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People who like WFH will never want to return to the office unless perhaps the office is a 5 minute walk from home (they may be forced to, but they won't want t

People who like WFH will never want to return to the office unless perhaps the office is a 5 minute walk from home (they may be forced to, but they won't want to). For many people the time and cost savings of avoiding a daily commute cannot be offset by a nicer office. Those who are happy to return to the office in general are those who do not like WFH and prefer more contacts and a change of scenery. A nicer office makes things better but it will not change people's minds on WFH.

lokar 3y ago
I had a private office at a large tech firm for many years. It was perfect for me, I would probably go back to the office for that setup. I’ll never go work in an open floor plan.
steveBK123 3y ago
My vaguely populist take is that the pandemic, WFH/remote and hybrid gave the mass white collar class a taste of what the C-suite has had for years.. flexibility. Sure, these guys might go into the office but they do so from their pied-a-terre / 3rd home / whatever within a 5 minute chauffeured drive. They do this while maintaining a nearby suburban/exurban estate and maybe a lake/beach/ski houses where they spend the majority of their actual hours. I was listening to a podcast and they observed that US commuters might have had a boiled frog scenario where you slowly just get used to having a worse & worse commute as you age.. and COVID snapped everyone out of it cold turkey. Now attempting to go back to it is revolting for many.
- hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - rwmj 3y ago
    He didn't say it wasn't a difficult job, just that the C-suite were always able to work flexibly, and afford to have a second flat next to the office (or in extreme cases, force the office to move near to their homes).
    - pc86 3y ago
      Not replying to you but the above comment got flagged before I responded and I already typed the comment up so I want to post it :) -- If we're specifically talking about large enterprises, these CEOs make more in a year than most Americans make their entire life. If you didn't live a Fortune 1000 CEO level lifestyle you could literally do the job for 4-6 months and retire, and that's ignoring the fact that they've typically been in the C-Suite making 20-50% of that salary for decades already. It's not often somebody living paycheck to paycheck is promoted into CEO. I've worked jobs in public companies where the CEO and half the C-Suite was driven to work every morning. I've worked jobs where a rank and file programmer got denied a raise because he left at 4 every day (despite working 8 or more hours every day) because the policy was to work 8-5, while the CEO worked from a vacation home when the weather wasn't nice where our HQ was. Whether the job is hard is irrelevant, all the GP is saying is that you have ultimate flexibility in that role, and now the poors have a taste of it too, and most of them/us aren't going to give it up without a fight.
- steveBK123 3y ago
  My favorite story on this thread is that during the hybrid period, GS CEO threw a fit when out in the Hamptons because some analyst (fairly junior role almost at the bottom) had the balls to go introduce themselves during a workday lunch at a restaurant. He couldn't articulate a specific, valid complaint like "I was out at a client lunch and they were goofing off" or "I was on a vacation day while they were supposed to be working". He was just mad that underlings had the same flexibility that he, as CEO, had always had. This being the same CEO who jets around DJing on the side for fun and has connections to do so at pretty high levels. So even the "cool CEO" is in fact, NOT cool. It's like getting mad at all the other idiots on the road making traffic, lol. What do you think you are?
  - deleted 3y ago
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  - flandish 3y ago
    This example is a stark reminder that the complaints are most often not about details but about class. The CEO was upset others were allowed to perform as if they were of the same class. It’s always class when one boils it down, imho.
    - steveBK123 3y ago
      Precisely. He couldn't put it into words because the words wouldn't have looked good. But the obvious complaint was what are these slobs doing in my summer resort town, dining in the same establishment as me!! Rather than stuck in downtown Manhattan in the August heat. Or - the least they could do is go to Coney Island / Jones Beach / Jersey Shore or something eating some hotdogs.
      - gitfan86 3y ago
        I have not run into this attitude in tech from executives. Finance is much more of a heiracy culture I guess. I have run into this at a peer level though. I've negotiated WFH and extra vacation and have learned to keep it in the down low. They get mad at me, but I'm not the one that is their boss and I couldn't care less if they WFH.
- rayiner 3y ago
  > My vaguely populist take is that the pandemic, WFH/remote and hybrid gave the mass white collar class a taste of what the C-suite has had for years.. flexibility. That’s not populist at all. It’s just another example of the white collar class enjoying the benefits of technology and globalization while everyone else gets left behind: https://www.epi.org/blog/wage-inequality-continued-to-increase-in-2020-top-1-0-of-earners-see-wages-up-179-since-1979-while-share-of-wages-for-bottom-90-hits-new-low https://www.epi.org/blog/wage-inequality-continued-to-increa.... Before the pandemic, I already made a lot more money (as a lawyer) than my middle class neighbors. Now I also get to work from home three days a week, and get a lot more quality time with my kids, while they have to go to work every day because their jobs aren’t knowledge work. Obviously, management versus other white collar workers is one class dividing line that exists. But work from home is a good example if the fact that on many important dimensions, such as work conditions and generational mobility,[1] those groups are in the same class. [1] CEOs are obviously richer than say accountants of engineers. But in the US, CEOs largely come from the class of these white collar professionals. In that sense, they’re in the same class as most other societies understand the concept.
  - steveBK123 3y ago
    You could argue its not populist but we can say its like 10% vs 1%. That said, some COVID era stats showed 50% of working population doing at least 1 day remote.. and 50% is pretty much right in the middle of middle class and fairly populist-ish? Something like 30%+ are still remote/hybrid today in 2023, so this isn't precisely an elite-only thing ..
  - reaperducer 3y ago
    It’s just another example of the white collar class enjoying the benefits of technology and globalization while everyone else gets left behind There's a lot more to it than that. WFH has been a godsend for a millions of people who work full-time, but are also poor. I drove for Uber for a while when I was between jobs. The majority of the people I carted around were people who thought Uber was a godsend because they were too poor to save for a car, and Uber allowed them to have a job that didn't involve manual or skilled labor they couldn't perform. People like call center operators, and medical coders (which is not the same thing as computer coding), and other jobs that aren't suitable for machines, and often done in a cube farm. The pandemic sent all those people into WFH, and many of their companies found that the price of equipping their people with a laptop and headset was cheaper than paying rent on cubical space. Now those working poor can put the expense of Uber into saving for a car, or buying clothes for their children, or any of the assorted other things that people need every day. For millions of people, WFH is a helping hand out of poverty.
- pc86 3y ago
  I think the boiled frog is a perfect analogy. I grew up always assuming there would be a long commute. I couldn't afford to move out of my parents house for almost a year out of school in my first job (2008 making less than $30k/yr) so I spent 7 or 8 months driving an hour each way. I'm too young to remember but my dad spent the first few years of my life and several before that commuting 2 hours one way. Spending at least 30 minutes each way driving was just assumed.
  - steveBK123 3y ago
    Yes, also the typical career cycle in HCOL areas is you are 22 and live in a dumpy apartment with roommates but close to work. You maybe couple up with someone by 30 and get a nicer place a bit further, but still within a 20-40min transit commute. Finally you maybe decide to start a family by 40, and move out to somewhere 40-60min commute, if not further. Each step is just a small increment worse. But when you go from remote back to the worst level, it's jarring. Objectively, transit has also gotten worse in some cities (NYC, DC) since COVID and still not recovered. So we are also returning to something worse than where we left it!
    - nequo 3y ago
      In what way is transit worse in NYC and DC? Are trains and buses running on a sparser schedule today in these two cities than they were before COVID?
      - pschw 3y ago
        In the case of the LIRR: https://gothamist.com/news/lirr-riders-still-miffed-over-jamaica-transfer-after-mta-tweaks-schedules-for-grand-central-madison https://gothamist.com/news/lirr-riders-still-miffed-over-jam... https://nypost.com/2023/03/06/hell-on-wheels-bklyn-shuttles-longer-trains-still-leave-lirr-riders-fuming/ https://nypost.com/2023/03/06/hell-on-wheels-bklyn-shuttles-...
      - steveBK123 3y ago
        Well DC I know they had some serious train defects that took trains/lines out of service for repairs for some time and caused capacity reductions. https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2022/09/22/metro-7000-series-silver-line/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2022/09/22/met... NYC they are running fewer trains so even if overall ridership is down, the trains are as crowded or more crowded than ever. Further in NYC due to homeless/migrant population growth falling through the cracks, the subway ends up being the shelter of last resort. Finally violent crime on the subway increased substantially over covid, and while down is still not at 2019 levels. So while waiting longer for a train, you are more likely to be dealing with a general sense of crime/disorder/etc.
- Roark66 3y ago
  >My vaguely populist take is that the pandemic, WFH/remote and hybrid gave the mass white collar class a taste of what the C-suite has had for years.. flexibility. Exactly. I've been working 100% from home since 2017 (3 years before covid). I'd rather take a 50% paycut than go back to the office. Don't get me wrong. I did enjoy my life when I lived 15 min walk /5 min on a bike, from my job in a city. Before I got that job and I had to commute for 20 min I enjoyed it too. But WFH beats that by a mile. I can live wherever I want (where cost of living is a lot cheaper than central London). I can just go down to my kitchen and make myself proper food any time (although I still miss certain of my favourite restaurants). And most importantly, I get a lot more time to myself and I'm much more effective at my work. There is no chance in hell people like me will "go back to the office". Furthermore, companies that recognised the benefits early are reaping the benefits. Even just one. Having an order of magnitude larger talent pool by not limiting themselves to people from one place. In today's marker that is characterised by permanent skilled labour shortage I can't imagine stupidest way to shoot ones company in the foot than trying to force people to "get back to the office".
  - folkrav 3y ago
    I know I could get paid ~10-20% more somewhere else, but I stay where I am. I still make good money, I like my job and the people well enough, it's fully remote, and the quality of life of being able to take care of my 5yo son after/before school, and being present to see my expecting baby as he grows up in between meetings, instead of through messaging and photo share, is IMHO well worth the pay cut.
  - rqtwteye 3y ago
    " I'd rather take a 50% paycut than go back to the office." People should stop saying this. Otherwise it will soon be the standard to take a serious paycut for WFH. .
    - coryfklein 3y ago
      Not with unemployment where it is. Instead it's more likely that companies will offer more money to software engineers to compensate for a must-commute policy.
- ghaff 3y ago
  In my experience, VP+ level also maybe spend half the year on the road and are commonly on 10pm calls with e.g. customers and general managers in Asia. Certainly they're usually well-compensated but they're not spending their days by the swimming pool in their villa either. I suspect that a lot of people reading this would hate the job even if they could do it well.
  - steveBK123 3y ago
    Sure. I write this as someone who works 12-14hrs/day and sporadically over the weekend, but I do it all remote from home & am well compensated so I am happy with the trade. However - I think some of the CEO class defenders shouldn't delude themselves as to why these people have 5 homes. It is not because they take a paltry 15 days paid time off per year in which they use those homes. They have the flexibility to dictate their schedule, and they use that flexibility to be where they want, when they want. At one fund I worked they Dual-HQd NYC & Miami (plus they all keep a Greenwich footprint) so that some of the execs could sleep outside NY State for statutory 183 days/year and avoid NYS/NYC 10-15% income tax on high earners. Plus they maintained their country homes outside the city. If you make $5M/year, the 2nd/3rd/4th home start to pay for themselves with those economics. Sleep in Greenwich Friday to Tuesday. Monday work from CT office. Blade to midtown office Tuesday AM. Sleep in your condo Tuesday/Wednesday and then back to Greenwich Thursday night to work remote Friday. Next thing you know you're in Manhattan for a paltry 2 nights/week, maybe not even every week if you go do a Miami 2 weeks/month, or for majority of winter, etc.
  - ryandrake 3y ago
    I would be thrilled to have a job I hated for $5M a year. I would only have to bear it a year and I could retire.
- spaniard89277 3y ago
  If I had a small-medium company I would hand out money for renting coworking spaces. If enough people do this, coworking spaces will pop up more and more and compete to get the best deals. People who wants to WFH can pocket the difference and those who crave for socialization will have a place for such. A large company can probably do that with smaller offices or with setting up the coworking spaces themselves and renting the spaces left without occupants.
  - coffeebeqn 3y ago
    I don’t think people working from random coworking spaces solves the problems the execs imagine working from one office does
  - euniceee3 3y ago
    100% this. Remote first company and there are two offices. We get more done with in-person casual conversations than formal meetings. Our velocity from the office is significantly higher. I wish some of the other teams shared offices a few days per week. The commute is not bad when they are localized due to the team members having worked together in the past.
  - ghaff 3y ago
    And yet WeWork is probably going to end up out of business. Maybe if I didn't have any real estate footprint yet, I'd consider an all coworking spaces footprint. The more general problem is that, even if I were fine with driving into a local office, I probably wouldn't know anyone much less work with anyone there on a given day.
- thatfrenchguy 3y ago
  > US commuters might have had a boiled frog scenario where you slowly just get used to having a worse & worse commute as you age You never have to move to the exurbs though :)
  - ghaff 3y ago
    I like the exurbs. And my closest office--which I haven't spent a day in for at least the past 5 years--is basically in an exurb as well. (I go into our urban office more frequently for customer visits.)
- cowmix 3y ago
  My wife works for a big university and when the first "return to the office" pitch was happening, the head of HR for the whole org was on a Zoom and basically said, "If you are not back at work, you should be already. I love coming into campus and mingling with the students..." etc, etc. RIGHT at the moment, you could hear FedEX ringing his doorbell at his home. Insane.
- supergeek133 3y ago
  This is actually a decent take. Most of our C-Suite doesn't live near an office. Or, to be specific WE MOVED HQ to where they wanted to live. We have other VPs and whatnot who live not near an office, or have winter/summer homes they go back and forth from. Meanwhile our mandatory "3 days a week in the office" starts September.
  - steveBK123 3y ago
    Exactly. The guys who get to choose the office locations happen to choose ones that are good for the locations of their home(s). Also, a reminder that C-suite guys that have multiple homes do in fact actually use those multiple homes. How do they do so? They have flexibility!
  - fbdab103 3y ago
    We installed a helicopter pad so our leadership could literally fly to/from his condo.
- notyourwork 3y ago
  This is a really good take. I have some experience with it though I'm not a C-Suite person. Over my 15 years of software engineering I've always had a job that had flexibility to let me work the way I wanted. Some offices and some buildings were worse than others but in general I was always able to set my hours, work from home or from a random place (i.e. coffee shop, park, mall, whatever) as I saw fit. There were always times I needed to be present in person and I never scoffed at those. What I found recently, is employers are trying to shift from one extreme (fully remote) to the other. I hope we land back in the middle because I'm happiest when no one tells me what to do. I want to be treated like an adult and measured on merit and performance, not physical attendance.
  - esafak 3y ago
    That's because it's the worst of both worlds. If you have to go into a particular office you are still geographically chained. Hybrid only makes sense if you can go to an office that is near you; e.g., a coworking space.
- mlinhares 3y ago
  100% this. In most places I worked the C-levels were not in the office most of the time, when there were multiple offices they would mostly visit the ones closer to their homes and for the usual "weekly/monthly conversations with c-levels" they'd be at their homes or second homes zooming in. One remote work hater I really like to listen to is Scott Galloway, that keeps on harping that remote work is horrible but doesn't even live in the same country where he's running his business anymore. Flexibility for me but not for thee.
- lumost 3y ago
  My 2 cents, companies are effectively asking to increase working hours by 5-10 hours per week for most workers assuming a 30-60 minute commute each way. Many employers will try lure workers away from the office with remote work. These firms may offset any hypothetical productivity costs with lower wages. Some engineers will prioritize remote for the larger employer pool, and others will prioritize in-person for greater social connection. We'll see what happens in 20 years. But my money is on a resurgence of the rural village and a lot of empty office towers.
- jasmer 3y ago
  [dead]
- alexpotato 3y ago
  > I was listening to a podcast and they observed that US commuters might have had a boiled frog scenario where you slowly just get used to having a worse & worse commute as you age.. and COVID snapped everyone out of it cold turkey. Now attempting to go back to it is revolting for many. This is a key part of the discussion. Pre-covid, I spent ~90 minutes one way to get to the office (this included a transfer from train to subway + 10 minute walk) and used to do it every day. At the time, I thought nothing of it since it was time to read/write code/watch a movie etc. Now, I find it hard to imagine I spent ~3 hours/day commuting but part of me also misses the time to myself but it's balanced out by seeing the kids more etc.
yungporko 3y ago
yep, i don't care if they give me an entire palace. unless it's attached to my home, i am not going there. if my job requires me to be at the office, i will say "no" and then get another job.
- hdjjhhvvhga 3y ago
  > unless it's attached to my home, i am not going there Why on Earth would you accept an office attached to your home?! Seems like the worst of all options...
  - syndicatedjelly 3y ago
    In English, they're using that sentence as a figure of speech meaning that they just want to host their own office, inside of or attached to their house.
  - ljf 3y ago
    Before covid - we built a shed/bar/office/playroom that I thought I'd get to work in 1 day a week, which is what felt acceptable for whf at the time. During covid having a place I can shut the door on at the end of the day, was amazing. I watched friends work from kitchen tables, while I had my own office in the garden. For a while it did 'spoil' it as a playroom/fun room - but I pretty quickly learnt to make it work for me. Having an office attached to your house is amazing (and is the largest drag for me returning to the office).
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- CoastalCoder 3y ago
  That was my take as well. But I've been looking for work for 4 months, and it's a hard line to hold. Fully remote jobs have gotten scarcer, and there's more competition for them thanks to this year's layoffs.
kjkjadksj 3y ago
See if I lived five minutes walk from work, I’d want to be in the office even less. Why sit there between meetings if I am five minutes from my home? Why bag a lunch when my kitchen is down the block? I’d probably show face at the obligate meetings then just go home for the day if I could.
- shortrounddev2 3y ago
  I used to live 5mins from work. The office catered lunch every day, but I still went home every day to eat lunch with my wife instead. Hated being at that place
  - dack 3y ago
    even if you like the place, hard to beat lunch with the wife
    - CoastalCoder 3y ago
      I don't mean this as cras, but even better is "lunch" with the wife. I.e., when the two of you are finally home alone and awake, because school is in session. I suspect for some marriages, WFH has been a real blessing.
      - lampshades 3y ago
        And for other marriages, WFH has been a disaster. I know so many people who have ended up divorced after they were both WFH everyday.
        CoastalCoder 3y ago
        Yeah, it's sad. I didn't mean to imply that WFH was a net positive for every couple.
        midoridensha 3y ago
        Things like this make me thing the idea of basing society on monogamous marriage is unrealistic and doomed to failure. It only worked in the past when work prevented couples from spending much time together, and social pressures prevented them from separating.
shortrounddev2 3y ago
Personally, the commute is secondary. I hate being at the office. The office could be right next door to me and I still wouldn't want to go. Offices are cold, sterile, mentally unstimulating environments of constant surveillance. I never want to go into another one ever again
- swader999 3y ago
  Constant surveillance. It really is like that.
  - jowdones 3y ago
    Surveillance is my main objection too, although my commute from suburbs to city center takes 3 hours per day if I have to do that. But at home I have side projects or learning projects. I get the 3 hours back and can spread them throughout the day. One hour in the morning, another one when I'm bored or tired of the job etc. If I go to the office it's nothing but a rather unappealing job domain and nothing else. Too tired in the evening to learn anything anymore, too stressed and still sleepy in the morning as well. So fuck the office, they'd have to pay me 50% more to compensate for the time lost in transit and I would still not take it.
  - chaostheory 3y ago
    It doesn't end with WFH especially if your work computer is a Windows box. Not sure how much MS telemetry collects, but it tends to be on in org managed windows computers
    - giantrobot 3y ago
      Joke's on them, my work laptop hasn't checked in with the company DC in months. They don't know what I'm doing (besides tickets and commits)! Though this means all sorts of shit trying to use my AD account is broken. Hooray Windows!
- criddell 3y ago
  That’s the benefit of having your own office — you can make it comfortable. In mine I have music playing, I have a guitar for when I need to stop thinking about a problem, I have a bookshelf of books I love, I have a plant I care for, I have my own whiteboard, I have artwork, I have a balance board, and (fortunately) I have an amazing view. When I need a break, I can close my door to read, watch something, call a friend, or take a nap. Now I don’t find myself watching videos, napping, or playing guitar all that often, but I don’t when I’m working from home either.
danaris 3y ago
I'm massively in favor of WFH—but I think this is a bit of an absolutist take. I can see plenty of people who are enjoying WFH, but would be willing to return to the office if they no longer had to work in a cube farm, but could have their own private office, that they could decorate to their taste, and where they could play their own music. And, perhaps most importantly, have a door that they could keep closed so that if anyone wants to interrupt them, they actually have to knock first. As someone who has done a 30-minute commute to a cube farm, a 45-minute and a 5-minute commute to a private office, and WFH, there's basically no reasonable amount of money you could pay me to go back to a cube farm, but if I didn't have specific personal reasons for wanting to remain fully remote, I would be very willing to consider another job in a private office.
- zer8k 3y ago
  > if they no longer had to work in a cube farm, A cube farm is massively preferable to open offices. I never want to go back to working in an office but I especially never want to go back to an open office. The mixture of seeming too available, loud people all over the place, zero privacy, etc were revolting to me.
  - syndicatedjelly 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - zer8k 3y ago
      I was responding to the comparison being offered. The reality is there are few companies that offer individual offices and a lot of real estate that exists for open offices. It's not a false dichotomy because by-and-large it is the dichotomy. The cube farms from 1990 were just converted to open offices by removing the barriers. To be honest, in my career in tech, I've never even seen a closed-office setup.
  - danaris 3y ago
    Oh, for sure—I've just only experienced the cube farm and the private office, so that's all I can personally speak to.
welder 3y ago
> Those who are happy to return to the office in general are those who do not like WFH and prefer more contacts and a change of scenery. Or those with distractions at home. They can WFS, but I can see them being ok returning to an official office.
cdme 3y ago
There's nothing an office can provide me that's better than the moments I have during the WFH day with our infant son as he grows.
- xyzzy4747 3y ago
  Same, I have a 2 month old son. Nothing could bring me back to the office (extremely unrealistic compensation figures aside).
  - cdme 3y ago
    Congrats! Ours is 7 months and being there for everything has been a joy.
lanstin 3y ago
I don't know, I worked in the 90s when I had a private office and it was very nice compared to the shitholes being offered now. To be sure salaries were like 25% of what they are now, but the thing I like about WFH, the ability to close the door and pace around and think, and also to start to research some topics and get a pile of articles and books, and then forget about them, and then come back in a few days with my former mental state roughly reflected in the physical arrangement of the documents, making it easier to weave things together in kicking ideas around/brainstormy kind of way, was very much present in the private office. It's not like people didn't wander around and chat and overhear what things were going on, but we had the ability to focus as needed. I think a nice office would be a good inducement.
skramzy 3y ago
My office is across the street. I can see it from my window and still never go in.
- fernandotakai 3y ago
  mine is 10min bike ride. i still go only once a week. why? because i have more comfort, more silence and, most important, more privacy, at home.
sh1mmer 3y ago
I miss the commute that was my ~20m morning bike ride (now I have to motivate myself). I don’t really miss the commute that was 20m on transit but it was ok. I really don’t miss the commute that was 45-60m+ in traffic (even the times I was on a work shuttle). I could do an office again though if it weren’t too far from home. Working from home can be strangely lonely, maybe I should just be better about organizing co-working with friends virtually or in person.
ibejoeb 3y ago
Many people with families, or even just DINKS, would opt for private offices. Unless you've got a giant home with private space, working at the same time and while your home life goes on around you is pretty bad.
- CoastalCoder 3y ago
  My home isn't huge, just a raised ranch. But I was able to build a soundproofed office in a corner of my basement and it's worked like a charm.
  - ibejoeb 3y ago
    I was in an airport a few weeks ago and saw a new array of soundproof "phone" booths fitted with laptop stands and high-output lighting, and it occurred to me that I should have started a business building and selling those over the past 3 years. Anyway, I'm thinking more about city dwellers who generally live in apartments.
    - philwelch 3y ago
      > Anyway, I'm thinking more about city dwellers who generally live in apartments. That’s a lifestyle that makes significantly less sense for remote workers in the long run though.
      - ibejoeb 3y ago
        I'm with you. But a lot of people still want to live in the city and not go to the office. So, I'm suggesting that, for that cohort, dedicated private offices might be compelling. It means that you probably have a short commute; you can reclaim space in your home that might have been used for work; still live in city and have access to the social offerings there; and that you retain your privacy, and potentially have even more if the case that you're co-habitating.
        velosol 3y ago
acdha 3y ago
For me, the commute is a short bike or train ride. It’s actually enjoyable but I still don’t want to go into the office for exactly the reason given: cubicles suck. The distraction, poor lighting, noise, etc. are a poor fit for any sort of work which isn’t constantly talking to everyone in the same room. I think the sweet spot is at most 2-3 people in a space. That could work well collaboratively if they do the same thing but not if there are going to be lots of conflicting meetings.
ravenstine 3y ago
There is a lot of truth to what you are saying, but I don't entirely agree. I think I would be more amenable to working at an office if the experience felt like more than being in a high school computer lab. "Just wear headphones", imo, is not an adequate response to complaints of the office being noisy. Want me to stay in the office longer? Uninstall that piece of shit kombucha tap or sparkling water dispenser (neither of which are even operational most of the time) and replace it with another fridge so I don't have to cram my food into the one fridge shared by the entire building. Make an adequate number of power outlets available. Don't provide free snacks and then eliminate them to cut costs. If I have a designated spot, do your best not to move me around every few months. Yet every office I have worked in embodies various failures that diminish the experience, making it hard to deny that working at home can be a lot better for many people. How am I supposed to feel dignity in my line of work as a senior engineer when I don't even get my own cubicle; meanwhile, people I know who make a third of my salary get their own cubes! And these companies are wondering why their employees would rather build their own private office at home? Are you kidding me? I don't even need a corner office with a door that closes and a personal secretary. Just give me something more than what I would get working out of a Starbucks, and allow me to feel like the professional I am, as opposed to a replaceable cog, which is everything the modern tech workplaces symbolizes.
hangonhn 3y ago
> People who like WFH will never want to return to the office unless perhaps the office is a 5 minute walk from home At my current job, there's something ironic about that. The people who never come back to the office despite being allowed to are also the people who live the closest to the office. (We have a big office that allows people to come back but is totally optional. Hotel desks for the entire office basically.) I asked one of them why he doesn't come in and he told me, "The reason I moved so close to the office in the first place is so I can minimize my commute. Now that I don't have to, why would I do the commute at all?" I think some people are just completely dead set against commuting or even working from an office. Another coworker told me, "Do you know how great this is? I can do my laundry in between meetings." From my experience, my employer's current situation is probably the most accommodating policy. If you want to work in an office, you can. If you don't, you don't have to. I do have coworkers who are actually suffering a bit from lack of interaction with other people but I think those people are starting to trickle back into the office for no other reason than for the socialization and interaction.
- marcosdumay 3y ago
  A lot of people at my workplace use the office as a second "base" where they can settle for the day and is close to a lot of things. Since I live close to it, I never even though about doing this. And of course, the people that live the furthest away get the most value out of it. So, yeah, it's probably a very strong correlation, and not only for negative reasons.
  - ghaff 3y ago
    If I could walk to an office I'd probably do it now and then. But at a 30 minute drive (to an office where I wouldn't know anyone at this point) I'm not going to bother.
- lostdog 3y ago
  > Hotel desks for the entire office basically. So your office is crappy? Similar story for my office. It's very close, but the facilities people made it terrible to work from. Why go in when I would get half as much work done?
unsupp0rted 3y ago
It's not the commute that stops me- it's the "being on". At home I don't have to dress a certain way, sit a certain way, eat a certain way, etc At home I'm either working or not working. I don't have to wear my public face. Wearing a public face is, if not tiring, at least irritating, like a mild itch you're not allowed to scratch, even though you could, but you shouldn't.
- BluePen7 3y ago
  For me I'm the exact opposite. Didn't mind working in the office, it was nice enough, coworkers are all friendly. But having to live anywhere near my office in a high COL area means I was priced out of affording even a 500 square foot apartment. Going remote meant that same salary bought me a newly built detached 6 bedroom house. I didn't mind the office, I minded being a poor renter instead of upper middle class. Office inconveniences pale in comparison.
  - unshavedyak 3y ago
    Yea, i loathe the commute but i also can't afford to live 5min from an office even if i wanted to.. which i most definitely don't. I want to own some small acreage (2-10 acres depending), a big enough house for a guest room and two offices, etc.
uberduper 3y ago
Yup. If I had a 10 minute or less commute and decent coffee at the office, I'd have no major objections. But I have a 45 minutes with zero traffic (1.5hr+ with traffic) commute and Seattle's Best essence of ashtray coffee.
awslattery 3y ago
> unless perhaps the office is a 5 minute walk from home WFH for 2012-2023 here. With our first home purchase in 2018 being on the smaller size, and the introduction of our first child to the family in 2021, I started keeping an eye on nearby options. In March of 2023, a perfect little spot opened up that could support me and another employee in the same town. Pitched it to our small company, and now I have a dedicated office that is a 4 minute walk away. Cannot stress enough how impactful those few minutes are (or more, if I need to decompress more than normal) are for separation of concern between home life and work, especially with young children in the picture. Still get to enjoy lunch with stay-at-home wife and kiddo almost everyday. It also shares property with a great pizzeria and one of the best taproom/bottleshops in town, which is a great perk beyond my waistline and liver... looking forward to taking the new bike to the nearby bike trail when it isn't 110° everyday.
- lampshades 3y ago
  What kind of space did you find and how did you pitch it? The other employee lived in the same town already? I'd like to do this as well.
  - awslattery 3y ago
    > What kind of space did you find It is a rather unique build done by a lawyer-turned-metalworks artist a little more than a decade ago. Multiple units with adjoining walls, each with a private patio, minisplits, and a rather raw aesthetic. Very high ceilings, plenty of outlets of various voltages/amperages available. Our neighbor makes bespoke cycling bags and such. Other tenants range from retail and services to private offices. > and how did you pitch it? The founder of the company lived here for many years, and paid for coworking access pre-COVID when it was still a startup (now general cloud/software consultancy for public health agencies and the like). WFH and the vacation of many of our decent coworking spaces due to COVID took a toll on him, and moved to PHL about a year ago for a change of scenery / be closer to some of our larger clients. With that context, it was pretty easy to pitch it as a physical "hub" for him when he visits family/friends, myself, and our other employee who lives in the same town. We still have a good physical location for our corporate entity, and the cost difference between 3x coworking offices at post-COVID rates was not too much for him to stomach. > The other employee lived in the same town already? Yes! We had become good acquaintances for a few years before COVID as he worked remotely for an organization in Ireland from the same coworking space. When COVID hit, his team were among the first to be cut, and as his skills meant I would no longer be overextended between cloud and frontend, it was one of the easiest hires we've made to date.
smashface 3y ago
Basically this. If companies want people back in the office when they could WFH instead, they're going to have to compensate them, time and costs, for the commute.
- screwturner68 3y ago
  when unemployment goes to 7% they won't be compensating for a damn thing and WFH will be a thing of the past.
lost_tourist 3y ago
Yeah, no way I can afford to move closer to work when condos/houses nearby are 1.5 million. I will continue to work from home or they can find someone else. I don't mind the office, I do mind the 2 hours lost from my day, 5 days a week.
Brusco_RF 3y ago
Respectfully, this is an example of rigid thinking that isn't productive or accurate. Apply marginal thinking the way economists do. People's propensity to return to the office falls on a spectrum ranging from 0 ( the people who are already back in their cubicles ) to 9 ( "You'll need a SWAT team to get me back to the office" ). A 5 on that scale is a marginal worker. Provide an incentive for them to return, like a nice office, and they become a 4 and return to the office. Now give a nice office to a population of 1000 workers who are distributed evenly over the above spectrum. They all move down by 1, and about 1/10th of them return to the office. Saying "People who like WFH will never want to return to the office" is only true of the 8's and 9's, not of the marginal worker. They are the ones who respond to incentives.
- regularfry 3y ago
  Depends on the distribution though, doesn't it. My personal hunch is that it's strongly bimodal, and that there actually aren't that many in the middle.
  - Brusco_RF 3y ago
    I agree with that point but disagree about the distribution. I myself am a 5, I go in about half the time. Obviously we can only speculate about others
- eschneider 3y ago
  It's much more "offer me work SO rewarding, the commute is worth it" or "money SO good, it makes the commute worth it." Office amenities probably won't get if done, as many folks can just setup the home office the way they want it, or at least as well as most private offices.
  - Brusco_RF 3y ago
    For me it's the colleagues. Rubbing elbows with people much smarter and further in their careers than I am is worth making the ~20 min commute. But any incentive provides the same effect.
tiborsaas 3y ago
I'm not required to return to the office. Despite having a whole floor rented for us, I rarely go in. It's only 20 min via public transport so time is not a big deal for me. That minimal movement would be even healthy. My main issue is the dining in the area. Mostly office blocks and all options are rather poor in quality. Ordering is also something I don't want because I'm too cheap to pay the premium price. So yeah, it's almost 6PM, I'm at home and starving still because I was lazy to cook. I think the reason is my team is fully remote for me. Not having to worry about food would be nice :)
dougmwne 3y ago
For me a nicer office would change my mind and I have worked in that office before. Allow me to reminisce: Was working in DC on Capitol Hill. Had a 30 minute bike ride to work right down the center of the national mall. Had a private office half the size of my apartment with a really comfy couch and a few well worn armchairs. Coworkers brought their dogs and one liked to sit on my feet under the desk. Office was chock full of interesting people, activists, authors, photographers, lawmakers wealthy folks, connected folks. After a few hours working on the databases and maybe getting roped into some tech support in the Capitol building, the CEO would grab a beer from the keg which was the signal for the rest of us that the afternoon had become wet. Then I would meet up with friends for some kickball on the Mall, then swing back through the office after a few hours at the bar for a nightcap. Very occasionally I slept over on the couch but there was a shower in the office and I kept a few changes of clothes there so it was all good.
o1y32 3y ago
My data point: I live 10 minutes walk from my office, the campus has a cafeteria, and I have my own office. Still I don't want to be forced to come into office, simply because I feel more comfortable and relaxed at home. It is a quiet place, I don't want to random interruptions from colleagues, and I can take a nap on my comfortable bed if needed, none of which can be offered in the office. Having prepared food is nice but not as important.
- devmunchies 3y ago
  > simply because I feel more comfortable and relaxed at home this core preference in environment and vibe is the main difference between the 2 camps. I was desperate to be in an office where there was a buzz of high energy and a go, go, go environment like skydivers jumping out of a plane. Would still prefer a private office though so get deep focus when necessary. Not sure if its nature or nurture, since I grew up doing team sports year round.
kergonath 3y ago
Some people like both and are happy with some balance. It’s nice not to have to commute, but it’s also nice to see colleagues and have a place to work outside home.
highwaylights 3y ago
This is the correct answer. I'd much rather just find another job entirely than come back to an office, and I imagine a lot of people feel the same. I think part of the problem is that a lot of companies don't really appreciate what people would be giving up, or that they see much less value in it than the people they're trying to convince. You'd need to offer something pretty special just to compensate for the cost of the commute, let alone the time lost (which for a lot of people is significant).
dventimi 3y ago
Well...it might change some people's minds
Un1corn 3y ago
My office is half an hour by foot from my house and yet I prefer to work from home exactly for this reason. Maybe in America where the commute can become ridiculous quickly it's a problem but here I just take an e-scooter if I don't want to walk. A better office would certainly make me come to the office more. But to be fair, even the CEO doesn't have his own office currently so I don't expect any of us to get one soon.
IKantRead 3y ago
I suspect many people on HN have never had a proper office with a door. While I do agree with your overall premise, having had offices at multiple roles over my career, it is a major improvement over cubicles and open office. Having a space to work in complete, uninterrupted quiet is wonderful. The simple social signal of the door being opened or close implying availability to chat works great to balancing heads down time and chat with colleagues time. Have a white board of your own that you can stare at throughout the course of a project, that evolves with discussions has not be replicated yet either remote or in a shared space. You can also get pretty wild with customizing an office for comfort. I used to know many people that brought their own lighting in, completely solving the problem of constant overhead fluorescence. And brewing your coffee the way you like it in your own space in the afternoon is very refreshing. Even given all that I'm sure many people would still prefer remote work (I would at this point), but I can image a fairly large number of people that would be very interested in a set up like this. It also mean your home is completely work free again.
- the_gipsy 3y ago
  Exactly! I used to work at a place where we had a proper office for each team, about 2-4 people in each room per day because WFH was a (real) option. I actually enjoyed going to that office because it was very quiet and I didn't have a proper workspace at home. My commute was ~30mins with a motorcycle. Yes, sometimes the A/C or the lighting must be compromised with other coworkers, but that's still okay if you get to socialize in exchange. The major aspect was obviously noise. But I also felt dignified in that office. It was not status like C-Suite offices, just feeling a nice environment instead of being crammed in a chicken coop.
- giantrobot 3y ago
  > I suspect many people on HN have never had a proper office with a door. In my time at Apple I had a real office with a real door for about half of my time. Of that only about half was an office I didn't have to share with someone else. The lone offices were the most productive I ever was while working there. I could close the door and go unbothered for hours. I turned off the lights and had my own lamp that was much more comfortable. Sharing an office with coworkers wasn't bad on its face but it's difficult to focus if the other person is talking with someone else. It's all manageable but objectively worse than a single office. The open floor plan at Apple Park was just fucking horrible. Constant distractions all day. Sure you could collaborate but when trying to actually get work done it was in spite of a hundred visual and audible distractions. I'm sure I distracted others inadvertently as well. A giant spaceship of a campus and they couldn't manage to give everyone a private space. Just the stupidest design for a building.
jacobsenscott 3y ago
I'm all for work from home, and have doing it for over 10 years, but we shouldn't ignore the cost of donating an entire room of your house to your employer (two in my case since my wife also wfh). Certainly this should factor into your total comp calculation as -(rent amount in your area). Likely it is more than you would spend on the commute. Employers are well aware they are colonizing your private space for free. You are also cleaning /stocking/ maintaining this area for them for free. They are laughing all the way to the bank.
- chaostheory 3y ago
  That used to be federally tax deductible, but now it probably depends on your state since the tax deduction rules seemed to have changed during the lockdowns.
- jjk166 3y ago
  If you went into the office, you'd still be paying for your empty rooms. While spending more time at home may lead to a marginal increase in expenses for utilities, compared to the cost of commuting they would be a rounding error.
13of40 3y ago
The thing that kills it for me is that where I work, before COVID it was a massive faux pas to schedule a meeting before 10:00 AM, but now I typically have multiple invites side-by-side at 9:00. In the past I could get to my office, grab some coffee, catch up on email, etc. before the grind started, but everything's been pushed back an hour and it's not coming back. So if I was getting up at 6:00 to fit in my morning routine, now I have to get up at 5:00. The other issue is that we're a lot more globally distributed now. The 9:00 I chose to go to today had nine other people in it. Three in India, one in the UK, one in BC, two in the midwest somewhere, and two permanent WFH. Meeting with these people is always going to mean putting on a headset and looking at a screen, no matter how diligent I am at getting in to the office every morning.
HWR_14 3y ago
A private office is very much something that causes me to toggle between wanting to WFH and go into the office. I hate open floorplans for working (fine if I'm walking around to get coffee or something). The biggest draw of WFH is that I don't have to put on headphones just to get some quiet time.
lezojeda 3y ago
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nsxwolf 3y ago
I've been WFH for 20 years. My family's life has been built around it including choice of schools, my wife's job, activities, etc. We own one car. If I were to take a job downtown, my wife would have to get a different job, we'd have to pay for some level of child care, arrange transportation for school, drop various activities, buy a second car so I could drive to the train station (which comes with maintenance, insurance, registration, etc). The amount of money that would make any of this worth it is not small. You'd have to cover the additional expenses and then write a big check on top to compensate for disrupting our way of life.
agumonkey 3y ago
I could see the coworking space take off a bit more, cause I have a colleague not far and we could walk/bike to a tiny cozy space to work on stuff out of sake of not staying at the same desk 24/7.
legohead 3y ago
If work gave me an office I would come in every day vs. the mandated twice a week we have. I worked for a company that gave everyone an office. Just long hallways of offices with floor to ceiling windows and a door. It was a startup that grew to 200 people and was the best job I've had, a large part due to the atmosphere, and part of that was the office setup. When my current workplace shutdown the office for covid, they sent out an email asking for suggestions for a new office setup. I told them to make everyone offices. We have a huge open floor and it wouldn't take much effort, just money. Money they are planning to spend anyway. Instead they raised the height of cubicle walls, added a ton of glass (disease spread fear I guess), and gave everyone whiteboards and motorized standup desks. Now on my required days in the office I am annoyed by the constant chatter and noises around me which I cannot escape even with headphones.
jen20 3y ago
I would be far more tempted to an office (and to reclaim a room for use as another guest bedroom in my house) if I had a private office. Open plan or shared offices are an absolute no, though.
jasonkester 3y ago
More to the point, The Office is in one place, whereas my workplace can by anywhere. So no matter how nice a place it is, and how close to my house you put it, it's never going to be right on that good right point break in Oaxaca where I like to spend my winters and also at the AirBnB next to Green Lake where I can visit my friends and family in the summer. It's also not in any of the other places I choose to set up shop at for a few months at a time to do my thing. So it doesn't matter that it has free food, a masseuse, and is in a really cool neighborhood where I'd actually like to spend some time. I still don't want to commit to living there 50 weeks a year. That's why I'm remote.
stefandesu 3y ago
I think this is exactly it. I liked working from home when I had a separate room for it and it saved me about an hour every day, but I've since moved to an apartment that's smaller, but also much closer to work, and I prefer the going to the office now. Having your own office does help though (I'm sharing with one other person who's only there once a week).
Natsu 3y ago
I can't go back. I have family to care for who need me at home and will suffer if I'm away. And that's even before I reclaim all the time during the day when there was no work I could be doing. I'm more productive, I find new ways to make myself valuable in some of that free time whereas in the office I'd just be bored out of my skull instead because I had to keep my butt in a seat to make someone happy. Fortunately my management is looking into downsizing leases and recouping savings instead of forcing people into the office. They've waffled a little about pulling people back in but they just aren't that serious about it in general.
unshavedyak 3y ago
Man, i loathe the commute. They want to take 10.5 hours of my time but pay me for 8. No thanks, i'm done with that as long as i have options.
theptip 3y ago
> A nicer office makes things better but it will not change people's minds on WFH. I suggest you consider behavior on the margin. Despite the fact that there are lots of people vocal about how much they love/hate RTO, there are also people that are indifferent or slightly prefer one or the other. Improvements in office quality will meaningfully persuade some number of people on the margin. It’s an open question how steep the curve is (ie how much office improvement required to persuade 1% of people to change their mind) but I think it’s myopic to just look at the partisans. All that said, sure, there is a nontrivial percentage who you couldn’t change their minds with something like a dedicated office. But I think your claim is too strong that it’s binary and all WFH likers will not be persuaded by this proposal.
tkiolp4 3y ago
It’s not just that. With a WFH policy I can work for companies in Munich living in a town in northern Germany. That’s the big deal of remote work for me. Being limited to the companies that are located in the same city you live is a huge downside.
jjk166 3y ago
Friendly reminder that if you work an 8 hour day and you have a 24 minute one-way commute (average US commute is 27.6), WFH is equivalent to a 10% raise just from the elimination of commute time. Realistically, with the various conveniences and avoided expenses, it's likely closer to a 20% raise for most people. That employers aren't jumping for joy that they can offer such a massive benefit for essentially free (if not save money themselves) is astounding.
gofreddygo 3y ago
very relevant thread. I stepped in my work office building for the very first time in years (switched jobs mid-pandemic). I spent 2 hours 16 mins in my car burning fossil fuel that I paid out of pocket, extra 40 mins prepping and unwinding, consumed more sugar and caffeine than I usually would working from home, re-scheduled a meeting because of the commute and feel more tired. Its not good for the environment, bad for my company and terrible for me. It's clear, forcing a commute is an implicit paycut.
jjav 3y ago
> A nicer office makes things better but it will not change people's minds on WFH. Disagree with caveats. A nice private office makes a world of difference. I'll do a lot (in time and/or money) to have a nice private office where I can actually work (which requires silence). Working remotely is awesome but not literally from home. With a family, that's too distracting. Since the pandemic, I rent a small private office walking distance from home. It's a great arrangement, I'm very close to the house, can walk or bike there, private window office. But the downside is that it costs money (lease, utilities, internet). And for meetings I'm still stuck in a little zoom box. If the company offered a nice private office, I'd take that. I'd save the costs and I could have a silent private space to work but still be able to step outside and have meetings in person. The tradeoff is a longer commute but as long as it's not too horrible, I'd take it.
gerl1ng 3y ago
I think it's not just black and white. My office is a 20 (tarmac) - 25 (forest) minutes bike ride. I don't have any problem working from home but if the weather isn't too bad I go to the office regulary - even if I sit there in the same remote meetings all day as I do at home. For me the change of the scenery and the "off" time by doing the commute are worth it. Going to move out of range of an office for this company in a year. Thinking about joining a coworking space then for it.
theGnuMe 3y ago
This is true until the recession which will force people back... and it will suck.
up2isomorphism 3y ago
Most of people do not want to work if they can get paid too. And there is no need for employers if RTO makes the overall productivity worse. RTO is really a decision made by the market not from a particular employer or employee.
the_watcher 3y ago
I like WFH for a lot of reasons, but the "I'm more productive" part of my claim is entirely related to the torture chamber that is the open floor plan office. If I had a private office, I'd no longer be able to honestly claim that I simply cannot be as effective in the office as at home.

lokar 3y ago

I had a private office at a large tech firm for many years. It was perfect for me, I would probably go back to the office for that setup. I’ll never go work in an open floor plan.

steveBK123 3y ago

My vaguely populist take is that the pandemic, WFH/remote and hybrid gave the mass white collar class a taste of what the C-suite has had for years.. flexibility. Sure, these guys might go into the office but they do so from their pied-a-terre / 3rd home / whatever within a 5 minute chauffeured drive. They do this while maintaining a nearby suburban/exurban estate and maybe a lake/beach/ski houses where they spend the majority of their actual hours. I was listening to a podcast and they observed that US commuters might have had a boiled frog scenario where you slowly just get used to having a worse & worse commute as you age.. and COVID snapped everyone out of it cold turkey. Now attempting to go back to it is revolting for many.

hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
[flagged]
- rwmj 3y ago
  He didn't say it wasn't a difficult job, just that the C-suite were always able to work flexibly, and afford to have a second flat next to the office (or in extreme cases, force the office to move near to their homes).
  - pc86 3y ago
    Not replying to you but the above comment got flagged before I responded and I already typed the comment up so I want to post it :) -- If we're specifically talking about large enterprises, these CEOs make more in a year than most Americans make their entire life. If you didn't live a Fortune 1000 CEO level lifestyle you could literally do the job for 4-6 months and retire, and that's ignoring the fact that they've typically been in the C-Suite making 20-50% of that salary for decades already. It's not often somebody living paycheck to paycheck is promoted into CEO. I've worked jobs in public companies where the CEO and half the C-Suite was driven to work every morning. I've worked jobs where a rank and file programmer got denied a raise because he left at 4 every day (despite working 8 or more hours every day) because the policy was to work 8-5, while the CEO worked from a vacation home when the weather wasn't nice where our HQ was. Whether the job is hard is irrelevant, all the GP is saying is that you have ultimate flexibility in that role, and now the poors have a taste of it too, and most of them/us aren't going to give it up without a fight.
steveBK123 3y ago
My favorite story on this thread is that during the hybrid period, GS CEO threw a fit when out in the Hamptons because some analyst (fairly junior role almost at the bottom) had the balls to go introduce themselves during a workday lunch at a restaurant. He couldn't articulate a specific, valid complaint like "I was out at a client lunch and they were goofing off" or "I was on a vacation day while they were supposed to be working". He was just mad that underlings had the same flexibility that he, as CEO, had always had. This being the same CEO who jets around DJing on the side for fun and has connections to do so at pretty high levels. So even the "cool CEO" is in fact, NOT cool. It's like getting mad at all the other idiots on the road making traffic, lol. What do you think you are?
- deleted 3y ago
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- flandish 3y ago
  This example is a stark reminder that the complaints are most often not about details but about class. The CEO was upset others were allowed to perform as if they were of the same class. It’s always class when one boils it down, imho.
  - steveBK123 3y ago
    Precisely. He couldn't put it into words because the words wouldn't have looked good. But the obvious complaint was what are these slobs doing in my summer resort town, dining in the same establishment as me!! Rather than stuck in downtown Manhattan in the August heat. Or - the least they could do is go to Coney Island / Jones Beach / Jersey Shore or something eating some hotdogs.
    - gitfan86 3y ago
      I have not run into this attitude in tech from executives. Finance is much more of a heiracy culture I guess. I have run into this at a peer level though. I've negotiated WFH and extra vacation and have learned to keep it in the down low. They get mad at me, but I'm not the one that is their boss and I couldn't care less if they WFH.
rayiner 3y ago
> My vaguely populist take is that the pandemic, WFH/remote and hybrid gave the mass white collar class a taste of what the C-suite has had for years.. flexibility. That’s not populist at all. It’s just another example of the white collar class enjoying the benefits of technology and globalization while everyone else gets left behind: https://www.epi.org/blog/wage-inequality-continued-to-increase-in-2020-top-1-0-of-earners-see-wages-up-179-since-1979-while-share-of-wages-for-bottom-90-hits-new-low https://www.epi.org/blog/wage-inequality-continued-to-increa.... Before the pandemic, I already made a lot more money (as a lawyer) than my middle class neighbors. Now I also get to work from home three days a week, and get a lot more quality time with my kids, while they have to go to work every day because their jobs aren’t knowledge work. Obviously, management versus other white collar workers is one class dividing line that exists. But work from home is a good example if the fact that on many important dimensions, such as work conditions and generational mobility,[1] those groups are in the same class. [1] CEOs are obviously richer than say accountants of engineers. But in the US, CEOs largely come from the class of these white collar professionals. In that sense, they’re in the same class as most other societies understand the concept.
- steveBK123 3y ago
  You could argue its not populist but we can say its like 10% vs 1%. That said, some COVID era stats showed 50% of working population doing at least 1 day remote.. and 50% is pretty much right in the middle of middle class and fairly populist-ish? Something like 30%+ are still remote/hybrid today in 2023, so this isn't precisely an elite-only thing ..
- reaperducer 3y ago
  It’s just another example of the white collar class enjoying the benefits of technology and globalization while everyone else gets left behind There's a lot more to it than that. WFH has been a godsend for a millions of people who work full-time, but are also poor. I drove for Uber for a while when I was between jobs. The majority of the people I carted around were people who thought Uber was a godsend because they were too poor to save for a car, and Uber allowed them to have a job that didn't involve manual or skilled labor they couldn't perform. People like call center operators, and medical coders (which is not the same thing as computer coding), and other jobs that aren't suitable for machines, and often done in a cube farm. The pandemic sent all those people into WFH, and many of their companies found that the price of equipping their people with a laptop and headset was cheaper than paying rent on cubical space. Now those working poor can put the expense of Uber into saving for a car, or buying clothes for their children, or any of the assorted other things that people need every day. For millions of people, WFH is a helping hand out of poverty.
pc86 3y ago
I think the boiled frog is a perfect analogy. I grew up always assuming there would be a long commute. I couldn't afford to move out of my parents house for almost a year out of school in my first job (2008 making less than $30k/yr) so I spent 7 or 8 months driving an hour each way. I'm too young to remember but my dad spent the first few years of my life and several before that commuting 2 hours one way. Spending at least 30 minutes each way driving was just assumed.
- steveBK123 3y ago
  Yes, also the typical career cycle in HCOL areas is you are 22 and live in a dumpy apartment with roommates but close to work. You maybe couple up with someone by 30 and get a nicer place a bit further, but still within a 20-40min transit commute. Finally you maybe decide to start a family by 40, and move out to somewhere 40-60min commute, if not further. Each step is just a small increment worse. But when you go from remote back to the worst level, it's jarring. Objectively, transit has also gotten worse in some cities (NYC, DC) since COVID and still not recovered. So we are also returning to something worse than where we left it!
  - nequo 3y ago
    In what way is transit worse in NYC and DC? Are trains and buses running on a sparser schedule today in these two cities than they were before COVID?
    - pschw 3y ago
      In the case of the LIRR: https://gothamist.com/news/lirr-riders-still-miffed-over-jamaica-transfer-after-mta-tweaks-schedules-for-grand-central-madison https://gothamist.com/news/lirr-riders-still-miffed-over-jam... https://nypost.com/2023/03/06/hell-on-wheels-bklyn-shuttles-longer-trains-still-leave-lirr-riders-fuming/ https://nypost.com/2023/03/06/hell-on-wheels-bklyn-shuttles-...
    - steveBK123 3y ago
      Well DC I know they had some serious train defects that took trains/lines out of service for repairs for some time and caused capacity reductions. https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2022/09/22/metro-7000-series-silver-line/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2022/09/22/met... NYC they are running fewer trains so even if overall ridership is down, the trains are as crowded or more crowded than ever. Further in NYC due to homeless/migrant population growth falling through the cracks, the subway ends up being the shelter of last resort. Finally violent crime on the subway increased substantially over covid, and while down is still not at 2019 levels. So while waiting longer for a train, you are more likely to be dealing with a general sense of crime/disorder/etc.
Roark66 3y ago
>My vaguely populist take is that the pandemic, WFH/remote and hybrid gave the mass white collar class a taste of what the C-suite has had for years.. flexibility. Exactly. I've been working 100% from home since 2017 (3 years before covid). I'd rather take a 50% paycut than go back to the office. Don't get me wrong. I did enjoy my life when I lived 15 min walk /5 min on a bike, from my job in a city. Before I got that job and I had to commute for 20 min I enjoyed it too. But WFH beats that by a mile. I can live wherever I want (where cost of living is a lot cheaper than central London). I can just go down to my kitchen and make myself proper food any time (although I still miss certain of my favourite restaurants). And most importantly, I get a lot more time to myself and I'm much more effective at my work. There is no chance in hell people like me will "go back to the office". Furthermore, companies that recognised the benefits early are reaping the benefits. Even just one. Having an order of magnitude larger talent pool by not limiting themselves to people from one place. In today's marker that is characterised by permanent skilled labour shortage I can't imagine stupidest way to shoot ones company in the foot than trying to force people to "get back to the office".
- folkrav 3y ago
  I know I could get paid ~10-20% more somewhere else, but I stay where I am. I still make good money, I like my job and the people well enough, it's fully remote, and the quality of life of being able to take care of my 5yo son after/before school, and being present to see my expecting baby as he grows up in between meetings, instead of through messaging and photo share, is IMHO well worth the pay cut.
- rqtwteye 3y ago
  " I'd rather take a 50% paycut than go back to the office." People should stop saying this. Otherwise it will soon be the standard to take a serious paycut for WFH. .
  - coryfklein 3y ago
    Not with unemployment where it is. Instead it's more likely that companies will offer more money to software engineers to compensate for a must-commute policy.
ghaff 3y ago
In my experience, VP+ level also maybe spend half the year on the road and are commonly on 10pm calls with e.g. customers and general managers in Asia. Certainly they're usually well-compensated but they're not spending their days by the swimming pool in their villa either. I suspect that a lot of people reading this would hate the job even if they could do it well.
- steveBK123 3y ago
  Sure. I write this as someone who works 12-14hrs/day and sporadically over the weekend, but I do it all remote from home & am well compensated so I am happy with the trade. However - I think some of the CEO class defenders shouldn't delude themselves as to why these people have 5 homes. It is not because they take a paltry 15 days paid time off per year in which they use those homes. They have the flexibility to dictate their schedule, and they use that flexibility to be where they want, when they want. At one fund I worked they Dual-HQd NYC & Miami (plus they all keep a Greenwich footprint) so that some of the execs could sleep outside NY State for statutory 183 days/year and avoid NYS/NYC 10-15% income tax on high earners. Plus they maintained their country homes outside the city. If you make $5M/year, the 2nd/3rd/4th home start to pay for themselves with those economics. Sleep in Greenwich Friday to Tuesday. Monday work from CT office. Blade to midtown office Tuesday AM. Sleep in your condo Tuesday/Wednesday and then back to Greenwich Thursday night to work remote Friday. Next thing you know you're in Manhattan for a paltry 2 nights/week, maybe not even every week if you go do a Miami 2 weeks/month, or for majority of winter, etc.
- ryandrake 3y ago
  I would be thrilled to have a job I hated for $5M a year. I would only have to bear it a year and I could retire.
spaniard89277 3y ago
If I had a small-medium company I would hand out money for renting coworking spaces. If enough people do this, coworking spaces will pop up more and more and compete to get the best deals. People who wants to WFH can pocket the difference and those who crave for socialization will have a place for such. A large company can probably do that with smaller offices or with setting up the coworking spaces themselves and renting the spaces left without occupants.
- coffeebeqn 3y ago
  I don’t think people working from random coworking spaces solves the problems the execs imagine working from one office does
- euniceee3 3y ago
  100% this. Remote first company and there are two offices. We get more done with in-person casual conversations than formal meetings. Our velocity from the office is significantly higher. I wish some of the other teams shared offices a few days per week. The commute is not bad when they are localized due to the team members having worked together in the past.
- ghaff 3y ago
  And yet WeWork is probably going to end up out of business. Maybe if I didn't have any real estate footprint yet, I'd consider an all coworking spaces footprint. The more general problem is that, even if I were fine with driving into a local office, I probably wouldn't know anyone much less work with anyone there on a given day.
thatfrenchguy 3y ago
> US commuters might have had a boiled frog scenario where you slowly just get used to having a worse & worse commute as you age You never have to move to the exurbs though :)
- ghaff 3y ago
  I like the exurbs. And my closest office--which I haven't spent a day in for at least the past 5 years--is basically in an exurb as well. (I go into our urban office more frequently for customer visits.)
cowmix 3y ago
My wife works for a big university and when the first "return to the office" pitch was happening, the head of HR for the whole org was on a Zoom and basically said, "If you are not back at work, you should be already. I love coming into campus and mingling with the students..." etc, etc. RIGHT at the moment, you could hear FedEX ringing his doorbell at his home. Insane.
supergeek133 3y ago
This is actually a decent take. Most of our C-Suite doesn't live near an office. Or, to be specific WE MOVED HQ to where they wanted to live. We have other VPs and whatnot who live not near an office, or have winter/summer homes they go back and forth from. Meanwhile our mandatory "3 days a week in the office" starts September.
- steveBK123 3y ago
  Exactly. The guys who get to choose the office locations happen to choose ones that are good for the locations of their home(s). Also, a reminder that C-suite guys that have multiple homes do in fact actually use those multiple homes. How do they do so? They have flexibility!
- fbdab103 3y ago
  We installed a helicopter pad so our leadership could literally fly to/from his condo.
notyourwork 3y ago
This is a really good take. I have some experience with it though I'm not a C-Suite person. Over my 15 years of software engineering I've always had a job that had flexibility to let me work the way I wanted. Some offices and some buildings were worse than others but in general I was always able to set my hours, work from home or from a random place (i.e. coffee shop, park, mall, whatever) as I saw fit. There were always times I needed to be present in person and I never scoffed at those. What I found recently, is employers are trying to shift from one extreme (fully remote) to the other. I hope we land back in the middle because I'm happiest when no one tells me what to do. I want to be treated like an adult and measured on merit and performance, not physical attendance.
- esafak 3y ago
  That's because it's the worst of both worlds. If you have to go into a particular office you are still geographically chained. Hybrid only makes sense if you can go to an office that is near you; e.g., a coworking space.
mlinhares 3y ago
100% this. In most places I worked the C-levels were not in the office most of the time, when there were multiple offices they would mostly visit the ones closer to their homes and for the usual "weekly/monthly conversations with c-levels" they'd be at their homes or second homes zooming in. One remote work hater I really like to listen to is Scott Galloway, that keeps on harping that remote work is horrible but doesn't even live in the same country where he's running his business anymore. Flexibility for me but not for thee.
lumost 3y ago
My 2 cents, companies are effectively asking to increase working hours by 5-10 hours per week for most workers assuming a 30-60 minute commute each way. Many employers will try lure workers away from the office with remote work. These firms may offset any hypothetical productivity costs with lower wages. Some engineers will prioritize remote for the larger employer pool, and others will prioritize in-person for greater social connection. We'll see what happens in 20 years. But my money is on a resurgence of the rural village and a lot of empty office towers.
jasmer 3y ago
[dead]
alexpotato 3y ago
> I was listening to a podcast and they observed that US commuters might have had a boiled frog scenario where you slowly just get used to having a worse & worse commute as you age.. and COVID snapped everyone out of it cold turkey. Now attempting to go back to it is revolting for many. This is a key part of the discussion. Pre-covid, I spent ~90 minutes one way to get to the office (this included a transfer from train to subway + 10 minute walk) and used to do it every day. At the time, I thought nothing of it since it was time to read/write code/watch a movie etc. Now, I find it hard to imagine I spent ~3 hours/day commuting but part of me also misses the time to myself but it's balanced out by seeing the kids more etc.

yungporko 3y ago

yep, i don't care if they give me an entire palace. unless it's attached to my home, i am not going there. if my job requires me to be at the office, i will say "no" and then get another job.

hdjjhhvvhga 3y ago
> unless it's attached to my home, i am not going there Why on Earth would you accept an office attached to your home?! Seems like the worst of all options...
- syndicatedjelly 3y ago
  In English, they're using that sentence as a figure of speech meaning that they just want to host their own office, inside of or attached to their house.
- ljf 3y ago
  Before covid - we built a shed/bar/office/playroom that I thought I'd get to work in 1 day a week, which is what felt acceptable for whf at the time. During covid having a place I can shut the door on at the end of the day, was amazing. I watched friends work from kitchen tables, while I had my own office in the garden. For a while it did 'spoil' it as a playroom/fun room - but I pretty quickly learnt to make it work for me. Having an office attached to your house is amazing (and is the largest drag for me returning to the office).
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
CoastalCoder 3y ago
That was my take as well. But I've been looking for work for 4 months, and it's a hard line to hold. Fully remote jobs have gotten scarcer, and there's more competition for them thanks to this year's layoffs.

kjkjadksj 3y ago

See if I lived five minutes walk from work, I’d want to be in the office even less. Why sit there between meetings if I am five minutes from my home? Why bag a lunch when my kitchen is down the block? I’d probably show face at the obligate meetings then just go home for the day if I could.

shortrounddev2 3y ago
I used to live 5mins from work. The office catered lunch every day, but I still went home every day to eat lunch with my wife instead. Hated being at that place
- dack 3y ago
  even if you like the place, hard to beat lunch with the wife
  - CoastalCoder 3y ago
    I don't mean this as cras, but even better is "lunch" with the wife. I.e., when the two of you are finally home alone and awake, because school is in session. I suspect for some marriages, WFH has been a real blessing.
    - lampshades 3y ago
      And for other marriages, WFH has been a disaster. I know so many people who have ended up divorced after they were both WFH everyday.
      - CoastalCoder 3y ago
        Yeah, it's sad. I didn't mean to imply that WFH was a net positive for every couple.
      - midoridensha 3y ago
        Things like this make me thing the idea of basing society on monogamous marriage is unrealistic and doomed to failure. It only worked in the past when work prevented couples from spending much time together, and social pressures prevented them from separating.

shortrounddev2 3y ago

Personally, the commute is secondary. I hate being at the office. The office could be right next door to me and I still wouldn't want to go. Offices are cold, sterile, mentally unstimulating environments of constant surveillance. I never want to go into another one ever again

swader999 3y ago
Constant surveillance. It really is like that.
- jowdones 3y ago
  Surveillance is my main objection too, although my commute from suburbs to city center takes 3 hours per day if I have to do that. But at home I have side projects or learning projects. I get the 3 hours back and can spread them throughout the day. One hour in the morning, another one when I'm bored or tired of the job etc. If I go to the office it's nothing but a rather unappealing job domain and nothing else. Too tired in the evening to learn anything anymore, too stressed and still sleepy in the morning as well. So fuck the office, they'd have to pay me 50% more to compensate for the time lost in transit and I would still not take it.
- chaostheory 3y ago
  It doesn't end with WFH especially if your work computer is a Windows box. Not sure how much MS telemetry collects, but it tends to be on in org managed windows computers
  - giantrobot 3y ago
    Joke's on them, my work laptop hasn't checked in with the company DC in months. They don't know what I'm doing (besides tickets and commits)! Though this means all sorts of shit trying to use my AD account is broken. Hooray Windows!
criddell 3y ago
That’s the benefit of having your own office — you can make it comfortable. In mine I have music playing, I have a guitar for when I need to stop thinking about a problem, I have a bookshelf of books I love, I have a plant I care for, I have my own whiteboard, I have artwork, I have a balance board, and (fortunately) I have an amazing view. When I need a break, I can close my door to read, watch something, call a friend, or take a nap. Now I don’t find myself watching videos, napping, or playing guitar all that often, but I don’t when I’m working from home either.

danaris 3y ago

I'm massively in favor of WFH—but I think this is a bit of an absolutist take. I can see plenty of people who are enjoying WFH, but would be willing to return to the office if they no longer had to work in a cube farm, but could have their own private office, that they could decorate to their taste, and where they could play their own music. And, perhaps most importantly, have a door that they could keep closed so that if anyone wants to interrupt them, they actually have to knock first. As someone who has done a 30-minute commute to a cube farm, a 45-minute and a 5-minute commute to a private office, and WFH, there's basically no reasonable amount of money you could pay me to go back to a cube farm, but if I didn't have specific personal reasons for wanting to remain fully remote, I would be very willing to consider another job in a private office.

zer8k 3y ago
> if they no longer had to work in a cube farm, A cube farm is massively preferable to open offices. I never want to go back to working in an office but I especially never want to go back to an open office. The mixture of seeming too available, loud people all over the place, zero privacy, etc were revolting to me.
- syndicatedjelly 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - zer8k 3y ago
    I was responding to the comparison being offered. The reality is there are few companies that offer individual offices and a lot of real estate that exists for open offices. It's not a false dichotomy because by-and-large it is the dichotomy. The cube farms from 1990 were just converted to open offices by removing the barriers. To be honest, in my career in tech, I've never even seen a closed-office setup.
- danaris 3y ago
  Oh, for sure—I've just only experienced the cube farm and the private office, so that's all I can personally speak to.

welder 3y ago

> Those who are happy to return to the office in general are those who do not like WFH and prefer more contacts and a change of scenery. Or those with distractions at home. They can WFS, but I can see them being ok returning to an official office.

cdme 3y ago

There's nothing an office can provide me that's better than the moments I have during the WFH day with our infant son as he grows.

xyzzy4747 3y ago
Same, I have a 2 month old son. Nothing could bring me back to the office (extremely unrealistic compensation figures aside).
- cdme 3y ago
  Congrats! Ours is 7 months and being there for everything has been a joy.

lanstin 3y ago

I don't know, I worked in the 90s when I had a private office and it was very nice compared to the shitholes being offered now. To be sure salaries were like 25% of what they are now, but the thing I like about WFH, the ability to close the door and pace around and think, and also to start to research some topics and get a pile of articles and books, and then forget about them, and then come back in a few days with my former mental state roughly reflected in the physical arrangement of the documents, making it easier to weave things together in kicking ideas around/brainstormy kind of way, was very much present in the private office. It's not like people didn't wander around and chat and overhear what things were going on, but we had the ability to focus as needed. I think a nice office would be a good inducement.

skramzy 3y ago

My office is across the street. I can see it from my window and still never go in.

fernandotakai 3y ago
mine is 10min bike ride. i still go only once a week. why? because i have more comfort, more silence and, most important, more privacy, at home.

sh1mmer 3y ago

I miss the commute that was my ~20m morning bike ride (now I have to motivate myself). I don’t really miss the commute that was 20m on transit but it was ok. I really don’t miss the commute that was 45-60m+ in traffic (even the times I was on a work shuttle). I could do an office again though if it weren’t too far from home. Working from home can be strangely lonely, maybe I should just be better about organizing co-working with friends virtually or in person.

ibejoeb 3y ago

Many people with families, or even just DINKS, would opt for private offices. Unless you've got a giant home with private space, working at the same time and while your home life goes on around you is pretty bad.

CoastalCoder 3y ago
My home isn't huge, just a raised ranch. But I was able to build a soundproofed office in a corner of my basement and it's worked like a charm.
- ibejoeb 3y ago
  I was in an airport a few weeks ago and saw a new array of soundproof "phone" booths fitted with laptop stands and high-output lighting, and it occurred to me that I should have started a business building and selling those over the past 3 years. Anyway, I'm thinking more about city dwellers who generally live in apartments.
  - philwelch 3y ago
    > Anyway, I'm thinking more about city dwellers who generally live in apartments. That’s a lifestyle that makes significantly less sense for remote workers in the long run though.
    - ibejoeb 3y ago
      I'm with you. But a lot of people still want to live in the city and not go to the office. So, I'm suggesting that, for that cohort, dedicated private offices might be compelling. It means that you probably have a short commute; you can reclaim space in your home that might have been used for work; still live in city and have access to the social offerings there; and that you retain your privacy, and potentially have even more if the case that you're co-habitating.
      - velosol 3y ago

acdha 3y ago

For me, the commute is a short bike or train ride. It’s actually enjoyable but I still don’t want to go into the office for exactly the reason given: cubicles suck. The distraction, poor lighting, noise, etc. are a poor fit for any sort of work which isn’t constantly talking to everyone in the same room. I think the sweet spot is at most 2-3 people in a space. That could work well collaboratively if they do the same thing but not if there are going to be lots of conflicting meetings.

ravenstine 3y ago

There is a lot of truth to what you are saying, but I don't entirely agree. I think I would be more amenable to working at an office if the experience felt like more than being in a high school computer lab. "Just wear headphones", imo, is not an adequate response to complaints of the office being noisy. Want me to stay in the office longer? Uninstall that piece of shit kombucha tap or sparkling water dispenser (neither of which are even operational most of the time) and replace it with another fridge so I don't have to cram my food into the one fridge shared by the entire building. Make an adequate number of power outlets available. Don't provide free snacks and then eliminate them to cut costs. If I have a designated spot, do your best not to move me around every few months. Yet every office I have worked in embodies various failures that diminish the experience, making it hard to deny that working at home can be a lot better for many people. How am I supposed to feel dignity in my line of work as a senior engineer when I don't even get my own cubicle; meanwhile, people I know who make a third of my salary get their own cubes! And these companies are wondering why their employees would rather build their own private office at home? Are you kidding me? I don't even need a corner office with a door that closes and a personal secretary. Just give me something more than what I would get working out of a Starbucks, and allow me to feel like the professional I am, as opposed to a replaceable cog, which is everything the modern tech workplaces symbolizes.

hangonhn 3y ago

> People who like WFH will never want to return to the office unless perhaps the office is a 5 minute walk from home At my current job, there's something ironic about that. The people who never come back to the office despite being allowed to are also the people who live the closest to the office. (We have a big office that allows people to come back but is totally optional. Hotel desks for the entire office basically.) I asked one of them why he doesn't come in and he told me, "The reason I moved so close to the office in the first place is so I can minimize my commute. Now that I don't have to, why would I do the commute at all?" I think some people are just completely dead set against commuting or even working from an office. Another coworker told me, "Do you know how great this is? I can do my laundry in between meetings." From my experience, my employer's current situation is probably the most accommodating policy. If you want to work in an office, you can. If you don't, you don't have to. I do have coworkers who are actually suffering a bit from lack of interaction with other people but I think those people are starting to trickle back into the office for no other reason than for the socialization and interaction.

marcosdumay 3y ago
A lot of people at my workplace use the office as a second "base" where they can settle for the day and is close to a lot of things. Since I live close to it, I never even though about doing this. And of course, the people that live the furthest away get the most value out of it. So, yeah, it's probably a very strong correlation, and not only for negative reasons.
- ghaff 3y ago
  If I could walk to an office I'd probably do it now and then. But at a 30 minute drive (to an office where I wouldn't know anyone at this point) I'm not going to bother.
lostdog 3y ago
> Hotel desks for the entire office basically. So your office is crappy? Similar story for my office. It's very close, but the facilities people made it terrible to work from. Why go in when I would get half as much work done?

unsupp0rted 3y ago

It's not the commute that stops me- it's the "being on". At home I don't have to dress a certain way, sit a certain way, eat a certain way, etc At home I'm either working or not working. I don't have to wear my public face. Wearing a public face is, if not tiring, at least irritating, like a mild itch you're not allowed to scratch, even though you could, but you shouldn't.

BluePen7 3y ago
For me I'm the exact opposite. Didn't mind working in the office, it was nice enough, coworkers are all friendly. But having to live anywhere near my office in a high COL area means I was priced out of affording even a 500 square foot apartment. Going remote meant that same salary bought me a newly built detached 6 bedroom house. I didn't mind the office, I minded being a poor renter instead of upper middle class. Office inconveniences pale in comparison.
- unshavedyak 3y ago
  Yea, i loathe the commute but i also can't afford to live 5min from an office even if i wanted to.. which i most definitely don't. I want to own some small acreage (2-10 acres depending), a big enough house for a guest room and two offices, etc.

uberduper 3y ago

Yup. If I had a 10 minute or less commute and decent coffee at the office, I'd have no major objections. But I have a 45 minutes with zero traffic (1.5hr+ with traffic) commute and Seattle's Best essence of ashtray coffee.

awslattery 3y ago

> unless perhaps the office is a 5 minute walk from home WFH for 2012-2023 here. With our first home purchase in 2018 being on the smaller size, and the introduction of our first child to the family in 2021, I started keeping an eye on nearby options. In March of 2023, a perfect little spot opened up that could support me and another employee in the same town. Pitched it to our small company, and now I have a dedicated office that is a 4 minute walk away. Cannot stress enough how impactful those few minutes are (or more, if I need to decompress more than normal) are for separation of concern between home life and work, especially with young children in the picture. Still get to enjoy lunch with stay-at-home wife and kiddo almost everyday. It also shares property with a great pizzeria and one of the best taproom/bottleshops in town, which is a great perk beyond my waistline and liver... looking forward to taking the new bike to the nearby bike trail when it isn't 110° everyday.

lampshades 3y ago
What kind of space did you find and how did you pitch it? The other employee lived in the same town already? I'd like to do this as well.
- awslattery 3y ago
  > What kind of space did you find It is a rather unique build done by a lawyer-turned-metalworks artist a little more than a decade ago. Multiple units with adjoining walls, each with a private patio, minisplits, and a rather raw aesthetic. Very high ceilings, plenty of outlets of various voltages/amperages available. Our neighbor makes bespoke cycling bags and such. Other tenants range from retail and services to private offices. > and how did you pitch it? The founder of the company lived here for many years, and paid for coworking access pre-COVID when it was still a startup (now general cloud/software consultancy for public health agencies and the like). WFH and the vacation of many of our decent coworking spaces due to COVID took a toll on him, and moved to PHL about a year ago for a change of scenery / be closer to some of our larger clients. With that context, it was pretty easy to pitch it as a physical "hub" for him when he visits family/friends, myself, and our other employee who lives in the same town. We still have a good physical location for our corporate entity, and the cost difference between 3x coworking offices at post-COVID rates was not too much for him to stomach. > The other employee lived in the same town already? Yes! We had become good acquaintances for a few years before COVID as he worked remotely for an organization in Ireland from the same coworking space. When COVID hit, his team were among the first to be cut, and as his skills meant I would no longer be overextended between cloud and frontend, it was one of the easiest hires we've made to date.

smashface 3y ago

Basically this. If companies want people back in the office when they could WFH instead, they're going to have to compensate them, time and costs, for the commute.

screwturner68 3y ago
when unemployment goes to 7% they won't be compensating for a damn thing and WFH will be a thing of the past.

lost_tourist 3y ago

Yeah, no way I can afford to move closer to work when condos/houses nearby are 1.5 million. I will continue to work from home or they can find someone else. I don't mind the office, I do mind the 2 hours lost from my day, 5 days a week.

Brusco_RF 3y ago

Respectfully, this is an example of rigid thinking that isn't productive or accurate. Apply marginal thinking the way economists do. People's propensity to return to the office falls on a spectrum ranging from 0 ( the people who are already back in their cubicles ) to 9 ( "You'll need a SWAT team to get me back to the office" ). A 5 on that scale is a marginal worker. Provide an incentive for them to return, like a nice office, and they become a 4 and return to the office. Now give a nice office to a population of 1000 workers who are distributed evenly over the above spectrum. They all move down by 1, and about 1/10th of them return to the office. Saying "People who like WFH will never want to return to the office" is only true of the 8's and 9's, not of the marginal worker. They are the ones who respond to incentives.

regularfry 3y ago
Depends on the distribution though, doesn't it. My personal hunch is that it's strongly bimodal, and that there actually aren't that many in the middle.
- Brusco_RF 3y ago
  I agree with that point but disagree about the distribution. I myself am a 5, I go in about half the time. Obviously we can only speculate about others
eschneider 3y ago
It's much more "offer me work SO rewarding, the commute is worth it" or "money SO good, it makes the commute worth it." Office amenities probably won't get if done, as many folks can just setup the home office the way they want it, or at least as well as most private offices.
- Brusco_RF 3y ago
  For me it's the colleagues. Rubbing elbows with people much smarter and further in their careers than I am is worth making the ~20 min commute. But any incentive provides the same effect.

tiborsaas 3y ago

I'm not required to return to the office. Despite having a whole floor rented for us, I rarely go in. It's only 20 min via public transport so time is not a big deal for me. That minimal movement would be even healthy. My main issue is the dining in the area. Mostly office blocks and all options are rather poor in quality. Ordering is also something I don't want because I'm too cheap to pay the premium price. So yeah, it's almost 6PM, I'm at home and starving still because I was lazy to cook. I think the reason is my team is fully remote for me. Not having to worry about food would be nice :)

dougmwne 3y ago

For me a nicer office would change my mind and I have worked in that office before. Allow me to reminisce: Was working in DC on Capitol Hill. Had a 30 minute bike ride to work right down the center of the national mall. Had a private office half the size of my apartment with a really comfy couch and a few well worn armchairs. Coworkers brought their dogs and one liked to sit on my feet under the desk. Office was chock full of interesting people, activists, authors, photographers, lawmakers wealthy folks, connected folks. After a few hours working on the databases and maybe getting roped into some tech support in the Capitol building, the CEO would grab a beer from the keg which was the signal for the rest of us that the afternoon had become wet. Then I would meet up with friends for some kickball on the Mall, then swing back through the office after a few hours at the bar for a nightcap. Very occasionally I slept over on the couch but there was a shower in the office and I kept a few changes of clothes there so it was all good.

o1y32 3y ago

My data point: I live 10 minutes walk from my office, the campus has a cafeteria, and I have my own office. Still I don't want to be forced to come into office, simply because I feel more comfortable and relaxed at home. It is a quiet place, I don't want to random interruptions from colleagues, and I can take a nap on my comfortable bed if needed, none of which can be offered in the office. Having prepared food is nice but not as important.

devmunchies 3y ago
> simply because I feel more comfortable and relaxed at home this core preference in environment and vibe is the main difference between the 2 camps. I was desperate to be in an office where there was a buzz of high energy and a go, go, go environment like skydivers jumping out of a plane. Would still prefer a private office though so get deep focus when necessary. Not sure if its nature or nurture, since I grew up doing team sports year round.

kergonath 3y ago

Some people like both and are happy with some balance. It’s nice not to have to commute, but it’s also nice to see colleagues and have a place to work outside home.

highwaylights 3y ago

This is the correct answer. I'd much rather just find another job entirely than come back to an office, and I imagine a lot of people feel the same. I think part of the problem is that a lot of companies don't really appreciate what people would be giving up, or that they see much less value in it than the people they're trying to convince. You'd need to offer something pretty special just to compensate for the cost of the commute, let alone the time lost (which for a lot of people is significant).

dventimi 3y ago

Well...it might change some people's minds

Un1corn 3y ago

My office is half an hour by foot from my house and yet I prefer to work from home exactly for this reason. Maybe in America where the commute can become ridiculous quickly it's a problem but here I just take an e-scooter if I don't want to walk. A better office would certainly make me come to the office more. But to be fair, even the CEO doesn't have his own office currently so I don't expect any of us to get one soon.

IKantRead 3y ago

I suspect many people on HN have never had a proper office with a door. While I do agree with your overall premise, having had offices at multiple roles over my career, it is a major improvement over cubicles and open office. Having a space to work in complete, uninterrupted quiet is wonderful. The simple social signal of the door being opened or close implying availability to chat works great to balancing heads down time and chat with colleagues time. Have a white board of your own that you can stare at throughout the course of a project, that evolves with discussions has not be replicated yet either remote or in a shared space. You can also get pretty wild with customizing an office for comfort. I used to know many people that brought their own lighting in, completely solving the problem of constant overhead fluorescence. And brewing your coffee the way you like it in your own space in the afternoon is very refreshing. Even given all that I'm sure many people would still prefer remote work (I would at this point), but I can image a fairly large number of people that would be very interested in a set up like this. It also mean your home is completely work free again.

the_gipsy 3y ago
Exactly! I used to work at a place where we had a proper office for each team, about 2-4 people in each room per day because WFH was a (real) option. I actually enjoyed going to that office because it was very quiet and I didn't have a proper workspace at home. My commute was ~30mins with a motorcycle. Yes, sometimes the A/C or the lighting must be compromised with other coworkers, but that's still okay if you get to socialize in exchange. The major aspect was obviously noise. But I also felt dignified in that office. It was not status like C-Suite offices, just feeling a nice environment instead of being crammed in a chicken coop.
giantrobot 3y ago
> I suspect many people on HN have never had a proper office with a door. In my time at Apple I had a real office with a real door for about half of my time. Of that only about half was an office I didn't have to share with someone else. The lone offices were the most productive I ever was while working there. I could close the door and go unbothered for hours. I turned off the lights and had my own lamp that was much more comfortable. Sharing an office with coworkers wasn't bad on its face but it's difficult to focus if the other person is talking with someone else. It's all manageable but objectively worse than a single office. The open floor plan at Apple Park was just fucking horrible. Constant distractions all day. Sure you could collaborate but when trying to actually get work done it was in spite of a hundred visual and audible distractions. I'm sure I distracted others inadvertently as well. A giant spaceship of a campus and they couldn't manage to give everyone a private space. Just the stupidest design for a building.

jacobsenscott 3y ago

I'm all for work from home, and have doing it for over 10 years, but we shouldn't ignore the cost of donating an entire room of your house to your employer (two in my case since my wife also wfh). Certainly this should factor into your total comp calculation as -(rent amount in your area). Likely it is more than you would spend on the commute. Employers are well aware they are colonizing your private space for free. You are also cleaning /stocking/ maintaining this area for them for free. They are laughing all the way to the bank.

chaostheory 3y ago
That used to be federally tax deductible, but now it probably depends on your state since the tax deduction rules seemed to have changed during the lockdowns.
jjk166 3y ago
If you went into the office, you'd still be paying for your empty rooms. While spending more time at home may lead to a marginal increase in expenses for utilities, compared to the cost of commuting they would be a rounding error.

13of40 3y ago

The thing that kills it for me is that where I work, before COVID it was a massive faux pas to schedule a meeting before 10:00 AM, but now I typically have multiple invites side-by-side at 9:00. In the past I could get to my office, grab some coffee, catch up on email, etc. before the grind started, but everything's been pushed back an hour and it's not coming back. So if I was getting up at 6:00 to fit in my morning routine, now I have to get up at 5:00. The other issue is that we're a lot more globally distributed now. The 9:00 I chose to go to today had nine other people in it. Three in India, one in the UK, one in BC, two in the midwest somewhere, and two permanent WFH. Meeting with these people is always going to mean putting on a headset and looking at a screen, no matter how diligent I am at getting in to the office every morning.

HWR_14 3y ago

A private office is very much something that causes me to toggle between wanting to WFH and go into the office. I hate open floorplans for working (fine if I'm walking around to get coffee or something). The biggest draw of WFH is that I don't have to put on headphones just to get some quiet time.

lezojeda 3y ago

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nsxwolf 3y ago

I've been WFH for 20 years. My family's life has been built around it including choice of schools, my wife's job, activities, etc. We own one car. If I were to take a job downtown, my wife would have to get a different job, we'd have to pay for some level of child care, arrange transportation for school, drop various activities, buy a second car so I could drive to the train station (which comes with maintenance, insurance, registration, etc). The amount of money that would make any of this worth it is not small. You'd have to cover the additional expenses and then write a big check on top to compensate for disrupting our way of life.

agumonkey 3y ago

I could see the coworking space take off a bit more, cause I have a colleague not far and we could walk/bike to a tiny cozy space to work on stuff out of sake of not staying at the same desk 24/7.

legohead 3y ago

If work gave me an office I would come in every day vs. the mandated twice a week we have. I worked for a company that gave everyone an office. Just long hallways of offices with floor to ceiling windows and a door. It was a startup that grew to 200 people and was the best job I've had, a large part due to the atmosphere, and part of that was the office setup. When my current workplace shutdown the office for covid, they sent out an email asking for suggestions for a new office setup. I told them to make everyone offices. We have a huge open floor and it wouldn't take much effort, just money. Money they are planning to spend anyway. Instead they raised the height of cubicle walls, added a ton of glass (disease spread fear I guess), and gave everyone whiteboards and motorized standup desks. Now on my required days in the office I am annoyed by the constant chatter and noises around me which I cannot escape even with headphones.

jen20 3y ago

I would be far more tempted to an office (and to reclaim a room for use as another guest bedroom in my house) if I had a private office. Open plan or shared offices are an absolute no, though.

jasonkester 3y ago

More to the point, The Office is in one place, whereas my workplace can by anywhere. So no matter how nice a place it is, and how close to my house you put it, it's never going to be right on that good right point break in Oaxaca where I like to spend my winters and also at the AirBnB next to Green Lake where I can visit my friends and family in the summer. It's also not in any of the other places I choose to set up shop at for a few months at a time to do my thing. So it doesn't matter that it has free food, a masseuse, and is in a really cool neighborhood where I'd actually like to spend some time. I still don't want to commit to living there 50 weeks a year. That's why I'm remote.

stefandesu 3y ago

I think this is exactly it. I liked working from home when I had a separate room for it and it saved me about an hour every day, but I've since moved to an apartment that's smaller, but also much closer to work, and I prefer the going to the office now. Having your own office does help though (I'm sharing with one other person who's only there once a week).

Natsu 3y ago

I can't go back. I have family to care for who need me at home and will suffer if I'm away. And that's even before I reclaim all the time during the day when there was no work I could be doing. I'm more productive, I find new ways to make myself valuable in some of that free time whereas in the office I'd just be bored out of my skull instead because I had to keep my butt in a seat to make someone happy. Fortunately my management is looking into downsizing leases and recouping savings instead of forcing people into the office. They've waffled a little about pulling people back in but they just aren't that serious about it in general.

unshavedyak 3y ago

Man, i loathe the commute. They want to take 10.5 hours of my time but pay me for 8. No thanks, i'm done with that as long as i have options.

theptip 3y ago

> A nicer office makes things better but it will not change people's minds on WFH. I suggest you consider behavior on the margin. Despite the fact that there are lots of people vocal about how much they love/hate RTO, there are also people that are indifferent or slightly prefer one or the other. Improvements in office quality will meaningfully persuade some number of people on the margin. It’s an open question how steep the curve is (ie how much office improvement required to persuade 1% of people to change their mind) but I think it’s myopic to just look at the partisans. All that said, sure, there is a nontrivial percentage who you couldn’t change their minds with something like a dedicated office. But I think your claim is too strong that it’s binary and all WFH likers will not be persuaded by this proposal.

tkiolp4 3y ago

It’s not just that. With a WFH policy I can work for companies in Munich living in a town in northern Germany. That’s the big deal of remote work for me. Being limited to the companies that are located in the same city you live is a huge downside.

jjk166 3y ago

Friendly reminder that if you work an 8 hour day and you have a 24 minute one-way commute (average US commute is 27.6), WFH is equivalent to a 10% raise just from the elimination of commute time. Realistically, with the various conveniences and avoided expenses, it's likely closer to a 20% raise for most people. That employers aren't jumping for joy that they can offer such a massive benefit for essentially free (if not save money themselves) is astounding.

gofreddygo 3y ago

very relevant thread. I stepped in my work office building for the very first time in years (switched jobs mid-pandemic). I spent 2 hours 16 mins in my car burning fossil fuel that I paid out of pocket, extra 40 mins prepping and unwinding, consumed more sugar and caffeine than I usually would working from home, re-scheduled a meeting because of the commute and feel more tired. Its not good for the environment, bad for my company and terrible for me. It's clear, forcing a commute is an implicit paycut.

jjav 3y ago

> A nicer office makes things better but it will not change people's minds on WFH. Disagree with caveats. A nice private office makes a world of difference. I'll do a lot (in time and/or money) to have a nice private office where I can actually work (which requires silence). Working remotely is awesome but not literally from home. With a family, that's too distracting. Since the pandemic, I rent a small private office walking distance from home. It's a great arrangement, I'm very close to the house, can walk or bike there, private window office. But the downside is that it costs money (lease, utilities, internet). And for meetings I'm still stuck in a little zoom box. If the company offered a nice private office, I'd take that. I'd save the costs and I could have a silent private space to work but still be able to step outside and have meetings in person. The tradeoff is a longer commute but as long as it's not too horrible, I'd take it.

gerl1ng 3y ago

I think it's not just black and white. My office is a 20 (tarmac) - 25 (forest) minutes bike ride. I don't have any problem working from home but if the weather isn't too bad I go to the office regulary - even if I sit there in the same remote meetings all day as I do at home. For me the change of the scenery and the "off" time by doing the commute are worth it. Going to move out of range of an office for this company in a year. Thinking about joining a coworking space then for it.

theGnuMe 3y ago

This is true until the recession which will force people back... and it will suck.

up2isomorphism 3y ago

Most of people do not want to work if they can get paid too. And there is no need for employers if RTO makes the overall productivity worse. RTO is really a decision made by the market not from a particular employer or employee.

the_watcher 3y ago

I like WFH for a lot of reasons, but the "I'm more productive" part of my claim is entirely related to the torture chamber that is the open floor plan office. If I had a private office, I'd no longer be able to honestly claim that I simply cannot be as effective in the office as at home.