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Comment by mekkkkkk | Hacker News Reader

It seems like the overwhelming majority of people here are positive to WFH. I can't stand it. To me, a "remote first" workplace sounds abysmal. I like to have a physical workplace where our company can gather and focus on our goals together, in person. Picking up business related discussions, small talking, sharing music, joking around. Attempting this through video meetings or voice chats feels like a bad simulacrum. I just hope there's a place for people like me in your visions of the future distributed workplace.

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I think there will always be a place for people like you, and you have nothing to worry about. I also think that working from home can be good in some situations but not others even for the same person. I can see myself getting sick of it, and the option of a good office would be nice.

The problem is that "office" in today's world generally means an open office layout designed to waste your time and distract you. If "office" meant an actual office with a door you can close so that you can do focused work, the situation would be different.

> I like to have a physical workplace where our company can gather and focus on our goals together, in person

I dont want to sound rude, but most people here seem to focus more on actual work output.

> discussions, small talking, sharing music, joking around.

This doesnt sound like work at all, only busywork; what negatively affects those around.

Most people prefer to do get shit done and go home (when you work from home, you remove the commute part) and then spend time with real friends, since people at work very often are not your real friends.

I understand your point of view, and I respect it. I can't find the motivation to ruthlessly min/max my efficiency like that though. Most people are bound to X hours of work in a day, regardless of raw output. I just think it's worth sacrificing some amount of efficiency to be able to enjoy those hours. I also think that sacrifice is less than it first appears, since you gain a lot of intangible benefits like mindshare, motivation and team cohesion. I don't want to "power through" my work, I want to look forward to it.

It's possible to have that remotely! It takes effort and requires intentionality, but you can make it happen.

We do daily 30 minute standups - which we intentionally run inefficiently at this point. It's a great time for watercooler talk, catching up, and generally building rapport that's hard to build at remote companies.

We also do twice weekly hang-out sessions. It takes some time to develop the habit. It's probably not for everyone but it's been incredibly positive for our team.

Seconding this. WFH is more conscious effort in this regard, but you don't _have_ to lose those things. The biggest difference is organic conversations will not happen in big meetings. When only one person can talk at a time, you lose all those side chats, etc. So you need to book a lot of smaller meetings with people.

I have daily stand-ups with my team. I've never made it explicitly clear but kind of driven it towards a routine of "get the work out of the way, then we have until X time to chat and bullshit".

I have a weekly planning meeting with a few members of the team. Same deal. Get the planning out of the way, then the remainder is for general chit-chat, talking about personal projects, etc.

Every week I have three hours blocked off where I do a "check-in" with a bunch of other team leads. It's dual-purpose: There's a lot of things they might be dealing with that they'd never feel rose to the level of scheduling a meeting to discuss (whether problems or just wanting input, etc; this was previously a lot of the water cooler talk), but when the time's already there then they'll find all sorts of productive ways to fill it. And chit-chat once that's all out of the way.

I do an hour once a week with my boss one on one.

The entire office does a monthly-ish hour to play some silly online games and hang out as well.

We've been hiring like crazy so at this point a lot of these people are people I've never met in person but I've built a pretty good rapport and relationship purely over video chat and Slack.

All-in, I spend like 6 hours a week on this. And most of it's scheduled around the beginning/very end of the day where most people aren't as interrupted or super productive to begin with. Truth be told, this is barely more (if any) than the amount of time that we were spending previously on socialization at work. If we account for the _lost_ productivity of being distracted in the office, then I've definitely gained time.

The hardest part was just accepting that I was going to have to let some relationships go. As much as I really enjoyed talking to that one frontend engineer and it _occasionally_ resulted in some sort of productive action, the trade-off just isn't there so I need to rely more on the team leads to solve and communicate those issues.

Then don’t join a remote first company? It’s not like that’s going away anytime soon.

Of course not. I doubt it ever will. I'm referring to the seemingly common sentiment that working in an office is objectively worse and should be abolished. I just wanted to add some nuance to that.

There will a place for folks like yourself be as long as it’s needed. Don’t take it the wrong way but once people who have preferences like yours are gone this notion of needing a office in the traditional sense, will pass. The need for working space will remain. The need for a “office” will go away. It’s a natural progression. It’s like Horses gave way to cars but peoples need for mobility remained. Our needs as humans have remained how we fulfill them changes as decades roll. Best to enjoy life and adapt. The other way is possible too....

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