I'm a software engineer. I can do my job 100% remotely. I can't wait to get back to the office. I like in-person collaboration, and I really like having separation between my work life and my home life. This year has been torture.

Do your colleagues feel the same way? Would you inflict office work on them if they don't?

Several do, the few times I've gone into the office and done a little problem solving with the folks who were there, we accomplished like a week of work in an hour. There's something about putting heads together that's hard to replace. Some of our folks have always been ~90% remote and that's fine, but I think they're missing out on one of the joys of engineering.

The main thing I miss is all the ad-hoc technical discussions about work or (usually) random topics over lunch. We went out nearly every day for an hour or more and had fun conversations. I miss it dearly. With everyone using their normal lunch times for running errands or just working more, we've had very few social meetings since WFH started.

It's just so damn lonely.

Gitlab has some good stuff about this in their handbook. You have to be really intentional about this kind of informal meeting that otherwise happens naturally in an in-person situation.

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

IMO companies should pay less people like you as your preferences incur more costs. Alternatively you could hire a co-working hub if you prefer that, but such costs shouldn't be passed onto people who ARE able to control their emotions and work/life balance.

So instead I should personally shoulder the real estate and infrastructure costs of working from home? No thanks.

Such policies could quite reasonably be construed as illegally discriminatory.

That's really regressive. My sister-in-law works for HPE and she instead got a work from home bonus added to her paycheck. Instead of having companies offload their costs to employees like some late-stage capitalist dystopia they should compensate employees for providing the infrastructure themselves.

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).

Are you suggesting that if people were in the office for 40 hours a week, that you would expect to get a sustained rate of 280 days worth of work done per week?

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?

No, I'm not confusing anything. I'm stating my team made a great deal of progress when we got together in the office over a sticky problem; and attributing the progress to the random directions the conversation and problem solving effort took when we were in one room bouncing ideas off each other and poking hardware together.

Look, I miss having whiteboard conversations too, but if throwing all of the developers into a smelly open plan mosh pit that's a 45 minute commute from home 5 days a week just for that clutch hour of collaboration, count me out. It's just not worth it.

You sound as if going into the office is literally some kind of torture(and I guess for some percentage of the population it is).

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 office is fine. It's nice to chill with my coworkers. I've been remote since 2015 and I kinda miss that, sometimes.

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.

(Un)fortunately, I think that the reality is that for many people, the office is their social outlet, they are indeed friends with their coworkers (for now anyway), and they live downtown in a 200 sq. ft. apartment with 2 roommates that is 100' from the office.

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)

A substantial portion of the workforce doesn’t have home situations that are favorable to remote work, which more or less necessitates the existence of an office unless you’re going to start screening out, e.g., parents. And then if you have it anyway, why wouldn’t you simplify planning by having everyone in, especially given the challenges of a mixed office-remote environment (which I think is more challenging than going all in on either one)?

Is a bigger house/condo with an office an option?

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 think I want to pay for a bigger house; I already pay to be close to work. I've never had more than a 15 minute commute, and that has occasionally been an expensive policy!

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

I'm in the same boat, and I pay a bit extra to live walking distance from my office.

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.

Isn't your company allowing limited amount of people to work in the office especially if someone is living in a walking distance?

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.

So then you'd be fine to pay a bit extra for a co-working hub.

I think that's an expense a company should be enthusiastic about paying- along with upgraded internet, sharing of power bills... maybe the occasional lunch delivery.

"I already pay to be close to work"

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

> I like in-person collaboration

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?

Rooted in fondness according to who? Are you saying that someone that expresses an inclination for in-person collaboration is actually deceiving themselves into remembering the experiences differently than they actually were?

That person may be accurately remembering the experience they had in the before-times, however that world just doesn't exist anymore.

I mean technically no world in the past exists anymore, but in-person collaboration is certainly still a thing, albeit it is on somewhat of a pause right now. I guess no one really knows how this whole thing shakes out if we look 5-10 years out, but my bet is that humans being social creatures will drive a good number of people back into collaborative in-person working spaces.

> 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.

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.

When she was in the office she was covering the southwest US from Seattle.

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.

> 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.

> And the obvious answer is that for some jobs it is, and for some jobs it isn't.

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.

Have you considered that the reason why you aren't missing face-to-face meetings is because everyone is forced to do full time 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.

My team had two remote people before the pandemic and my company has global offices so including remote workers is already something we understand.

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.

> 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?

It seems like you're anticipating a divergence (or at least communications gap) between the generally-in-office and generally-remote sets of employees.

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.

Considering many people are working less hours since there is no monitoring and in general dicking around during the day (I have seen some people playing video games during the work day) I highly doubt in general remoting has increased any productivity.

> My team is really dreading the move to back to office

> 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."

Communication is 10x better when you are face-to-face and the tech to accommodate remoters is fickle and just unnecessary extra layer. If we can get decisions done faster by excluding remote people then thats what is going to happen.

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.

> 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.

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.

Good for you, but as this whole discussion is about differences between people only time I can get my self to the gym is first thing in the morning before work. Which in turn means it is way easier to get dressed, get to gym, and then go to office when the office isn't at home. Now way easiest decision is to just snooze the alarm and continue sleeping until work starts whenever there is any obstacle in the way.

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.

It also depends on how often you engage in a back and forth in meetings.

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.

I think a lot of people who enjoy remote are going to have a rude wake-up when offices go hybrid. Before Covid, half my meetings weren't scheduled. They just happened in a hallway. If I could grab a third person who I thought might have an opinion, we'd walk over to their office. But I'm not going to go find a Zoom setup unless I have to have their opinion. Which means we'll make the decision without them. Not out of malice, but because they're not there.

So, in other words, your company or at least your team has crappy processes. One of the silver linings of this past year is that things like running meeting docs have become even more of a thing. (They mostly already were because we're a very distributed company.)

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.?