Yup. I'd pay (and do! for 10 years now) my own dime to maintain a good PC solely for work. It's a stupidly easy investment for me compared to 1-3h of commute every day.

I also now require extra rooms for offices anytime i look at homes. The life balance is just so amazing for me i'm never giving it up, if i can. I feel respected in a way i never thought possible, before.

You're reducing WFH to just avoiding a commute. In my case, I found that WFH only was isolating, impacted focus, and cut me off from the information flow of the organization, something electronic means cannot really substitute. I have a sense of being more involved and informed about the business instead of being plugged into the Matrix and receiving a paltry trickle of information over narrow channels. The benefits of hybrid for me offset the burden of commuting enough to justify coming in.

> In my case, I found that WFH only was isolating, impacted focus, and cut me off from the information flow of the organization, something electronic means cannot really substitute.

I worried about feeling isolated but found I didn't feel that way. And I think generally WFH has improved my ability to focus. My company is fully remote so there are not many in-person channels for information to flow.

Before the pandemic I would not have taken a remote job, I would have not been sure it would work out for me, but having done it for 3 years now, I'm real happy with it.

I do still like seeing people and will go out to work occasionally or cowork with friends. Traffic where I live is horrible though and avoiding a 30 minute dance with death twice a day is an amazing reduction in stress levels.

I guess it's going to work out that this is just one other thing to consider about a workplace and there's no one right answer where all businesses should do the same thing, people need the options.

I always felt more connected to my coworkers when we are regularly working from home. The office is such a false environment people just act very differently.

> I always felt more connected to my coworkers when we are regularly working from home. The office is such a false environment people just act very differently.

Jokes on you, I don't care if my coworkers get hit by a bus either way! I cannot stand anyone I work with. Every meeting that should be 15 is now an hour minimum why? People want to chat and I sit there with my soul leaving my body totally unable to do anything but smile fake and try not to look like I'm dead.

As hard as it may be to hear, to some extent that is likely a “you” problem. Start a culture of not having to have the camera on, figure out good reasons to have to exit such wasteful calls, etc. Continuing the same thing and whining about it melodramatically is unlikely to be fruitful

> As hard as it may be to hear, to some extent that is likely a “you” problem. Start a culture of not having to have the camera on, figure out good reasons to have to exit such wasteful calls, etc. Continuing the same thing and whining about it melodramatically is unlikely to be fruitful

I wasn't being melodramatic.

It is a me problem. Everyone else seems to love this random assortment of asinine "culture" and "team" concepts. I've worked at my share of places and it's always the same. "Standup is like 15 minutes." and it is. but then you have the 45 minutes leading up to it where they talk about what they did the night before or what their kids are doing or what life is like with their pet they've had for a decade. Everyone else seems to care and care deeply. I do not. At all. I just wastes my time.

We just assume the guys who have that zone out and work on things, we ping them when they need to be active. Easier to do with cameras off.

One day hopefully I'll manage to find one of these magic unicorn positions that y'all seem to have around these parts. Until then I'll have to do with wanting to die rather than be at work.

The office is the real environment. When working from home, people are more isolated and heavily restricted by silos and tracking systems. That’s the false environment. Compare talking to a friend in person to texting them from miles away.

I can not assume you’re dealing with a horrible job / company. Everywhere I’ve worked people are free to pet their cat or whatever while waiting for a meeting to start etc. At home you can listen to loud music and not disturb your coworkers or isolate yourself with headphones.

Meetings are also more open so it’s fine to listen in on a range of meetings you wouldn’t normally show up to.

That’s far from my experience. It sounds like you’re dealing with a horrible job / company here.

In my experience, the office can be even more isolating and mentally taxing. I rather just type out my thought process if I need to talk to a coworker.

Like cool, I can spend an hour getting an overpriced lunch with my coworkers and push the "going home" aspect back another hour.

I haven't found RTO to make the information flow happen, at least not the way it used to, where I could just listen to all the background noise of people talking, and occasionally overhear something of interest.

> Do you not have a computer at home?

I have several and I would never install work software or store work materials on it. The privacy and security risk alone is just not worth it — and I work for a company that respects privacy.

I would also never pay any money to maintain a computer to do work for a company.

I value my commute tremendously. It’s one of my favorite parts of the day.

> I would also never pay any money to maintain a computer to do work for a company.

But you would maintain a car to [do] work for a company. I'm going to have to take my three hours a day that I have working remote, more if you include prep time to even leave the house, and spend that on bumper to bumper traffic baby!

I don’t own car.

VM or hot swapping a drive works fine.

> I would also never pay any money to maintain a computer to do work for a company.

Yet you’re seemingly happy to shell out your own time and money to pay for a train trip when it rains. I doubt your arguments here.

My employer pays for transit. They didn’t buy my umbrella though, so you got me there

> I value my commute tremendously. It’s one of my favorite parts of the day.

My guess is that you either don’t live in the US or live in one of the small handful of cities that have decent public transportation.

Sitting in SoCal traffic for an hour both ways every day will certainly change your mind about commutes.

And if my grandmother had wheels she’d be a bicycle :) Indeed, if my situation were totally different I would feel differently about it. That’s why I made my situation the way it is.

What's so bad about a short commute like that? It's good for you to physically get up and look around, and mentally to either clear your head or listen to a podcast/music.

As the OP said, they go for a run with that time.

Ok, the thread here is someone talking about a 6 to 21 minute commute. IMO that's not a significant amount of time saved.

We can count getting your things in order, gussying yourself up so no one sees you for the garbage that you are, and just kinda... not wanting to some of the time.

And framing it as 40 minutes saved is kind of missing part of the story, because it's every day. Forever! That in fact will amount to A LOT of time saved. Your employer would care about a 40 minute change in your hours one way or the other; why don't you?

Packed lunches or eating out. Shit coffee further tainted by the lingering smell of microwaved tuna. That feeling that you have to be seen looking busy even if you're not doing anything or just really need a break.

And there's Steve, who's always smacking on gum and humming while he works. You're awful, Steve.

This is why the conclusion of the study makes sense to me. I enjoy my short commute as a buffer between work and life, but sometimes I just don't want to, so I stay home occasionally.

Also, I think some WFH zealots on HN forget that other people may not have the mean, or the space, or the internet connection to have a nice office at home, and have pets or children that can be just as distracting as co-workers.

Every thread about WFH immediately devolves into people listing the pros and cons of WFH vs RTO. Guys, it's a matter of preference and dependent on individual circumstances.

+1 to this. I work with people who would love returning to office and others who are adamantly against it. Even though I overall prefer WFH there are still things I miss from being in the office. I used to commute an hour each way by bus and that was some of my favorite time; I could read, sleep, listen to podcasts, whatever. OTOH now that I WFH full time I can work out before work and help run kids around right after work.

The problem is that RTO companies refuse to recognize that, and are making "do it or get fired" demands of employees regardless of where they find it productive to work. Those more productive in an office have always had coworking spaces available. Those who work better from home can get stuffed under these mandates.

So whose preferences really matter here? Who holds the power in the equation? I'll give you a hint: it's not anyone who actually cares how productive work gets done.

In addition to what others have said, the biggest issue is that RTOers want to force their will upon WFHers because they don’t want to work in an empty office. I get it, social people want to be social, but forcing us WFHers into your paradigm because you don’t want to be lonely is not the answer, it creates resentment from both parties. WFHers sit there with headphones on, blocking out the world while RTOers wander the halls looking for interaction.

It is absolutely a difficult problem for modern companies to deal with. Hybrid seems like the best/worst solution so that no one is happy and both parties compromise.

The problem with WFHers is that they don’t realize that they’re like blue collar workers in the 80s voting to offshore their jobs away.

Yes, that is the exclusive deficit of people who want to work from home and no other person, policy, or structural fact about your job. Your management hasn't already had the idea and, if they have, the only reason they haven't pulled the trigger is because they really like seeing your face.

Nope, it’s because even if you don’t believe it’s true, management has decided that people colocated together physically do a better job than those who are not.

And even if you believe that’s a complete fiction, it’s a fiction which has sustained itself for decades and after a brief loss of belief during the pandemic appears to be on the rise again.

And even if you believe that’s complete fiction, it’s fiction that companies and management believed in enough to pay the same individual 2-3x the amount of salary after paying to relocate them to SF from Idaho.

Whether true or not, management and leadership has believed the benefits of employees being colocated physically for a long time and continue to believe that, and that’s what’s justified high tech salaries. Without that reality or fiction that they strongly believe in they have no reason to continue paying the high salaries you sre used to.