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> This seems not so much as an argument for office vs remote work but an argument that pandemics are bad. I think a lot of people who didn't work remote before

> This seems not so much as an argument for office vs remote work but an argument that pandemics are bad. I think a lot of people who didn't work remote before the pandemic have the wrong impression about what working remotely is actually like. That's exactly what some of us said would happen at the beginning of the pandemic. There were a large minority of people complaining about remote work and questioning how anyone could do it. But the pandemic was not a typical remote work/work from home situation. People were forced into it. You couldn't bug out to the library to get a change of view. You couldn't meet up for drinks or coffee to get even a bare minimum of face to face. Some of us who had been remote working for a long time predicted this anti-remote work backlash specifically because of this.

ehnto 5y ago
It's prescient, I think many people were feeling like their house was being invaded and molded by work requirements, and it wasn't a choice they were making. I think when someone chooses remote, it's their responsibility to offer a suitable working environment and that's clear. For many working remotely is about the freedom of choice in the act of working, choose the time, choose the place, choose the equipment. Whereas the pandemic was a situation where that freedom didn't exist, so even previously remote workers were not as happy with remote work. It was often trying to make an office environment out of a smattering of digital communication tools, and I think that's the wrong approach for remote work. Previously I had all the above flexibility, in the "everyone's remote" model, I was clocking on at 9am, sitting in 10x the bullshit meetings I used to be in as they tried to simulate ad-hoc communication, and all from my bedroom, not a co-working space or cafe or outdoors etc.

ehnto 5y ago

It's prescient, I think many people were feeling like their house was being invaded and molded by work requirements, and it wasn't a choice they were making. I think when someone chooses remote, it's their responsibility to offer a suitable working environment and that's clear. For many working remotely is about the freedom of choice in the act of working, choose the time, choose the place, choose the equipment. Whereas the pandemic was a situation where that freedom didn't exist, so even previously remote workers were not as happy with remote work. It was often trying to make an office environment out of a smattering of digital communication tools, and I think that's the wrong approach for remote work. Previously I had all the above flexibility, in the "everyone's remote" model, I was clocking on at 9am, sitting in 10x the bullshit meetings I used to be in as they tried to simulate ad-hoc communication, and all from my bedroom, not a co-working space or cafe or outdoors etc.