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As someone who's worked remote since long before the pandemic, I often wonder if this attitude will eventually become a significant portion of the chunk of peop
by MrWiffles 5y ago
As someone who's worked remote since long before the pandemic, I often wonder if this attitude will eventually become a significant portion of the chunk of people who are saying "remote only forever!" now.
In my case, sometimes - about 50% of the time roughly - I want an office to work out of. I want to separate home and work life for a multitude of reasons, most notably, just to get some damn peace when I'm done with work.
The emotional toll of "walk into your living room, there's work. Wake up, there's work. Done with work? Go chill in your living room an-nope, there's work." can be a pain in the ass after so many years.
So I wonder if I'm somewhat unique in that and maybe it's all in my head, or if eventually, once they've had a substantial remote experience for a few years, more people will be in a place similar to me: they like the benefits of remote, but man that constant work presence thing takes a hell of a toll after a while.
Guess we'll see in a few years if people eventually change their points of view. I don't expect it to be the majority opinion by a long shot, probably not ever, but eventually it may rise to a non-negligible number.
Personally I'd prefer a flexible "come to the office when you want and for very rare special occasions" (critical client meetings once or twice a year, etc.) policy. I think success here is going to break the simplistic "everybody must do x" one-size-fits-all-whether-you-like-it-or-not typical corporate narrowminded oversimplicity, and instead be enabled by flexibility and control on the employee's part, effectively managed by a good manager.
That'll be rare.
- voakbasda 5y agoI have worked remotely for almost 30 years. I know e feeling of net being able to leave work, but the solution for me was simple. At some point, I moved my office into its own room. Now I can leave work at the end of the day and close the door behind me. It takes some conditioning to break a workaholic mindset. For me, I filled my time with playing music and then farming. Hobbies became a necessary distraction to maintain a work-life balance. But once the habit was formed, I couldn’t imagine going back.
- MrWiffles 5y agoI tried this myself once upon a time, but I failed the "discipline" part :-) I suspect that's going to be true of most people. And with the cost of housing being out of control, rising exponentially faster than income and inflation, I suspect getting another bedroom (be it via purchasing a larger house or moving to a bigger apartment) is going to be out of reach for most people for quite a while. Still, I agree with your approach here entirely, this is the way to handle it. Co-working space also could work, but then you have a commute, so you might as well just go into the office at that point! Glad you were able to make it work for you!