I think there is a happy medium, where maybe offices cut back to about 25% capacity or so. People would instead drop in and work like a university library. You could go there and print stuff out if you didn't have a printer at home. If your laptop blew up, you could go there and get a replacement from IT. If you preferred, you could rent out a substantial desk with several monitors and a good chair if you didn't have the space at home, or focused better in that environment. You could schedule in person meetings with your team in a well appointed conference room if you wanted. You could host social events. Maybe even a gym or childcare facility. I think that's my ideal for the office environment going forward: less a sweatshop and more a clubhouse.
I'm not sure how many tech workers didn't already have some kind of desktop computing arrangement at home but I have to imagine it's a miniscule number.
> I've never heard of a business offering a stipend or remote assistance subsidy of any sort to their workers to cover any of this, from whatever great savings are reaped from saving on real estate costs.
My company does, I'm sure it's become pretty standard lately.
I thought the same as you, and then I saw a lot of people at work not have home setups, either because of space or other reasons. It was surprisingly common!
Sure, but it's your personal desktop computing arrangement -- not the company's.
With WFH, the company is effectively renting that space from you so you can work in it, but you're charging them $0.
I bet if you actually considered the commute as part of your paid time to calculate an hourly rate, a lot of people probably come ahead when switching to wfh despite "renting their space" or whatever.
The peace of mind knowing that these guys already had remote engineers before the pandemic and a good workflow, and having a job that is officially and permanently remote is absolutely worth a few thousand bucks to me.
I was dreading going back to the office, even if only a day or two a week.
Counting the commute I would have otherwise been going back to with my previous company that was super excited to get asses back in seats, I'm probably actually getting paid more per hour of my time dedicated to work activities.
Once again, in SV/NYC/etc very few due to real estate costs. Most of my peers who aren't married have room mates.
I recall Shopify was in the news early last year for offering employees $1000 stipend for WFH supplies.
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/12/coronavirus-shopify-gives-em...
I switched jobs during the pandemic. My previous job offered $25/mo extra to help cover utilities, $250 to cover any wfh purchases and let me borrow any office supplies, including monitors, chairs, etc... Although this company instituted a 20% pay cut for 3 months which made that all seem very silly.
My new company is doing practically the same thing, but without the pay cut and is much less strict about the type of WFH purchases.
My commute was only ever a 10-15min bike ride, but Ive personally benefited greatly from the WFH switch and my productivity has been through the roof. I definitely agree with you that maintaining some space to meet and work would be nice.
"Simply inferior" is a bit of a bold statement. Lots of people want to go back to their office for various reasons. For me it's wanting to see my co-workers (which are my friends at this point) in person every day. It's certainly not rare.
However this is all predicated on open office being a layout where your desk is made of wood, hardwood flooring instead of carpet, your coworkers Aeron is 5’ or less from yours, massive windows close by, and there aren’t any forms of walls other than computer monitors. Cubicles require me to attend therapy.
Unfortunately introverts are not well represented in management or the types of people who make decisions about seating.
Also unfortunately, many (most?) software developers are introverts.
I absolutely despise open office plans. I can't work in them.
My productivity shot an incredible amount as soon as I had no choice than to work from home in March, and everybody else in the office. Saved 2 hours a day. And I can use my own bathroom... that alone is worth it.
This is the opposite of my personal experience. The energy of other people distracts and interrupts. Collaboration that interrupts focused solo work has rarely if ever been a net gain.
There's a big range from true open-plan space (long tables with employees sitting shoulder-to-shoulder next to each other) to private offices with doors.
Somewhere in between are traditional "cube farms" which provide some amount of semi-privacy, less distracting nightlines, noise reduction, and feeling of personal space. Most of the companies I've seen are still more like this.
Oracle is one company in the Valley with private locking offices with permanent full soundproof doors and outside windows with mountain views. I had one as an intern!
Who doesn't have open plan offices? There are about three people left in the tech industry these days who still have a private office.
> But it’s potentially a lot cheaper up front not to have offices, just like open plan offices were cheaper, so I fear MBAs may discount these drawbacks and make WFH the default in many, many places where it’s a bad idea.
Working in an open plan space is simply inferior to working remotely, except in rare cases where your team is in a bullpen and working full time on a specific project together. It's inferior for engineers because of distractions, and it's inferior for the company because of real estate costs.