Poll: Do you prefer the office or work from home?

I've seen this argument several times and while it's probably true for some segment of the population, it's definitely not for everyone (who feels this way).

I have this sentiment, yet I hang out with one or two friends once or twice a week, occasionally some family every couple weeks or so, and constantly on a daily basis get to socialize with the parents of my dog's friends while on walks.

None of that makes up for working alongside people. And I don't just mean work specifically but forming connections with my coworkers. I'm a huge proponent of making real social connections with coworkers so that it's easier to be collaborative with them. There will be times when your work is not siloed and you either need context about something that your coworker has contributed to before but you haven't, vice versa, etc. and it helps if you both have some kind of connection and stake in the work relationship. If there's no stake in it, then other than the bare minimum (such as not wanting someone to totally screw up something owned by the team), nothing will be contributed. It can make gathering context brutal, work more competitive (resource starvation where one coworker can let their coworker have more trouble which results in them getting a better pick of things to work on, etc.).

I miss having a place to meet the people I work with but I don't need to meet them every day. I actually have been working with remote teams for the last six years or so. So, I've been used to not having a permanent office for quite long. I actually signed up with a co-working space four years ago just so I would get out of the house a bit more.

And during the lockdown they were open throughout. My frequency of going there roughly stayed the same (once or twice a weak). A co-working space gives you most of the comforts of a workplace. Except my direct colleagues are not there and I don't have a fixed desk.

It's great. Even just the bustle of other people around me doing whatever it is they are doing puts me in a mind to do something myself. I actually go there when I want to focus. When I have online meetings, I prefer taking them from home. It's more quiet there and it's just easier.

During the lockdown, I actually joined a local startup as the CTO. Most of us are in the same city (Berlin). But we rarely meet in person. I meet some of the people for coffee or socially once in a while but we run the company like it is a remote company. We don't even have an office. It works but it's not ideal and we are eager to fix our office situation as soon as funding permits. Specifically, I'm eager to get our engineers (the usual selection of mostly introverted types) in one room to force some communication to happen a bit more naturally.

We use a mix of discord, google meets and slack to meet online. None of these is ideal but collectively they have a feature set that's workable. Google meets, makes my CPU spin like crazy. It's alright when all you are doing is attending the meeting. Slack is on permanently but we never use its audio/video features. When I want to do pair programming with engineers, we tend to use discord. We could probably lose slack completely since discord has most of the relevant features. But for historic reasons we just have it and we get very little out of moving over. We are on a freemium plan with both.

During the lockdown, I also started doing long walks. That's something I now actively make time for since I usually feel great after having one. I can walk for hours if time permits. I'll put some BT headphones on and listen to podcasts. Sometimes I bring my camera to shoot some photos along the way. For a lot of people, a commute more or less fills the same role.

I work two jobs, the second one is not possible remotely. Now that the first one (SWE) is fully remote, my interactions with coworkers in job 2 are more intense and I feel much more a part of Company 2 than before.

So I need human interactions but it’s fine if it’s another group of people. I have hobbies outside with people too, but the mandatory aspect of a job, and the variety of people (compared to a hobby where we all like the same thing) just makes it better.

Gonna add to the noise. I know this will go mostly unnoticed so I’m gonna unhinge my jaw here.

I like a mix. The last 2 years has been basically hell on earth for me. I live in the peninsula - one of the most expensive parts of SFBA. I feel my money is mostly wasted due to this. I’m unfortunately unable to afford SF proper in the way I’d need to in order to be happy. I can afford the peninsula in the way I need to get by. (Detached in-laws are more common here) I live where all the children and spouses are but I am a childless divorcee. It’s miserable AF area to live because of that - yet I can’t move due to needing to be in the area.

The big issue is that I fucking cannot stand the way people interact online. Zoom calls are a plague. Most of my coworkers are already socially awkward - add in another layer like Zoom and it just goes through the roof. It feels like everyone has Asperger’s when they’re on Zoom. Even for my more “social” coworkers who definitely think they’re highly socially skilled (PMs, execs, directors, biz ops, sales, etc) - they are 10x more inept over Zoom or especially Slack. For some of you, this might not be an issue. You’re anti-social yourself and treat your job very much as a 9-5 clock in and clock out thing. I’m extremely social and don’t have the mentality of someone who can clock out. I’m someone who is obsessed with getting ahead and being at least 2nd best at everything. This means that my ambition levels are unparalleled and so anything that gets in my way (e.g. social stupidity) is very aggravating. I’m not going to explain how this aggravates or gets in the way of advancing - someone who is social already knows what I’m talking about.

Not being able to work with people in person has shown that most of my coworkers treat each other like they’re not real people. They’re just faces on a screen like hostages in a cs_assault. They don’t care and really see them as an objective and a means to an end. Again - for some of you - this is ideal because you’re a borderline sociopath who shouldn’t really be interacting with anyone to begin with. For the rest of us - it’s banal spoon death. This treatment is lessened when people see one another in real life. Thus, I prefer hybrid. I’d like full in office being the default with the option of being at home if you want - but the office would need to be really good. I’m not into shitty loud open offices where loud sales jockeys with gongs and noise makers are going off and shitty music playing the same 60 minute set in the background - I’m not talking that. I also don’t need offices or whatever. I just want a sane office environment. Not a bull pen. Not a library. Something that has a reason to go in besides all your coworkers being there too. (A gym, basketball court, parks nearby, good meeting rooms, food, etc.)

Anyway - I’m annoyed. I lack all of the good of WFH and the good of office. I mostly experience the worst of both so far and I’m very bitter about it.

sure, obnoxious coworkers suck, but the 'oh noes, my concentration/flow' argument has been done to death imo.

thanks to hybrid work, ppl can hide at home all they want.

ps: pls also consider parents that get interrupted far more frequently when working from home.