Ask HN: Who doesn’t want to go back to the office?

I work in London for a tech company. Prior to the lockdown we mostly worked out of a very nice office in the square mile. Lots of dedicated meeting rooms and breakout spaces with good sound isolation, good Herman Miller chairs, automatic standing desks, excellent coffee machine.

* All video conferencing software is terrible

We use a combination of Microsoft Teams and Zoom. Both have the same problems. For one-to-many meetings it is passable, but anything involving group discussion breaks down quickly. There is just enough latency that you can't talk with multiple people without stepping over each other. A year and a bit in and people still talk with mute enabled, or forget to mute themselves while not talking. Conversations that would take minutes in real life take an order of magnitude longer.

Everyone I work with has given up on video calling, so it's become glorified conference calling. I'm half Italian, having to talk without using my hands is like only being able to communicate with morse code. It's so low bandwidth, communicating anything with nuance just becomes frustrating.

* Meetings for everything

This is calming down a bit, but my company seems to love sync-up meetings. I think I've had more meetings in the first year of lockdown than I did in the proceeding two years of working from the office. Because outlook prefers 15 minute intervals for scheduling, everyone overbooks the time they need for meetings 'just in case'.

* Being pulled into meetings without any notice

This used to happen in the office, but at least you'd see it coming. Now people have figured out you can invite people into an existing meeting, such that they get no warning whatsoever. Good meetings never start with "Joe Somebody is calling you from a group chat".

* Despite the meetings everyone is more siloed than ever

Having everyone work from home has made it easier for teams to become isolated from each other, only communicating by Jira and poor video conference meetings [in emergencies]. I almost never get to casually talk to anyone from the rest of the company, which is really isolating. I don't feel like I work with anyone outside of my immediate team anymore. I've seen this sentiment echoed by my colleagues.

* I miss going to the pub with my colleagues

This is half caused by lockdown, but the other half is everyone working from home. I used to run into people from other teams at the pub all the time. Nowadays everything needs to be booked, scheduled, and planned out which means no spontaneity. My immediate team have a weekly pub night zoom call, but we can't expand it to include other people as you can only really have one conversation at a time.

* Not having to commute is great

I really hate commuting, so this has been great for me.

* My home workspace is a mixed bag

I finally have a decent chair at home, but don't have the space for a good desk. My partner works in the same room as me, a few meters away, and so I still have to wear headphones all day. The best situation is where I have a set of tasks to work through. Sadly my work is not usually that straightforward.

* No family or friends nearby

This is mostly my own fault, I did move halfway around the world as an adult. If the last six years in London has taught me anything, making friends outside of work is very hard. Part of the problem is you're unlikely to live near anyone you meet. London (like Sydney) is a very large city. In the before time socialising with my colleagues was enough for me, but I feel like that avenue will be permanently closed if we all keep working from home.

* More scope for hobbies

I've taken up wildlife rehabilitation in my spare time, which I would never have been able to do while working from the office. It's not so much time consuming as it needs regular intervals of time throughout the day. I can easily feed an animal while attending a meeting now, or take little breaks through the day to take care of things.

- Instead of commuting for two or more hours a day to travel a mere sixteen miles, I use that time for weight training. I'm now stronger than I have ever been and no longer experience back, neck and shoulder pain.

- I can keep my office at a temperature that is comfortable for me. Usually offices are far too warm in the winter and far too cool in the summer.

- I can actually understand people in meetings. I am hearing impaired and in person meetings are difficult for me because many people mumble or are low talkers and I can't understand them. For some reason people always like to ask if I have hearing aids. Of course I do but they aren't like wearing glasses. It is fatiguing to use hearing aids and they are uncomfortable to wear even though they are fitted for your ears.

- No more office drama. For years I was subjected to daily passive-agressive slack messages in the general channel about not leaving dishes in the sink. They were never mine. I always brought my own, but I had to hear about it nonetheless. For a while I had a co-worker who was apparently allergic to green bell peppers and had to do listen to an onslaught of complaints and warnings about not eating green bell peppers in the office. I didn't eat a green bell pepper for two years. I felt for them, but it was exhausting to hear about because even though I didn't do anything wrong I still had to hear about it. I really can't stand that kind of stuff.

- I can actually get stuff done at home. Offices are places of non-stop distraction. One time my desk was by the restrooms and I was constantly distracted by a stream of people going to the bathroom. The air moved by the walking by also had the effect of blowing all the papers on my desk around. Some people had streams so forceful even I could hear them. For over a year the office above us was being renovated. Once the renovation was done the city started work on the street below. On the flip side, I don't have to worry about being a distraction to others. I have a loud voice and can't play the whispering game because I can't hear people when the whisper. If someone wants to have a conversation with me it has to be a full volume.

- When I need to take a break I can take my dog for a walk. He's the real winner here.

- I eat much better at home and have time to cook.

There are some things I miss:

- Quarterly all company meetings can sometimes be fun and informative. I would not mind attending those in person again.

- Happy hours and team lunches are always fun. I don't buy in to the narrative that co-workers aren't really your friends any more than I buy into the narrative that they are your family and you need to see them every day. I don't see my family every day. I also have remained friends with plenty of former co-workers.

"Well lets go back to destroying the environment and making cities unlivably expensive, because I need to be forced to have 40+ hours a week of socialization"

Not to mention it is all open plan offices that everyone is so desperate to get back to.

I agree that one should not overvalue work relationships, but it doesn't seem like there's a "we're a family" propaganda/conspiracy designed to lure people in. It is just human nature to look for connections, regardless of the work environment's friendliness.