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That's fine! (I've said this in another similar thread recently:) The push here (to the extent that it's organized) should not be "abolish offices, everyone is

That's fine! (I've said this in another similar thread recently:) The push here (to the extent that it's organized) should not be "abolish offices, everyone is remote". It should be "trust people to choose the environment where they work best". If you like the office, then you should be able to choose a company that has an office for you to work in. I personally work remotely and find it suits me. But I wouldn't mind working in a hybrid situation either, where being in the office was occasional/available.

tolbish 5y ago
The problem is that the "I like the office and everyone else should too because it legitimizes and popularizes my choices" crowd will never say that out loud so you don't know which arguments are in earnest.
- crummy 5y ago
  Well, probably a lot of "I like the office" implies "... because I like being around my coworkers" and that obviously falls apart if you're the only one.
  - 1shooner 5y ago
    And if the feeling wasn't reciprocated, maybe that's for the best.
gpm 5y ago
> then you should be able to choose a company that has an office for you to work in This is the key part though, this isn't an individual choice, it's a company (or at least team) one. If the rest of your team is in the office, and you aren't, then you aren't going to be "in the loop" and you aren't going to be an effective engineer. If the rest of your team is not in the office, and you are, well, at that point it's not really different from a coworking space. The advantages of in person communication simply don't exist. So... expect teams changing from/to in office to be painful, people who disagree are going to have to choose over leaving or sucking it up, and that's not a nice choice to be making. Unfortunately this is somewhat viral between teams too, because your manager is effectively on the "manager team" as well as the local team, and people do move around between team... Moreover there will be plenty of times were you want to work for company X for reasons unrelated to whether or not they work from an office, you like the company mission, the technology, etc. As a result even once things settle down you can't expect everyone to be happy with the office/no-office/partial-office choice that is made...

tolbish 5y ago

The problem is that the "I like the office and everyone else should too because it legitimizes and popularizes my choices" crowd will never say that out loud so you don't know which arguments are in earnest.

crummy 5y ago
Well, probably a lot of "I like the office" implies "... because I like being around my coworkers" and that obviously falls apart if you're the only one.
- 1shooner 5y ago
  And if the feeling wasn't reciprocated, maybe that's for the best.

gpm 5y ago

> then you should be able to choose a company that has an office for you to work in This is the key part though, this isn't an individual choice, it's a company (or at least team) one. If the rest of your team is in the office, and you aren't, then you aren't going to be "in the loop" and you aren't going to be an effective engineer. If the rest of your team is not in the office, and you are, well, at that point it's not really different from a coworking space. The advantages of in person communication simply don't exist. So... expect teams changing from/to in office to be painful, people who disagree are going to have to choose over leaving or sucking it up, and that's not a nice choice to be making. Unfortunately this is somewhat viral between teams too, because your manager is effectively on the "manager team" as well as the local team, and people do move around between team... Moreover there will be plenty of times were you want to work for company X for reasons unrelated to whether or not they work from an office, you like the company mission, the technology, etc. As a result even once things settle down you can't expect everyone to be happy with the office/no-office/partial-office choice that is made...