I wonder if remote work will become standard.
Companies tend to worry about accountability a lot more, mixing work life and off work life is hard, especially if you have a family with kids, having to define your own structure is hard etc.
Still, it's better than the alternative.
The problems I mentioned seem to me a bit more fundamental, problems of personally coping with working remotely rather than company attitude towards remote workers.
Personally I don't like the idea of remote work anyway - I think we're missing a lot of valuable bandwidth. We're social creatures and no amount of technology will change that. That being said, I think the option should be there for those who disagree with me.
A good middle ground would be a mix of remote and in-person work.
Culture changes, and there's a such thing as subculture. Many individual companies have created remote-only subcultures, and they'll become more influential over time.
(Wearing suits to the office used to be cultural and "never going to change".)
> we're missing a lot of valuable bandwidth
But you're also missing lots of destructive bandwidth (interruptions, gossip, etc.)
Remote work allows you to create time/space for the good connections without also formalizing the bad ones. Socializing becomes opt-in instead of opt-out.
> We're social creatures and no amount of technology will change that.
People socialize outside of offices all the time. There's nothing stopping remote coworkers from meeting in the same place every day, going out to lunch, etc.
> A good middle ground would be a mix of remote and in-person work.
This is a difficult line to toe. It works better if the company is 100% remote, or if going to the office is opt-in (like a free perk for those who want it).
If you start with onsite-by-default and try to transition to remote, the people who stay onsite become resentful of the remote workers, and everyone assumes the remote workers are lazier, distracted, etc.
These things are a component of being around others though. Gossip never goes away, it just migrates.
> People socialize outside of offices all the time. There's nothing stopping remote coworkers from meeting in the same place every day, going out to lunch, etc.
True that, but arguably the best benefit of remote work is to.. well.. live remotely. If you're all states or countries apart (as remote teams tend to be) then this is obviously not an option.
> If you start with onsite-by-default and try to transition to remote, the people who stay onsite become resentful of the remote workers, and everyone assumes the remote workers are lazier, distracted, etc.
If it's optional and actually sponsored by top execs into the company culture, why would this resentment exist?
Obviously this is just my opinion, but I'd really hate to live and work in the same place. It's the same for me with side projects: if you get burned out of uncomfortable in your space, that doesn't go away when work's over. You risk disliking your own place.
Personally I just prefer a strict division between work/life and remote heavily fragments that relationship.
This is actually one of the biggest reasons for an employer to choose remote-only. It's very difficult to find everyone you need in a single city at a salary you can afford.
I should've also mentioned that some of my closest relationships are with people I almost never meet in person. The US is full of people who are close to their families, but only see them a few times a year.
Coworkers can maintain a good working relationship without being in the same city more than once a year. All the companies I've worked for have had at least one remote worker, and they didn't feel like less a part of the team.
> If it's optional and actually sponsored by top execs into the company culture, why would this resentment exist?
Because some people feel like going into the office is more productive. That's it. They pat themselves on the back for it and look down on people who don't.
> I'd really hate to live and work in the same place
This is orthogonal to the issue of a remote-only employer. No one would be forcing you to stay at home. You could go to a library, coffee shop, co-working space, local college, friend's house, public park, or wherever else you choose to work from. You could be at a hotel in Tokyo, if you wanted.
I don't know man - there's something uncomfortable about the majority of our time being spent stuck to a computer. Even as a programmer being around and talking to others is a break from that.
Video calls will never be good enough.
Not all of us. Some of us have limits.