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I've been 100% remote and run remote teams since 2014 and I promise that it won't stick for the broader society. Here's why: 1. Socializing is the primary acti

I've been 100% remote and run remote teams since 2014 and I promise that it won't stick for the broader society. Here's why: 1. Socializing is the primary activity that happens at work for the vast majority of workers. The gal or guy coming by your desk to "check in" or "see how your weekend was" etc... is literally where they find their social outlets and personal connections. 2. Managers like to be able to watch their direct reports because it makes them feel more in control than they are 3. The commuting routine, even if it's a nightmare, offers a sense of normalcy that most people have gotten used to and in a weird way rely on for grounding. 4. For a huge swath of Americans at least, work is an escape from the drudgery of the home. To truly work from home 100% of the time you have to be a master at controlling yourself and your ability to be distracted. Most people don't have this control and need a framework to insert themselves into. Add to that the contextual dimension of an "other" place that is a world apart from your home life and you have something that allows for a depressurization for most people.

zabzonk 6y ago
> The commuting routine, even if it's a nightmare, offers a sense of normalcy that most people have gotten used to and in a weird way rely on for grounding. You have obviously never been on the Tube at rush-hour in London. All it offers is a sense of stress and anger.
- mrcartmenez 6y ago
  Weirdly grounding stress and anger
  - nine_k 6y ago
    Undergrounding, even. The 25 minutes of commute in NYC subway, even packed (but not London-packed, though) are my 25 minutes of uninterrupted reading, or thinking, or otherwise being alone and on my own, paradoxically. I miss it.
    - ameister14 6y ago
      I don't miss shoving myself into a q train to stand there with no excess space for 40 minutes despite the fact that I got through a lot of podcasts that way. Especially in winter, where everyone is wearing jackets, the train gets super hot and you're just sweating next to some guy who won't take his damn backpack off. Oh, train traffic ahead. Great - now my commute's an hour. I do miss the view in the morning and evening crossing the Manhattan bridge, though. That was nice.
- Aeolun 6y ago
  I can only speak for myself, but I miss my sense of stress and anger. Any time I go to the office I hate it because I’m extra stressed out about sick people being on the train, but I cannot deny it gives a sense of normalcy to life that is otherwise entirely missing.
  - plutonorm 6y ago
    institutionalised
ppod 6y ago
Only point 2 is from the employer's perspective, the employee has control over the others. While there is truth in those, I don't think people would naturally settle into a 5/7 day week just for those reasons. You'll see a spread with big differences in age groups/family situations, but the average days at the office will be much less than it was before.
slantedview 6y ago
While 3 is true, the tradeoff for not having commute vastly outweighs the normalcy of having a routine commute. Commuting is atrocious and not having to do it is wonderful.
- behnamoh 6y ago
  When I moved to a smaller city for grad studies, I soon started missing the subway system. Crowded and dirty as it is, taking the subway was a constant reminder for me that there is life outside of my confined world and that alone contributed a lot to my sanity. In the smaller city, I took buses or walked, but I noticed taking a bus still makes a difference, even though one might have to stand up a little. Just the idea of being surrounded by people, each with their own untold stories and problems, made me feel part of something bigger. I agree with the OP; commuting actually helped me feel like I belong to a community, even though I'm introverted and would never talk to any of the people that I would see. Now with the pandemic on top of it, depression has kicked in. I sometimes play youtube videos with city/car/library... ambient sounds, just to get that feeling again. It does help a bit, but I can't wait for things to get back to "normal", whatever that means from now on.
  - lambda_obrien 6y ago
    We need to replace the "work as social outlet" with something else. It's not the office anyone wants, it's the connection, we're just lacking the connection part to make remote work... well... work.
    - aurbano 6y ago
      I’ve been saying this for a while.. we are missing local communities in today’s society. People used to go to church and do religious events and things sometimes during the week - this is all gone now, and I wish we had an alternative that didn’t rely on religion, just based on the local community somehow. Community centers 2.0 or whatever, but a place where people have a reason to go. I can only think of classes which doesn’t quite work I think (hard to really get everyone there at the same time) but maybe it’s the key I have no idea!
deleted 6y ago
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tachyonbeam 6y ago
I definitely agree about the socializing. I miss seeing friendly colleagues face to face and having lunch with them. It's not just that though. I started a new remote job during the pandemic and... I feel like I really don't have the same bond with these new colleagues that I had with my colleagues at my previous in-person job. I genuinely feel like we would collaborate better, and be a better team, if we could hang out in person. There's a certain bond of trust that you naturally build when you just have lunch and casual conversations with people, that is very hard to replicate online. As for the commute, I previously had a 15-minute walk to and from work before. I try to design my life so I can either walk or bike to work. I miss that too. I was more physically active before, and there's something meditative about walking, helps clear your mind.
- cableshaft 6y ago
  When I was at the office I'd take a 20-ish minute walking break around the office block almost every day. I don't know what it is about remote work, but even though I know the physical activity would be good for me, I have a hell of a time motivating myself to taking a walk around the neighborhood before/during work that I work only from home. And we started 100% remote before the pandemic, so it's not pandemic-related. I think there's a couple of reasons for that, for me. #1, I don't really feel the need to escape home, where I had to get out of the office, especially with all the open office noise. I can just 'escape' upstairs and do some dishes to put some distance from work. And #2, my role is now a lot more on-call than it used to be, and a few times I've taken the walk during work I've had to double back and hurry halfway through, because I always seem to pick the exact time something breaks. Sucks. I don't have a good reason to be in worse shape because of the pandemic but I am.
  - sokoloff 6y ago
    Part of it is putting on a mask and walking around (the city) where I live is itself a reminder of the situation we’re stuck in.
  - oopsiforgot7 6y ago
    Did you wear shoes at work? Do you wear shoes at home?
rubyfan 6y ago
I agree with your sentiment. I encounter a majority of people in my workplace that say they really miss the chance encounters with people they don’t get to work with frequently - those chance encounter they say sparks something interesting. When I hear people vocalize this, they portray it as something of value and while I don’t doubt they value the interaction I do doubt that the interaction has created productive value. I think what they are really valuing is the social fabric of the workplace. My theory is that as more of us have less and less social interaction outside of the workplace (especially in the northeast I think), people really value the social aspects of the workplace. The socialites among us will likely lead the way back into the office and drive peer pressure for the rest of us to return.
- jlokier 6y ago
  > those chance encounter they say sparks something interesting Don't underestimate how many of those start from overhearing interesting conversations between other people. Does that ever happen in WFH companies?
wisty 6y ago
I think it's worth looking into "theory of the firm" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_the_firm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_the_firm Why should employees even exist? Shouldn't firms just sack everyone, then hire contractors? I often hear advocates of remote work talk about "presenteeism" and how managers need to just focus more on outputs. This is fine, but if they can do that why not sack everyone and just hire contractors and pay for the outputs? The reality is, unless employees are micro-managed to the point of being basically robots, they're given a certain amount of discretion. If they are at work, and can't slack off, then they will use this discretion to create value for the company in ways that the managers don't always have time to exactly specify. The slack and discretion in a "presentism" run office means that employees can make changes without having to always go up the chain. For a concrete example, let's say you think there's a major show-stopper of a bug. Your manager disagrees, and says not to worry about it, and will not budge. You have a few hours free in the week because you finished your work a bit faster than expected. You might look into the suspected bug (and end up proving it's an issue, or proving to yourself that your boss was right) if you're otherwise stuck in an office reading email to look busy, but not if you're at home and you can turn on the TV or walk the dog.
- fake-name 6y ago
  > Shouldn't firms just sack everyone, then hire contractors? I mean, a lot of them are trying to do exactly that.
  - yoshiama12 6y ago
    A lot of bad companies that don't understand the value of developing long term assets. :D
- adamc 6y ago
  Based on the contractors we've hired at various points, you get what you give. Most of the contractor code worked, but had poor maintenance characteristics. Which makes sense: they weren't going to be maintaining it. Their job was to generate a lot of code quickly. So, a future where that happens will require either very tight managerial oversight (pipe dream), or will lead to a bunch of stuff that is brittle as hell. Doesn't mean it won't happen. But God helps us if it does. I suspect that would lead to just subcontracting whole business functions to more stable vendors.
Fordec 6y ago
None of these tackle the one aspect that trumps everything else in the corporate world. Is this better for the company? Even if the majority of companies see things this way, they will return to the office. But those that succeed, survive, thrive or dominate a market will do whatever that makes them successful along the way. It doesn't matter if people like routine if the other guy beats you on revenue, time to market and profitability. The people that win in their market segment are not "most" people. Until it is confirmed that 100% remote, with workers distributed all around the world that can be the best at what they do, or are cheaper or are capable of being trusted to get the job done without someone breathing over their shoulder are worse at competing than the status quo, the jury is still out. Broader society? When has that mattered in the face of disruption? Until the day remote working gets outright banned, this game has yet to fully play out.
- briefcomment 6y ago
  I think you're pretty much correct. What will stick for any given company is what makes them more money.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- nine_k 6y ago
  Unhappy and distressed worker is a less productive worker. Some forms of unhappiness and distress may be applied to increase productivity, like deadlines and fear of being fired. But for most people who can even work from home their needs to concentrate and to communicate are way more important for productivity.
  - Fordec 6y ago
    I'd trade 20 minutes extra socializing at my first place with the people I love or my third place with the people of similar interests for an hour of socializing with people talking about a sport I'm not into or their kids. I also find that having to do more stuff over email, messaging and zoom has been great for reigning in an overly narcissistic manipulative coworker because their actions are much more record-able now. I recognize I'm not the norm, but working from home the past year has been amazing for my introverted personality. To imply that the office is a necessity for removing distress is an overly broad brush to paint with that does not apply to everyone.
buggythebug 6y ago
Your analysis is way off 1)People hate small-talk $hit. They will not go back to work so they can small-talk 2)Like to - doesn't mean it's going to go back. Plus they can save by firing Manager who used to come and "check in" 3)People will find other ways to have normalcy - no one is going to miss commuting. 4)This is a toss up. I can see it going both ways. Going to work is a drudgery for a huge swath of Americans, too.
- s0rce 6y ago
  I commute by bike and I miss it. I'm not motivated enough to just go for a bike ride around the neighborhood so the commute was really good at forcing me to get my daily exercise. I know this isn't everyone's experience but I miss my commute!
- Taylor_OD 6y ago
  Different folks different strokes. I hate hate hate small talk. One of the guys who worked for me in the past loved it. He had a hard time working remote until he got a roommate he could talk to. A lot of people are probably somewhere in between. Just because these things dont make sense to you it does not mean they are not true for many people.
- sinsterizme 6y ago
  What about those of us who hate small talk but enjoy being around smart, interesting, and fun co-workers? If your interactions at work amount to nothing but small-talk then you need to look for a new job
- wikibob 6y ago
  I think you are approaching this from your own particular, engineering and possibly introverted, biased viewpoint. As a counterpoint I would say MANY MANY people love and thrive in small talk and as is referenced elsewhere in this discussion, particularly engaging in that at work.
- ntsplnkv2 6y ago
  1 - typically not true. Maybe in engineering positions - but yes, there is a world outside of software engineering. Human beings are mostly social to some extent. Even the introverts I work with say they miss the occasional lunch. 2 - I get managers are persona non grata on here but get real. You still need people to make decisions. 3 - I miss commuting. I listened to music and I like driving, and it gave me structure to wake up at a certain time in the morning.
irrational 6y ago
1. This is the main reason I prefer remote working. I don’t like socializing. I’m there to work, not to chit chat. You’re not my friend, your a fellow worker. 2. Time to get a better manager who trusts you. 3. Commuting is a waste of time. I roll out of bed and immediately start working. The company loses on time I could be working by having me commute. 4. Yeah, I definitely can’t relate to this one.
- calvinmorrison 6y ago
  For something you're going to spend your life doing, it's a horrible prospect to not expect to make friends at work. As a child did you spend 12 years not making friends in school, since school is for learning and not socialization?
  - ashtonkem 6y ago
    The average Millenial worker will job hop every 1-3 years. While it’s good to be friendly with your colleagues, you also shouldn’t build friend networks that get broken and reformed with such regularity.
    - spear 6y ago
      Millenial or not, those friend networks are still how you'll be able to find the better jobs when you're older.
      - almost_usual 6y ago
        I've gotten better jobs through networking and none of them were friends. People should recommend others who are good at their job, not friends. It's important to be _friendly_ at work but that doesn't mean someone is your friend.
      - pts_ 6y ago
        Imagine you're on a spaceship, say the Nostromo from Alien. And your biggest skill is making others do your work. I'd say you'd be the first in line to be spaced.
mc32 6y ago
I really don't know how it's going to lean. Of course some will remain remote, some will return to the office. The reasons are multiple: -Some people are unproductive when working from home (for a variety of reasons) -Some managers want to see their charges (open office panopticons) -Some people are more productive working from home. Companies and managers will have to weigh the positives and negatives. I'm sure they have enough data to determine what makes sense for certain roles and individuals within those roles. Companies will save on real estate by offloading that to your home. But on average they will lose productivity from most people. Stanford is special in that as far as I know are short on space for parking and for offices, so they will likely nudge some to work from home where it makes sense. So of course they go on their own propaganda to get their people ready for the shift.
ascotan 6y ago
#2 is the biggest issue Management and non-management have different subcultures. Managers need power meetings, lunch meetings, shoulder-taps, etc. They are tasked with watching you and making sure everyone is on task. Non-managers don't care about in-person other than for the socializing aspect (or maybe they want to get away from the house). I think that non-management can work effectively remote most of the time (unless u need to be doing physical labor of some sort). I'm betting that studies are going to prove this out. However, it's not clear if _management_ can effectively function remotely. Management is heavily dependent on being both seen and heard and remote platforms make this harder not easier. Many companies have 2 subcultures, the workers want remote and the management wants in-person. I think the conversation needs to be around how to get the managers to work remotely in order to succeed. This is a mind shift in how traditional management is done and will be much slower to adopt.
- randmeerkat 6y ago
  I think the big problem here is that most managers add zero value and if anything negatively impact velocity. Really all that’s needed is a project manager with a light touch to help the team know what features are needed by leadership. Then the team can use their freedom of direction to prioritise features along with existing technical work to optimise the technologies being leveraged to better position the business.
  - throwaway1777 6y ago
    This is a ludicrous take. Read a book like high output management and learn what managers actually do and you might realize what value they should be providing.
    - disgruntledphd2 6y ago
      But sadly accurate if you've never worked with a good manager. Good managers are rare, and people who have never worked with one err on the side of assuming all managers are pointless wastes of space.
    - 6y ago
ashtonkem 6y ago
Most of the things you’re describing are actually the consequences of things being really broken. Some of that is obvious (e.g. point 2), but the rest is subtle. My biggest concern is #1. While everyone has always socialized at work, it seems like modern Americans depend more on work for socialization than ever before. That is probably not a good thing, especially since modern professionals job hop more than ever. A world where more workers are encouraged to have friends and social circles outside of work is not a bad thing, in my opinion.
- kbar13 6y ago
  i think there's a balance. i agree that having friends outside the workplace is important, but i don't see why that means making friends in the workplace is bad. we have friends that we see during the workday and occasionally see outside the workplace, then we have friends for all the other time.
  - ashtonkem 6y ago
    Making friends in the work place isn’t bad; I didn’t say that and such an assertion would be obviously silly. Depending on work for social interactions is bad. That is what I’m seeing more of, and that is something I think should change.
- dannyw 6y ago
  Sure, but I’d like to have friends at work and friends outside of work. Nothing wrong with job hopping either: if you make a good friend, you’ll keep on connecting even after you switch jobs.
  - ashtonkem 6y ago
    I’m not sure why everyone is interpreting me as having said “having friends at work is bad”. That’s obviously a silly statement, which is why I didn’t make it. Depending on work for socialization is bad. That’s what I’m arguing against.
- dv_dt 6y ago
justicezyx 6y ago
SF Bay area, used to commute to SF. Interestingly, every point you said was completely false for me: > 1. Socializing is the primary activity that happens at work for the vast majority of workers. The gal or guy coming by your desk to "check in" or "see how your weekend was" etc... is literally where they find their social outlets and personal connections. Not for me, or most of my cowoerks at Google. We absolutely would be doing more work by WFH. When we indeed going to hang out in the office with coworker, that's because we are bored by the work at hands, and need some outlet or simply resting. Not that we desire hanging out with coworkers. > 2. Managers like to be able to watch their direct reports because it makes them feel more in control than they are I never was in a team that managers need to see their reports. Most of the time, I often want to see my manager(s) in the office, but they were enjoying their meetings all day every day through the week. > 3. The commuting routine, even if it's a nightmare, offers a sense of normalcy that most people have gotten used to and in a weird way rely on for grounding. This sounds weird. I absolutely hate the commute. I am pretty sure that without the commute, my work output would double. Just by having those commute time being actual working hours. I dont feel commuting is normal. Commuting isn't ideal for anyone. That's an unreasonable idea to me. > 4. For a huge swath of Americans at least, work is an escape from the drudgery of the home. That's somewhat true. I indeed felt relaxed in office without being bothered by my children. But now after all of us get used to the mode where my closed door means I am not to be disturbed, I absolutely love working from home. For example, if I need a rest, I can grab my younger son, and play with my older daughter. Fantastic experience! I think WFH have reshaped my relationship with my daughter because of more time together.
geoduck14 6y ago
>2. Managers like to be able to watch their direct reports because it makes them feel more in control than they are Manager here. Initially, I had trouble with my inability to do this. Now that I've come to grips that I have NO idea if my team is actually at their computer, I now judge them based on if they actually get work done (vs are they "busy"). It has been a good shift, but not easy.
- mbrodersen 6y ago
  Well done. The problem with most managers is that they never learn to measure what is important (output) instead of what isn’t (looking busy/hours pretending to work).
wpietri 6y ago
I'm not sure the numbers agree with you. Check out this recent survey: https://www.livecareer.com/resources/careers/planning/is-remote-work-here-to-stay https://www.livecareer.com/resources/careers/planning/is-rem... In particular, scroll 3/4ths of the way down to the "Remote Work Prospects and Employees' Expectations" section. 61% of now-remote workers say they want to stay remote. 29% say they'll quit their jobs it they're forced to go back. And few want to go back 5 days per week. A year ago, I would have agreed with your analysis. Few would have chosen to go remote. But now inertia works the other way. After a year or more of not commuting, what's normal is staying home. Managers have gotten used to managing remotely. To switch back, managers will have to get 100% of a team to return to the office, which is going to be very challenging. People will quit. People will have specific needs where a manager will have a hard time saying no. And if one person on a team is remote, it'll be very hard to hold the line at one. I think people will solve the rest of it on their own. Some will renovate or move, setting up better for working from home. There will be a rise in third places like cafes and coworking spaces, so people can leave the house but not have to do a full commute. So my guess is that we'll see a permanent spread. Remote working will continue to be much more popular than before the pandemic. Many companies, including major ones, will drop the expected days/week in the office below 5. Those who go down to 1-2 will downsize office space, shift to desk hoteling, and treat offices more as places for meetings than work. Some companies will try to return to the old paradigm, but many workers will complain bitterly, and they'll have ongoing trouble with recruiting and retention.
- aidenn0 6y ago
  I guarantee that 29% of employees will not quit their jobs if forced to go back; that number is way to high.
  - mewpmewp2 6y ago
    Given if the alternative is that they can get a remote job elsewhere easily, why not?
    - rapsey 6y ago
j4yav 6y ago
All four of these make it seem like work is being used as a salve to treat even more fundamental problems. Is it really that bad in some places these days?
newbie2020 6y ago
Yep I met my partner and 90% of my current (now long term) friends group at work. And that also makes the work fun for whatever reason and makes me more productive. I have no idea how people are finding friends right now. WFH at best will become 3 days in 2 days at home.
rmk 6y ago
I think this paper, and survey, in general, appears to be ignoring one very important set of people: job hoppers and new entrants to the job market (to be fair, I did not read thru the entire paper, just looked over interesting sections). These two categories of people will almost certainly not prefer working from home: for job hoppers, it is difficult or in some cases, impossible to on-board; for new entrants, they can't become effective without close supervision initially. Imagine the average intern being able to put out good quality work with minimal supervision. I feel these two things require that companies or teams will have to reorganise in some fundamental way to account for these two classes of people joining them.
- Falkon1313 6y ago
  I see this a lot "onboarding is difficult remotely", but I don't know why. It hasn't been difficult at my last few jobs including the current one where many/most of us have been remote for years. You get added to the email lists, the slack channels, the documentation wiki, and the issue tracker. Daily meetings at 10am. You pair up with one person for a couple weeks and then somebody else and so on for the first few months. You regularly have voice and/or video chats. You get, or create, a list of who to contact with different questions or problems. If somehow all of those communication methods fail, I doubt that just being able to add a physical touch component would help much. Other than touch, the only senses that require physical proximity are smell and taste. If you're relying on touch, smell, and taste to communicate while on-boarding people, then maybe then it might be difficult, but that also seems a bit unusual. Mostly I think companies that have trouble with on-boarding remotely have bigger problems with their communications in general.
  - rmk 6y ago
    As an example, being able to talk to the people who handle the coding, commit, build, and deployment, all in one place, is quite valuable and saves time. In many large and established companies, there is formal training that puts all these people in one room with the trainees, either because the company is already so distributed as to make this impossible otherwise, or because it's more cost-efficient to disseminate this info to a large number of incoming engineers. In smaller startups and growing companies, where these things are changing at a high rate, it becomes even more valuable. It's not that these things are not doable virtually, but it's something that will require deliberate rearranging of how people work. In larger companies, this type of stuff already happens, but not so much in smaller ones. Engineering organizations can learn a lot from Sales departments in this area. Sales in companies that sell in various geographies (which includes even small companies that have gained traction and are beginning to grow) already functions perfectly fine with very distributed teams, and highly technical sales motions (think enterprise products). Small, growing companies have big problems with communications and coordination in general. That's what makes the scaling stage challenging and full of pitfalls: many companies fail at this stage!
deeblering4 6y ago
These are simply excuses to support the wasteful pre-pandemic status quo. The fact of the matter is that the tech is now fully in place to support remote work, and the pandemic has been both an infrastructure and procedure stress test, as well as a turning point for businesses. Remote work isn’t going away.
itronitron 6y ago
A close friend of mine has a coworker who calls them whenever they are not in meetings (shows up as online in whatever chat thingy their organization uses.) and wastes at least two hours of their time everyday. Are there strategies that fully remote companies take to limit that type of time wasting?
- j4yav 6y ago
  Generally, remote companies prefer async work. GitLab has a great guide on how to get started, and I'm also building an app (https://asyncgo.com https://asyncgo.com). Other founders are building different tools with different approaches but the same goal in mind as well. Basically you want to move as much focused work as you can to async collaboration and save realtime for more freeform, relaxed communication. It's more efficient and also less draining to work that way.
- mbrodersen 6y ago
  The strategy is to not reply to anything they write.
blackrock 6y ago
I disagree with #1. Companies do not want you socializing at work. Sure, they tolerate the occasional chitchat, but only on a superficial level. If you actually want to socialize with your coworkers, then you must do that outside in the smoke area, or during your lunch outings. But never actually in the office. That is the taboo. And the moment you break it, then that’s when you’ll get a demerit from your management.
- randmeerkat 6y ago
  Remind me not to work at your company, sounds depressing. Most of the good work ideas I’ve seen come up, come up as a result of socialising at work.
  - blackrock 6y ago
    The best way is to start your own company. That way you can define your own rules.
- mbrodersen 6y ago
  Maybe true for your company. Not true for lots of other companies.
gfodor 6y ago
A good chunk of these get wiped out if you get remote social presence via VR or AR.
supercon 6y ago
> 3. The commuting routine, even if it's a nightmare, offers a sense of normalcy that most people have gotten used to and in a weird way rely on for grounding. While working from home, I’ve found it much harder to switch between work/free modes. It seems the daily commute has been an effective way to for me to either prepare for the coming day or settle my mind for non-work related activities.
- bfdm 6y ago
  I've found some success in replacing that with similar routines, for example walking the dog before and after work. It's a pseudo-commute that allows similar mental preparation/release. This worked well pre-covid. Since covid hit ...overall I'm struggling with bleeding boundaries. The pandemic anxiety makes it hard for me to settle in my basement office, so I use other spaces around the house.
edgyquant 6y ago
I’m fine with controlling for distractions, am 100% remote for the last year, but as a single late 20s guy in a new city you hit the nail on the head for why I’d like to get back into an office. I would like to not die alone because I’m too old to go out to bars for hookups without it taking a toll and tinder just isn’t my thing. Plus friends would be nice to have again at some point.
miguelmota 6y ago
Agree that socializing in person with colleagues is important for well being, particularly for people that don’t have roommates or a family at home. Depression and struggling with moments of existential crisis can occur as a side effect from total social isolation and mental health can deteriorate. Of course, some people are more adapt to remote than others and a good middle ground could be going to the office when desired like once a week if given the option.
- joelbluminator 6y ago
  Well people can easily get burned out and depressed by commutes or by petty office politics, which you have more of when everyone is physically in the office. Is there any evidence suggesting remote is a net negative over a net positive?
deleted 6y ago
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29athrowaway 6y ago
1. I have friends outside work, I do not have an urge to socialize with people and potentially interrupting them from doing their job. 2. My manager has better things to do. Being in the office doesn't mean you are being productive. Sometimes you get distracted by noise, or some local office jerk, or some random event... e.g.: in a large company, every day is someone's birthday. Or someone wants to go for a walk and grab coffee... 3. I can live closer to the office and pay as much as twice in rent, or live farther from the office but have a larger place that my family can enjoy more, at the cost of spending more time away from home. If I work remotely, I have up to 2 extra hours every day. I can use that time sleeping, exercising, interacting with my family, cleaning, or do whatever needs to be done that is more useful than spending 2 hours stressing out in a car every day, polluting the atmosphere and congesting road infrastructure, or worrying about being mugged in a train. 4. Trying to escape from your problems won't make the situation better. You still have to go home at the end of the day and deal with your problems. All that money wasted in a desk/cubicle/office, meeting rooms, cleaning crew, security crew, facilities crew... who do you think is paying all that money? your employer is. It's a lot of money that could rather go to something else, like your compensation, or hiring more people so you have less work to do. If you are an engineer, offices = a lot of resources and effort put into making your life worse.
vmception 6y ago
One overlooked aspect of 1 and 2: many founders are using their employees as a surrogate for healthy meaningful relationships. And maybe the executives are actually just hanging out, from their perspective. galavanting around the city and schmoozing. having fun solving a problem they’re passionate about and having no negative consequence of having too much fun. hey as long as you’re only inappropriate with employees of another company in the co-working space the liability surface is limited! so its not just about managerial control but both of these kinds of people share the similarity of not being able to relate to the lower level employees
DoingIsLearning 6y ago
> I've been 100% remote and run remote teams since 2014... To truly work from home 100% of the time you have to be a master at controlling yourself and your ability to be distracted. You have obviously gathered a lot of remote experience. As someone who has always worked in some form of research lab and is now working from home, I am still achieving my objectives and deliverables but definitely feel a lot less productive without the 'positive' pressure of being with my peers. I am also fortunate that I work with very hands-off and mature managers even in this remote scenario. What strategies can we create for better self-accountability and discipline when working on long running projects on our own? What worked for you?
shrimpx 6y ago
I disagree with all the points, except (1). If one has a hard time creating a social life outside of work, working remotely is terrible.
- joelbluminator 6y ago
  Are work friends actual friends? Seems to me in the vast majority of cases once a person switches jobs he switches his work friends as well...which happens about once in 3-5 years...
  - BlargMcLarg 6y ago
    This is my experience as well. Most "friends" only stay friends for as long as they share activities together, and if there is too long of an absence in activities, it will be harder to plan activities or reconnect later down the line. They'll usually drop down to acquaintance level and stay there. Goes for work, hobbies, and more. Friends who stick around for who you are, rather than what you do together, are exceptionally rare. Especially later in life, when everyone is "too busy" for activities outside what they already do. I hope my experience is the minority, as the increasing loneliness that seems to be present as the younger generations grow older to me indicates the over reliance on work for friendship is the exact opposite of what we need. And on a much darker and more cynical level, it provides an opportunity of social manipulation for companies to keep one tied to their job at a lower wage, or risk crippling loneliness.
    - joelbluminator 6y ago
      I'm pretty sure I could have become actual friends with many colleagues if we weren't colleagues, but I see that meeting them after hours always gravitates to talking about work. Some people are fine with that, to me it's depressing to have to think about work on my weekend.
  - tjr225 6y ago
    It depends on how you define "friend." I don't require that my friends have any interest in me outside of the contexts they wish to be friends with me in, though, and so I do consider work friends actual friends. Same thing with cycling friends, childrearing friends, and hanging out and drinking friends. Why should a friend share extra time with me for some reason? In any case, the more time you spend with contextual friends the greater the likelihood you will meet a lifelong friend.
joelbluminator 6y ago
> 4. For a huge swath of Americans at least, work is an escape from the drudgery of the home. Well for a huge swath the office and commuting is a nightmare. If this question is gonna run on majority vote I'm not sure at all the office will make a comeback.
- barry-cotter 6y ago
  Majority voting isn’t how anything works except democracy and civil war. The market will do its best to satisfy everyone at the same time, just as some office jobs have cast iron punctuality requirements and others are a great deal more flexible. Some people will trade money for flexibility, some jobs are unwilling to be flexible. The market clears in the end.
odiroot 6y ago
> 4. For a huge swath of Americans at least, work is an escape from the drudgery of the home. This is big. If I had a fancy apartment in a good quality building, I wouldn't mind. But the place I currently reside in, is really frustrating to spend your whole day. I can easily hear my neighbours talking, their pets, screeching children or construction work many floors above. The ceilings are also quite low, which amplifies the cabin fever. If I could escape, from time to time, to an office where my friends work, it'd be increase my life quality a lot. And I'm saying this as a person who's not a fan of offices and forced asses-in-seats.
- Apfel 6y ago
  Obviously this isn't a permanent solution, but noise cancelling headphones have gotten really good recently. Sony xm1000 models and Bose could potentially go some way towards helping you deal with this.
  - odiroot 6y ago
    I have good noise-cancelling headphones. They do very little for human voice and children shrieks. My in-ear stage Shures with passive isolation work much better but spending whole day in headphones is neither pleasant nor healthy.
telesilla 6y ago
Our company is 100% remote and we are genuinely truly friends on many levels, we have a core requirement that there is a base level of communication when at work and we have regular all-hands meetings with no agenda, using a platform suited to large gatherings. Pre-covid we met a conferences or when convenient and we have a few location-specifc gatherings when possible (currently on hold of course). Being together in person doesn't give you the sense of companionship - we found instead that it's the act of building something together does that. Rather than wishing for the commute, most of my team loves that they are spending more time with their family.
deleted 6y ago
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staticAnalysis9 6y ago
1. Is too static and assumes alternative outlets can’t or won’t present themselves. 2. Managers may need to adapt and give up being helicopter parents. 3. Same as 1 4. Again same as 1 Minus commutes, extra hours become available for other places like parks, actual friends rather than superficial friendliness of coworkers because life revolves around offices and we learn to fake interest.
swat535 6y ago
> Socializing is the primary activity that happens at work for the vast majority of workers. The gal or guy coming by your desk to "check in" or "see how your weekend was" etc... is literally where they find their social outlets and personal connections. You have got to be kidding me.. You are at work because you have a contract to fulfil. You are not there to find your soulmate , stop saying things like "we are a family" , the second you get fired your coworkers will ignore you. Out of 99% of my interactions at work, maybe at best 1% of them even keep in touch with me, never mind actually building a deep connection. Further if you are praising being in stuck for hours in traffic for a sense of "normalcy" , you clearly have no idea how frustrating and time consuming it is. I've been driving to office for years and the exhausting dread of wasting 3+ hours of commute time in traffic gives my anxiety. Finally, your home is your sanctuary, if you are escaping from home, you have deeper problems, going to the office is not the solution. Stop normalizing inefficient office-busy-work over actually being productive, getting decent sleep, having more free time to spend with your family and friends which are huge advantages of remote work.
- mbrodersen 6y ago
  I agree so much with everything you are saying. Your workplace is not your life.
mbrodersen 6y ago
It looks as if roughly 50% of workers prefer to work from home and 50% prefer to work in an office.

zabzonk 6y ago

> The commuting routine, even if it's a nightmare, offers a sense of normalcy that most people have gotten used to and in a weird way rely on for grounding. You have obviously never been on the Tube at rush-hour in London. All it offers is a sense of stress and anger.

mrcartmenez 6y ago
Weirdly grounding stress and anger
- nine_k 6y ago
  Undergrounding, even. The 25 minutes of commute in NYC subway, even packed (but not London-packed, though) are my 25 minutes of uninterrupted reading, or thinking, or otherwise being alone and on my own, paradoxically. I miss it.
  - ameister14 6y ago
    I don't miss shoving myself into a q train to stand there with no excess space for 40 minutes despite the fact that I got through a lot of podcasts that way. Especially in winter, where everyone is wearing jackets, the train gets super hot and you're just sweating next to some guy who won't take his damn backpack off. Oh, train traffic ahead. Great - now my commute's an hour. I do miss the view in the morning and evening crossing the Manhattan bridge, though. That was nice.
Aeolun 6y ago
I can only speak for myself, but I miss my sense of stress and anger. Any time I go to the office I hate it because I’m extra stressed out about sick people being on the train, but I cannot deny it gives a sense of normalcy to life that is otherwise entirely missing.
- plutonorm 6y ago
  institutionalised

ppod 6y ago

Only point 2 is from the employer's perspective, the employee has control over the others. While there is truth in those, I don't think people would naturally settle into a 5/7 day week just for those reasons. You'll see a spread with big differences in age groups/family situations, but the average days at the office will be much less than it was before.

slantedview 6y ago

While 3 is true, the tradeoff for not having commute vastly outweighs the normalcy of having a routine commute. Commuting is atrocious and not having to do it is wonderful.

behnamoh 6y ago
When I moved to a smaller city for grad studies, I soon started missing the subway system. Crowded and dirty as it is, taking the subway was a constant reminder for me that there is life outside of my confined world and that alone contributed a lot to my sanity. In the smaller city, I took buses or walked, but I noticed taking a bus still makes a difference, even though one might have to stand up a little. Just the idea of being surrounded by people, each with their own untold stories and problems, made me feel part of something bigger. I agree with the OP; commuting actually helped me feel like I belong to a community, even though I'm introverted and would never talk to any of the people that I would see. Now with the pandemic on top of it, depression has kicked in. I sometimes play youtube videos with city/car/library... ambient sounds, just to get that feeling again. It does help a bit, but I can't wait for things to get back to "normal", whatever that means from now on.
- lambda_obrien 6y ago
  We need to replace the "work as social outlet" with something else. It's not the office anyone wants, it's the connection, we're just lacking the connection part to make remote work... well... work.
  - aurbano 6y ago
    I’ve been saying this for a while.. we are missing local communities in today’s society. People used to go to church and do religious events and things sometimes during the week - this is all gone now, and I wish we had an alternative that didn’t rely on religion, just based on the local community somehow. Community centers 2.0 or whatever, but a place where people have a reason to go. I can only think of classes which doesn’t quite work I think (hard to really get everyone there at the same time) but maybe it’s the key I have no idea!

deleted 6y ago

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tachyonbeam 6y ago

I definitely agree about the socializing. I miss seeing friendly colleagues face to face and having lunch with them. It's not just that though. I started a new remote job during the pandemic and... I feel like I really don't have the same bond with these new colleagues that I had with my colleagues at my previous in-person job. I genuinely feel like we would collaborate better, and be a better team, if we could hang out in person. There's a certain bond of trust that you naturally build when you just have lunch and casual conversations with people, that is very hard to replicate online. As for the commute, I previously had a 15-minute walk to and from work before. I try to design my life so I can either walk or bike to work. I miss that too. I was more physically active before, and there's something meditative about walking, helps clear your mind.

cableshaft 6y ago
When I was at the office I'd take a 20-ish minute walking break around the office block almost every day. I don't know what it is about remote work, but even though I know the physical activity would be good for me, I have a hell of a time motivating myself to taking a walk around the neighborhood before/during work that I work only from home. And we started 100% remote before the pandemic, so it's not pandemic-related. I think there's a couple of reasons for that, for me. #1, I don't really feel the need to escape home, where I had to get out of the office, especially with all the open office noise. I can just 'escape' upstairs and do some dishes to put some distance from work. And #2, my role is now a lot more on-call than it used to be, and a few times I've taken the walk during work I've had to double back and hurry halfway through, because I always seem to pick the exact time something breaks. Sucks. I don't have a good reason to be in worse shape because of the pandemic but I am.
- sokoloff 6y ago
  Part of it is putting on a mask and walking around (the city) where I live is itself a reminder of the situation we’re stuck in.
- oopsiforgot7 6y ago
  Did you wear shoes at work? Do you wear shoes at home?

rubyfan 6y ago

I agree with your sentiment. I encounter a majority of people in my workplace that say they really miss the chance encounters with people they don’t get to work with frequently - those chance encounter they say sparks something interesting. When I hear people vocalize this, they portray it as something of value and while I don’t doubt they value the interaction I do doubt that the interaction has created productive value. I think what they are really valuing is the social fabric of the workplace. My theory is that as more of us have less and less social interaction outside of the workplace (especially in the northeast I think), people really value the social aspects of the workplace. The socialites among us will likely lead the way back into the office and drive peer pressure for the rest of us to return.

jlokier 6y ago
> those chance encounter they say sparks something interesting Don't underestimate how many of those start from overhearing interesting conversations between other people. Does that ever happen in WFH companies?

wisty 6y ago

I think it's worth looking into "theory of the firm" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_the_firm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_the_firm Why should employees even exist? Shouldn't firms just sack everyone, then hire contractors? I often hear advocates of remote work talk about "presenteeism" and how managers need to just focus more on outputs. This is fine, but if they can do that why not sack everyone and just hire contractors and pay for the outputs? The reality is, unless employees are micro-managed to the point of being basically robots, they're given a certain amount of discretion. If they are at work, and can't slack off, then they will use this discretion to create value for the company in ways that the managers don't always have time to exactly specify. The slack and discretion in a "presentism" run office means that employees can make changes without having to always go up the chain. For a concrete example, let's say you think there's a major show-stopper of a bug. Your manager disagrees, and says not to worry about it, and will not budge. You have a few hours free in the week because you finished your work a bit faster than expected. You might look into the suspected bug (and end up proving it's an issue, or proving to yourself that your boss was right) if you're otherwise stuck in an office reading email to look busy, but not if you're at home and you can turn on the TV or walk the dog.

fake-name 6y ago
> Shouldn't firms just sack everyone, then hire contractors? I mean, a lot of them are trying to do exactly that.
- yoshiama12 6y ago
  A lot of bad companies that don't understand the value of developing long term assets. :D
adamc 6y ago
Based on the contractors we've hired at various points, you get what you give. Most of the contractor code worked, but had poor maintenance characteristics. Which makes sense: they weren't going to be maintaining it. Their job was to generate a lot of code quickly. So, a future where that happens will require either very tight managerial oversight (pipe dream), or will lead to a bunch of stuff that is brittle as hell. Doesn't mean it won't happen. But God helps us if it does. I suspect that would lead to just subcontracting whole business functions to more stable vendors.

Fordec 6y ago

None of these tackle the one aspect that trumps everything else in the corporate world. Is this better for the company? Even if the majority of companies see things this way, they will return to the office. But those that succeed, survive, thrive or dominate a market will do whatever that makes them successful along the way. It doesn't matter if people like routine if the other guy beats you on revenue, time to market and profitability. The people that win in their market segment are not "most" people. Until it is confirmed that 100% remote, with workers distributed all around the world that can be the best at what they do, or are cheaper or are capable of being trusted to get the job done without someone breathing over their shoulder are worse at competing than the status quo, the jury is still out. Broader society? When has that mattered in the face of disruption? Until the day remote working gets outright banned, this game has yet to fully play out.

briefcomment 6y ago
I think you're pretty much correct. What will stick for any given company is what makes them more money.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
nine_k 6y ago
Unhappy and distressed worker is a less productive worker. Some forms of unhappiness and distress may be applied to increase productivity, like deadlines and fear of being fired. But for most people who can even work from home their needs to concentrate and to communicate are way more important for productivity.
- Fordec 6y ago
  I'd trade 20 minutes extra socializing at my first place with the people I love or my third place with the people of similar interests for an hour of socializing with people talking about a sport I'm not into or their kids. I also find that having to do more stuff over email, messaging and zoom has been great for reigning in an overly narcissistic manipulative coworker because their actions are much more record-able now. I recognize I'm not the norm, but working from home the past year has been amazing for my introverted personality. To imply that the office is a necessity for removing distress is an overly broad brush to paint with that does not apply to everyone.

buggythebug 6y ago

Your analysis is way off 1)People hate small-talk $hit. They will not go back to work so they can small-talk 2)Like to - doesn't mean it's going to go back. Plus they can save by firing Manager who used to come and "check in" 3)People will find other ways to have normalcy - no one is going to miss commuting. 4)This is a toss up. I can see it going both ways. Going to work is a drudgery for a huge swath of Americans, too.

s0rce 6y ago
I commute by bike and I miss it. I'm not motivated enough to just go for a bike ride around the neighborhood so the commute was really good at forcing me to get my daily exercise. I know this isn't everyone's experience but I miss my commute!
Taylor_OD 6y ago
Different folks different strokes. I hate hate hate small talk. One of the guys who worked for me in the past loved it. He had a hard time working remote until he got a roommate he could talk to. A lot of people are probably somewhere in between. Just because these things dont make sense to you it does not mean they are not true for many people.
sinsterizme 6y ago
What about those of us who hate small talk but enjoy being around smart, interesting, and fun co-workers? If your interactions at work amount to nothing but small-talk then you need to look for a new job
wikibob 6y ago
I think you are approaching this from your own particular, engineering and possibly introverted, biased viewpoint. As a counterpoint I would say MANY MANY people love and thrive in small talk and as is referenced elsewhere in this discussion, particularly engaging in that at work.
ntsplnkv2 6y ago
1 - typically not true. Maybe in engineering positions - but yes, there is a world outside of software engineering. Human beings are mostly social to some extent. Even the introverts I work with say they miss the occasional lunch. 2 - I get managers are persona non grata on here but get real. You still need people to make decisions. 3 - I miss commuting. I listened to music and I like driving, and it gave me structure to wake up at a certain time in the morning.

irrational 6y ago

1. This is the main reason I prefer remote working. I don’t like socializing. I’m there to work, not to chit chat. You’re not my friend, your a fellow worker. 2. Time to get a better manager who trusts you. 3. Commuting is a waste of time. I roll out of bed and immediately start working. The company loses on time I could be working by having me commute. 4. Yeah, I definitely can’t relate to this one.

calvinmorrison 6y ago
For something you're going to spend your life doing, it's a horrible prospect to not expect to make friends at work. As a child did you spend 12 years not making friends in school, since school is for learning and not socialization?
- ashtonkem 6y ago
  The average Millenial worker will job hop every 1-3 years. While it’s good to be friendly with your colleagues, you also shouldn’t build friend networks that get broken and reformed with such regularity.
  - spear 6y ago
    Millenial or not, those friend networks are still how you'll be able to find the better jobs when you're older.
    - almost_usual 6y ago
      I've gotten better jobs through networking and none of them were friends. People should recommend others who are good at their job, not friends. It's important to be _friendly_ at work but that doesn't mean someone is your friend.
    - pts_ 6y ago
      Imagine you're on a spaceship, say the Nostromo from Alien. And your biggest skill is making others do your work. I'd say you'd be the first in line to be spaced.

mc32 6y ago

I really don't know how it's going to lean. Of course some will remain remote, some will return to the office. The reasons are multiple: -Some people are unproductive when working from home (for a variety of reasons) -Some managers want to see their charges (open office panopticons) -Some people are more productive working from home. Companies and managers will have to weigh the positives and negatives. I'm sure they have enough data to determine what makes sense for certain roles and individuals within those roles. Companies will save on real estate by offloading that to your home. But on average they will lose productivity from most people. Stanford is special in that as far as I know are short on space for parking and for offices, so they will likely nudge some to work from home where it makes sense. So of course they go on their own propaganda to get their people ready for the shift.

ascotan 6y ago

#2 is the biggest issue Management and non-management have different subcultures. Managers need power meetings, lunch meetings, shoulder-taps, etc. They are tasked with watching you and making sure everyone is on task. Non-managers don't care about in-person other than for the socializing aspect (or maybe they want to get away from the house). I think that non-management can work effectively remote most of the time (unless u need to be doing physical labor of some sort). I'm betting that studies are going to prove this out. However, it's not clear if _management_ can effectively function remotely. Management is heavily dependent on being both seen and heard and remote platforms make this harder not easier. Many companies have 2 subcultures, the workers want remote and the management wants in-person. I think the conversation needs to be around how to get the managers to work remotely in order to succeed. This is a mind shift in how traditional management is done and will be much slower to adopt.

randmeerkat 6y ago
I think the big problem here is that most managers add zero value and if anything negatively impact velocity. Really all that’s needed is a project manager with a light touch to help the team know what features are needed by leadership. Then the team can use their freedom of direction to prioritise features along with existing technical work to optimise the technologies being leveraged to better position the business.
- throwaway1777 6y ago
  This is a ludicrous take. Read a book like high output management and learn what managers actually do and you might realize what value they should be providing.
  - disgruntledphd2 6y ago
    But sadly accurate if you've never worked with a good manager. Good managers are rare, and people who have never worked with one err on the side of assuming all managers are pointless wastes of space.
  - 6y ago

ashtonkem 6y ago

Most of the things you’re describing are actually the consequences of things being really broken. Some of that is obvious (e.g. point 2), but the rest is subtle. My biggest concern is #1. While everyone has always socialized at work, it seems like modern Americans depend more on work for socialization than ever before. That is probably not a good thing, especially since modern professionals job hop more than ever. A world where more workers are encouraged to have friends and social circles outside of work is not a bad thing, in my opinion.

kbar13 6y ago
i think there's a balance. i agree that having friends outside the workplace is important, but i don't see why that means making friends in the workplace is bad. we have friends that we see during the workday and occasionally see outside the workplace, then we have friends for all the other time.
- ashtonkem 6y ago
  Making friends in the work place isn’t bad; I didn’t say that and such an assertion would be obviously silly. Depending on work for social interactions is bad. That is what I’m seeing more of, and that is something I think should change.
dannyw 6y ago
Sure, but I’d like to have friends at work and friends outside of work. Nothing wrong with job hopping either: if you make a good friend, you’ll keep on connecting even after you switch jobs.
- ashtonkem 6y ago
  I’m not sure why everyone is interpreting me as having said “having friends at work is bad”. That’s obviously a silly statement, which is why I didn’t make it. Depending on work for socialization is bad. That’s what I’m arguing against.
dv_dt 6y ago

justicezyx 6y ago

SF Bay area, used to commute to SF. Interestingly, every point you said was completely false for me: > 1. Socializing is the primary activity that happens at work for the vast majority of workers. The gal or guy coming by your desk to "check in" or "see how your weekend was" etc... is literally where they find their social outlets and personal connections. Not for me, or most of my cowoerks at Google. We absolutely would be doing more work by WFH. When we indeed going to hang out in the office with coworker, that's because we are bored by the work at hands, and need some outlet or simply resting. Not that we desire hanging out with coworkers. > 2. Managers like to be able to watch their direct reports because it makes them feel more in control than they are I never was in a team that managers need to see their reports. Most of the time, I often want to see my manager(s) in the office, but they were enjoying their meetings all day every day through the week. > 3. The commuting routine, even if it's a nightmare, offers a sense of normalcy that most people have gotten used to and in a weird way rely on for grounding. This sounds weird. I absolutely hate the commute. I am pretty sure that without the commute, my work output would double. Just by having those commute time being actual working hours. I dont feel commuting is normal. Commuting isn't ideal for anyone. That's an unreasonable idea to me. > 4. For a huge swath of Americans at least, work is an escape from the drudgery of the home. That's somewhat true. I indeed felt relaxed in office without being bothered by my children. But now after all of us get used to the mode where my closed door means I am not to be disturbed, I absolutely love working from home. For example, if I need a rest, I can grab my younger son, and play with my older daughter. Fantastic experience! I think WFH have reshaped my relationship with my daughter because of more time together.

geoduck14 6y ago

>2. Managers like to be able to watch their direct reports because it makes them feel more in control than they are Manager here. Initially, I had trouble with my inability to do this. Now that I've come to grips that I have NO idea if my team is actually at their computer, I now judge them based on if they actually get work done (vs are they "busy"). It has been a good shift, but not easy.

mbrodersen 6y ago
Well done. The problem with most managers is that they never learn to measure what is important (output) instead of what isn’t (looking busy/hours pretending to work).

wpietri 6y ago

I'm not sure the numbers agree with you. Check out this recent survey: https://www.livecareer.com/resources/careers/planning/is-remote-work-here-to-stay https://www.livecareer.com/resources/careers/planning/is-rem... In particular, scroll 3/4ths of the way down to the "Remote Work Prospects and Employees' Expectations" section. 61% of now-remote workers say they want to stay remote. 29% say they'll quit their jobs it they're forced to go back. And few want to go back 5 days per week. A year ago, I would have agreed with your analysis. Few would have chosen to go remote. But now inertia works the other way. After a year or more of not commuting, what's normal is staying home. Managers have gotten used to managing remotely. To switch back, managers will have to get 100% of a team to return to the office, which is going to be very challenging. People will quit. People will have specific needs where a manager will have a hard time saying no. And if one person on a team is remote, it'll be very hard to hold the line at one. I think people will solve the rest of it on their own. Some will renovate or move, setting up better for working from home. There will be a rise in third places like cafes and coworking spaces, so people can leave the house but not have to do a full commute. So my guess is that we'll see a permanent spread. Remote working will continue to be much more popular than before the pandemic. Many companies, including major ones, will drop the expected days/week in the office below 5. Those who go down to 1-2 will downsize office space, shift to desk hoteling, and treat offices more as places for meetings than work. Some companies will try to return to the old paradigm, but many workers will complain bitterly, and they'll have ongoing trouble with recruiting and retention.

aidenn0 6y ago
I guarantee that 29% of employees will not quit their jobs if forced to go back; that number is way to high.
- mewpmewp2 6y ago
  Given if the alternative is that they can get a remote job elsewhere easily, why not?
  - rapsey 6y ago

j4yav 6y ago

All four of these make it seem like work is being used as a salve to treat even more fundamental problems. Is it really that bad in some places these days?

newbie2020 6y ago

Yep I met my partner and 90% of my current (now long term) friends group at work. And that also makes the work fun for whatever reason and makes me more productive. I have no idea how people are finding friends right now. WFH at best will become 3 days in 2 days at home.

rmk 6y ago

I think this paper, and survey, in general, appears to be ignoring one very important set of people: job hoppers and new entrants to the job market (to be fair, I did not read thru the entire paper, just looked over interesting sections). These two categories of people will almost certainly not prefer working from home: for job hoppers, it is difficult or in some cases, impossible to on-board; for new entrants, they can't become effective without close supervision initially. Imagine the average intern being able to put out good quality work with minimal supervision. I feel these two things require that companies or teams will have to reorganise in some fundamental way to account for these two classes of people joining them.

Falkon1313 6y ago
I see this a lot "onboarding is difficult remotely", but I don't know why. It hasn't been difficult at my last few jobs including the current one where many/most of us have been remote for years. You get added to the email lists, the slack channels, the documentation wiki, and the issue tracker. Daily meetings at 10am. You pair up with one person for a couple weeks and then somebody else and so on for the first few months. You regularly have voice and/or video chats. You get, or create, a list of who to contact with different questions or problems. If somehow all of those communication methods fail, I doubt that just being able to add a physical touch component would help much. Other than touch, the only senses that require physical proximity are smell and taste. If you're relying on touch, smell, and taste to communicate while on-boarding people, then maybe then it might be difficult, but that also seems a bit unusual. Mostly I think companies that have trouble with on-boarding remotely have bigger problems with their communications in general.
- rmk 6y ago
  As an example, being able to talk to the people who handle the coding, commit, build, and deployment, all in one place, is quite valuable and saves time. In many large and established companies, there is formal training that puts all these people in one room with the trainees, either because the company is already so distributed as to make this impossible otherwise, or because it's more cost-efficient to disseminate this info to a large number of incoming engineers. In smaller startups and growing companies, where these things are changing at a high rate, it becomes even more valuable. It's not that these things are not doable virtually, but it's something that will require deliberate rearranging of how people work. In larger companies, this type of stuff already happens, but not so much in smaller ones. Engineering organizations can learn a lot from Sales departments in this area. Sales in companies that sell in various geographies (which includes even small companies that have gained traction and are beginning to grow) already functions perfectly fine with very distributed teams, and highly technical sales motions (think enterprise products). Small, growing companies have big problems with communications and coordination in general. That's what makes the scaling stage challenging and full of pitfalls: many companies fail at this stage!

deeblering4 6y ago

These are simply excuses to support the wasteful pre-pandemic status quo. The fact of the matter is that the tech is now fully in place to support remote work, and the pandemic has been both an infrastructure and procedure stress test, as well as a turning point for businesses. Remote work isn’t going away.

itronitron 6y ago

A close friend of mine has a coworker who calls them whenever they are not in meetings (shows up as online in whatever chat thingy their organization uses.) and wastes at least two hours of their time everyday. Are there strategies that fully remote companies take to limit that type of time wasting?

j4yav 6y ago
Generally, remote companies prefer async work. GitLab has a great guide on how to get started, and I'm also building an app (https://asyncgo.com https://asyncgo.com). Other founders are building different tools with different approaches but the same goal in mind as well. Basically you want to move as much focused work as you can to async collaboration and save realtime for more freeform, relaxed communication. It's more efficient and also less draining to work that way.
mbrodersen 6y ago
The strategy is to not reply to anything they write.

blackrock 6y ago

I disagree with #1. Companies do not want you socializing at work. Sure, they tolerate the occasional chitchat, but only on a superficial level. If you actually want to socialize with your coworkers, then you must do that outside in the smoke area, or during your lunch outings. But never actually in the office. That is the taboo. And the moment you break it, then that’s when you’ll get a demerit from your management.

randmeerkat 6y ago
Remind me not to work at your company, sounds depressing. Most of the good work ideas I’ve seen come up, come up as a result of socialising at work.
- blackrock 6y ago
  The best way is to start your own company. That way you can define your own rules.
mbrodersen 6y ago
Maybe true for your company. Not true for lots of other companies.

gfodor 6y ago

A good chunk of these get wiped out if you get remote social presence via VR or AR.

supercon 6y ago

> 3. The commuting routine, even if it's a nightmare, offers a sense of normalcy that most people have gotten used to and in a weird way rely on for grounding. While working from home, I’ve found it much harder to switch between work/free modes. It seems the daily commute has been an effective way to for me to either prepare for the coming day or settle my mind for non-work related activities.

bfdm 6y ago
I've found some success in replacing that with similar routines, for example walking the dog before and after work. It's a pseudo-commute that allows similar mental preparation/release. This worked well pre-covid. Since covid hit ...overall I'm struggling with bleeding boundaries. The pandemic anxiety makes it hard for me to settle in my basement office, so I use other spaces around the house.

edgyquant 6y ago

I’m fine with controlling for distractions, am 100% remote for the last year, but as a single late 20s guy in a new city you hit the nail on the head for why I’d like to get back into an office. I would like to not die alone because I’m too old to go out to bars for hookups without it taking a toll and tinder just isn’t my thing. Plus friends would be nice to have again at some point.

miguelmota 6y ago

Agree that socializing in person with colleagues is important for well being, particularly for people that don’t have roommates or a family at home. Depression and struggling with moments of existential crisis can occur as a side effect from total social isolation and mental health can deteriorate. Of course, some people are more adapt to remote than others and a good middle ground could be going to the office when desired like once a week if given the option.

joelbluminator 6y ago
Well people can easily get burned out and depressed by commutes or by petty office politics, which you have more of when everyone is physically in the office. Is there any evidence suggesting remote is a net negative over a net positive?

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29athrowaway 6y ago

1. I have friends outside work, I do not have an urge to socialize with people and potentially interrupting them from doing their job. 2. My manager has better things to do. Being in the office doesn't mean you are being productive. Sometimes you get distracted by noise, or some local office jerk, or some random event... e.g.: in a large company, every day is someone's birthday. Or someone wants to go for a walk and grab coffee... 3. I can live closer to the office and pay as much as twice in rent, or live farther from the office but have a larger place that my family can enjoy more, at the cost of spending more time away from home. If I work remotely, I have up to 2 extra hours every day. I can use that time sleeping, exercising, interacting with my family, cleaning, or do whatever needs to be done that is more useful than spending 2 hours stressing out in a car every day, polluting the atmosphere and congesting road infrastructure, or worrying about being mugged in a train. 4. Trying to escape from your problems won't make the situation better. You still have to go home at the end of the day and deal with your problems. All that money wasted in a desk/cubicle/office, meeting rooms, cleaning crew, security crew, facilities crew... who do you think is paying all that money? your employer is. It's a lot of money that could rather go to something else, like your compensation, or hiring more people so you have less work to do. If you are an engineer, offices = a lot of resources and effort put into making your life worse.

vmception 6y ago

One overlooked aspect of 1 and 2: many founders are using their employees as a surrogate for healthy meaningful relationships. And maybe the executives are actually just hanging out, from their perspective. galavanting around the city and schmoozing. having fun solving a problem they’re passionate about and having no negative consequence of having too much fun. hey as long as you’re only inappropriate with employees of another company in the co-working space the liability surface is limited! so its not just about managerial control but both of these kinds of people share the similarity of not being able to relate to the lower level employees

DoingIsLearning 6y ago

> I've been 100% remote and run remote teams since 2014... To truly work from home 100% of the time you have to be a master at controlling yourself and your ability to be distracted. You have obviously gathered a lot of remote experience. As someone who has always worked in some form of research lab and is now working from home, I am still achieving my objectives and deliverables but definitely feel a lot less productive without the 'positive' pressure of being with my peers. I am also fortunate that I work with very hands-off and mature managers even in this remote scenario. What strategies can we create for better self-accountability and discipline when working on long running projects on our own? What worked for you?

shrimpx 6y ago

I disagree with all the points, except (1). If one has a hard time creating a social life outside of work, working remotely is terrible.

joelbluminator 6y ago
Are work friends actual friends? Seems to me in the vast majority of cases once a person switches jobs he switches his work friends as well...which happens about once in 3-5 years...
- BlargMcLarg 6y ago
  This is my experience as well. Most "friends" only stay friends for as long as they share activities together, and if there is too long of an absence in activities, it will be harder to plan activities or reconnect later down the line. They'll usually drop down to acquaintance level and stay there. Goes for work, hobbies, and more. Friends who stick around for who you are, rather than what you do together, are exceptionally rare. Especially later in life, when everyone is "too busy" for activities outside what they already do. I hope my experience is the minority, as the increasing loneliness that seems to be present as the younger generations grow older to me indicates the over reliance on work for friendship is the exact opposite of what we need. And on a much darker and more cynical level, it provides an opportunity of social manipulation for companies to keep one tied to their job at a lower wage, or risk crippling loneliness.
  - joelbluminator 6y ago
    I'm pretty sure I could have become actual friends with many colleagues if we weren't colleagues, but I see that meeting them after hours always gravitates to talking about work. Some people are fine with that, to me it's depressing to have to think about work on my weekend.
- tjr225 6y ago
  It depends on how you define "friend." I don't require that my friends have any interest in me outside of the contexts they wish to be friends with me in, though, and so I do consider work friends actual friends. Same thing with cycling friends, childrearing friends, and hanging out and drinking friends. Why should a friend share extra time with me for some reason? In any case, the more time you spend with contextual friends the greater the likelihood you will meet a lifelong friend.

joelbluminator 6y ago

> 4. For a huge swath of Americans at least, work is an escape from the drudgery of the home. Well for a huge swath the office and commuting is a nightmare. If this question is gonna run on majority vote I'm not sure at all the office will make a comeback.

barry-cotter 6y ago
Majority voting isn’t how anything works except democracy and civil war. The market will do its best to satisfy everyone at the same time, just as some office jobs have cast iron punctuality requirements and others are a great deal more flexible. Some people will trade money for flexibility, some jobs are unwilling to be flexible. The market clears in the end.

odiroot 6y ago

> 4. For a huge swath of Americans at least, work is an escape from the drudgery of the home. This is big. If I had a fancy apartment in a good quality building, I wouldn't mind. But the place I currently reside in, is really frustrating to spend your whole day. I can easily hear my neighbours talking, their pets, screeching children or construction work many floors above. The ceilings are also quite low, which amplifies the cabin fever. If I could escape, from time to time, to an office where my friends work, it'd be increase my life quality a lot. And I'm saying this as a person who's not a fan of offices and forced asses-in-seats.

Apfel 6y ago
Obviously this isn't a permanent solution, but noise cancelling headphones have gotten really good recently. Sony xm1000 models and Bose could potentially go some way towards helping you deal with this.
- odiroot 6y ago
  I have good noise-cancelling headphones. They do very little for human voice and children shrieks. My in-ear stage Shures with passive isolation work much better but spending whole day in headphones is neither pleasant nor healthy.

telesilla 6y ago

Our company is 100% remote and we are genuinely truly friends on many levels, we have a core requirement that there is a base level of communication when at work and we have regular all-hands meetings with no agenda, using a platform suited to large gatherings. Pre-covid we met a conferences or when convenient and we have a few location-specifc gatherings when possible (currently on hold of course). Being together in person doesn't give you the sense of companionship - we found instead that it's the act of building something together does that. Rather than wishing for the commute, most of my team loves that they are spending more time with their family.

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staticAnalysis9 6y ago

1. Is too static and assumes alternative outlets can’t or won’t present themselves. 2. Managers may need to adapt and give up being helicopter parents. 3. Same as 1 4. Again same as 1 Minus commutes, extra hours become available for other places like parks, actual friends rather than superficial friendliness of coworkers because life revolves around offices and we learn to fake interest.

swat535 6y ago

> Socializing is the primary activity that happens at work for the vast majority of workers. The gal or guy coming by your desk to "check in" or "see how your weekend was" etc... is literally where they find their social outlets and personal connections. You have got to be kidding me.. You are at work because you have a contract to fulfil. You are not there to find your soulmate , stop saying things like "we are a family" , the second you get fired your coworkers will ignore you. Out of 99% of my interactions at work, maybe at best 1% of them even keep in touch with me, never mind actually building a deep connection. Further if you are praising being in stuck for hours in traffic for a sense of "normalcy" , you clearly have no idea how frustrating and time consuming it is. I've been driving to office for years and the exhausting dread of wasting 3+ hours of commute time in traffic gives my anxiety. Finally, your home is your sanctuary, if you are escaping from home, you have deeper problems, going to the office is not the solution. Stop normalizing inefficient office-busy-work over actually being productive, getting decent sleep, having more free time to spend with your family and friends which are huge advantages of remote work.

mbrodersen 6y ago
I agree so much with everything you are saying. Your workplace is not your life.

mbrodersen 6y ago

It looks as if roughly 50% of workers prefer to work from home and 50% prefer to work in an office.