Ask HN: Employers, why do you want us back in the office?

> I noticed that very technically focused people tend to underestimate the importance of communication. They dislike daily standups, coordination meetings, don't really value informal exchange. All these things take their time out of what they want to do - deep work on solving technical problems

I’d say you’ be taken the wrong lesson from your observations.

Big formal coordination rituals typically are simply round robin of 1:1 communication. Occasionally 1:3, but never ever 1:n when the speaker isn’t management.

The reason is simple. Tasks are often independent. In that case, there’s no one to coordinate with, beyond updating the person running the status board. Even when there is a take that needs coordination, that coordination is already happening, just not at that place.

Or in other words, people that get the most out of these rituals simultaneously overestimate the average degree of connections in the social network, and underestimate the amount of communication that happens outside of their immediate view. Call it a bias in a local a hub in a network.

It's not about the productivity, it's about the culture and the shared experiences. It would be tough to argue that those two things don't matter for the success of a company.

there’s no point adding 2+ hours of commuting to my day for what could be a video call.

I don’t really understand why many commenters here are expressing a sentiment that you can’t get to know someone digitally. Some of the best people in my life were met online, both personally and professionally.

Your username is “gigachad” and you never considered the option of going to a gym on weekdays? Not going to say I have made lifetime friends at the gym but I have nice conversations with other regulars fairly often, it’s a good serotonin top-up.

Even works for finding romantic partners as well if you’re not creepy about it, in fact two regulars at my gym just got married.

There’s always the bar as well but of course alcohol-based socializing is not quite so healthy.

I tried office work and enjoyed meeting coworkers. Made some friends there. I'm working from home and like it so much though. I somehow live my best life alone during the day for work and see people several times in the week outside work, but I personally think that's a great way to both avoid commute time. I live in a city where I have a lot of friends, and it was always clear to me that remote work would work for me only if I could meet people regularly. I also practice piano, and I am in a choir with a hundred people that allows me to constantly meet people. I need to see people and would not like spending days without seeing anybody.

You can't bet only on work for meeting people. It can work by luck, but an ex coworker of mine recently left my ex-company and the city, because he was only seeing coworkers and didn't manage to meet people in the city, they ended up feeling lonely, aka work from the office didn't fix their loneliness. It's also a matter of social skills, and joining groups, and stuff like this if you don't have an established social group yet.

I also think remote work is not for everybody, and preferences might evolve during someone's life. I guess there will be office-first companies for people who prefer being at the office, remote-first companies for us preferring remote work, and hybrid ones if they manage to pull if off. That's very hard but somehow my current company is very successful in this, but you will need to have remote-first habits in such an hybrid setting, like using the chat / mail / whatever even between people at the office at the same time for many things.

So I have four pieces of advice for you, each one can suffice:

- move to a city where you already have friends - make sure it allows you to meet new people too.

- join clubs, do stuff outside work. Work is a mean to have a good life, don't spend all of your life at work, that's nonsense, unless it's absolutely what you love and you are happy, but that's not your case

- join an office-first or hybrid company. You don't need to stay at a remote company if you don't like it

- you can still be at a remote company, but go to a coworking space. Try it out! I have a coworker who does this. You can have a routine, meet the same people everyday and have breaks / eat lunch with them, etc exactly like coworkers, just that you don't work on the same things. Not the same thing as working at the same place with people who you work with but I guess that can be enriching / rewarding too in its own way.

Finding a coworking space was my plan B if I figured I didn't like working from home in the end. My company would be willing to pay for it. Hasn't happened yet but I personally think that's a great way to both avoid commute time, see people during the day, address the loneliness of remote work, and not be limited by the choice of whatever companies are near you.

Good luck, I hope you will find a solution that works out for you!