Five days a week in the office? Forget it

I have a slightly different take: office is a good thing for some people. I am not wildly sociable. If anything I'm borderline unapproachable if you just randomly walk up to me on the street and start talking to me. When COVID hit and we were all sent home, I had been working at that job for 8 years and I had automated pretty much everything in my day to day work - even the most busy days, I could get everything I had to do in less than 2 hours so all of a sudden, I was all day in my apartment, which is spacious and with views that are second to none in my city. The following 8 months up until I had to quit were the best time of my life. I had the time to read hundreds of books, work on personal projects, get in the best shape I've ever been by a long shot, got a dog. It was absolutely awesome. But time moved on and the few people I was close to prior to that and I just drifted apart and while we were together basically on daily basis before covid, now we call each other on birthdays at best. We see each other twice a year tops: They all moved on with their lives, got married, had children, etc. I did none of that for a million and one reasons and because I worked from home 100%, ultimately completely lost my social life. And now that I can(and actively am) going back to an office, I truly feel happy: despite still not being the most social creature, at least I see people and get to talk to someone. Although I do have to admit - working at a company where literally everyone is cool and down to earth certainly makes it easy. If that were at my old job, there's a good chance I would have become very aggressive and extremely likely violent towards several individuals.

The framing around productivity misses a huge area - productivity of life. The less time that is wasted in office, the more time is available to do things that make life worth living. Any argument for return to office should justify why people are expected to waste away their lives.

People seem to always circle back to arguments about whether wfh is better/worse for productivity and so on. But that potential cost/benefit is surely drowned by the extra cost of paying people to work in an office.

If productivity is +/-10 or 20% (which would be huge) between office and wfh but the additional comp is 50% to get someone to work 100% in office then the calculus is still simple.

I'm sort of amazed at this point that these RTO position articles are still so popular. How much more can we say about this?

I still want to know if companies that can get out of their office leases still want employees to be in the office. Amazon tends to own real estate outright, but many companies don't.

> Once more, companies want butts in seats — even though there's no legitimate business reason for many employees to return to the office.

If there were no legitimate business reason they wouldn't do it since it costs them a great deal to do so. And if businesses are acting irrationally? There are plenty of companies who are not returning to office, so we'll certainly see them out compete and displace the office-based businesses.

The solution is to own a part of your company. Suddenly you'll love to be 5+ days in the office even if you're in a financially worse situation.

I hate working at home. I have 20 years of going into an office. I need the separation or I just work ineffectively for a lot longer. I'm Dyslexic and choose teams that didn't work remote because I don't like Async communication. For lots of people the structure of going into work makes them more effective. All these think pieces should just stop and let people vote with their feet.

> I hear that people in Amazon offices now Zoom from their cubicles instead of their homes. What a culture!

This is true of a lot of companies, particularly those with offices distributed across America and the world(e.g. you work in Houston, but your boss is in NYC). Financial institutions typically fit this bill.

Most office workers probably only need 5 days a year.

I miss the office A LOT. Remote pays more, otherwise I would volunteer my butt easily.

I dunno, the article seems a bit biased towards out of office working, although it raises a few good points.

Something I wonder about, if anyone has already calculated the value of the informal "water cooler chat" which is missing at working from home scenarios.

I mean, that's company time during which one isn't working, but the inevitable coworker bonding that happens can be extremely valuable, as stronger connections with colleagues can make one more engaged, collaborative, and productive in the long run.

I have to admit, since the pandemic started the entire conversation around WFH has centered on economics and efficiency, and I've found that very disheartening.

When my company went remote I was suddenly cut off from a handful of friends who I haven't spoken with in four years now. I'm bored and socially disengaged, lacking friendship and largely isolated to my wife and children.

Nobody ever talks about things like this, only what's the most 'productive', which I think is a glaring mark on how people operate and think. There is now an entire class of people who are being excluded from social camaraderie because the majority is happy working in pajamas.

All of that being said, now that my kids are in school I've realized that WFH is far more convenient. But can we please stop pretending that the lifestyle is the dream it's made out to be? If companies aren't offering opportunity for social engagement it can be a real problem.

Look. I like working in an office. WFH has been killing me. But I completely understand how WFH makes my colleagues lives so much easier, especially with kids.

Can we just do the hybrid thing and call it a day? Or give people optionality on whether they want to go into the office or not?

I do half the work I did when I was in-office. Of course I don't want to go back!