There are plenty of jobs in the service industry that don't make sense to do remote.
Might make sense to look there, because you can't be forced to work remote ever.
Ask HN: How to find a job in 2021 if I dislike remote?
101–110 of 266 posts
Re: Ask HN: How to find a job in 2021 if I dislike remote?
#102I'll give you an anecdote for my company (we're a software firm with developers, support staff, and sales reps): We offered hybrid and remote options to all of our employees once lockdowns ended. All of them (except for one) wanted to come back full-time, with some notable exceptions for hybrid. Some employees have kids so they went hybrid, but once schools reopened they all went back full-time in the office. The lon…
> All of them (except for one) wanted to come back full-time, with some notable exceptions for hybrid. Some employees have kids so they went hybrid, but once schools reopened they all went back full-time in the office.
We had the same opportunity to choose at my workplace (130+ employees) and ALL BUT ONE of the tech-team chose hybrid. Most of us are effectively working full-time remotely still, but have the option to meet at the office when we want (this is currently discouraged until we see how omicron pans out).
The sales and management teams were more in favor of working at the office, but even there many chose hybrid. Amazing that two companies can have such a totally different outcome - although I must say the company I work for is an exemplary example of a diverse workplace, with a great mixture of young and old, parents, and singles of all genders and from a variety of cultures and backgrounds.
Re: Ask HN: How to find a job in 2021 if I dislike remote?
#103> 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…
"COVID has generally proven to both employers and employees that productivity doesn't drop that much" Is that a personal observation of yours, or has this now become "fact"? The reason I ask is that I would like to find studies - not just surveys or anecdotal evidence - that attempt to quantify the quality and productivity of WFH since the recently pandemic changes. At work, we've had countless discussions about this…
Anecdotally, this has been coming in waves.
Early in the pandemic ( Mar 2020 ) -> no one knows how to WFH as a team. There is insanity in the world and work takes a backburner for most people.
Mid-Pandemic (Fall 2020) -> Companies push workers to get back to productivity and deliver. Workers are used to the remote world and productivity returns to normal.
Current ( Fall 2021) -> Workers just seem tired. Retention is through the floor, leadership is skiddish of pushing new projects in case people leave.
I'm not sure where we'll be in Summer 2022, but my suspicion is that workers aren't getting something they used to have in the office. Personally, I'm probably signing up for a co-working space in the new year to have something vibrant to look forward too and hopefully some other engineers to chat tech with on occasion.
I do miss the whiteboard and "bouncing idea" conversations.
Re: Ask HN: How to find a job in 2021 if I dislike remote?
#104I'll give you an anecdote for my company (we're a software firm with developers, support staff, and sales reps): We offered hybrid and remote options to all of our employees once lockdowns ended. All of them (except for one) wanted to come back full-time, with some notable exceptions for hybrid. Some employees have kids so they went hybrid, but once schools reopened they all went back full-time in the office. The lon…
Is it the lack of communication or the lack of spontaneous socializing with coworkers? Dont get me wrong, I think the latter is probably underrated, but I dont know if thats what you are missing?
Re: Ask HN: How to find a job in 2021 if I dislike remote?
#105In 3 days, the monthly HN "Who's Hiring" thread will have job postings where the vast majority will be for predominately in-person jobs.
If you have trouble beyond that, look at any big company not in tech, where they returned to the office in 2020.
Re: Ask HN: How to find a job in 2021 if I dislike remote?
#106There are plenty of jobs in the service industry that don't make sense to do remote. Might make sense to look there, because you can't be forced to work remote ever.
Quite hard to take this comment seriously given that this forum is dedicated to the software industry. Not to mention the significant pay cut.
Re: Ask HN: How to find a job in 2021 if I dislike remote?
#107Do you live in/near a big city? If you do, there should be enough in-office jobs there. I feel similarly about remote but with a couple of differences: - I'm not extroverted all, I still vastly prefer office over remote. - It's not about socialising, I find the work itself much better when I can meet my coworkers in person.
I am the same. Introvert, but prefer to work around people. When we started SimpleLegal, for 2 years we were just working from home. I ended up getting a desk at a coworking space just to be around other people. If for no other reason than to commiserate with others.
Re: Ask HN: How to find a job in 2021 if I dislike remote?
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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. Maybe it's because people WFH don't care at all if you want to spend 2 hours commuting, or that you don't mind getting covid by staying 8h a day in a closed office with tons of people. But people who doesn't want WFH, not only want to be in a office, they…
> the people who do prefer WFH are sensitive about any suggestions that it isn’t universally superior.
But I don't prefer WFH.
Re: Ask HN: How to find a job in 2021 if I dislike remote?
#109Before 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…
How many (online) meetings do you (and the others) typically have? How do you manage the resulting conflicts around quietness, background noise, or even confidentiality of meeting contents? While I like the idea of shared co-working, the reality is that my current job works best in a room on my own. And it doesn't even involve more than 10 % meetings plus some ad-hoc calls with coworkers.
My work consists of ~30% of meetings and ~5% of phone calls. We have a rule with my "roommates" that short calls (If it is a customer meeting, then I go to a phone booth that has a standing desk, and for longer ones I book a meeting room where the setup is little bit better.
In previous co-working space was this big hall and distance between tables was something like 5 to 10 meters (15-30 ft.) and almost everyone made their calls on their desks, even though phone booths and meeting rooms were available.
One's mileage may of course greatly vary :)
Re: Ask HN: How to find a job in 2021 if I dislike remote?
#110Before 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…
I am glad to hear I'm not the only person with this idea. I just walked away from 10 years at Google in part because the last almost-2 years of remote just killed my productivity and motivation completely and I need to reset and find something smaller with a higher velocity and creativity and without the 45 minute (one way) commute I had to Google. I didn't like remote, but commuting in also sucked. And even when I went into the office for hybrid, 90% of my coworkers were never there to collaborate with anyways.
So my thought is that in my job hunt even if I find something that's remote (likely given where I live) that I will rent myself an office space nearby where there's other humans, better Internet, and no distractions from wife, kids, dog, garden, skis, bed, living room, TV, etc.