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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?

#161
post #101

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.

Quite hard to take this comment seriously given that this forum is dedicated to the software industry. Not to mention the significant pay cut.

Sorry, but for me it's the other way around.

I always get an astro-turfing vibe when reading such posts.

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

#162
post #89

Per Scott Galloway's latest slide deck (it's on YouTube), he's convinced me the WFH push is an opportunity for those willing to work from work to lap the WFH crowd. Companies actually do still need people to work from the office/place of business. A worker willing to work at the office/business is thus at a competitive advantage to the much larger population of WFH-ers. (However...I really would prefer a hybrid mode.…

I don’t know who Scott Galloway is but I can see that being true where the executives are being dragged into wfh against their will. If you have a remote first command and strong support from the top I think that wfh employees can still succeed.

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

#163
post #116

Just want to say you are not alone. I too want to have a place to go. Whether it's a co-working space or an office for the company I work for, waking up and working in the same place every day is slowly driving me crazy. The WFH people are probably the most vocal online (especially on Reddit as subreddits tend to create echo-chambers), so it feels as though _everyone_ wants to work from home, but ultimately I think/h…

I’ve decided to switch career because WFH has made me depressed. I simply can’t stand looking at a computer anymore. Working for a company was bearable when I used to be able to get human connections in exchange. I haven’t tried joining a coworking place because I didn’t really have the opportunity, but I think I wouldn’t get the same connection with people who don’t work for the same company as I do.

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

#164

For those saying there are many people working in office now (I've been remote for the last 2 years without an office to go into), are your offices requiring employees to wear masks in office? Are coworkers having lunch together? There are definitely some things I miss about having the option to go into an office, but I think any enjoyment I may have derived from that in the past would be negated if myself and cowork…

Required to wear masks outside of your personal space or office. If anyone comes to your space you need to put a mask on. We had some company lunches where we all took masks off but then go back to wearing them back in the office. It’s a bit of a show. I know some offices require a daily Covid test and temperature reading. We had been doing temperature readings but those stopped at some point. The bizarre thing about it is that for productivity and expressiveness, zoom/teams conversations are actually preferable to masked conversations, especially if you’re trying to show someone something on your screen. Masked conversations in groups are still more free flowing than a video chat though.

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

#165
Join a company that is intentionally in-office. I work at Dexterity Capital. We have an intentionally in-office culture with our offices in Seattle and San Francisco.

If you’re in San Francisco, we work down by the Salesforce tower. If you’d like to grab a coffee or say hi, e-mail me (address in profile).

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

#166

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…

Not knocking what works for anyone else, but for me this really doesn't at all address the "working remotely" issue.

Working around a bunch of strangers is better than being alone in my apartment all day, a bit better still if we're in similar industries, but the real thing I want is being physically present with the actual people on my team that I'm working with.

Right now I'm working from my company's local office, but my team is located elsewhere/working remote. It's definitely better than a coworking space IMO, but after one week of flying out to HQ and working with my actual team in person, even just 1-2 of them for most of the week, I realized working from my local office doesn't even come close to how much I enjoy actually being physically present with the people I work with.

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

#167
> Are there places out there for weirdos like me?

I think the discourse is heavily biased towards pro-remote. We've been working from offices for years, so the pro-remote crowd has been vocal for a while, whereas most pro-office people are only just beginning to realize that they even prefer an office, let alone how much.

But so basically I think it's a completely false notion that preferring remote work is the norm. That sense comes purely from noticing percent of talking.

FWIW I'd generally described myself as pretty introverted, in the sense of finding that social interaction is draining, but I'm considering moving across the country to be closer to my teammates.

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

#168
I suggest looking at more traditional work environments that hire tech roles such as banking, they’re conservative and more likely to be pro-office. I have a friend who works on the C# UI of a coffee machine for Costa Coffee in the UK and that’s an in-person role because they need to interface with hardware.

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

#169
post #116

Just want to say you are not alone. I too want to have a place to go. Whether it's a co-working space or an office for the company I work for, waking up and working in the same place every day is slowly driving me crazy. The WFH people are probably the most vocal online (especially on Reddit as subreddits tend to create echo-chambers), so it feels as though _everyone_ wants to work from home, but ultimately I think/h…

> ultimately I think/hope most people understand the social benefits of working in an office. As far as I'm concerned, there aren't any. But you know what? At the end of the day I don't care where someone works, as long as they extend me the same courtesy. The last place I worked at (before the lockdowns) gradually eliminated WFH, converted to an open plan office, and generally made life miserable for software devs w…

> But you know what? At the end of the day I don't care where someone works

I think this is the most pragmatic way forward.

Given my own company, I suspect that there are about 10-25% of tech that want to work fully remote. That is, never work in the office again, save for specific times (internal conferences, and the like) equally there are 10-25% who hate working remotely and want to be in the work office.

The rest are either ambivalent or want something truely (ie 1-3 days a week, but with the autonomy to choose)

However for that to work, there needs to be a revolution in how we share knowledge, spread ideas, and plan. At the moment none of the tools we use appear to be particularly efficient. VC is largely half duplex, slow and draining. 1:1 video calls feel invasive, so you don't want to start them unless you really have to. Where I work we have "workplace" but the signal to noise ratio is really quite terrible. I suspect that half of that is down to culture of present $company.

Slack is a much better at instant chat, but workplace has better layout for semi ephemeral messaging. None of them are good for longterm documentation.

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

#170
post #116

Just want to say you are not alone. I too want to have a place to go. Whether it's a co-working space or an office for the company I work for, waking up and working in the same place every day is slowly driving me crazy. The WFH people are probably the most vocal online (especially on Reddit as subreddits tend to create echo-chambers), so it feels as though _everyone_ wants to work from home, but ultimately I think/h…

I’ve decided to switch career because WFH has made me depressed. I simply can’t stand looking at a computer anymore. Working for a company was bearable when I used to be able to get human connections in exchange. I haven’t tried joining a coworking place because I didn’t really have the opportunity, but I think I wouldn’t get the same connection with people who don’t work for the same company as I do.

> I think I wouldn’t get the same connection with people who don’t work for the same company as I do.

Mentioned this in another comment, but I'm working from my company's local office while my team is mostly elsewhere/remote. We had an in-person onsite at HQ recently though, and I realized even working with other people at my company is peanuts compared to working physically with the actual people on my team I work with day-to-day. (Obviously this distinction is only meaningful at larger companies).

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