Nearly a third of workers don’t want to ever return to the office | Hacker News Reader

Nearly a third of workers don’t want to ever return to the office

fortune.com

17 pointsapress13 comments

It makes no sense to commute the work 5 days/week for 8 hours a day by spending 1/2-2 hours extra commute time. It’s time to move away from this system and going remote.

Perhaps it won’t be possible to entirely cancel workplaces but the notion of full time ‘office’ is done. It’s toast.

The problem is there are people for which a commute actually isn't this hellscape that drives them to the brink of madness. For example, I've noticed that the commute to and from work provided a nice break to get into work mode or to decompress out of work mode.

On my drive in, I can think about the things I need to get done during the day, maybe think about how to solve a tough problem. I can organize my tasks, think about what to do first, etc.

And many times on my commute home, listening to music allows me to put the work out of my mind, so when I get home I can fully detach. Obviously, it doesn't work this way all of the time, but without this barrier while wfh it feels like I'm in work mode even if I'm not doing work any more.

There is really no one size fits all for everyone, and it sounds like the vast majority of people don't want wfh. And for those that do, I think it's a good idea to try and see if more wfh options can be made available for people.

Flexibility is always good.

If you really felt like that, you could take a two hour walk or even a two hour drive every day for the same effect.

Sure, let the ones who want to stay home stay home. Meanwhile, I will have more productive interaction with coworkers, faster responses to my questions, less ping-pong during code reviews, better insight into what my team is working on, and none of that attempted Slack multitasking where each side takes 5-10 minutes to send a response.

It's been three quarters of a year. In my experience and the experience of my friends, an effective etiquette for distributed teams has not materialized. People who work effectively in an office will go back to being effective in an office. The people who work remotely from a horse farm in Hartford and pop into Zoom twice a week for some drive-by decision-making will continue to contribute that way. The ones who could have been effective working from home will get increasingly handicapped by teams who don't work well with them, and will need to decide accordingly.

I’m one of those who will be happy to WFH forever, and the nature of my contribution aligns with it pretty well. I hope everyone gets what works best for them. In my previous life as a consultant, even in SF... company cultures were so radically different it’d be hard to speak broadly about their work norms and WFH opportunities across organizations. Just a consideration for those who’ve been in one place for a while.

Friends of mine work for a company that has downsized offices but allows teams to book days in a smaller office. So teams get some productive in person time a few times during a sprint. I thought that sounded like a healthy way to facilitate both.

The trouble you describe is definitely your own fault. For companies with a healthy structure and culture, good distributed team communication materialised within the first two months.

If I had to guess at a root cause, I'd say it is evidenced by your first paragraph: Headstrong and willfully exclusive of a working paradigm that has greatly benefited some of your colleagues. You callously dismiss them and appear to celebrate they will be worse off when you go back to your office because you won't take the time to cement a process that helps everyone.

Sure, in that case every company I and the people I know have been working or since March has been unhealthy, including some large Silicon Valley standards.

But now you're just arguing that reality is wrong.

Come on. They're not arguing that "reality is wrong". Some teams have developed a stronger communication culture as a result of WFH and are better off for it. Other teams have not. It depends on the people and what you work on. Distributed work has improved the productivity of my team. I recognize that is not a universal reality. I believe you can recognize that as well.

I mean, what? Read the grandparent's first two sentences. The grandparent literally says that the problem is my fault, and that since I'm not seeing better WFH skills from coworkers, I (and my friends) must be working for companies with an unhealthy culture. The grandparent makes categorical claims. Why should I work on the grandparent's behalf to moderate those claims?

Nearly a third of workers are doing bull shit jobs

more than two thirds of workers want to to return to the office.

that's a super majority.

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