Hacker News Reader

Comment by Grimm1 | Hacker News Reader

WFH is great for > 30 yo, and those with money/space and worse for people just starting out or who live in a studio.

I'm young (26), but successful by financial standards and before the pandemic my apartment was just the place I slept so I had a studio and I liked it that way.

Working, sleeping, eating and socializing from my 800 sqft studio is frankly maddening. I feel like I'm always on call and connected where before my apartment was the place I decompressed and escaped.

It's lost its sanctity and I want it back.

View on HN

Apparently it's an unpopular opinion, but I am completely in this boat. I suffer from ADHD and my productivity and emotional wellbeing cratered when WFH started. I eat worse than I did at work, I put on weight, etc.

I lived next to the office before I ended my lease and moved in with family so I wouldn't be completely alone, so the office was never a hassle. I was a 20 minute walk away and the weather is usually nice.

I had a clear delineation between work life and personal life. My home was for relaxing and play, the office was for work. It helped me keep my priorities in order. Going into the office helped me mute out the personal distractions of life - personal projects, entertainment, etc.

I have a dramatically different experience at home. I can hardly focus because it's next to impossible to fully separate myself from my toys, as it were.

It's driven my stress levels through the roof because I know I'm less productive. No one has said anything to me about it, nor brought up anything, yet my self guilt is consuming me. It keeps me up at night and I'm dreading performance reviews...

> My home was for relaxing and play, the office was for work

Yup I feel this exactly. I had the exact same separation and the exact same issue when it stopped existing. I'm still struggling with it and we've been living this way for over a year now.

YMMV but I set up a treadmill desk in my basement. The treadmill is for work. Everywhere else in the house is for me.

This is off-topic, but to me as a European, it's fascinating to read that you consider an 800sqft studio to be somewhat limiting. I'm pretty sure most couples in European cities live in apartments smaller than that. Back when I was in university, I lived in a ~200sqft studio. Granted, I'm really happy that I didn't have to lock down or WFH from there.

It's limiting if you're indoors during the first half of a pandemic all the time, and work from there for another 8 months. A year and 2 months to be exact. Maybe in a normal time (like when you physically went to a university). Now - prison.

800 is a giant studio. 400-500 is more normal in the US. But 200? Whew. Maybe only in NYC.

I lived in a 230 ft^2 studio in Michigan with my wife while she was in grad school. They exist, even in the middle of the country.

I am not sure where you live, but I would expect that WHF allows those under 30 a similar financial relief to those above. For you to be forced to live in an 800 sqft place working in tech, I would assume you live in one of the larger metropolitan areas. WFH should allow you to move further away and capture more space for your dollar, even if you don't end up owning the property like those over 30 might.

At the start of the pandemic I lived in a house full of people working at tech startups in Oakland. So I understand having no space as I worked/lived from my tiny room. But, I was able to leave the bay area, as were my roommates and now we all have our own places (some rent some own) because the same rent in Oakland was able to afford private spaces in other parts of CA.

So I empathize with your position. I recommend trying to move out of the locale that only allows you to afford an 800 sqft studio. Even the shittiest tech jobs in the Bay would allow for you to have your own 2 bedroom apt in other parts of CA. This is how you take advantage of the WFH opportunity as a younger person.

You may have misunderstood me, I could definitely afford a bigger space. I didn't/don't want one. I purposely chose my 800 sqft studio because I hadn't signed up to be entombed in it.

I was never home by choice in the before times and I don't want to change that. I want to go back to getting home at 10pm sleeping after work, socializing, going to meetups or whatever and then leaving at 8:30am the next day. The extra space would be wasted in that case. Plus saving 35%+ of my paycheck was/is great.

I only spent time in my apartment later at night and sometimes on the weekends.

Moving away from the city won't help me there. I imagine it'd actually be worse.

I am confused then. You want to go into an office so that you can stay living in a small apartment? The position was that the WFH situation helped those that had their own space. But you're saying that not having your own space is a choice.

It would seem that this issue is more around the pandemic itself and less around WFH. Once things open up your home would only be a place where you work and sleep, and you'll be able to spend most of your time away from your apartment. And if you expanded the size of your apartment to a 1 bed instead of a studio, you could theoretically reduce this issue by having an isolated work space that you don't share with your recreational activities.

I don't want WFH to become permanent for everyone, I want it to be a choice. A lot of people around this forum seem overly about WFH and it being permanent which often means it becomes a thing everyone has to deal with. I'd prefer it being a well balanced choice or go back to how it was.

So yes, if things return to how they were before you're right my issues will be resolved.

Thats fair. I am all for the hybrid situation where there is an office people can use while also supporting the remote workforce. IDK if it's economical but I think the choice helps ensure everyone has the opportunity to the work environment they work best in.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com