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I have heard every possible sentiment about RTO at this point. The post is a well-written spleen vent, and I mostly agree, but I didn’t see anything new in it.

I have heard every possible sentiment about RTO at this point. The post is a well-written spleen vent, and I mostly agree, but I didn’t see anything new in it. But because everyone has an opinion, I’ll share mine: I like being in the office, sometimes. I hate going to and from the office.

smallnix 2y ago
Here is mine: I like the commute, it marks the beginning and end of my workday and I get fresh air. I loathe being in the office, it is mentally taxing and I have to put in more for the same output.
- orangesun 2y ago
  Fair point. Nice separation between personal life and work.
- derekp7 2y ago
  I have an easy commute (35 - 45 minutes, but not bad traffic and pretty roads), and a comfy car. The commute is my peaceful time, when I don't have to answer to anyone.
  - willcipriano 2y ago
    I'd rather go to the gym than be in a car for the same effect.
  - ghaff 2y ago
    I guess I don't really consider that an easy commute though I've done something along those lines off and on over the years. It's not bad like when I commuted about 90 minutes a few days a week. "Easy" for me is a 15-30 minute walk with maybe some mass transit mixed in there if the weather is bad. And, yes, if I had an office to go into, I would do so some days if that were my option.
- hmottestad 2y ago
  My commute is a 15 minute bike ride. 9/10 days it’s nice weather, I get some air and possibly some sunlight. Office isn’t too bad, and it’s nice to meet other adults. I don’t think I would enjoy it as much if I had a desk in a big, shared office space and a 45 minute bus ride. Ironically those days that are so bad that I think that I almost shouldn’t try to bike, those are the days that the busses don’t run because the busses and more sensitive to the weather than my e-bike with studded tires. Busses in Oslo don’t work if it’s raining a lot or if it’s snowing a lot. It’s really sad since it’s snows and rains quite a lot every year. Our locally public transport is more interested in trailing self-driving cars than testing out new tires :(
  - ojhughes 2y ago
    9/10 days it’s nice weather in Oslo?
    - einpoklum 2y ago
      Hey, snow and rain are nice too!
    - hmottestad 2y ago
      I'm only biking in the morning and late afternoon. So yes, 9/10 days the weather in the morning and late afternoon is nice. It can rain every single day of the year between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. without bothering me.
- InsideOutSanta 2y ago
  Commutes can indeed be good, but you can get the same benefit with your own rituals. Currently, I shovel the snow in the morning and drink a hot chocolate to start the workday, and I take a ten-minute walk to end it. Same effect as a commute, but something I can control.
  - rachofsunshine 2y ago
    If you have the discipline for them. Some of us find maintaining rituals deliberately very taxing, and find having them imposed on us useful. (I'm with the previous poster, in that I actually kind of liked commuting. I like remote work because I don't like cities.)
- egeozcan 2y ago
  The serenity I had while sitting in a train is the only thing I seek from my office days. I actually listened to audio books and learned, or just watched outside and thought about nothing. Catching cold every 2 to 6 weeks on winter wasn't amazing though.
- from-nibly 2y ago
  I have a fake commute that I just started. I meditate or listen to an inspiring short talk. It has done wonders with my patience with the kids right after work.
- stringsandchars 2y ago
  > I like the commute, it marks the beginning and end of my workday and I get fresh air. I get up at 06:15. Work for an hour, then go for a fast and invigorating walk through the forest where I often encounter deer, and this week a fox, and then I'm back at my home-desk to start the day with some video meetings. When my kids get back from school I take a break and we have a snack together. Then I work another hour, and then in the summer I roll out my bike, and in the winter we've gone out with the snow-racer (although the kids don't wanna do that so much anymore). Before covid I used to sit in a miserable office. Everyone had headphones on. My window overlooked a motorway on-ramp that was always backed-up as far as the eye could see.
orangesun 2y ago
I don’t mind going in either, but I like having it as an option and not mandatory or only 2-3 designated days that excludes Fridays.
callc 2y ago
Heavily agree on the “going to and from the office” I was just thinking about this recently as $company executives are sociopathically dangling RTO in our faces. The worst part is the commute by car. I’m totally for WFH, but give me an office I can walk/bike to in a safe calm environment - not a bike lane next to 60 mph traffic - and I may just want to go into the office. Furthermore, the company culture needs to be such that you can leave the office as necessary like we do in WFH. Do errands, take a break, etc. Cal Newport makes the point on his podcast that our work culture for creative jobs (anything that uses the brain primarily, I don’t know the right word) has not really changed from factory line physical in nature jobs.
- lowercased 2y ago
  "Knowledge work"? Is that the label?
typeofhuman 2y ago
We need those tubes from Futurama.
cess11 2y ago
Don't think I've seen the point about office work spreading disease in a blog post like this before. Do you have any examples of this?
- AnimalMuppet 2y ago
  It's a bunch of people in a crowded, shared space. For respiratory/airborne illnesses, the default assumption should be that office work will in fact spread disease.
  - cess11 2y ago
    You probably meant to respond to someone else, I have made no such claim.
    - AnimalMuppet 2y ago
      You asked for examples about office work spreading disease, in the context of you saying that you hadn't seen the claim before. I took that as an unwillingness to believe the idea until you saw evidence. If that wasn't your point, I obviously didn't understand what you were trying to say, so could you clarify? [Edit: I see that it could be read to be asking for examples of the claim that office work spreads disease in a piece arguing against RTO. Given that at this time, none of the direct replies read it that way, I'm going to say that it was at a minimum ambiguously worded...]
      - monocularvision 2y ago
        You might want to slow down a bit and re-read what the person actually said in their comment.
      - monocularvision 2y ago
        Your edit is still wrong! In context, the person was replying to someone who stated “I have read it all when it comes to RTO”. They stated they hadn’t seen a _blog post_ making _this point_ that RTO would cause more sickness. They were never addressing the claim that it does or does not. They were talking about the novelty of this argument for them.
devmor 2y ago
I'm in the same vein. I enjoy being in the office a couple days a week - I feel like there's different types of focus needed for different tasks and sometimes the focus I need is the kind I get from being in a very structured environment with co-workers. Other times it's the kind I get from being in my own space in full control of my own surroundings. But either way I hate commuting. Especially if I have to drive.
janejeon 2y ago
I don't mind the commute if I live close enough that I can just walk 30-40 minutes to the office, because then it serves as a good exercise (okay, fine. Grass-touching) that I don't have to do separately in the day. But I realize that this is NOT a luxury most people have. Most people's commute looks like being stuck in the subway, or driving in traffic, for up to several hours every single day, and I just can't think of anything that would justify that type of commute.
- the_snooze 2y ago
  The single-occupant driving commute is the most common way to get to work in the US, by far. [1] That’s just miserable: it’s stressful, lonely, expensive, prone to risks like car problems. I feel like we can do better, even incrementally. Why isn’t slugging [2] more common, for instance? [1] https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/2024/demo/acsbr-018.pdf https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/2024/demo/acsbr... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slugging https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slugging
  - 1over137 2y ago
    I have a feeling almost all of the pro-WFH types are exactly that: 1) American 2) single-occupant driver commute 3) live in big car-centric city. 4) have ridiculously long commute time. Slugging isn't common because the capitalist system would rather everyone buy a car. Selling cars is big business.
    - goostavos 2y ago
      I'd argue it has less to do with the "capitalist systems" and more to do with how obnoxious "slugging" sounds. Commuting in your own car guarantees (a) you have a ride and (b) you have flexibility. You can change you plans, stop by the store, run errands, anything your heart desires (plus, not deal with strangers everyday. Ugh.) This isn't a pro-car thing. I've haven't driven a car to work in 8 years (I pay out the ass to live downtown so that I'm close enough to walk / bike). It just seems like "Well, that sounds like a pain in the ass" is a simpler possible explanation to why slugging isn't popular in the US compared to Big Business not wanting it to be.
exe34 2y ago
> I like being in the office I love being in an office with the handful of people I work with. I hate being in an office with hundreds of people I don't work with.
bitwize 2y ago
This girl has pretty severe Crohn's, severe enough to make commuting in pretty much not an option: in addition to the severe fatigue, she's immunocompromised and more prone to whatever bugs her coworkers bring in to work. That's something new and unique about this post I took away from it. It's not just a rant because me no like office/commute. There are health and profound QoL issues in play.
- spondylosaurus 2y ago
  Not the person who wrote this post, but I also have Crohn's (that isn't quite in remission). If WFH was off the table, there's no way I'd be able to work at all. With WFH, I'm bringing in more than half of total our household income. Very very grateful that this is available to me.
tetha 2y ago
I think being in the office together with a plan is a good tool to use, but you need to use it well. Just yell at people to be in the office for 2 days per week for no reason? Meh. Why? Organize a week to have all local and international employees together for a week once or twice a year, schedule big organizational meetings and important discussions in that week, sponsor dinner and lunch together, have a team event or three? Just accept that concrete and hard productivity will crash for that week, and consider it a social event? That's actually nice and valuable.
- stringsandchars 2y ago
  > Organize a week to have all local and international employees together for a week once or twice a year, schedule big organizational meetings and important discussions in that week, sponsor dinner and lunch together, have a team event or three? ... That's actually nice and valuable. When I read posts like this - however well-intentioned - I just see a person without kids or other responsibilities, who thinks it would be 'fun' to fly out to some town and hang with their colleagues 24/7 for those seven days, and forgetting that for a lot of people this would be difficult or impossible. At home there can be children that need to be looked after, or an elderly parent who needs a visit, or a partner who works nights or a disability that would make this type of 'cool' get-together impossible or extremely stressful.
  - zen928 2y ago
    The compromise is ofcourse that you're working the majority of the time remote and can reasonably accommodate one of these trips if the date is known in advance. I had a similar experience at a workplace I've had with known "onsites" that facilitated several of the business units at the same time, holding meetings and small get togethers to allow some face to face time. Afterward, optional events were suggested to spend time with teams if you had the flexibility, like meeting for a bigger group dinner or doing a meeting specifically with your team. I don't think it's nearly as 'tech startup burnout' culture as you're envisioning here, people travel for work functions regularly in other sectors of work. Nearly all my aforementioned coworkers on my team had children and lives that they were able to allow their temporary separation from. I dont think it's anyone else's responsibility to fix but your own if making accommodations and planning to meet other people makes you stressed.
flatline 2y ago
I just need flexibility and variety. Some days I work better from home. Some days it feels claustrophobic and I cannot focus. Sometimes the office helps me focus. Sometimes it facilitates communications that never would have happened remotely. Other times I’m bogged down by unwanted social interactions. Sometimes I really need to be on site with customers or at a conference building and maintaining social ties. I’ve worked in hybrid environments for over a decade and could never go back to a full RTO position. I’m currently mostly remote and that is also driving me a little crazy. Some people do great in the office. Some do great remote. I’m not in either bin.
AdrianB1 2y ago
Did I understood correctly, if teleportation would be real you would go to the office every day? I would, if I would meet my team there.
- rty32 2y ago
  Well, I wouldn't. Teleportation wouldn't even be necessary in my case as it takes 5 minutes for me to get to my office. I just don't see any point in being in office on days when I am focusing on writing code to push features out.
stemlord 2y ago
I like being in the office when everyone else is wfh. When everyone is in the office I can't focus, am stressed, little gets done.
lynndotpy 2y ago
I did two hours of work this (Saturday) morning, and I was pretty ill four days in a recent week but able to work for two of them. That's a lot of productivity my employer would not have had from me if I had to go to the office to work.
braiamp 2y ago
Ok, what if you are paid to create a office in your house?
znpy 2y ago
As somebody who generally dislikes the office, i respect your opinion and your preference. The issues arise when we’re all forced into the office, whether we like it or not. I wouldn’t mind going from time to time, but i absolutely abhor being forced to.
rootusrootus 2y ago
Yeah this is my position. There are aspects of being in the office that I like. I loathe having to drive 45 minutes to get there, however.
scruple 2y ago
> I like being in the office, sometimes. I hate going to and from the office. I like being in the office when it means the office isn't packed to the brim. Prior to RTO mandates at my employer, our team voluntarily went in on Tuesdays and Thursdays. And it was very nice. Not everyone (including myself) came in every day but there was always others present. Then RTO mandates came down, then we got moved out of our office space into another, next to a very loud group of non-engineers, then we got moved again, again next to a very loud group of non-engineers, and we are being moved, yet again, but this time back to our own, secluded space. It's all frankly ridiculous bullshit. I'm 60% remote today but I'm still generally annoyed about being in the office when I am there because of all of the stupid bullshit that comes along with it.

smallnix 2y ago

Here is mine: I like the commute, it marks the beginning and end of my workday and I get fresh air. I loathe being in the office, it is mentally taxing and I have to put in more for the same output.

orangesun 2y ago
Fair point. Nice separation between personal life and work.
derekp7 2y ago
I have an easy commute (35 - 45 minutes, but not bad traffic and pretty roads), and a comfy car. The commute is my peaceful time, when I don't have to answer to anyone.
- willcipriano 2y ago
  I'd rather go to the gym than be in a car for the same effect.
- ghaff 2y ago
  I guess I don't really consider that an easy commute though I've done something along those lines off and on over the years. It's not bad like when I commuted about 90 minutes a few days a week. "Easy" for me is a 15-30 minute walk with maybe some mass transit mixed in there if the weather is bad. And, yes, if I had an office to go into, I would do so some days if that were my option.
hmottestad 2y ago
My commute is a 15 minute bike ride. 9/10 days it’s nice weather, I get some air and possibly some sunlight. Office isn’t too bad, and it’s nice to meet other adults. I don’t think I would enjoy it as much if I had a desk in a big, shared office space and a 45 minute bus ride. Ironically those days that are so bad that I think that I almost shouldn’t try to bike, those are the days that the busses don’t run because the busses and more sensitive to the weather than my e-bike with studded tires. Busses in Oslo don’t work if it’s raining a lot or if it’s snowing a lot. It’s really sad since it’s snows and rains quite a lot every year. Our locally public transport is more interested in trailing self-driving cars than testing out new tires :(
- ojhughes 2y ago
  9/10 days it’s nice weather in Oslo?
  - einpoklum 2y ago
    Hey, snow and rain are nice too!
  - hmottestad 2y ago
    I'm only biking in the morning and late afternoon. So yes, 9/10 days the weather in the morning and late afternoon is nice. It can rain every single day of the year between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. without bothering me.
InsideOutSanta 2y ago
Commutes can indeed be good, but you can get the same benefit with your own rituals. Currently, I shovel the snow in the morning and drink a hot chocolate to start the workday, and I take a ten-minute walk to end it. Same effect as a commute, but something I can control.
- rachofsunshine 2y ago
  If you have the discipline for them. Some of us find maintaining rituals deliberately very taxing, and find having them imposed on us useful. (I'm with the previous poster, in that I actually kind of liked commuting. I like remote work because I don't like cities.)
egeozcan 2y ago
The serenity I had while sitting in a train is the only thing I seek from my office days. I actually listened to audio books and learned, or just watched outside and thought about nothing. Catching cold every 2 to 6 weeks on winter wasn't amazing though.
from-nibly 2y ago
I have a fake commute that I just started. I meditate or listen to an inspiring short talk. It has done wonders with my patience with the kids right after work.
stringsandchars 2y ago
> I like the commute, it marks the beginning and end of my workday and I get fresh air. I get up at 06:15. Work for an hour, then go for a fast and invigorating walk through the forest where I often encounter deer, and this week a fox, and then I'm back at my home-desk to start the day with some video meetings. When my kids get back from school I take a break and we have a snack together. Then I work another hour, and then in the summer I roll out my bike, and in the winter we've gone out with the snow-racer (although the kids don't wanna do that so much anymore). Before covid I used to sit in a miserable office. Everyone had headphones on. My window overlooked a motorway on-ramp that was always backed-up as far as the eye could see.

orangesun 2y ago

I don’t mind going in either, but I like having it as an option and not mandatory or only 2-3 designated days that excludes Fridays.

callc 2y ago

Heavily agree on the “going to and from the office” I was just thinking about this recently as $company executives are sociopathically dangling RTO in our faces. The worst part is the commute by car. I’m totally for WFH, but give me an office I can walk/bike to in a safe calm environment - not a bike lane next to 60 mph traffic - and I may just want to go into the office. Furthermore, the company culture needs to be such that you can leave the office as necessary like we do in WFH. Do errands, take a break, etc. Cal Newport makes the point on his podcast that our work culture for creative jobs (anything that uses the brain primarily, I don’t know the right word) has not really changed from factory line physical in nature jobs.

lowercased 2y ago
"Knowledge work"? Is that the label?

typeofhuman 2y ago

We need those tubes from Futurama.

cess11 2y ago

Don't think I've seen the point about office work spreading disease in a blog post like this before. Do you have any examples of this?

AnimalMuppet 2y ago
It's a bunch of people in a crowded, shared space. For respiratory/airborne illnesses, the default assumption should be that office work will in fact spread disease.
- cess11 2y ago
  You probably meant to respond to someone else, I have made no such claim.
  - AnimalMuppet 2y ago
    You asked for examples about office work spreading disease, in the context of you saying that you hadn't seen the claim before. I took that as an unwillingness to believe the idea until you saw evidence. If that wasn't your point, I obviously didn't understand what you were trying to say, so could you clarify? [Edit: I see that it could be read to be asking for examples of the claim that office work spreads disease in a piece arguing against RTO. Given that at this time, none of the direct replies read it that way, I'm going to say that it was at a minimum ambiguously worded...]
    - monocularvision 2y ago
      You might want to slow down a bit and re-read what the person actually said in their comment.
    - monocularvision 2y ago
      Your edit is still wrong! In context, the person was replying to someone who stated “I have read it all when it comes to RTO”. They stated they hadn’t seen a _blog post_ making _this point_ that RTO would cause more sickness. They were never addressing the claim that it does or does not. They were talking about the novelty of this argument for them.

devmor 2y ago

I'm in the same vein. I enjoy being in the office a couple days a week - I feel like there's different types of focus needed for different tasks and sometimes the focus I need is the kind I get from being in a very structured environment with co-workers. Other times it's the kind I get from being in my own space in full control of my own surroundings. But either way I hate commuting. Especially if I have to drive.

janejeon 2y ago

I don't mind the commute if I live close enough that I can just walk 30-40 minutes to the office, because then it serves as a good exercise (okay, fine. Grass-touching) that I don't have to do separately in the day. But I realize that this is NOT a luxury most people have. Most people's commute looks like being stuck in the subway, or driving in traffic, for up to several hours every single day, and I just can't think of anything that would justify that type of commute.

the_snooze 2y ago
The single-occupant driving commute is the most common way to get to work in the US, by far. [1] That’s just miserable: it’s stressful, lonely, expensive, prone to risks like car problems. I feel like we can do better, even incrementally. Why isn’t slugging [2] more common, for instance? [1] https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/2024/demo/acsbr-018.pdf https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/2024/demo/acsbr... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slugging https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slugging
- 1over137 2y ago
  I have a feeling almost all of the pro-WFH types are exactly that: 1) American 2) single-occupant driver commute 3) live in big car-centric city. 4) have ridiculously long commute time. Slugging isn't common because the capitalist system would rather everyone buy a car. Selling cars is big business.
  - goostavos 2y ago
    I'd argue it has less to do with the "capitalist systems" and more to do with how obnoxious "slugging" sounds. Commuting in your own car guarantees (a) you have a ride and (b) you have flexibility. You can change you plans, stop by the store, run errands, anything your heart desires (plus, not deal with strangers everyday. Ugh.) This isn't a pro-car thing. I've haven't driven a car to work in 8 years (I pay out the ass to live downtown so that I'm close enough to walk / bike). It just seems like "Well, that sounds like a pain in the ass" is a simpler possible explanation to why slugging isn't popular in the US compared to Big Business not wanting it to be.

exe34 2y ago

> I like being in the office I love being in an office with the handful of people I work with. I hate being in an office with hundreds of people I don't work with.

bitwize 2y ago

This girl has pretty severe Crohn's, severe enough to make commuting in pretty much not an option: in addition to the severe fatigue, she's immunocompromised and more prone to whatever bugs her coworkers bring in to work. That's something new and unique about this post I took away from it. It's not just a rant because me no like office/commute. There are health and profound QoL issues in play.

spondylosaurus 2y ago
Not the person who wrote this post, but I also have Crohn's (that isn't quite in remission). If WFH was off the table, there's no way I'd be able to work at all. With WFH, I'm bringing in more than half of total our household income. Very very grateful that this is available to me.

tetha 2y ago

I think being in the office together with a plan is a good tool to use, but you need to use it well. Just yell at people to be in the office for 2 days per week for no reason? Meh. Why? Organize a week to have all local and international employees together for a week once or twice a year, schedule big organizational meetings and important discussions in that week, sponsor dinner and lunch together, have a team event or three? Just accept that concrete and hard productivity will crash for that week, and consider it a social event? That's actually nice and valuable.

stringsandchars 2y ago
> Organize a week to have all local and international employees together for a week once or twice a year, schedule big organizational meetings and important discussions in that week, sponsor dinner and lunch together, have a team event or three? ... That's actually nice and valuable. When I read posts like this - however well-intentioned - I just see a person without kids or other responsibilities, who thinks it would be 'fun' to fly out to some town and hang with their colleagues 24/7 for those seven days, and forgetting that for a lot of people this would be difficult or impossible. At home there can be children that need to be looked after, or an elderly parent who needs a visit, or a partner who works nights or a disability that would make this type of 'cool' get-together impossible or extremely stressful.
- zen928 2y ago
  The compromise is ofcourse that you're working the majority of the time remote and can reasonably accommodate one of these trips if the date is known in advance. I had a similar experience at a workplace I've had with known "onsites" that facilitated several of the business units at the same time, holding meetings and small get togethers to allow some face to face time. Afterward, optional events were suggested to spend time with teams if you had the flexibility, like meeting for a bigger group dinner or doing a meeting specifically with your team. I don't think it's nearly as 'tech startup burnout' culture as you're envisioning here, people travel for work functions regularly in other sectors of work. Nearly all my aforementioned coworkers on my team had children and lives that they were able to allow their temporary separation from. I dont think it's anyone else's responsibility to fix but your own if making accommodations and planning to meet other people makes you stressed.

flatline 2y ago

I just need flexibility and variety. Some days I work better from home. Some days it feels claustrophobic and I cannot focus. Sometimes the office helps me focus. Sometimes it facilitates communications that never would have happened remotely. Other times I’m bogged down by unwanted social interactions. Sometimes I really need to be on site with customers or at a conference building and maintaining social ties. I’ve worked in hybrid environments for over a decade and could never go back to a full RTO position. I’m currently mostly remote and that is also driving me a little crazy. Some people do great in the office. Some do great remote. I’m not in either bin.

AdrianB1 2y ago

Did I understood correctly, if teleportation would be real you would go to the office every day? I would, if I would meet my team there.

rty32 2y ago
Well, I wouldn't. Teleportation wouldn't even be necessary in my case as it takes 5 minutes for me to get to my office. I just don't see any point in being in office on days when I am focusing on writing code to push features out.

stemlord 2y ago

I like being in the office when everyone else is wfh. When everyone is in the office I can't focus, am stressed, little gets done.

lynndotpy 2y ago

I did two hours of work this (Saturday) morning, and I was pretty ill four days in a recent week but able to work for two of them. That's a lot of productivity my employer would not have had from me if I had to go to the office to work.

braiamp 2y ago

Ok, what if you are paid to create a office in your house?

znpy 2y ago

As somebody who generally dislikes the office, i respect your opinion and your preference. The issues arise when we’re all forced into the office, whether we like it or not. I wouldn’t mind going from time to time, but i absolutely abhor being forced to.

rootusrootus 2y ago

Yeah this is my position. There are aspects of being in the office that I like. I loathe having to drive 45 minutes to get there, however.

scruple 2y ago

> I like being in the office, sometimes. I hate going to and from the office. I like being in the office when it means the office isn't packed to the brim. Prior to RTO mandates at my employer, our team voluntarily went in on Tuesdays and Thursdays. And it was very nice. Not everyone (including myself) came in every day but there was always others present. Then RTO mandates came down, then we got moved out of our office space into another, next to a very loud group of non-engineers, then we got moved again, again next to a very loud group of non-engineers, and we are being moved, yet again, but this time back to our own, secluded space. It's all frankly ridiculous bullshit. I'm 60% remote today but I'm still generally annoyed about being in the office when I am there because of all of the stupid bullshit that comes along with it.