I will offer a contrarian take, not because I think anyone else in the thread is wrong, but because I think there’s more than one opinion here, and it’s not showing in the comments.
I have multiple children, and I hate (ok, strongly dislike) working remotely. I dislike the lack of separation between home and work, and how it makes my children feel like I’m “always working.”
I love the high-bandwidth communication and collaboration of in-person, as well as the way it naturally fosters empathy and community. It’s a better learning environment for most, and it makes work more fun for most.
I have been an outlier, I guess, and have only been able to find remote jobs for most of my decade+ SWE career. I have a dedicated office space and all the gear, so my dislike of remote has nothing to do with not being properly equipped for it.
I think people have a lot of valid complaints that are actually orthogonal to in-person work:
- Housing is too expensive. True! Not the fault of the office.
- Commutes take too long. True! Not the fault of the office.
- Housing units close to the office are often too small to be comfortable for families. Subjective, but many people feel this way! Also not the fault of the office.
The common theme here is that housing and transportation in America is broken. Utterly broken.
There is no technical or economic reason that we couldn’t have the majority of workplaces in neighborhoods where the majority of employees could comfortably live within a ten minute commute. And I submit that there is nothing better than getting to work together in real life while living comfortably within ten minutes of your workplace.
There’s nothing _wrong_ with remote work, and I think it’s great for it to be an option for those who want it (including all remote companies for those who want them). But remote isn’t morally superior to in-person work, despite the way many advocates talk about it. And an escape hatch from our broken cities is not the same as a solution.
It saddens me that more of us aren’t working seriously on the problem of fixing housing and transportation in the US, and instead are embracing bandaids.
FWIW I do what I can via my work with Strong Towns. If this is a cause that interests you I’d encourage you to read our material and consider becoming a member.
> - Housing is too expensive. True! Not the fault of the office. - Commutes take too long. True! Not the fault of the office. - Housing units close to the office are often too small to be comfortable for families. Subjective, but many people feel this way! Also not the fault of the office.
I think when people say "I hate the office" they (I include myself) use that term to talk about everything the office implies (e.g., commute time). I'm 100% pro work from wherever fits you best. That being said, if the company I'm working for puts an office 5 minutes away from my home on foot, then I will definitely visit it a couple of times per week... but that's just impossible, hence, I hate the office.
Even if we fixed all of the above, changing jobs would still require uprooting your family. In an era where you worked for one company for life it made sense. Today I don't think it's feasible.
1. There can still be many companies in an area with lots of close by housing such that you’re not tied to a single job.
2. I moved cross-country several times while my kids were young and it didn’t bother them at all.
3. I’m mindful of staying settled for a while now that my kids are getting older and forming real friendships. But this is like a 10-year window of time, not an entire career.
I don't "hate working remotely," but this is well said.
I have four kids. The oldest was born in 2014, and since late 2016 I've spent an enormous amount of time working from home as a graduate student and as a professional during COVID. But our oldest kid recently expressed that I don't spend enough time with her.
At first I thought, "Seriously? I've spent more time with my kids than literally any father I know, eating three meals per day with them, taking them for walks and to the playground or to appointments during the day, changing more than half the diapers, etc." But then I realized that from her perspective, she mostly saw me looking at my laptop and heard me saying "I'm trying to work, I can't do X right now." If I were out-of-sight, out-of-mind, when working and she only saw me for the two hours per day when I wasn't working, she might have a more positive opinion of our relationship.
And, yes, the reasons I like working from home are precisely because, as you said, it helps me cope with all the other problems related to housing and commuting.
The spilt between "we want to go back to the office" and "we want to stay remote" on my team was perfectly decided based on if the individual had kids or not.
> I dislike the lack of separation between home and work, and how it makes my children feel like I’m “always working.”
I’ve never really understood this “lack of separation” argument. Are your children at home all day long? If not, the only way it would seem like you’re “always working” is if you were working outside of normal business hours. Which is something that would still happen if you were at an office all day, wouldn’t it? If not, why not? Because your day ends when you leave the office? Why not just make your WFH day end at some similar cutoff point? Why does working at home make that less possible?
If your kids do stay home all day, one way to look at it is that yeah, it seems like you’re always working, but that beats “always at the office” doesn’t it?
I appreciate your opinion. I disagree that remote work is for me, though I am fine with the occasional travel for work for those high bandwidth in person activities.
I appreciate that you still support choice in work location, a lot of people (see amazon/twitter/apple ceo's) do not. I think that is critical here. Some people, or groups work better in person, those teams should decide that.
I wouldn't say remote work is morally superior, but it can reduce carbon emissions by truncating commutes and potentially allowing conversion of downtown office buildings into housing. But I'm sure there's caveats here enough to drive a freight train through.
I have multiple children, and I hate (ok, strongly dislike) working remotely. I dislike the lack of separation between home and work, and how it makes my children feel like I’m “always working.”
I love the high-bandwidth communication and collaboration of in-person, as well as the way it naturally fosters empathy and community. It’s a better learning environment for most, and it makes work more fun for most.
I have been an outlier, I guess, and have only been able to find remote jobs for most of my decade+ SWE career. I have a dedicated office space and all the gear, so my dislike of remote has nothing to do with not being properly equipped for it.
I think people have a lot of valid complaints that are actually orthogonal to in-person work:
- Housing is too expensive. True! Not the fault of the office.
- Commutes take too long. True! Not the fault of the office.
- Housing units close to the office are often too small to be comfortable for families. Subjective, but many people feel this way! Also not the fault of the office.
The common theme here is that housing and transportation in America is broken. Utterly broken.
There is no technical or economic reason that we couldn’t have the majority of workplaces in neighborhoods where the majority of employees could comfortably live within a ten minute commute. And I submit that there is nothing better than getting to work together in real life while living comfortably within ten minutes of your workplace.
There’s nothing _wrong_ with remote work, and I think it’s great for it to be an option for those who want it (including all remote companies for those who want them). But remote isn’t morally superior to in-person work, despite the way many advocates talk about it. And an escape hatch from our broken cities is not the same as a solution.
It saddens me that more of us aren’t working seriously on the problem of fixing housing and transportation in the US, and instead are embracing bandaids.
FWIW I do what I can via my work with Strong Towns. If this is a cause that interests you I’d encourage you to read our material and consider becoming a member.