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Comment by istvan__ | Hacker News Reader

To be fair, this is happening because of the wide spread "open office" movement ruined office work in the US. Who thought that putting 10-20+ people in the same space without boundaries is going to increase productivity when we know that humans are not good with context switching at all. Now, working in an open office environment is a series of continuous interruptions from different sources. I am not surprised that working form home fixes this. :)

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Great point...

I have worked, in order, in a no WFH open office, yes WFH with private cubicles in the office, and yes WFH open office.

#1 was terrible. In the case of #2 while I could WFH, I would deliberately make it to the office at least 4 days a week because I was so much more productive. And #3 has me staying at home when I want to work, and showing up in the office when I want others to know that I am working.

Take away the nonsensical open office system (which may work great for jobs which are almost completely collaborative at all times, but are terrible for most jobs) and an office which provides some privacy is actually pretty awesome.

You get to control your interactions with coworkers, and are far more efficient interacting when you really need to.

Yeah, for me personally an office is better than working from home, if it's a real office. A cube may suffice, but walls and a door are even better. In my last university job, I went in to the office typically 4 days/week even though I strictly could've gotten away with only going in the two days I had classes, because I had a real office, and I liked the separation of my apartment not also being "at work". I'd take the 5th (and sometimes 6th) day to work in coffee shops or libraries as a change of pace. Interestingly those don't bother me the way open offices do. Libraries tend to have an explicit ethos of quietness, and coffee shops have noise but to me it's more of a background din that's not very distracting. Maybe because I don't know the people like I do in an office.

If it was a bad commute I probably wouldn't have gone in either, I'll admit. But for the me the commute was actually one of the reasons I went in; it was about a ~40 minute walk, which "forced" me to get some regular exercise and fresh air.

It may also have to do with wage depression. Why pay more out in salaries when things like WFH and pinball machines become employer bread and circuses?

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