39 ms·

Hybrid work is the worst of both worlds. Can't move out of a HCOL and now you have to co-ordinate with your co-workers to reap any "benefits" of being in-office

Hybrid work is the worst of both worlds. Can't move out of a HCOL and now you have to co-ordinate with your co-workers to reap any "benefits" of being in-office. What would be really cool is reconceptualizing hybrid work as quarterly retreats, where the company provides housing and other amenities for 1 to 2 weeks every quarter. This gives everyone time to bond and work on harder problems. I get this wouldn't work as well for those with families because being away for that long is tough, but this would be great for say juniors and seniors with greater flexibility. It also solves some of the other issues, ie I could move to an MCOL and just fly in once a quarter to work together with everyone. The "retreat" aspect of it would also incentivize more people to be there. On the company side of things, instead of leasing out a building for a long time, they can just rent short term and use the money they are saving to make the retreat more fun and productive.

TexanFeller 3y ago
It makes it bearable to live more cheaply in the suburbs and make the long drive to downtown only a couple times a week. Live in MCOL suburb and work a couple days in HCOL city seems like a fair compromise to me.
- charlie0 3y ago
  Really depends on the area though. In LA for example, you'd have to move 1-2 hours away to get into MCOL or LOCOL. What would be really cool is reconceptualizing hybrid work as quarterly retreats, where the company provides housing and other amenities for 1 to 2 weeks every quarter. This gives everyone time to bond and work on harder problems. I get this wouldn't work as well for those with families because being away for that long is tough, but this would be great for say juniors and seniors with greater flexibility. It also solves some of the other issues, ie I could move to an MCOL and just fly in once a quarter to work together with everyone. The "retreat" aspect of it would also incentivize more people to be there.
  - futureshock 3y ago
    And that would be perfect if you only have to go in once a week. Many of my coworkers are in that situation and had been commuting 4 hours round trip for years before the pandemic.
  - ghaff 3y ago
    That's not an unreasonable commute 1-2 days per week though. I've done it in the past. The Bay Area is probably particularly difficult to get far enough out for housing to be reasonable but many areas are not.
    - thfuran 3y ago
      A two hour one way commute is entirely unreasonable at any frequency unless it's on the clock.
      - grugagag 3y ago
        I have 2 hours round trip every day, 5 days a week. Id take 2 four hour round trips in an instant just because being in the office 5 days a week is absolutely draining all my resources.
        alsetmusic 3y ago
        I did what you’re doing for three and a half years. I was so depressed I had thoughts of suicide and cried in a fast food parking lot on my lunch break. I’ll never accept a long commute again. It broke me.
      - ghaff 3y ago
        I'm close to that if I come into the city for a customer visit at the briefing center. I'm salaried so I'm not sure what "on the clock" means in that context. But I don't do it frequently so it's not my favorite thing but it's manageable.
  - al_borland 3y ago
    I’m all for periodic retreats. I volunteered to do something like this when I was moving about 6 hours from the office. Then the pandemic happened, and about 6 re-orgs, so it no longer makes sense for me to go there.
unshavedyak 3y ago
I agree about the issue with not being able to move, but i'd hardly call some of the many benefits "worst of both worlds". Avoiding the traffic, avoiding crowded offices, avoiding distractions, gaining life time back (no commute), etc - if you like it and have a proper space for it i'd still say it's a net benefit to hybrid WFM. I'm fully remote atm, but i've also done hybrid. WFM was always a benefit to me personally. I don't advocate that it's for everyone, ofc. Just saying many of the benefits hold true even if you have to work hybrid.
- al_borland 3y ago
  If someone has to relocate to a HCOL area for a hybrid job, the WFH days are seen by the company as a benefit, but the move to the HCOL area is generally going to be a net loss. It’s not enough of a benefit to make up for the significantly higher housing costs.
  - grugagag 3y ago
    I agree and never thought about it this way as im already in a HCOL area (NY). Also In not allowed hybrid where I work, the office is cramped, noisy and hostile to deep work.
    - alsetmusic 3y ago
      I’m HCOL both because of the market (SF Bay Area) and because I love the area. I’d still be here even if I switched professions. In this scenario, getting any wfh days is a win. My previous employer went fully remote and my current one is hybrid. I’ve never relocated for a job, so this aspect simply never occurred to me.
  - parpfish 3y ago
    Add on that you need to get housing in that HCOL area that has enough space for an office/workstation
- kkfx 3y ago
  hybrid means, in random order: - two desk, both underutilized, often equipped with laptops and eventual docking station to economize money, witch means also moving equipment and having less than optimal horsepower or less mobile friendly stuff; - living in cities or nearby or accepting regular long commute to reach the office, a significant geographical limitation for what? - works in the office as you work at home, because part of the team is remote, so to avoid cut them out you need to work as if you where at home, and no, wasting money and create infosec nightmares with Meeting Owls and alike does not help. Long story short I fail to see any benefit in hybrid work for the workers and for the company, I see some "benefit" for some actors, who have many other business in cities/around the city model, but they are outside both a company on it's own and workers interests. Working in the office might offer advantages in certain scenarios, like introducing a new member in a team, where the new can observe the others and learn quicker from this, have an easy mentorship etc. But this is sub-par with hybrid work, and similarly hybrid works means you are still geographically bound much, so well define this model the worst of both world is true for me. Beside that fully remote means, on company side: - no offices, they only need to take care about work organization (not harder per se than in the office, but being for many a relatively new thing potentially a bit more challenging, especially for those not accustomed) and arrangement for the home office setup, witch might be a little challenging for NON-IT workers WFH, since operation can count on them nor count on a direct LAN access as needed; - no offices ancillaries like cleaning services, fire safety, ... - able to hire workers if not from the entire world (challenging for fiscal reasons) at least from a whole country instead of a small area of a whole country, also being protected by "future developments" of such small area; on worker side: - being not geographically bound, so being able to live in nice places, potentially in far better accommodations at a far lower costs; - having more comfortable work environment and no commuting - having more competitors, but also more offers, and an easier change for a company to another since the office, the commuting etc does not change. On the social side: - WFH means a spread population for those who work from home, witch are a significant slice of the total population, meaning a more spread economy, less big business for big players, more small and medium business for SME For the negative I've seen so far: - for companies having workers less keen to accept doing more than they are paid for, just because keeping the job is much more important than monthly payments alone, because hunting for another job means potential need to relocate, family issue since a partner can't relocate so easily and so on - for workers, specularly, companies can fire easily since new workers need to be trained, but the market is at least a whole nation, and the chance to find skilled workers who do not need much training and are very effective it's high, there are as well less social links in the team who can obstacle firing someone I fail to see disadvantages for the society except maybe if not enough people can be disciplined enough for WFH, having social issues of a significant slice of WFH population that do not works well simply because they are not interested nor disciplined enough for this model coupled with a slice of population who are still not accustomed to deal with remote workers, like people who feel the need to go to an office instead of call someone on one side, coupled with someone on the other side that do not answer because he/she like async work even if hes/shes works can't be done asynchronously (yes, remote work is not only for devs, it's also from various kind of office works who have no asynchronicity).
akurtzhs 3y ago
YMMV. I prefer hybrid with two days a week in the office. You can dedicate those days to meetings and conversations and keep the remote days for more heads down work. And if you can’t make it to the office due to snow or travel, you’re prepared for remote work.
- al_borland 3y ago
  Doesn’t this only work if everyone you need to have meetings with also has the same plan for 2 meeting days per week?
  - nicoburns 3y ago
    Some hybrid workplaces specify which days you need to attend
    - ultrasaurus 3y ago
      Which means you need office space for 100% of the people, but that's only used 40% of the time. You can get a little clever with GTM coming in on different days than Eng but it's tradeoffs all the way down. (In a value-neutral way)
      - nicoburns 3y ago
        Well yes, hybrid working isn't generally a way to save office space. It's a way to help workers be more productive and also to give them time to deal with their non-work responsibilities.
        kkfx 3y ago
        witch actually is untenable: the whole history of human social evolution is toward a more efficient use of resources, not "need more stuff to do things more comfy". WHF means better home usage, since you both rest, eat, etc and work in the same building, while the company needs no buildings, meaning a far simplified real estate: - homes - factories - special buildings (hospitals, army, politics etc) - sheds Instead of the various forms of multi-storey buildings, high-rise, towers and so on alongside their incapacity to evolve, very high construction and operational costs etc just to pack more humans in a tight space. Similarly for workers being at home means better time usage, no need for commuting, ability to do something at home while working, like run the washing machine, pre-loaded, when the Sun start to allow p.v. self-consumption and so on. WFH means far better usage of time, space, tools. Witch is a natural evolutionary move.
jltsiren 3y ago
I find quarterly retreats worse than hybrid. You lose control of your life, if you have to travel for a week or two every quarter, with the dates set by the employer. I don't mind business travel as such, but I expect to be the one who decides if the trip is worth doing.
- alsetmusic 3y ago
  My previous employer brought everyone to town for a week with only two days counting g toward the retreat. I really loved the social aspect of it, getting to know people from other states whose role meant I’d never really interacted with them. I found out a guy who I’d thought of as a liability was actually a really great guy. Food and drinks as a team ftw. (We were a ~25 person team; our small size was a major contributing factor.)
  - charlie0 3y ago
    Exactly, this can definitely work under the right conditions and unlike the weekly hybrid model, you don't actually have to live 1-2 hours from where you work.
straydusk 3y ago
> I get this wouldn't work as well for those with families Your whole post is a series of contradictions where you hand wave gigantic problems and exaggerate small ones
- charlie0 3y ago
  Such as?
orwin 3y ago
My hybrid work is 2 days a month (one day every two weeks rather) and this allow me to live ~ 480km away from my office (300 miles), on the coast. Basically 3h10 by train+metro, which make the day quite tiring.
- aantix 3y ago
  Man, two days a month? If you lived near a major airport with a direct flight, you could live almost anywhere.
  - charlie0 3y ago
    I had the reverse of this where I worked in-office all week, but spent the weekend in an entirely different city with my girlfriend. It was never meant to be a long term arrangement as I was staying with my family during the work-week, but it can work. It was a new job and I timed it well as 6 months after I started , COVID hit and everyone went remote. Flights were in state and I was buying them ahead of time, so I got them for cheaper than an Amtrak ticket.
deanrtaylor 3y ago
I prefer a hybrid work model, currently I spend two days per week in the office but it only has to be a half day as long as I'm available for meetings and sharing sessions. This schedule allows me to avoid peak traffic, enhance team relationships, and still enjoy ample time at home with my wife. Prolonged remote work tends to feel isolating and somewhat depressing. Despite the higher cost of living in these areas, businesses often thrive in such locations due to the close proximity to industry resources and collaborative opportunities. It's expensive but beneficial.
joeax 3y ago
Thank you for saying the quiet part out loud. I read articles stating that "the majority want hybrid", but what people truly want is freedom to work wherever it suits them best. I've been remote for 15 years, and I've seen people that want the connection an office provides, and others (like me) prefer to never set foot in an office again. Just look around at the other comments and you read differing preferences. And that's cool. Just leave me and others alone and let us work how we prefer. As far as your quarterly meetings comment is concerned, even that is a variation of hybrid. I worked at a company once that had the quarterly meetups. It worked, but sometimes it was a disruption to a normal routine, especially for some co-workers who flew cross-country. Another company (100% remote company) had the annual weekly retreat which I liked better. You got your face time/watercooler collaboration bullshit/whatever out of the way, then 358 days of peace til the next one.
- charlie0 3y ago
  True, but the quarterly thing doesn't have to be a requirement and the beauty of of is that 3 months is a decent amount of time to plan for who's going and who is no going. I'd leave it to people to decide if they want to attend every quarter, or every 6 months or every year.
Staple_Diet 3y ago
I work for a large org with several offices across the country. You can work in a local team (i.e., immediate supervisor is in the office next to you) or in a remote team (i.e., your boss might be in another state, and team distributed amongst three locations). I've done both and am currently in the latter. We run weekly online meetings for the team, plus weekly project specific meetings. Then about every 2 months my boss and his boss fly over for an informal fireside with anyone in the team at my location. This approach seems to work well if not better than the local team approach. In both cases we are hybrid but in my case I have no reason, and thus no pressure, to attend the office more than once a week.
SebFender 3y ago
Any minute I'm out of offices is great for me. They've now become this lost soul area with unassigned desks, ridiculous spaces and security measures.
kkfx 3y ago
100% agree: hybrid works and short workweeks are made as kind of gifts/bonuses to force people in cities instead of allowing remote work witch have the effect of depopulate congested and unlivable cities to spread toward smaller and less denser areas, witch means a good density for the modern economy of scale for all humans, except for giants who can't enslave people making them spending 100% of their income, no matter how small or big it is, in services.
jjav 3y ago
> Hybrid work is the worst of both worlds. Best of both world to me. I really don't want to commute every day, that becomes exhausting. And given how miserable offices are these days (open offices everywhere), I wouldn't get anything done in an open office every day. I've done 100% remote and while it sounded great on paper, it is a lot easier to built rapport with people if you can see them once in a while. I worked at one remote-only company for a couple years and never met anyone, everyone just tiny boxes on a zoom screen. Never felt I knew anyone. Going to the office once a week is great. I get to know people personally and while the open office is miserable I don't even pretend to sit down and work on the office day, I stack it with meetings (both formal and informal). As to the HCOL area it still helps. A commute that would be insane every day becomes a lot more palatable if it's once a week.
deterministic 3y ago
Not for me. I love working 2 days in the office and 3 days at home. But mainly for the social aspects. I am more productive WFH.

TexanFeller 3y ago

It makes it bearable to live more cheaply in the suburbs and make the long drive to downtown only a couple times a week. Live in MCOL suburb and work a couple days in HCOL city seems like a fair compromise to me.

charlie0 3y ago
Really depends on the area though. In LA for example, you'd have to move 1-2 hours away to get into MCOL or LOCOL. What would be really cool is reconceptualizing hybrid work as quarterly retreats, where the company provides housing and other amenities for 1 to 2 weeks every quarter. This gives everyone time to bond and work on harder problems. I get this wouldn't work as well for those with families because being away for that long is tough, but this would be great for say juniors and seniors with greater flexibility. It also solves some of the other issues, ie I could move to an MCOL and just fly in once a quarter to work together with everyone. The "retreat" aspect of it would also incentivize more people to be there.
- futureshock 3y ago
  And that would be perfect if you only have to go in once a week. Many of my coworkers are in that situation and had been commuting 4 hours round trip for years before the pandemic.
- ghaff 3y ago
  That's not an unreasonable commute 1-2 days per week though. I've done it in the past. The Bay Area is probably particularly difficult to get far enough out for housing to be reasonable but many areas are not.
  - thfuran 3y ago
    A two hour one way commute is entirely unreasonable at any frequency unless it's on the clock.
    - grugagag 3y ago
      I have 2 hours round trip every day, 5 days a week. Id take 2 four hour round trips in an instant just because being in the office 5 days a week is absolutely draining all my resources.
      - alsetmusic 3y ago
        I did what you’re doing for three and a half years. I was so depressed I had thoughts of suicide and cried in a fast food parking lot on my lunch break. I’ll never accept a long commute again. It broke me.
    - ghaff 3y ago
      I'm close to that if I come into the city for a customer visit at the briefing center. I'm salaried so I'm not sure what "on the clock" means in that context. But I don't do it frequently so it's not my favorite thing but it's manageable.
- al_borland 3y ago
  I’m all for periodic retreats. I volunteered to do something like this when I was moving about 6 hours from the office. Then the pandemic happened, and about 6 re-orgs, so it no longer makes sense for me to go there.

unshavedyak 3y ago

I agree about the issue with not being able to move, but i'd hardly call some of the many benefits "worst of both worlds". Avoiding the traffic, avoiding crowded offices, avoiding distractions, gaining life time back (no commute), etc - if you like it and have a proper space for it i'd still say it's a net benefit to hybrid WFM. I'm fully remote atm, but i've also done hybrid. WFM was always a benefit to me personally. I don't advocate that it's for everyone, ofc. Just saying many of the benefits hold true even if you have to work hybrid.

al_borland 3y ago
If someone has to relocate to a HCOL area for a hybrid job, the WFH days are seen by the company as a benefit, but the move to the HCOL area is generally going to be a net loss. It’s not enough of a benefit to make up for the significantly higher housing costs.
- grugagag 3y ago
  I agree and never thought about it this way as im already in a HCOL area (NY). Also In not allowed hybrid where I work, the office is cramped, noisy and hostile to deep work.
  - alsetmusic 3y ago
    I’m HCOL both because of the market (SF Bay Area) and because I love the area. I’d still be here even if I switched professions. In this scenario, getting any wfh days is a win. My previous employer went fully remote and my current one is hybrid. I’ve never relocated for a job, so this aspect simply never occurred to me.
- parpfish 3y ago
  Add on that you need to get housing in that HCOL area that has enough space for an office/workstation
kkfx 3y ago
hybrid means, in random order: - two desk, both underutilized, often equipped with laptops and eventual docking station to economize money, witch means also moving equipment and having less than optimal horsepower or less mobile friendly stuff; - living in cities or nearby or accepting regular long commute to reach the office, a significant geographical limitation for what? - works in the office as you work at home, because part of the team is remote, so to avoid cut them out you need to work as if you where at home, and no, wasting money and create infosec nightmares with Meeting Owls and alike does not help. Long story short I fail to see any benefit in hybrid work for the workers and for the company, I see some "benefit" for some actors, who have many other business in cities/around the city model, but they are outside both a company on it's own and workers interests. Working in the office might offer advantages in certain scenarios, like introducing a new member in a team, where the new can observe the others and learn quicker from this, have an easy mentorship etc. But this is sub-par with hybrid work, and similarly hybrid works means you are still geographically bound much, so well define this model the worst of both world is true for me. Beside that fully remote means, on company side: - no offices, they only need to take care about work organization (not harder per se than in the office, but being for many a relatively new thing potentially a bit more challenging, especially for those not accustomed) and arrangement for the home office setup, witch might be a little challenging for NON-IT workers WFH, since operation can count on them nor count on a direct LAN access as needed; - no offices ancillaries like cleaning services, fire safety, ... - able to hire workers if not from the entire world (challenging for fiscal reasons) at least from a whole country instead of a small area of a whole country, also being protected by "future developments" of such small area; on worker side: - being not geographically bound, so being able to live in nice places, potentially in far better accommodations at a far lower costs; - having more comfortable work environment and no commuting - having more competitors, but also more offers, and an easier change for a company to another since the office, the commuting etc does not change. On the social side: - WFH means a spread population for those who work from home, witch are a significant slice of the total population, meaning a more spread economy, less big business for big players, more small and medium business for SME For the negative I've seen so far: - for companies having workers less keen to accept doing more than they are paid for, just because keeping the job is much more important than monthly payments alone, because hunting for another job means potential need to relocate, family issue since a partner can't relocate so easily and so on - for workers, specularly, companies can fire easily since new workers need to be trained, but the market is at least a whole nation, and the chance to find skilled workers who do not need much training and are very effective it's high, there are as well less social links in the team who can obstacle firing someone I fail to see disadvantages for the society except maybe if not enough people can be disciplined enough for WFH, having social issues of a significant slice of WFH population that do not works well simply because they are not interested nor disciplined enough for this model coupled with a slice of population who are still not accustomed to deal with remote workers, like people who feel the need to go to an office instead of call someone on one side, coupled with someone on the other side that do not answer because he/she like async work even if hes/shes works can't be done asynchronously (yes, remote work is not only for devs, it's also from various kind of office works who have no asynchronicity).

akurtzhs 3y ago

YMMV. I prefer hybrid with two days a week in the office. You can dedicate those days to meetings and conversations and keep the remote days for more heads down work. And if you can’t make it to the office due to snow or travel, you’re prepared for remote work.

al_borland 3y ago
Doesn’t this only work if everyone you need to have meetings with also has the same plan for 2 meeting days per week?
- nicoburns 3y ago
  Some hybrid workplaces specify which days you need to attend
  - ultrasaurus 3y ago
    Which means you need office space for 100% of the people, but that's only used 40% of the time. You can get a little clever with GTM coming in on different days than Eng but it's tradeoffs all the way down. (In a value-neutral way)
    - nicoburns 3y ago
      Well yes, hybrid working isn't generally a way to save office space. It's a way to help workers be more productive and also to give them time to deal with their non-work responsibilities.
      - kkfx 3y ago
        witch actually is untenable: the whole history of human social evolution is toward a more efficient use of resources, not "need more stuff to do things more comfy". WHF means better home usage, since you both rest, eat, etc and work in the same building, while the company needs no buildings, meaning a far simplified real estate: - homes - factories - special buildings (hospitals, army, politics etc) - sheds Instead of the various forms of multi-storey buildings, high-rise, towers and so on alongside their incapacity to evolve, very high construction and operational costs etc just to pack more humans in a tight space. Similarly for workers being at home means better time usage, no need for commuting, ability to do something at home while working, like run the washing machine, pre-loaded, when the Sun start to allow p.v. self-consumption and so on. WFH means far better usage of time, space, tools. Witch is a natural evolutionary move.

jltsiren 3y ago

I find quarterly retreats worse than hybrid. You lose control of your life, if you have to travel for a week or two every quarter, with the dates set by the employer. I don't mind business travel as such, but I expect to be the one who decides if the trip is worth doing.

alsetmusic 3y ago
My previous employer brought everyone to town for a week with only two days counting g toward the retreat. I really loved the social aspect of it, getting to know people from other states whose role meant I’d never really interacted with them. I found out a guy who I’d thought of as a liability was actually a really great guy. Food and drinks as a team ftw. (We were a ~25 person team; our small size was a major contributing factor.)
- charlie0 3y ago
  Exactly, this can definitely work under the right conditions and unlike the weekly hybrid model, you don't actually have to live 1-2 hours from where you work.

straydusk 3y ago

> I get this wouldn't work as well for those with families Your whole post is a series of contradictions where you hand wave gigantic problems and exaggerate small ones

charlie0 3y ago
Such as?

orwin 3y ago

My hybrid work is 2 days a month (one day every two weeks rather) and this allow me to live ~ 480km away from my office (300 miles), on the coast. Basically 3h10 by train+metro, which make the day quite tiring.

aantix 3y ago
Man, two days a month? If you lived near a major airport with a direct flight, you could live almost anywhere.
- charlie0 3y ago
  I had the reverse of this where I worked in-office all week, but spent the weekend in an entirely different city with my girlfriend. It was never meant to be a long term arrangement as I was staying with my family during the work-week, but it can work. It was a new job and I timed it well as 6 months after I started , COVID hit and everyone went remote. Flights were in state and I was buying them ahead of time, so I got them for cheaper than an Amtrak ticket.

deanrtaylor 3y ago

I prefer a hybrid work model, currently I spend two days per week in the office but it only has to be a half day as long as I'm available for meetings and sharing sessions. This schedule allows me to avoid peak traffic, enhance team relationships, and still enjoy ample time at home with my wife. Prolonged remote work tends to feel isolating and somewhat depressing. Despite the higher cost of living in these areas, businesses often thrive in such locations due to the close proximity to industry resources and collaborative opportunities. It's expensive but beneficial.

joeax 3y ago

Thank you for saying the quiet part out loud. I read articles stating that "the majority want hybrid", but what people truly want is freedom to work wherever it suits them best. I've been remote for 15 years, and I've seen people that want the connection an office provides, and others (like me) prefer to never set foot in an office again. Just look around at the other comments and you read differing preferences. And that's cool. Just leave me and others alone and let us work how we prefer. As far as your quarterly meetings comment is concerned, even that is a variation of hybrid. I worked at a company once that had the quarterly meetups. It worked, but sometimes it was a disruption to a normal routine, especially for some co-workers who flew cross-country. Another company (100% remote company) had the annual weekly retreat which I liked better. You got your face time/watercooler collaboration bullshit/whatever out of the way, then 358 days of peace til the next one.

charlie0 3y ago
True, but the quarterly thing doesn't have to be a requirement and the beauty of of is that 3 months is a decent amount of time to plan for who's going and who is no going. I'd leave it to people to decide if they want to attend every quarter, or every 6 months or every year.

Staple_Diet 3y ago

I work for a large org with several offices across the country. You can work in a local team (i.e., immediate supervisor is in the office next to you) or in a remote team (i.e., your boss might be in another state, and team distributed amongst three locations). I've done both and am currently in the latter. We run weekly online meetings for the team, plus weekly project specific meetings. Then about every 2 months my boss and his boss fly over for an informal fireside with anyone in the team at my location. This approach seems to work well if not better than the local team approach. In both cases we are hybrid but in my case I have no reason, and thus no pressure, to attend the office more than once a week.

SebFender 3y ago

Any minute I'm out of offices is great for me. They've now become this lost soul area with unassigned desks, ridiculous spaces and security measures.

kkfx 3y ago

100% agree: hybrid works and short workweeks are made as kind of gifts/bonuses to force people in cities instead of allowing remote work witch have the effect of depopulate congested and unlivable cities to spread toward smaller and less denser areas, witch means a good density for the modern economy of scale for all humans, except for giants who can't enslave people making them spending 100% of their income, no matter how small or big it is, in services.

jjav 3y ago

> Hybrid work is the worst of both worlds. Best of both world to me. I really don't want to commute every day, that becomes exhausting. And given how miserable offices are these days (open offices everywhere), I wouldn't get anything done in an open office every day. I've done 100% remote and while it sounded great on paper, it is a lot easier to built rapport with people if you can see them once in a while. I worked at one remote-only company for a couple years and never met anyone, everyone just tiny boxes on a zoom screen. Never felt I knew anyone. Going to the office once a week is great. I get to know people personally and while the open office is miserable I don't even pretend to sit down and work on the office day, I stack it with meetings (both formal and informal). As to the HCOL area it still helps. A commute that would be insane every day becomes a lot more palatable if it's once a week.

deterministic 3y ago

Not for me. I love working 2 days in the office and 3 days at home. But mainly for the social aspects. I am more productive WFH.