Not every office job is software engineering folks... Imagine trying to manage a warehouse remotely... or bounce ideas off each other in real time at a marketing agency... or any of the other normal jobs that thrive with in-person interaction.

Not to mention, 34% is a minority... we can't force the other 66% to work remotely just because a minority enjoy it.

Some jobs have to be done in person, sure. But some jobs don't. Personally the extra two hours a day and reduced stress more than make up for the lack of face-to-face meeting time with my coworkers.

A friend of mine is in software sales. She doesn't need to physically be in an office ever. There are a lot of office jobs that can be done remotely.

It's just so damn lonely.

https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all-remote/informal...

In some jurisdictions this is actually required, if the company is to expect any level of service or availability from infrastructure on the employer's home. For example, if your personal internet fails you cannot be held liable or at fault by an employer, since they're not paying for that. And if they pay for it, then it's on them to fix it since it's the service they provided (just like it's not an employee's fault if the internet gets cut at the office).

Or are you saying that given the creative thinking time alone that accumulated slowly over a period of time WFH, that the team was able to make 7 days worth of progress in one hour primarily due to the fact that everyone had plenty of time to understand the issues and the pains associated?

Are you confusing _peak_ with _sustained_ productivity?

This 'do you colleagues feel the same way?' argument is circular and the question can be posed both ways. Separating the two to allow people a preference one way or the other is a difficult problem that has been addressed by many companies by simply making everyone come into the office. It may be that giving people the option one way or another is the right way forward, but getting to that point is going to be a long and windy road...

The commute there and back, sometimes an hour one way depending on traffic and weather, absolutely is torture. In the middle of summer or depth of winter it can be miserable. My 8-9 hour workday would often be closer to 10-11 hours, and I'd arrive home exhausted and annoyed. Travel via train was worse in some ways but sometimes better.

I am not any less closer or further, emotional or occupationally, when remote. But I don't have to lose 2 hours of my day, huff tons of exhaust, and pay the costs of cars / busses / trains.

I can sneak away for 10 minutes to grind my coffee, good coffee, and make a cuppa my way instead of relaying on the bland Keurig machine. I can get dinner going in a slow cooker 6 hours ahead of time, give my dog 3 walks a day, and handle my personal shit, on my personal machines, without risking personal or occupational data. I get more sleep, and can work later if needed, since I don't need to worry about losing an hour of my life just to get home.

Sure, work isn't torture and the office wasn't bad. But in exchange for stilled small talk with coworkers -- your coworkers aren't your friends, btw -- I gain so much more at home.

For folks in this situation, WFH is probably intolerable.

It's just the case that not everyone is in the same situation, and I think people forget that when they make claims that boil down to "WFH is 100% bad and we should all go to the office." (or the opposite)

If you can work remotely, why live (I’m assuming) in a city that is expensive because it was built around an in-person existence?

I don't like co-opting my living space for work. It clutters things physically and mentally.

I detest working from home full time. It used to be a clear mental distinction between "this is my safe space where I don't worry about work" and "this is where I'm putting all of this time slice into work". I've done little personal development and I'm stressed all of the time because I don't feel comfortable at home anymore.

I'm glad WFH is being more recognized in that if there's a day I'm not feeling great but am still okay to work, I don't have to deal with going into the office. I'm hopeful that I can take a WFH day when I need one, but I am not going to work remote full time.

I understand it would be off limits if someone would need to use public transport but I can see allowing people to work from the office at least some days if they can walk/drive and it is not like too many at the same time.

You can always explain that you have important stuff to be done and it can be only done on company network because of "reasons".

I am definitely in "WFH forever" camp and I would like to buy bigger house far from the office. But I don't see why people who spend their money to live close to the office should be treated unfair.

That's the crux of my point. Change that, and your options suddenly open up a lot.

This argument is rooted in a fondness for the way things used to be. I get it... I miss lunch with my coworkers and being able to spin around in my chair to ask someone a question. But are you really going to get that satisfaction when your coworker isn't in that chair, or your work friends want to have lunch alone because they have an immuno-compromised child at home?

Lots of things can be done remotely, but that also doesn't mean that they are all done as well remotely.

To counter your example about software sales - A few months ago I conducted an RFP process for some software, and the company that scored the lowest was the company where the salesperson didn't come and see how the processes worked in person. Their software was likely just as capable, but the fact that they couldn't visit probably put them at a significant disadvantage in terms of understanding what they were replacing. If they don't understand how the existing system works, how can they be confident in their commercial offer which has some significant bespoke elements?

Now this will depend on the software and company, clearly, but sales is sometimes a tricky one. Often it's about the relationship, and fundamentally people also warm to people they have seen face to face. Sometimes sales isn't about the software, it's about sitting in a room and eating Nando's together and building a relationship that way. People don't always buy software just based on functionality/cost, there is often a huge element of trust involved, and that is just harder to build over a video call.

Visiting a customer site for a sales meeting is not the same as "working remotely". She does not need to go into the corporate HQ every day to do software sales. Yes, she did and will in the future visit customer sites.

> Only one example, but I think for most jobs something is often lost by having no physical presence and no in-person collaboration.

Sure but this ignores benefits. The question is if remote work is a net negative, in terms of utility.

And the obvious answer is that for some jobs it is, and for some jobs it isn't. There isn't a hard and fast rule here, and like I say it depends on the software you are selling. You probably aren't going to sell and implement a $20m ERP job entirely remotely, but on the other hand you aren't going to be driving around and doing customer visits for a $50 a month SaaS contract.

But in the absence of any hard-data, my gut strongly tells me that working from home is a net negative for most jobs and most people. My team has gone back to the office now and our ability to get stuff done is just rocketing.

The net utility is an effective metric for deciding to work remotely in any context. Clearly this decision is not made at the level of humanity and will have to be evaluated in narrower contexts.

> But in the absence of any hard-data, my gut strongly tells me that working from home is a net negative for most jobs and most people. My team has gone back to the office now and our ability to get stuff done is just rocketing.

But as you say, this is a gut feeling. My gut says my team is more effective remote.

My team is really dreading the move to back to office, but I couldn't be happier. I get the nudge I need in the mornings to hit the gym again, I get cheap and healthy food during lunch with no effort on my part. And I get to see and interact with people who don't work in my team and I haven't had any work reason to interact with again.

Just listening in meetings there are many people like me who want to go back to office (at least part time) this means that a lot of meetings will again be held face-to-face and while there will be a token effort to clue in the remote people it will fall off fast not to mention all of the ad-hoc meetings that happen at the desks or hall ways.

I am not saying that you are wrong, but that being full time remote employee in a company that is not 100% remote all the time is way different than being the only (or one of the few) full time remote employee in a team. I still intend on being remote couple days a week, but I know for a fact already that the amount of time I sit in voice chat with the remote team memebers during the day will be close to zero on the days I am at the office.

I fully expect to have to go in to the office one or two days a week but the logistics are easier with remote meetings. There's no need to find an empty room, I don't have to take time to walk to your floor, etc.

> I get the nudge I need in the mornings to hit the gym again, I get cheap and healthy food during lunch with no effort on my part. And I get to see and interact with people who don't work in my team and I haven't had any work reason to interact with again.

These are personal problems. I have been exercising more while WFH because I have more time. You can't expect your coworkers to change their lives because you get a personal time-management or networking benefit.

But somehow you can expect your coworkers to change their actions because you want to be full remote in a company that does not enforce full remote?

Have you considered that it might be the remote employees that are more productive?

The benefits you've stated for in-office work are that you will be more likely to hit the gym, get low-cost healthy food, interact with random non-teammates, and meet in-person, none of which are slam-dunks for the company bottom line.

> the amount of time I sit in voice chat with the remote team memebers during the day will be close to zero on the days I am at the office.

Can I be frank? This sounds like an incredibly selfish attitude to take. "If you're not like me, I have no intention of accommodating you."

And just the fact that if I am at the office people will come to my desk with their problems and the constant fiddling with headphones is annoying waste.

I don't get why everyone thinks those of us who want to go back to office are the selfish ones for not bending over backwards over the people who prefer to work remote as if we didn't sign up for this when we started to work.

Let's clarify that this is strictly specific to you.

I and several other colleagues I chat with started doing more exercise due to the pandemic.

Same with food. If I just sit inside my house 24/7 with the lockdown I am way more likely to pour my energy in hobbies and other activities. There are no fancy food grocery delivery systems where I live, so only options are to go to grocery store or order food and before the decision was easy because the grocery store was on the way to work, so "I might as well" make the stop. Now I just work for 8 hours straight, feel hangry, order some shitty food, work 8 hours on side project and do the same.

Sure this is a personal problem as many here like to point out, but just remember that when you are left out of decision making since you aren't part of the office that will be your personal problem. If my employer decides to go fully remote it is fine that I have to find another place to work, I have no problems with that. I hope the remoters will view it the same way if things dont work out for them.

I am an individual tech contributor. I don't oversee anything, mentor anyone, or manage anything. I am not the kind to challenge already made decisions. So meetings are largely one way information flow, as it seems to be for most of the developers I know.

Write me a memo and I at least am in the same place 90% of the time.

ADDED: I get your preference but it really doesn't scale. How does that work once there are multiple offices, external agencies, people who need to travel a lot, etc.?

What used to be swivel in your chair and ask a colleague or going to whoever you need to speak to is now

* Send a Slack message/email and wait an arbitrary amount of time for a response.

* Organise a Skype/Teams/whatever call in a few hours time and feel guilty about it, as it feels rude to just ring someone as they could be occupied or busy.

I spend a stupid amount of time having blocked stories/tasks because I need to clarify some criteria/parts of it and the people I need to speak to are difficult to reach because they're busy/AFK.

But your need for an instant answer often derails my work flow. I can get a lot more done now that I am not being interrupted as frequently and can address questions once I have wrapped up what I am doing or at least have time to write down where specifically I stopped.

This! The office paradigm values everyone else's time over my time. It paints interruption as a virtue. My last employer (before COVID) cancelled all WFH with the statement "We all know a 15 minute face-to-face conversation is better than a 3 day email chain". What about the other 99% of my time? Any time saved by that 15 minutes interaction is dwarfed by the amount lost in other daily nonsense.

I've got so used to them to get me to my zone I still use at home...

Does a quick interruption that unblocks me and allows me to continue working outweigh allowing you to finish your thing first? Because maybe you're unblocked but I'm blocked by you now, and the thing that's actually blocking me. So only 1 person is able to work.

Understandably this can lead to a lot of context switching, but so can someone swiveling in a chair to ask a question or go down a rabbit hole. You can optimize the process a bit by shifting perspective and having a path to follow if you get blocked, rather than lamenting on how you're blocked(not you in particular, but people in general).

*I feel like it is somewhat rare that a person only ever has 1 specific thing to work on.

No, absolutely not. As my coworker you have no right to my time, at all. Certainly not on-demand.

You are in no position to prioritize my time, especially in the context of you finishing your task.

> Because maybe you're unblocked but I'm blocked by you now, and the thing that's actually blocking me.

No, you are blocked by whatever you are blocked by. Solving your problems is your problem. Not mine.

> So only 1 person is able to work.

If you can't do your job without also consuming my time in parallel what exactly are you contributing? If you are blocked and need input then go work on something else until you can get the input. This is elementary time management and respect for your coworkers.

Just because I ask you in person for help from time to time does not equate to me not contributing anything.

Just because someone asks you for help in person does not mean you can't say 'no, can you try me at this time or send me an email detailing the issue'.

Solving problems can be a siloed experience, but depending on the organization or team, most problems in today's businesses are team efforts, and require team collaboration. Having blinders with comments like 'solving your problems is your problem' is a great way to overlook when a problem someone is having is actually YOUR problem because you overlooked a bit of code or configuration or documentation.

That's not what I said. My comment was about working in parallel and demanding immediate coworker input to advance.

> Just because someone asks you for help in person does not mean you can't say 'no, can you try me at this time or send me an email detailing the issue'.

The situation is not asking for help in person, it is interrupting to ask for help.

> Solving problems can be a siloed experience, but depending on the organization or team, most problems in today's businesses are team efforts, and require team collaboration. Having blinders with comments like 'solving your problems is your problem' is a great way to overlook when a problem someone is having is actually YOUR problem because you overlooked a bit of code or configuration or documentation.

I never said anything about working in silos. We still have a daily standup, we still do sprint planning, we still to regular operations reviews. I take ownership for my own actions and deliverables and help coworkers. This is simply a matter of how to request that assistance and the expectations around when that is provided.

Asking for help in person is literally interrupting someone, no matter what they are doing because their attention has to be re-directed from whatever they were doing to you. So there is no meaningful difference between asking for help and interrupting to ask for help. But through social cues I can tell what level of concentration you might be on, and with some precision judge when a good time might be to check in. Hell, I will definitely be wrong some of the time, but that's just life.

The situation is obviously different for someone that is always co-dependent on others for getting work done.

Yes, all of those things are true and I do all of those things. I am speaking specifically about interrupting a coworker who is doing productive work.

> "siloed," "completely independent," and "unanswerable to anyone."

I didn't say anything about this. Respecting your coworkers time does not require any of it.

What part of this statement says 'team player' to you?

The whole part about working as a team-player is that solving their problems is your problem, because it is the teams problem.

What you are describing is being assigned a list of stuff and working on it independently, then not helping anyone else unless it's convenient for you. This is colloquially called 'not being a team player'.

The part where each member of the team is trusted with their own time management. I will also not interrupt you when you are working, because I respect you and your time.

> The whole part about working as a team-player is that solving their problems is your problem, because it is the teams problem.

Yeah, no. The team has problems so we divide the work. Each of us takes ownership for some small part of it. Asking for input from teammates is fine, that is the responsibility of that owner. But that doesn't mean they can interrupt someone to get it. To be an effective teammate you need to earn the respect of your peers and interrupting will undermine that trust long term. Obviously I want my coworkers to solve their problems because we all work toward a common goal and of course I provide input to help them do that.

You must be very good at your specific tasks because it sounds like you are not very good at your job (which includes "teamwork," "mentoring," and "problem solving"), at least if you behave the way you're saying you behave.

I have never ever gone into a team environment and felt the need to earn respect from my teammates or have them earn mine. This is a glass half full or empty thing. You can go into a team and require others prove themselves and vice-versa or you can give people the benefit of the doubt and let them lose the trust if something happens. Both lead to vastly different experiences.

What you say sounds pretty selfish though. If someone came to me and asked for help with something I'd be happy to drop tools and come and help as I'm not just a 'colleague', I'm a team member.

If you need clarification then send an email, add a comment in your issue tracker or set up a meeting. There's no reason to interrupt someone doing productive work to get clarification on a story. You should be able to manage parallel stories and make progress as you get clarification.

Asking "hey you got a minute?" is a waste of everyone's time because either the answer is "yes" and you could have asked your question already or the answer is "no" and you just disrupted someone who was doing productive work and still doesn't know if your actual question is worth answering right now. Just ask your question and I will answer it when I have time. This is why it is better to ask in email, IM or a meeting, depending on the nature of the question.

Like I said, everything you're writing speaks to you.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology)

In the office respect for the headphone signal is not universal. Also, sometimes I don't want to wear headphones just to signal I am in flow. Nor do I want to have to use them drown out all the other distractions. People are still walking around and doing things, all are potential distractions.

No, solving the company's problems is both our problems. You have a tremendously adversarial attitude toward your coworkers. Why don't you trust them to know the cost of interrupting you and decide whether or not it's a net gain?

Yes, this requires effective collaboration.

> You have a tremendously adversarial attitude toward your coworkers.

I do not have an adversarial attitude toward my coworkers. In fact I am very well liked by the people I work with. Probably because I treat them with respect.

> Why don't you trust them to know the cost of interrupting you and decide whether or not it's a net gain?

How can they possibly know this? That would require everyone on the team having complete knowledge of what everyone else is doing at all times. Further, if you believe you know more than your coworker about their situation then it speaks to a distrust of their abilities.

In the first case, it does seem a lot more reasonable to interrupt and trade-off the productivity of the blocker in favor of the blockee. At worst, that's an even trade and at best it incentivizes not being a blocker.

In the second case, I'd rather not create a distributed denial of concentration scenario for SWEs who are rarely stuck to optimize for those who are more frequently stuck.

There's another angle here which is that ad-hoc in-person conversations tend to be low value because there's no record. The process of simply writing down a question before asking it goes a long way toward finding a solution.

It's one of the things I really appreciate about working from home. There are no unwelcome interruptions because everyone controls their own time and interactions I do have are higher value because they have been more thoroughly considered.

I can skim the first few words of a Slack message without losing context and if those first few words demand an immediate response, I can "save" what I am doing to my notes.

I had a co-worker who did this in a past job, even though he sat behind me. It was quite helpful.

Absolutely.

Another thing is that it's often harder to write your question/problem in text as a message, when in verbal communication it's a lot easier (personally, YMMV). But having to organise calls to get that verbal communication is a pain.

A lot of folks are used to being lazy intra communications in an org, and imho, that shouldn't be an excuse to dissuade remote work when the benefits are incredibly clear. If you suck at comms or management in a more flexible work arrangement environment (which is okay! to get better at something you must first suck at it), it's time to get better.

Maybe a drop-in thing could work, like Clubhouse. But then that's kinda invading your privacy if you have to stay on that.

yes, we're finding that a lot of folks have deficient written communication skills.

another problem is that a lot of developers can type fast enough to program, but not actually type fast enough to productively use email/slack. that one surprised me!

i had a coworker right before covid started, who, you'd send him something in slack, and then watch the "JimBob is typing..." indicator flash on and off for 5 minutes. then he'd just show up at your door and say "no. five." or whatever the very brief answer was.

Also, there may be things that were said, but I may not remember, so I'll have to ask again for the information. With text, you can always go back to those messages and re-read them.

If it's a call it's a bit out of the blue. Maybe they don't have their headset around/plugged in, maybe they're doing something like eating or doing laundry. You just don't know because all you see is an activity status icon.

Maybe it's just me/my personality.

- I either wouldn't see it because I'm involved in something out and messages are not priority interrupts. (i.e. I don't have notifications turned on.)

- Or, if I see it but now isn't a good time, I'll reply something like sure but right now is a bit crazy. Call my cell at xPM. (Or I'll drop something on your calendar.)

It is nothing like the imposition of requiring them to commute to an office to be interrupted at will.

That's the beauty of async communication. It doesn't matter if they're busy, they'll get back to you when they can, and you're free to do the same. No one gets ripped out of their workflow.

Why is it more rude to call someone on teams where they can just decline the call than to swivel in your chair and start talking to them?

If anything, I think etiquette has improved in our situation. No more in person interruptions or people just hovering at the edge of your vision to get attention. No more loudly conversing colleagues in the open plan office.

Instead we have lines dropped in chat or more carefully crafted emails for longer questions.

In the office, you can generally observe the state of your co-worker. Are they on a phone call? Are they already talking to someone in person?

A phone/Slack/Teams call can be quite disruptive if someone is already in a meeting.

We haven't fully adapted work culture to remote work.

When I’m in a call I don’t get notifications of chats or phone calls.

If I need to focus I set my status to do not disturb and I don’t get notifications and calls go to voicemail.

So I do not share your observations.

A person can be scheduled in for an hour's long meeting but it actually only takes 10 minutes, but you check the person's status after the 10 minutes and it still says 'In a meeting' (usually differentiates with 'In a call' if they're actually in a call, but it's quite unreliable and you don't know if maybe they're having technical problems and are just about to reconnect).

I can’t (as a human) switch context like a CPU. It’s not just about a couple of minutes. It’s about the time that it takes me to get back into the context and in the right place where I was in, prior to the interruption.

I believe this is not a good example for the point you’re trying to make.

If you're working, you're available on chat (discord). If you're not available (like taking lunch or a break) set your status so everyone knows.

If you need to talk to someone, don't hesitate to ask.

If you send more than 2-3 chat messages as part of a discussion, just pull everyone in to a video room immediately and talk it through. (Discord makes this really easy.)

At first I was a little uneasy about being pulled in to video calls all the time, but I came to really appreciate it. I honestly think this worked better than "just turning your swivel chair" because our team was big enough that even in an office not everyone would be a swivel away.

I see no benefits of an office environment for my team (but then the 6 of us were split over multiple locations before covid) - the benefits are in the informal communication with people from other teams.

It feels that way because it is. Demanding synchronous response even if you're a boss is despicable. Glad I don't have to work with you.

Sure there are exceptions when you've got important deadlines or fires to put out, but distractions are never welcome. Sure in office it was acceptable to have 5x less productivity, but you get to coach people which felt nice internally.

My employer is in an industry that thrived on in-person interactions (save for any field writers/photogs). They had no remote working policy prior to the pandemic for the bulk of the staff.

They have made a complete 180° change on that and acknowledged that there has been anything but a drop in productivity, and vast improvements in some areas. Remote working is going to be a first-class option going forward (at least looking that way for now). They closed two offices downtown Toronto; one at the Rogers building, and one in a heritage block on Queen E. They were landmark locations for highly visible brands centred around the city, lifestyle, society, and politics. (read: It was not a decision made lightly for the company)

Now, the company owns its own print operations and those, of course, stay on site. I'm in digital operations—we're now scattered around the GTHA. After I got sick last year I underwent a bit of a sea change in attitude: my partner and I bought a used car, packed up and moved to a beautiful heritage townhouse in a smaller, greener town from our sub-500 sq/ft shoebox-in-the-sky. I'll never move back into one of those, and rent for anything else has gone off the bloody rails.

There are a larger amount of remote opportunities than ever—I like my job and my employer, but I would consider switching if I was forced to move back into their remaining office in North York every day. As it is, I can make it in there by car in about an hour for the odd all-hands.

One of the biggest advocates of remote work that I know is squarely someone for whom “remote work” has meant “running errands, walking the dog, heading out early for dinner, long lunches, runs after lunch” and so on. He’s much much more productive WAH this year than he was any of the last five years because all of these non-work activities have been actively suppressed.

That’s not going to last. The reality of the last 12 months is work has expanded to fill most daylight hours, meetings at 7am, meetings in the same day at 9pm, and so on. It’s not going to be possible to measure full-time remote this year until things start to open up.

Our team has always been one where you could step away from the office to run an errand or a doctor's appt. etc. Yet once we started WFH, it became more acceptable to go the store, take a walk, etc during "normal" business hours. As long as you get your work done, no one seems to care, and our mgmt seems to feel that our mental health is important, at least during the pandemic. Sure some may take advantage of this and screw off with their time, but if they get their work done, are they really screwing off? The old metric of "butts in the seats" is industrial age management.

Also, what is "real remote work?"

And yes, the time range of work has expanded for some, but that's a boundaries issue. Unless I'm on call, or we have an outage/issue that needs my attention, work doesn't expect me after 5pm. I start around 7-8am.

While my employer had no remote work policy, the general approach to the office was that everyone is an adult and a professional and you do what you need to do, but be at the office for work.

Running errands, etc, were never obstacles. Working hours have actually gone down out of necessity (save 10% on payroll during the pandemic, keep everyone employed) while productivity has remained. Now that things are starting to come back to life, there's actually too many projects coming down the pipe and we will need to start hiring to meet the expanding business goals.

I can't say my situation has been suppressed, personally. In the past year I've started to reignite my music career, got myself a recording grant and am spending my non-commute time writing and practicing before work and afterward, while not having to sacrifice making and having dinner with my spouse. And I had the space to build a room out for that work—something I couldn't afford in Toronto. And the air here—it's just so much nicer than in the city. It's all so nice that sometimes I can't believe it's real.

Also, I think the assumption that it only applies to jobs that can be done well from home is pretty much baked in already, otherwise it would be quite nonsensical to even ask.

And the phrase "full time" is also important. I very highly value the increased free time and reduced costs I've experienced over the last year, but do miss in-person meetings, casual proximity to colleagues, and social events. The ideal for me would be to work from home 2 or 3 days a week, and I'd favour that quite strongly in career decisions compared to either extreme. I doubt I'm alone in that.

And I don't think OP implied that the 66% who stated they wouldn't quit their jobs if forced to work on-site full time, be forced to work remotely. Half the people surveyed preferred a hybrid solution.

Given the fact that forklift operators have been driving forklifts remotely during the pandemic, this is not hard to imagine at all: the present reality is that warehouses are being managed remotely. https://www.bbc.com/news/business-54431056

In addition to this, there are now many companies in the warehouse robotics space, all of whom are more than happy to provide robots that automate most of the productive functions of warehouses. For example, there are automated guide vehicles (AGVs) that move inventory around the warehouse, automated storage and retrieval systems (AS/RS) that manage inventory, store and retrieve goods on demand. In addition, there are collaborative robots or "cobots" that help the few employees you still actually need on site. Finally, there are articulated robot arms that pick, pack and palletize goods. Almost all of these can managed and operated remotely, all at a lower total cost than purely manual labor could achieve.

Given the fact that warehouses are the perfect example of how the working world is going permanently remote, I'm not sure how your marketing example is any better. If you want to bounce ideas off of another person in real-time, I don't understand why the same thing can't be done at a much lower cost on a call. After all, that's how everyone has been doing it for over a year now!

Fetch

Geek+

Fabric

Locus Robotics

Logiwa

RightHand Robotics

Amazon Robotics (formed out of Kiva Systems, for the exclusive use of Amazon)

Re: your last point:

1. That 34% would quit rather than return doesn’t mean the other 66% would prefer to, just that they might not quit over it.

2. It’s possible to employ both remote and on-site workers.

It is, but it's very difficult to sustain a hybrid work culture. People working remotely tend to get shafted on ad-hoc discussions, even promotions.

That's not what this report by the BBC says https://www.bbc.com/news/business-54431056

From the link (pasting here for posterity):

Founded in 2017, Phantom Auto is the only company capable of remotely monitoring, guiding, and driving any type of vehicle from thousands of miles away.

We are an energetic and passionate team on a mission to build the future of vehicle operation.

At Phantom, every day is a unique adventure as we work to solve critical transportation issues. Because we work with companies around the world, we have the unique opportunity to work with many incredible vehicles and use cases.

As a member of the sales team, you will be instrumental in driving the business success of our company.

If you are determined to take on the world's most complex challenges and help build an industry-defining company, this is the opportunity for you.

As a Remote Forklift Operator you will be a pioneer in a job of the future and help to accelerate the rapid and safe deployment of driverless forklifts and industrial vehicles.

There is a set of SW jobs that maps well to remote - in fact, there’s huge overlap with jobs that can be successfully offshored or pushed out of house and jobs that are well suited to full-time remote. That’s been going on for two decades. The jobs that are left are not as “I can work from anywhere” as people want. Sure, you’re writing internal tools and every thing you do involves yourself and maybe one other person? Yeah.

In general I think the future is not "fully remote" or "fully colocated" teams but teams were everyone is to some degree remote based on their preferences. So you may have some people who come into the office every day because they don't have a good workspace at home (or just like to get out of the house every day) but everyone else will come into the office somewhere between a few days a week and never.

I suspect that ~0% of people currently working remotely due to the pandemic are managing warehouses.

> or bounce ideas off each other in real time at a marketing agency

I’m...not having trouble imagining that. I imagine it would take a bit of getting used to using online collaboration tools for that, which would — even with the tech being ready — stop any agency from voluntarily making the transition if they weren’t forced to by exigent circumstances, but I don’t have trouble seeing it working well once the initial transition period was cleared.

> Not to mention, 34% is a minority...

But probably not equally distributed across all job types and employers; there’s probably employers where there are entire functions where that’s near 100%.

And, actually, in work we often force the vast majority to work in particular conditions because a minority that has disproportionate influence prefers it. Which is actually why even where there is overwhelming support from employees for remote work and greater productivity, managers addicted to practices incompatible with remote work will bring employees back to work.

There is a bigger world outside "the valley". It's not surprising overpaid software engineers living in major cities, accustomed to forking over $4,000+ a month for tiny studio apartments are enjoying their experiences outside those circumstances.

Perhaps those same folks that refuse to return to the office can find happy employment at a local business in their newfound town instead.

If the work can be done outside of an office there is no reason for an employer to require it be done in an office.

It seems really weird after this last year to no respect for your employees preference on how they would like to do their work. "Hey Jim, I know you much prefer doing your job at home for reasons $x, $y, $z but I really like being able to walk over to your desk so either you come in or you're fired."

> we can't force the other 66% to work remotely

Yes, I think it is not going to happen. But management can force quite a few more than those who are themselves willing to work from home, if it can save some money.

That's not saying the other 66% wants to go back to the office, only that they wouldn't quit their job over it.

What? Wouldn't you _rather_ be in a zoom call for something like that?

My SO and the rest of their team are doing absolutely fine fwiw.

Without further information i do not understand how this can be disambiguated.

Myself, after a year of remote, i see pros/cons, but the overall situation of a pandemic is just soul crushing.

?

Who says that it worked out?

'Remote Everyone' was a forced experiment, there's no assumption that the situation was ideal.

Companies that can take an honest look at themselves based on the last year will do well in the future. Those that don't will continue alienating good employees.

I am not leaving anytime soon, but can easily spend 15-20 minutes a day replying to recruiters just in case I one day need them and just browsing what pops up as recommended on LinkedIn.

It would actually be like WebMD doing a survey to find out how many people are hypochondriacs and shouldn't be using their site.