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When I go into the office, I have an extra hour of my day taken from what would typically be my personal time. When I work from home I can log off and immediat

When I go into the office, I have an extra hour of my day taken from what would typically be my personal time. When I work from home I can log off and immediately go for a run in the sun, especially important as the winter approaches. I have a gym I can access at work, but then I'd be on a treadmill staring out the window at a parking lot and the concrete ass of a big box store. Guess which one I'm picking every time. Its crazy how fast that sun starts falling when you're stuck in traffic.

ravivooda 3y ago
Hmm, do you work at Meta Bellevue office? Sounds very similar.
isykt 3y ago
When I go into the office, it’s after taking a brisk 21 minute walk or a 6 minute train ride. I listen to music. I prepare myself mentally for the day. When I’m done, I leave my computer and my work phone sitting on my desk, and walk or take the train home. I don’t devote a single square foot of my home to my employer. When I’m home, it has nothing to do with work. I would never allow my employer to colonize my home.
- digdugdirk 3y ago
  That sounds like an ideal lifestyle. I wish everyone had a similar situation, but unfortunately it's all too rare.
- Retric 3y ago
  Do you not have a computer at home? Because devoting a few gigs of my Home PC to work is easily worth avoiding 12 minutes per day on the train + however long it takes walking to the station and waiting for the train twice. Really I used to live 1 subway stop from the office and WFH was still a significant time saver.
  - unshavedyak 3y ago
    Yup. I'd pay (and do! for 10 years now) my own dime to maintain a good PC solely for work. It's a stupidly easy investment for me compared to 1-3h of commute every day. I also now require extra rooms for offices anytime i look at homes. The life balance is just so amazing for me i'm never giving it up, if i can. I feel respected in a way i never thought possible, before.
  - lo_zamoyski 3y ago
    You're reducing WFH to just avoiding a commute. In my case, I found that WFH only was isolating, impacted focus, and cut me off from the information flow of the organization, something electronic means cannot really substitute. I have a sense of being more involved and informed about the business instead of being plugged into the Matrix and receiving a paltry trickle of information over narrow channels. The benefits of hybrid for me offset the burden of commuting enough to justify coming in.
    - markhnthoraway 3y ago
      > In my case, I found that WFH only was isolating, impacted focus, and cut me off from the information flow of the organization, something electronic means cannot really substitute. I worried about feeling isolated but found I didn't feel that way. And I think generally WFH has improved my ability to focus. My company is fully remote so there are not many in-person channels for information to flow. Before the pandemic I would not have taken a remote job, I would have not been sure it would work out for me, but having done it for 3 years now, I'm real happy with it. I do still like seeing people and will go out to work occasionally or cowork with friends. Traffic where I live is horrible though and avoiding a 30 minute dance with death twice a day is an amazing reduction in stress levels. I guess it's going to work out that this is just one other thing to consider about a workplace and there's no one right answer where all businesses should do the same thing, people need the options.
    - Retric 3y ago
      I always felt more connected to my coworkers when we are regularly working from home. The office is such a false environment people just act very differently.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- philote 3y ago
  To each their own. Personally, I like being able to work and live where I choose and not be tied to a specific location due to availability of jobs. And I'm still able to shut down my laptop at the end of the day and ignore work until the next workday. My employer has "colonized" maybe 25sq ft of my home and I'm ok with that.
  - VincentEvans 3y ago
    Odd that you are being downvoted. I work remote and travel around going wherever I want. The idea that my mental health and lifestyle can be “improved” by taking away my freedom and making me go into the office a number of days a week is preposterous. I do meet up with my coworkers in person at a regular and infrequent cadence, and that’s always nice and pleasant. But that’s not what qualifies “hybrid” by any reasonable definition.
  - isykt 3y ago
    I paid $983/sqft for my apartment in the city, so unless my company wants to give me a $25k tax free bonus, and pay for a desk, chair, monitor, keyboard, mouse, and my internet, it’s a bad deal for me. Glad it works for you though.
    - sokoloff 3y ago
      Are you expecting the right reference is for them to buy the 25 ft^2? Or just rent it for the time you're employed there?
      - isykt 3y ago
        I’m expecting them to give me $25k tax free to devote space in my home for the purpose of working during my work hours. I retain ownership of the property itself, but not the equipment; I would also reserve the right to use the space as I please outside of work hours, because it’s located in my home. Those are my WFH terms. Companies can take those or provide me an office.
        3y ago
- wredue 3y ago
  We provide 24/7 on call support, so that’s not going to happen, as much as the sentiment is agreeable.
- MSFT_Edging 3y ago
  I'm extraordinarily sensitive to my work environment so I rather just have full control over it at home rather than go into an office where I have to spend half the morning aligning monitors and searching for cables since I no longer have a permanent desk. But I'm glad you have something that works for you.
- zzyzxd 3y ago
  Going to the office is not that bad for me, _most_ of the time. - But once or twice every month, I forget to bring something I need to the office (phone, earphone, water bottle, keys...etc) and that makes that day suck. - Sometimes it rains and I get wet. - Sometimes I eat something bad and have diarrhea and need to use the dirty public toilet. - If my wife messages me saying she's sick, I need to sit in traffic for an hour before I can see her. - Yesterday I got up 30 minutes late than usual and had to drive during rush hours, that's one more hour of my life. - If I don't go to office, I only drive for up to an hour on weekend for fun. But now I spend 10x time in the car on weekdays and that's 10x more chance to have an accident. None of these happens everyday, but when they do, they are just extra headache to deal with only because I need to go to office. If a few sqft in my home is all it takes to completely eliminate all of them, I would take that any day.
- kkfx 3y ago
  When you WFH you're not really an employee but a kind of consultant, who is paid by the company ALSO for yours home office... Probably many companies hate WFH because of this: when people will realize the value of freedom at their home, their work can be seen as mere economical contract without tie, so people will be more precarious but so will be companies and that means we surpass the need of unionization by a kind of new market equilibrium.
TheBlight 3y ago
FWIW, my experience with WFH (pre-covid times) was that I was way more prone to over-working and I think it eventually led to burn out. The line between work and home blurred considerably. It wasn't unusual for me to not ever get fully dressed somedays. Hygiene also somewhat suffered at times. I would find myself still working on problems well into the night. Part of it was feeling like I had to prove I was still working even though I was home. In short, it wasn't the utopia I predicted it would be after driving a long commute for a number of years.
Justsignedup 3y ago
personally when I come into the office, I can focus a thousand times better than at home. I go absolutely crazy at home. When things are wrong at the office, I often ask myself "why did I come in today" but I regret working from home every time. For context, I have an amazingly comfortable at-home set up that is often better than the office. I also worked from home for the last few years very successfully. And I have to commute an hour each way. I have been less stressed working from a chaotic office than a quiet home. My point here is: for some people WFH is the way, for others it is not. Having flexibility to stay home on a day and take my daughter to the doctor is amazing. Having to stay home every day is painful to me.

ravivooda 3y ago

Hmm, do you work at Meta Bellevue office? Sounds very similar.

isykt 3y ago

When I go into the office, it’s after taking a brisk 21 minute walk or a 6 minute train ride. I listen to music. I prepare myself mentally for the day. When I’m done, I leave my computer and my work phone sitting on my desk, and walk or take the train home. I don’t devote a single square foot of my home to my employer. When I’m home, it has nothing to do with work. I would never allow my employer to colonize my home.

digdugdirk 3y ago
That sounds like an ideal lifestyle. I wish everyone had a similar situation, but unfortunately it's all too rare.
Retric 3y ago
Do you not have a computer at home? Because devoting a few gigs of my Home PC to work is easily worth avoiding 12 minutes per day on the train + however long it takes walking to the station and waiting for the train twice. Really I used to live 1 subway stop from the office and WFH was still a significant time saver.
- unshavedyak 3y ago
  Yup. I'd pay (and do! for 10 years now) my own dime to maintain a good PC solely for work. It's a stupidly easy investment for me compared to 1-3h of commute every day. I also now require extra rooms for offices anytime i look at homes. The life balance is just so amazing for me i'm never giving it up, if i can. I feel respected in a way i never thought possible, before.
- lo_zamoyski 3y ago
  You're reducing WFH to just avoiding a commute. In my case, I found that WFH only was isolating, impacted focus, and cut me off from the information flow of the organization, something electronic means cannot really substitute. I have a sense of being more involved and informed about the business instead of being plugged into the Matrix and receiving a paltry trickle of information over narrow channels. The benefits of hybrid for me offset the burden of commuting enough to justify coming in.
  - markhnthoraway 3y ago
    > In my case, I found that WFH only was isolating, impacted focus, and cut me off from the information flow of the organization, something electronic means cannot really substitute. I worried about feeling isolated but found I didn't feel that way. And I think generally WFH has improved my ability to focus. My company is fully remote so there are not many in-person channels for information to flow. Before the pandemic I would not have taken a remote job, I would have not been sure it would work out for me, but having done it for 3 years now, I'm real happy with it. I do still like seeing people and will go out to work occasionally or cowork with friends. Traffic where I live is horrible though and avoiding a 30 minute dance with death twice a day is an amazing reduction in stress levels. I guess it's going to work out that this is just one other thing to consider about a workplace and there's no one right answer where all businesses should do the same thing, people need the options.
  - Retric 3y ago
    I always felt more connected to my coworkers when we are regularly working from home. The office is such a false environment people just act very differently.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
philote 3y ago
To each their own. Personally, I like being able to work and live where I choose and not be tied to a specific location due to availability of jobs. And I'm still able to shut down my laptop at the end of the day and ignore work until the next workday. My employer has "colonized" maybe 25sq ft of my home and I'm ok with that.
- VincentEvans 3y ago
  Odd that you are being downvoted. I work remote and travel around going wherever I want. The idea that my mental health and lifestyle can be “improved” by taking away my freedom and making me go into the office a number of days a week is preposterous. I do meet up with my coworkers in person at a regular and infrequent cadence, and that’s always nice and pleasant. But that’s not what qualifies “hybrid” by any reasonable definition.
- isykt 3y ago
  I paid $983/sqft for my apartment in the city, so unless my company wants to give me a $25k tax free bonus, and pay for a desk, chair, monitor, keyboard, mouse, and my internet, it’s a bad deal for me. Glad it works for you though.
  - sokoloff 3y ago
    Are you expecting the right reference is for them to buy the 25 ft^2? Or just rent it for the time you're employed there?
    - isykt 3y ago
      I’m expecting them to give me $25k tax free to devote space in my home for the purpose of working during my work hours. I retain ownership of the property itself, but not the equipment; I would also reserve the right to use the space as I please outside of work hours, because it’s located in my home. Those are my WFH terms. Companies can take those or provide me an office.
      - 3y ago
wredue 3y ago
We provide 24/7 on call support, so that’s not going to happen, as much as the sentiment is agreeable.
MSFT_Edging 3y ago
I'm extraordinarily sensitive to my work environment so I rather just have full control over it at home rather than go into an office where I have to spend half the morning aligning monitors and searching for cables since I no longer have a permanent desk. But I'm glad you have something that works for you.
zzyzxd 3y ago
Going to the office is not that bad for me, _most_ of the time. - But once or twice every month, I forget to bring something I need to the office (phone, earphone, water bottle, keys...etc) and that makes that day suck. - Sometimes it rains and I get wet. - Sometimes I eat something bad and have diarrhea and need to use the dirty public toilet. - If my wife messages me saying she's sick, I need to sit in traffic for an hour before I can see her. - Yesterday I got up 30 minutes late than usual and had to drive during rush hours, that's one more hour of my life. - If I don't go to office, I only drive for up to an hour on weekend for fun. But now I spend 10x time in the car on weekdays and that's 10x more chance to have an accident. None of these happens everyday, but when they do, they are just extra headache to deal with only because I need to go to office. If a few sqft in my home is all it takes to completely eliminate all of them, I would take that any day.
kkfx 3y ago
When you WFH you're not really an employee but a kind of consultant, who is paid by the company ALSO for yours home office... Probably many companies hate WFH because of this: when people will realize the value of freedom at their home, their work can be seen as mere economical contract without tie, so people will be more precarious but so will be companies and that means we surpass the need of unionization by a kind of new market equilibrium.

TheBlight 3y ago

FWIW, my experience with WFH (pre-covid times) was that I was way more prone to over-working and I think it eventually led to burn out. The line between work and home blurred considerably. It wasn't unusual for me to not ever get fully dressed somedays. Hygiene also somewhat suffered at times. I would find myself still working on problems well into the night. Part of it was feeling like I had to prove I was still working even though I was home. In short, it wasn't the utopia I predicted it would be after driving a long commute for a number of years.

Justsignedup 3y ago

personally when I come into the office, I can focus a thousand times better than at home. I go absolutely crazy at home. When things are wrong at the office, I often ask myself "why did I come in today" but I regret working from home every time. For context, I have an amazingly comfortable at-home set up that is often better than the office. I also worked from home for the last few years very successfully. And I have to commute an hour each way. I have been less stressed working from a chaotic office than a quiet home. My point here is: for some people WFH is the way, for others it is not. Having flexibility to stay home on a day and take my daughter to the doctor is amazing. Having to stay home every day is painful to me.