>> NYC summers are a special kind of hell beyond the heat and humidity

> That is absolutely wild to me. I also lived in NYC for 10 years, the summers there are magical.

This, to me, is a perfect illustration of why the future of work is neither everyone staying remote nor everyone returning to the office. Some individuals thrive in close, convivial environments, others thrive when given the space that only comes with remote working; still others are at their best with a balance of the two.

Acknowledging and embracing this social diversity will be key to employers attracting and retaining the best talent in the post-pandemic world.

The problem is that any environment that allows work from home but has a significant percentage of employees in the office regularly will have a very hard time managing, in my experience.

It’s very hard to maintain the discipline of holding online meetings and documenting all important decisions when enough people are colocated. Face to face bandwidth is so much higher that it’s easy to forget there are a lot of people without that exposure.

I generally agree with this, but think it falls far outside of the bounds of work (re: "future of work"). I lived in NYC for 13 years, and worked remotely full-time for about 11 of those years. I explicitly lived there because I love the city.

Remote work allows us to live where we want/need and remain productive members of society. I've been working remotely for 20 years, living in wonderful cities the whole time, and I'm not going back any time soon (ideally, ever).

> I also lived in NYC for 10 years, the summers there are magical.

Summers in NYC can be quite mild. If memory serves 2016-2019 were all quite mild with only very brief hellish patches. Some earlier summers though were... horrible.

For me, the magical time in NYC is spring and fall, specifically May and September-October. Those are my favourite times in the city. The days are still relatively long. The weather is nice and mild.

But there is something about the oppressive heat radiating off the sidewalk and the buildings and the air is humid and completely still that is just completely draining to me, in the height of a bad summer.

Did you commute every day on the subway? If so how long?

I lived in NYC for 10 years and I hated the summer daily commute because all that aliveness led to hangovers and me sweating all that magicalness out daily on my walk and wait on the platform.

You aren't wrong that NYC is great in the summer but it's also a special kind of hell with heat and humidity. Both can be true.

Yes, between the sweaty walk to train, sweatier subway station, and potentially sweaty train car.. I started carrying ice water in my bag in summers. I also had a hack of stopping by the Duane Reade on my way to office with a walk-in cooler section and just standing there for 2 minutes before grabbing a drink to take to work.

Also how can we talk NYC summers without mentioning the unique combination of dried dog piss on sidewalks and decaying garbage. This varies by neighborhood, but if you have a lot of high rises you know what I'm talking about.

Lol, fair enough. I do remember once being pretty dehydrated and being about to pass out on the subway ride home from work, standing in the middle of the packed, sweltering train with no room to move. Luckily someone saw me looking pale and offered me their seat.

But at least in hindsight the good outweighs the bad :)

The trick is to keep NYC at an arm's length. Waiting for the Metro North in that dank cavern is more bearable when you only do it for pleasure and not business.

FWIW I was shocked how brutal the NYC summer was, and I’ve spent most of my life in Arizona and Texas. I’d guess it’s mostly the humidity and the stagnant airflow.