If there are no actual measurements to back up the last two years of HN WFH productivity anecdata, then perhaps there is something about bifurcated work and home environments.

For many, with WFH there are no after work hours. Work-Life Balance is a lie, it’s Work-Life Integration.

Plenty of measurements - the most accurate being record profits while people worked remotely. Cleaner air, rivers and streets are also well known to have happened while people worked remote. Basically, other than rents going down and restaurants and shops closing there is little data on why remote work would be negative.

for WFH you have to be disciplined or, yeah, you end up with Work-Life Integration. I won't go into specific techniques or ideas but you have to be very disciplined with yourself when working from home. If you're not then you either start slacking off and eventually get fired or work just becomes all consuming 24x7 and you have a worse work-life balance than when on-prem.

This doesn't feel well reasoned, to be honest. I suspect remote work can work really well for a lot of people. I also suspect it is probably not the panacea folks make it out to be.

Your comparison to "crowded stressful" cities is also kind of amusing. There is nothing inherent to cities that requires they feel stressful or over crowded. No more than it would be valid for me to say "barren and empty towns."

And remote work is a bit of a right, already. If you are truly as productive as you think you are, it will be somewhat easy to convince an employer to take that offer.

Its not i that needs to reason why as of 2022 remote work should be a right and not perk handed out by benevolent employers. It is you who should reason as to why we need to sit in offices for hours a day given all the modern tech and communication skills.

But that isn't the argument/landscape. For one, I'm not arguing that offices are superior. I just can't in good faith blanket claim that remote is better. My gut is each is a tradeoff.

My main qualm in this is I have seen countless times folks have "obvious and well reasoned arguments" on why the companies that are succeeding are doing things wrong. I am not so naive as to fully expect a superior work environment would naturally rise to success, but I do question why successful remote jobs are typically not the norm, if that is such a better way.

I think we can agree that there is a tradeoff. Also i dont expect or demand that everyone works from home.

Having said that, most arguments against remote work on hn are usually wrong solutions to legitimate problems.

These answers are usually centred around people’s need to socialise, housing issues, communication issues and supervision. All of these have alternative solutions that the onsite crowd doesn't want to explore.

But even so, everyone is entitled to an opinion. We should also be entitled to a preference. But the onsite crowd usually wants everyone else to be onsite (otherwise whom are they going to socialise with or who are they going to sit with in front of a whiteboard?). Basically they want to remote crowd to fill in their voids and gaps.

I have no issue with people wanting to be on site. I want their wish be granted. But they should have no right in dictating where and how i should do my work.

Also a company is successful due to various factors none of which seem to be working onsite or remote for that matter. Just because we do things a certain way it doesnt mean thats the right way or the only way. Nor does it mean something is not the norm due to not being equally good or better. Plenty of things we do as a society can be improved, and one of them is that due to modern technologies we can give people the option to chose where to work from. Now it can become the norm due to a convergence of multiple factors.

I'm not sure what your argument is, though? :(

You have the claim that remote work is more productive and happier. You more than heavily imply that this is a universal truth for everyone. What is your actual evidence to that claim? I can easily accept "I like remote work more." I have a hard time thinking that generalizes in any meaningful way.

Note that I don't know that there is a solid claim that "getting people together" is amazing. It does at least have some appeal to the social of the working side. If folks are building things together, it is not hard to see there may be advantage to them being there together to do so.

Easier to see with some jobs. For easy example, why insist that all members of a sports team relocate to the home town for that team? At face value, you could "trust" them to just all show up on gameday ready for the game. I don't think anyone would argue for that, though.

My bad, i assumed you were familiar with the pros and cons of each side as this debate has been going on for a while on HN. The fault is mine as i confuse HN with a hive mind where all ideas are assimilated and disseminated by a collective consciousness rather than individuals. One for another time.

My arguments in favour of remote work, for industries and domains where this is possible (not saying all tech domains can do it) range from social, environmental, housing, mental health, financial, productivity and freedom issues to personal preference and employer needs.

Environment: not having millions of people into cars, or public transport, saves enormous amounts of co2. Certainly heating homes scattered around the place can negate some of the benefits, but no one lets their home freeze while at work, so some energy will be used anyway. For instance my home benefits from digital thermostats on each radiator, so that during work hours the temperature is lower in most rooms, while kept comfortable in my office room, all according to a preconfigured schedule. My rig generates heat as well so the boiler doesnt always need to run. My window is facing the sun so when its sunny i still save some energy in cold winters. Others can explore similar setups.

Housing: people tend to congregate where there are jobs, resources, shops or social events. As a result prices go up or sometimes housing is simply not available. Where housing is available then space will be small, uncomfortable, or unhealthy (think of concrete jungles). Working remote means you can go anywhere where housing is affordable. Doesn't have to mean houses it can also mean spacious flats surrounded by plenty of parks and clean air. It also means we are able to build responsibly because either more land is available or we are able to integrate better with nature since there is no pressure to maximise the use of every available inch. Also we dont need to build ever wider roads since we dont need to use them as often. Shops can be nearby as do other amenities.

Social: By being able to choose where you live means you are also able to choose the kind of people you want to live with and the kind of social life you want to have. Some wish to socialise at work, and build feeble relationships with people that once they left the company can no longer meet. This damages the whole fabric of our society because such relationships are superficial in most cases. You no longer know your neighbour and you can no longer build long lasting relationships. No wonder its so easy to polarise society since the only contact with it is via social networking platforms. The republican or democrat, tory or labour nextdoor might sound like a dick on facebook but might be a nice person that does nice bbqs in real life. Seeing eye to eye means you can find common ground or show empathy.

Mental health: for some, not being able to sleep well due to the constant need to commute (related to housing) is very stressful. So is the constant noise of open space offices or the petty office political games that some like to play. Office politics wont necessarily go away due to remote work but it will become more difficult to play such games as there is less excuse to engage in trivial chat. Some find it difficult to live in crowded cities, while others need proper time for themselves to unwind.

Freedom: Being able to express your individuality more than just a few sticky notes and fake plants is a matter of freedom. I want to be free to build my work environment whichever way i want to. I want star wars wallpapers, custom lighting, background quiet music, a chair of my choice, and so on. That helps increase my productivity as well. But most important is being able to freely chose where i want to live so that i can address my housing and social needs or simply because i want to be free to live among trees in a forest. Code by day chop wood by night. My choice.

Also, employers shouldnt decide where you live. They own your time and skill for the amount they pay and contract you signed but not you. Mandatory onsite means they control a lot of you for which they havent paid. And considering the tech to facilitate such freedoms is available i dont see why its up to them to decide wether we want to use it or not.

Also people farming is in my view is a major issue in tech and manufacturing. Tech workers being farmed and milked of their intelligence is counter intuitive considering we mostly work on products that connect remote people while we ourselves cant benefit form it. A paradox. We need to be onsite while our users must be remote. Its like instead of using hn we should fly over to somewhere and talk in person.

Financial: why do i need to spend money out of my own pocket commuting? That is company time. Also why wouldnt i spend that money on better housing, better home made food, better anything really as it means extra money that i can spend on myself instead of train journeys or a car.

Productivity. Cattle is known to yield more milk if treated with music and green pastures. I dont see why a person that is able to afford better housing, socialise more, have more disposable income and working in a personalised environment wouldn't be more productive. Productivity is not just about supervision and processes. Processes can be followed remotely. Certainly there is nuance here, as some are genuinely more productive on site. Those who have explored all options, made a conscious decision that on site is better, then well good for them, they know what's best. But not even giving proper remote work a chance is in my view a mistake. If your reason is that you need to socialise then by all means move to an area with likeminded people and socialise all day after work. You are not getting paid to sit and chat and i am not there for it either.

Anyway writing this in a rush as i need to meet my social circle as i live in their proximity because remote work allowed for that. I’ll grab a beer and enjoy the privilege of actual friends, decent housing and a fulfilling professional life.

Have you considered some people don’t like remote work? It’s not like it’s an unbridled good, that’s just your opinion on it.

I have to pay more to have an office, never see anyone from my team except for a few off sites a year and a sync communication is way lossier than in person.

I miss my commute, 30 minutes each way on a train — it was my reading time. Now I don’t read, work or something else fills the slot.

The commute also provided a hard boundary, both mentally and physically at the end of the day from carrying work home with me.

I prefer that the job enforce all of these boundaries and not that I have to reimplement what I had gotten for free this time with my own mental effort to make these new boundaries.

Same boat. Totally miss the socialization. I hated having to steal part of my living space to make an “office”. It is so isolating. But I live in an apartment, which unlike the “huge house in the country” crowd doesn’t lend itself to making an office. Especially with a kid.

Sure I could move to some huge house with a fancy office but that just seems wrong to me. Density is the only way only of sprawl and inefficient resource use. But density makes it kinda hard to have a two bedroom, one office apartment. It also becomes rather depressing.

I dunno man, the chips are gonna fall on the table sooner or later. Lots of people working in the tech industry completely lost their mind over Covid and I suspect there is a lot of healing that people need to process. I don’t think people are working with their whole brain yet…

Here we go again. The onsite crowd demanding that their coworkers fill in their socialisation and emotional voids. I hope employers understand that quite a few want back to office so they can slack and cheap chat with coworkers, maybe play petty politics a bit too.

Brutally accurate comment, these are my thought exactly but I couldn't summarize it in words.

(This comment is from my point of view and is about me. It is not about you. It's OK if people are different! I am not trying to force you to feel how I do.)

Near the end of a year of forced WFH, I was pretty close to zero productive hours per day. I hated it. I would wake up crying. If having a few unproductive hours of chat per day with coworkers who also want to be in the office is what keeps me sane and working, then so be it. My employer seems fine with it.

(Thanks for reading this comment. This is a reminder that this comment was from my point of view and was about me. You may feel differently than I do! That's OK.)

> Here we go again. The onsite crowd demanding that their coworkers fill in their socialisation and emotional voids. I hope employers understand that quite a few want back to office so they can slack and cheap chat with coworkers, maybe play petty politics a bit too.

The fact my post would get a response like this really makes skeptical of this whole WFH trend. Normal people don't write stuff like you did. What you wrote is so dismissive of others feelings and thoughts... it's just wildly inappropriate. It's like somebody who is trying to force an agenda.

It feels quite a lot like the kind of responses somebody might get when they pointed out issues with societies covid mitigations. You'd get the same dismissive, nasty tone.

Live and let live, eh? This shit is just bizarre.

>I miss my commute, 30 minutes each way on a train — it was my reading time. Now I don’t read, work or something else fills the slot.

This argument is absolutely insane to me. You weren't paid for your commuting time before - if work now fills that slot it's because you're choosing to work earlier/more.

(This comment is from my point of view and is about me. It is not about you. It's OK if people are different! I am not trying to force you to feel how I do.)

Like the parent, I also really like my commute. It's 40 minutes, each way, on the bus. I also use it to read. There's a library right next to my office! I'm going there this afternoon before I grab the bus. It's great.

When I was forced to work from home in 2020, the commute was actually one of the things I missed the most. You're correct that I could have just spent 40 minutes reading each day at home. But I didn't! I looked at my phone or cleaned the house or started work early or something. Having the forced structure is what works for me, to enforce different "parts" of my day. I catch the bus at 7 AM. I read for the 40 minute ride. I get to work around 8. I catch the bus home at 4 PM. I'm home around 5. It works for me.

Working from home didn't, I felt lost and bored and frustrated and actually had some breakdowns near the end of it and ended up going back to the office before I was vaccinated, which was kind of scary but better than waking up crying. I don't know why that's the way I am, but it is.

(Thanks for reading this comment. This is a reminder that this comment was from my point of view and was about me. You may feel differently than I do! That's OK.)

And i fully respect that and i think your option to work on site should be granted. Also i appreciate you focusing on your preference and not seeking to fill in voids with other people. To be fair i do like reading and working from home allows me to do it more often. If there is a book i need i simply order it and have it delivered to my door - more time saved for reading. But that is what _i_ prefer and this debate should be focused around what individuals want and expect from all this without impacting others. Naturally all of this should be beneficial to employers as well because you know work is not charity. But an employer benefits from your being more productive at home or at the office then it should allow for whatever maximises their investment in you.

> this debate should be focused around what individuals want and expect from all this without impacting others

I don't see anyone in this thread doing otherwise.

I agree, this thread is more considerate than others. But some arguments for returning to office work imply having others return. In your case you have your own routine that doesn't rely on others changing theirs. But those who wish to return to onsite so they can socialise imply that everyone else needs to return. I mean who are they going to socialise with? Walls? Desks? Similarly those who can only convey their message to an audience thats in their immediate proximity imply that everyone else should return so they can sit and stare at whiteboards together.

Other people who also want to be in an office. My current WFH-friendly job has about 5 people who come in to the office most every day, and many others who drop in once a week or so.

And thats fine - what i am saying is that it should be a right not a requirement. As opposed to what onsite workers demand, that we all return to offices.

Years ago I rented a desk for additional contracting work I was doing at a shared work space. I think it was called Nedspace when I was in Portland. Many companies going remote offer this, will pay for your monthly spot.

Personally, these days at the age of 42, I prefer working remote.

> Personally, these days at the age of 42, I prefer working remote.

Of course you do. You have the space to accommodate it and have yet to see the larger impact this “everybody works at home” will have.

Work is work. That’s why you get paid for it. You get paid because otherwise nobody would do it…

Most work cannot be done remotely. You are in a tech bubble. A majority of people have to be present to do things.

Unfortunately you are right, and that's why i said where possible. Also i didn't say mandatory. Even in tech not all jobs can be done remotely. And thats fine. But demanding that everyone should work onsite is frankly a mental health issue.