Ask HN: Who's sick of remote work?

I love remote work, but the timing of this particular pandemic has just sucked. Two small kids at home, with my wife and I trying to share parenting and part time work - throw WFH into the mix and everything kind of falls apart.

I can relate to this. I’ve worked remotely for 6 years but that feeling you mentioned is something I’ve felt for the past year.

I think it’s worth noting that remote work during the pandemic doesn’t really do justice to what remote work should really be. Prior to the pandemic kicking in, my remote work involved mostly working at home. But when I felt the need for change, I’d combine things like grocery shopping with a visit to a nearby cafe and I’d work for a few hours there. Other days I’d meet up with a friend I worked for and I’d work out of their office for a day and enjoy lunch with them. In the mornings I’d drop my son off at school and go to a nearby coworking space and hotdesk there. Remote work also meant that I was able to break my work day into a few segments and I could then take on things like coaching school children in some sports.

With the pandemic that all changed. Instead of taking my son to school, I sat in the room with him to help him with the laptop from time to time. Work was a few steps from there to my table. No meeting with friends to work. No cafe work. No going out to break up the day.

I’m sad that most peoples remote work experience has basically been work from home all the time instead of work on terms you are happiest with. If this had been my experience from the start I’d be kind of itching to go back and see people at the office from time to time.

With pandemic restrictions lifted for the most part, things have now gotten much better. So I’m gradually becoming “un-sick” of working remotely again.

All that to say, what you are feeling is perfectly normal. Just do understand that this pandemic edition of remote work is definitely not normal. It’s isolating and should never happen on a normal day.

Yes. Not going back, and that's more or less it.

Definitely the opposite for me. I never wanted to work from home and for the first 6 months expected I'd go back to the office when I could. Now I'm ready to quit if my job requires returning to office lol.

After starting my first job out of college as a software engineer I have yet to meet my colleagues in person and it has already been almost a year and a half. The team I am on has been working together for years in person so they have great relationships but since I only interact with them online and almost always over Teams chat I find it super difficult to connect. I make sure to set up video coffee chats with people in the company but it still doesn’t feel the same . At this point I doubt I will ever meet my first work colleague team since I am planning to change jobs. In a grand scheme of things it isn’t a big deal but this Covid thing has really impacted some mile stones like senior year of college, graduation ceremony, and now young professional life.

The solution: I think there should still be an option of remote work, since most people don’t need to be in the office at all time but everything about the “office culture” needs to change. Maybe office size should be smaller, more WeWork team meet-ups or meet at coffee shops, meet in the library or public space what ever but having a big empty office might not be the ideal going forward. This is an exciting time and I do hope after the pandemic is all done with that we can start figuring it out