where this dream job is and I will apply. For over 20 years I commuted to the office. Some days I stayed late in the office and pulled 12 hour workdays. Most of my time was stolen by coworkers and managers who constantly interrupted or insisted I attend a meeting about some issue I knew nothing about. When I left the office after only putting in 8 hours, I would end up working 2+ hours at home to catch up for the work I couldn’t do on the office. Now with WFH, when people try to interrupt me on Slack, I tell them to send me a meeting invite.

as with all things your experience depends on context. if you are part of a business team that needs to request things off other people and build off needing something from others, then you love working from the office cuz the others are available for you

if in turn, you are someone who completes projects for other people to pay you back on, then you realize that you'd rather be able to heads down work and also take 100% credit for it

Haha dream job it is not, but a definite benefit is you never take it home. And I am never not paid overtime if I work beyond my hours. I could definitely get a better paid job but this one is good enough with a decent work/life balance.

> when work is done, I leave, and it's done.

To quote Dilbert:

> Now let me get this straight. The time I spend in the shower actually thinking about solving problems is not "work." The time I spend at the office attending meaningless meetings is "work."

It's a mental separation kind of thing. When I've had jobs where I work at an office, I am able to mentally leave work at work. When I've worked from home, I struggle to do that and end up thinking about work when showering or doing dishes.

before covid, you had this 9 to 5 separation where people were required to come in so they basically did, and after they left they would just sometimes even leave the laptops at work

during covid you took afternoon naps. so then this liberty also traded for you to work other odd hours with a get-it-done-when-you-can mentality outside the 9 to 5

post covid now? the employers want to have their cake and eat it too; where they require you to come to the office, then go home and work on for some further hours. I even had a senior position where I had a 1 a.m. and a 2 a.m. call. suffice to say I left really soon after

> during covid you took afternoon naps

We didn't went through the same COVID period I'm afraid.

Hence why I'm now a consultant and get paid by the day/week.

I have no control over my brain switch, so I somehow need to be paid for the brilliant ideas I get in the shower. Also, I don't want to be required to sit 8 hours if I already do 4 hours overtime because my brain is working 24/7.

I'm not trying to tell you that liking the office is wrong but most of what you said here applies to WFH. When I finish working, my laptop gets put in a bag and not taken out until I start working again and colleague interaction while remote is going to vary based on how your invested your company is in remote work. As far as your home being your workplace, you could always rent a cheap office to work from. The co-working space around me offers private offices for a few hundred a month.

Hang on, why would I rent office space, to WFH? I don't mean to be blunt but I this seems ridiculous.

> I'm not trying to tell you that liking the office is wrong but most of what you said here applies to WFH.

I'm not saying WFH didn't work for me so is doesn't work for everyone. For me though as soon as the novelty wore off I found it a bad experience. Certainly for me none of it applied.

If it works for you I'm happy for you. For me I like that clear separation where it's not easy to slip into working beyond your time.

> Hang on, why would I rent office space, to WFH? I don't mean to be blunt but I this seems ridiculous.

>If it works for you I'm happy for you. For me I like that clear separation where it's not easy to slip into working beyond your time.

You answered your own question. The article is using work from home as a catchall term for remote work but not everyone who works from home wants to literally work from home. Some companies will even reimburse you if you want to get a membership at a co-working space.

If I did I can't see it.

You'll have to forgive my ignorance for assuming we were talking WFH instead of remote working. I got confused when it stated work from home instead of remote working.

Either way "some companies" ain't mine, and I'm not being out of pocket for work.

>and I'm not being out of pocket for work.

Are you paid for the time spent commuting? Are your transportation expenses fully reimbursed?

That's a definite false equivalence.

[flagged]

If it's silly and pedantic to assume we're talking about the thing plainly stated in both the title and body of the article, then yes I am.

Now if you're actual stance is that when someone says WFH you include all remote work then we are clearly talking about two different things. In which case it should be plainly stated. As it stands it just seems to me you were moving the goalposts.

For clarity WFH when I say it means a type of remote work where you work from you home. You can set up as many straw mans as you want but this it what I've been discussing from the start.

Ultimately WFH is a matter of opinion. I don't like it, you do; and that's fine.

[flagged]

You started by moving the goalposts, then set up strawman arguments, and now resorting to ad hominem attacks. Pathetic really.

But I stand corrected, apparently: WFH != WFH. Good to know.

> when work is done, I leave, and it's done

This might speak to the whip I have worked under, rarely has this been the case for me. Just demanding jobs with too much to do. Office is where you go in super early (or WFH super early) to focus for two hours, then office to do a bunch of meetings and unfocused work, and then home is where you get to pick back up for the real work. One gig, I'd call in wfh simply because I was working before commuting and got too carried away (ie: late) for it to actually be worth going in.

I very much agree with the potential drawbacks. Not having a twice daily 40 minute bike ride was a very major adjustment.

I have the opposite experience.

Reasons I prefer staying at home:

- when work is done, I turn off the computer, and it's done. At the office if work is done I can't leave immediately without raising eyebrows or I don't have a train/bus to get home.

- not using my resources (money for train,/bus.. my time) to get to work.

- easier interaction with colleagues. It's much easier to hear my colleagues from home than in the openspace. Besides most of my colleagues are on other offices. Also everytime I'm in the office I need to book a meeting room just to ensure they are able to hear me and vice-versa.

I do think face to face interacting is extremely important on certain occasions. Specifically onboarding new people and then periodically (once a week or every two weeks) to maintain the relationship.

Some counterpoints:

> when work is done, I leave, and it's done.

My experience from WFO is worse: task may be done earlier, but feels wrong to leave earlier, and colleagues may not take it badly.

>not using my resources (electricity / broadband / etc) for work

Gas is more expensive than electricity, so I'll take the tradeoff. Even better if you can reduce the number of cars in the family - purchase, annual fees and insurance, etc.

> easier interaction with colleagues

A pro and a con: good for collaboration, but also easier to be distracted when trying to focus.

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