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Ask HN: How to find a job in 2021 if I dislike remote?

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Re: Ask HN: How to find a job in 2021 if I dislike remote?

#45
I too prefer the office. I also interview people and and tend to look for people willing to come to the office at least once or twice a week. It makes a world of difference when you can ask someone a question across the desk as opposed to scheduling a call (or two, or three) and forcing everyone on the call to drop what they're doing. I get why people want to WFH, but I feel a couple of days in the office works wonders for efficiency; maybe one week wfh/one week at the office or any other combo would work, but it depends on the stage of the project. The more technical/business unknowns, the more it makes sense to work in the same space, imho.

Re: Ask HN: How to find a job in 2021 if I dislike remote?

#46

Before pandemic I started working remotely and soon noticed that, like OP, working alone doesn't suit me. I solved this by joining a co-working hub that offers offices to remote workers / entrepreneurs. My employer pays for the hub membership. I drive to our offices around once a month, but rest of the time I sit in a room with an accountant and gym owner. They are fun to chat and go to lunch with but they don't inte…

What a great solution - will keep this in mind!

Re: Ask HN: How to find a job in 2021 if I dislike remote?

#47

Before pandemic I started working remotely and soon noticed that, like OP, working alone doesn't suit me. I solved this by joining a co-working hub that offers offices to remote workers / entrepreneurs. My employer pays for the hub membership. I drive to our offices around once a month, but rest of the time I sit in a room with an accountant and gym owner. They are fun to chat and go to lunch with but they don't inte…

This is an excellent example of the difference between "working from home" and "working remotely". Those two terms unfortunately are used interchangeably as synonyms.

Yeah this is true. When I say people I'm working from home, they look with pitty. When I say, I'm working remotely, people's impression change.

I don't know why this is like this, but it is true for me.

Re: Ask HN: How to find a job in 2021 if I dislike remote?

#48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an excellent example of the difference between "working from home" and "working remotely". Those two terms unfortunately are used interchangeably as synonyms.

Yeah this is true. When I say people I'm working from home, they look with pitty. When I say, I'm working remotely, people's impression change. I don't know why this is like this, but it is true for me.

But then what s the point ? We re forced to work from home to avoid contaminating our colleagues but it s fine to crowd a coworking space ?

Sounds very inefficient to me but I guess people like us are a minority.

Gladly in my country we have 0 case (Hong Kong) so we work at the office now, thank God.

Re: Ask HN: How to find a job in 2021 if I dislike remote?

#49
post #14

> Are those days just over? Depending on your job function and industry. For tech, yes, those days are over for at least for another 5 to 10 years, is my guess. COVID has generally proven to both employers and employees that productivity doesn't drop that much. It will also weed out bad people managers who need to "see" people physically who need to "get a feel" as a management metric. The only major factor that woul…

I'd say it also depends a lot on location and its prevalent culture. Over here in France, most French companies (as opposed to US companies operating here) have to be dragged kicking and screaming into WfH arrangements. Ever since the pandemic started picking back up steam this autumn, the government was "encouraging" companies to allow people to work from home, but there were no firm directives. Most companies figur…

Yeah but then you have to work with French people, which is a tradeoff I wouldnt do anymore, as a French myself :p

Re: Ask HN: How to find a job in 2021 if I dislike remote?

#50
> These days it's hard to find an in office job, and even when you do, it feels like that would be s red flag anyway, since WFH is seen as a perk by most, or realistically I worry I'm going to go in to the office and be the only one there.

> Is it not as bad as I think? Are there places out there for weirdos like me?

Preferring in-office work is actually very common.

Take the news headlines and internet comments with a grain of salt. Even many of the big companies that have temporary WFH are still moving back toward in-office work.

The internet comments and anecdote-filled news articles would have you believe that office work is dead and everybody loves WFH, but my actual experience with companies suggests that a lot of people are realizing they aren’t cut out for WFH or they prefer being in the office. It’s just unpopular to say as much online these days because the people who do prefer WFH are sensitive about any suggestions that it isn’t universally superior.

Frankly, looking at job listings lately I still see far more office jobs than full remote jobs. If you’re looking for a normal office job it shouldn’t be hard to find. However, if you’ve been convinced that non-remote jobs are “red flags” by some of the recent internet hyperbole, this could be clouding your search.

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