
Remote work is not necessarily a good thing for the worker - rbanffy
https://www.seanblanda.com/our-remote-work-future-is-going-to-suck/
======
supernova87a
There is a whole dimension missing from this article, which is, "WFH has a
huge difference in result depending on who you are, when you are (in your
career), and where you are in the company".

\-- For the budding young developer who can't wait to show ideas to teammates
and demonstrate being a go-getter by asking random questions and finding
unaddressed issues to innovate on, WFH might be terrible. You're going to
schedule time to fortuitously run into the senior person who takes an interest
in your idea?

\-- For the working parent whose productivity has been slashed by 50% and
stress has gone up by 50% due to parenting obligations, WFH might be terrible.

\-- For the middle manager who can coast along and not need to move greatly in
his/her career, WFH might be great.

\-- For the developer who works by tickets on very concrete things and this is
nothing new, WFH might be great.

\-- For the small company CEO who relies on force of personality and everyone
in the same room urgently working to get something done, WFH might be
terrible.

There's a huge variability in what WFH means, depending on what you want from
the situation.

~~~
paulryanrogers
If a person has parenting obligations than how is WFO better than WFH? Or are
we talking about more than just WFH, such as a pandemic that reduces childcare
options?

~~~
dx87
If only one parent is working they might get roped into helping out the parent
who normally stays at home. At least that's how co-workers in that situation
have described it to me; small children don't understand why daddy is home but
can't play with them, plus you feel guilty not helping your spouse if they're
having a rough day.

~~~
war1025
> small children don't understand why daddy is home but can't play with them

This is exactly correct.

My office did work from home Tuesdays / Thursdays even before the pandemic. My
wife stays home with our three kids. I tried it precisely once. My kids were
grumpy, my wife was grumpier. There is an unspoken expectation that if you are
present you should be helping / interacting. I'm sure we could have worked it
out, but it wasn't worth the effort.

Having the entire office (5 people, so nothing big) to myself twice a week was
pretty nice though. And it set a great precedent so that I've been the only
person going into the office the past four months.

~~~
nucleardog
We had our child in February. I took a planned two weeks off, then had planned
on working from home two to three more weeks to help transition, then to go
back to the office as I was required to do. By the time I was looking at going
back to the office, I went in for about a week to onboard a new employee then
pushed the office into WFH for everyone due to the pandemic.

My wife and I haven't had an issue at any point. She understands that the
reason we're not homeless right now is because I spend all day on the
computer. She doesn't come to my workspace and communicates with me as she
would as if I was at an office (i.e., via IM). She will, very occasionally,
shoot me a message and _ask_ if I can spare some time to give her a hand with
something but there's no animosity if I say no and for the most part she will
try and work it out herself, even if it's inconvenient (e.g., finding
somewhere to safely park the baby for a few minutes while she throws a load of
laundry in).

I think the only one in the house that doesn't understand "dad working != dad
at home" is the dog so she sometimes has to be crated when I have important
meetings.

And I wouldn't trade the extra 2-3 hours a day I get with my family or to
spend on hobbies instead of sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic for anything.

~~~
APock
I'm just going to point out that if you kid was 2-3 years old, both you and
your wife would be having a VERY different experience. A newborn mostly eats
and sleeps. A toddler will tear your house appart, constantly interrupt you,
call for you (usually lowdly), etc.

Those are not comparable experience, the month I spent at home when my kid was
born was spend playing MMOs most of the day, now I cant have 5 minutes alone
unless the TV is on 24/7 (wich is terrible, also).

~~~
swsieber
I have done the WFH with a 2/3 years old, and my experience wasn't all that
different than the comment you're responding to. Even children that young
respond to boundaries.

------
tosser0001
I’m a lot closer to the end of my career than the beginning and am hoping to
ride this WFH thing out as long as possible.

But if I were younger I personally would be kind of bummed out for a couple of
reasons:

1\. It’s just a totally different vibe working with close colleagues in
person. Work was just a fun place to be when I was young (and single.)

2\. Getting a feel for what else is going on in the company and who might be
good to work with seems a lot more difficult. Just prior to the whole COVID
shutdown I had been temporarily shifted to a team to work out some specific
issues. That has changed and I’m sort of stuck on this team for a bit.

Working on a less interesting thing I feel less connection to my team and much
more like a contractor.

Finding other opportunities within the same company, where you want to have a
feel for the personalities involved just feels tougher.

It will be interesting to see how this shakes out if it keeps up for a lot
longer. It just feels like some places will suffer from a lack of cross-
pollination.

~~~
anonunivgrad
Work is no longer a fun place to be. No jokes, no personal stories, no candid
sharing of perspectives. Definitely no going for drinks with coworkers. One
wrong word and you’re cancelled. The less time you have to spend in a coastal
corporation with a modern HR department, the better.

~~~
shredprez
Yeah, this just isn't true. Plenty of fun to be had, plenty of candid
perspective sharing, plenty of drinking with coworkers. If your coastal corp
doesn't have these things, get out of there.

And if you find yourself getting "cancelled" everywhere you go? Probably a
personal problem.

~~~
gruez
>And if you find yourself getting "cancelled" everywhere you go? Probably a
personal problem.

I'm not sure where you got the impression that the parent was _constantly_
being canceled. The actual problem is that nobody wants to be canceled even
once, so they're forced to be perpetually on their tippy toes. The recent
cancellations[1] for (arguably) non-hateful behavior creates a chilling
effect.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23635384](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23635384)

~~~
pavel_lishin
> _The recent cancellations[1] for (arguably) non-hateful behavior creates a
> chilling effect._

I guess it might depend on what sorts of things you're used to saying. I
haven't felt chilled at work, and haven't felt any need to adjust my behavior
or the things I say in any way.

> _One wrong word and you’re cancelled._

I think many of those words have _always_ been wrong, and it's only now that
people are correctly catching flack for it, because people are willing to go
to HR with their complaints.

~~~
RHSeeger
> I haven't felt chilled at work, and haven't felt any need to adjust my
> behavior or the things I say in any way.

I expect that's probably because you happen to be of a similar viewpoint as
the majority of the folks you work with.

> I think many of those words have always been wrong

True, but many of them haven't. Over time, it's gotten to the point where
expressing a liberal view at a workplace that mostly conservative, or vice
versa, is likely to get your fired for being a bad person. The same is true of
a lot of specific talking points. Talking politics at work has never been a
great idea, but it's gotten to the point where talking about anything that
politics talks about is a mine field.

~~~
rainyMammoth
The real issue is that the amount of stuff we can talk about is getting more
and more limited. This also increases the chances of talking
unknowingly/mistakenly about a touchy subject.

~~~
pandaman
Indeed. I grew up in the USSR so I am pretty good with the whole "don't talk
about this over the phone/in earshot of somebody you don't trust/outside your
kitchen" game. However, the rules in the later USSR were clear as the
forbidden topics have not changed every week. In the modern USA anything can
become political in an instant and there is no way this is sustainable. If
J.K. Rowling can get cancelled then nobody is safe. It's more resembling the
early USSR, where people purging public enemies last week became the public
enemies themselves this week and their accusers were purged the next week.

~~~
halostatue
J.K. Rowling hasn’t been cancelled. She’s been told that her words are hurtful
to a vulnerable group of people and that she’s repeating some well-refuted
lies. She keeps doubling down on those lies and her hurtful comments.

But she’s still worth a stupid amount of money and she still has her
publishing contracts. She’s received some pretty disgusting hateful comments
_back_ (which is inexcusable), but most objections are specifically because
she’s repeating toxic hate speech.

Compare this with the 22 transgender people murdered in America so far this
year: 22 transgender people have been killed so far this year — almost the
total toll for 2019 ([https://thehill.com/changing-america/respect/diversity-
inclu...](https://thehill.com/changing-america/respect/diversity-
inclusion/508957-22-transgender-people-have-been-killed-so-far)).

Being told that one’s words are hurtful is not the equivalent of being purged
in the early USSR (such purges were quite often literal with use of bullets).

~~~
djsumdog
She has an opinion others don't like and she has all the money she will ever
need. Same with TechLead (youtuber). So both of them are speaking out, and
they can do so because they literally have more "Fuck You" money sitting in a
bank than most of us can make over our lifetimes.

Her words are resonating with a lot of women, and more than that, there are
many more women who are afraid to agree with her publicly. Brenden O'Neil does
a great talk about Orthodoxy:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtWrljX9HRA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtWrljX9HRA)

I'm not going to say what I think about her statements, but I do think she has
a right to say them. Dismissing them outright is dismissing the many people
who are genuinely worried about legislation changes that affect what we can
and cannot say.

~~~
halostatue
I have said nothing about her right to say her statements, as wrong-headed and
ignorant as I think they are.

Her critics also have every right to express their disgust with her support
for transphobic “thought-leaders”. The complaints about “cancel culture” are
_mostly_ that people who have never had their opinions challenged are now
being challenged and called out for hurtful statements.

------
lostdog
Good points. I would have expected to hate remote work, because discussing
technical decisions with coworkers is a part of the job I really enjoy.

However. When you take into account how hostile the modern office is to IC
work, it turns out WFH is much better^. I'm not waiting for the open office to
quiet down before getting real work done, and I can just focus whenever I
want. 1:1 technical discussions are _easier_ to have, because you just Zoom
call the one person, and don't have to go around searching for a conference
room. Modern offices are designed so poorly, with such a high level of
distraction and low level of functionality, that even WFH without any
preparation is much better.

^ Having to take on childcare or not having a private room to work in cancels
out the benefits.

~~~
TheRealWatson
The childcare situation is most likely a pandemic related problem. In a more
normal world you'd arrange school and childcare just as if you had to commute
to work.

Having a private room, at least for me is always a very important aspect of
getting stuff done from home. I make all the effort I can to make it not look
or feel like a corporate office, though.

------
wincy
I don’t know the last time I took a shower. The days are blending into one
another. My house is a disaster. Every day feels exactly the same. I work from
home on my laptop which is next to my bed. I often don’t get out of bed to go
downstairs until past noon. I take several naps throughout the day, but never
feel well rested. My wife is losing her mind, my kids are acting like wild
animals. I don’t know how this happened. I have no energy and just want to
sleep. I wish I could go back to the office.

~~~
icelancer
Feel that. My job used to be 100-120 days/year on the road, now reduced to 3
so far since mid-March. My life was adapted to it with two kids and a wife,
and now it's gone to hell. Having a very tough time adjusting and I see no
return to normalcy in 2020.

~~~
skiman10
Hey, if you need someone to talk to about anything please reach out I'm a good
listener.

------
drdeadringer
> Remote enables you to be forgotten

This became clear to me every time I was hired or transferred into a new job
where I had to sit at a desk removed from everyone else on the team. Think
issues with not having an empty desk nearby when I walked in the door on Day
One or something along those lines, but several times over.

Making yourself routinely, regularly, and frequently visible goes only so far
when you're not cubicle neighbors with your direct coworkers or managers.

"Out of sight, out of mind" isn't just for working from home, it can be as
easy as working from down the hall or in the next room over. I've done the
satellite office thing too, and it's in the bag for this as well.

All this said, I am finally in a position where I -- for the first time ever
for me -- can and am encouraged to work from home as much as possible. My boss
and those I work with are all very active and proactive on making sure we
become, are, and remain glued together as we all play ventriloquist on the
job. I'm about to start my fourth week at this place so I'm trying not to have
rose-colored eyeglasses during the honeymoon, but so far so good.

~~~
tomaskafka
Yes. For this very reason I think that only the extremes (everyone is
collocated or everyone is remote) work. Mixing of local and remote people
doesn't (maybe except for external contractors, who know they are expendable
(and adjust their daily rates to compensate)).

~~~
err4nt
Agreed, it's not a 'remote work' thing, it's a 1-person-at-the-organization-
is-invisible-at-the-office kind of thing.

I will only work on 100% distributed teams where the entire organization is
communicating as though they're all remote, even on days when a couple of them
may be meeting at the office or working from the same place by choice.

------
Sophistifunk
None of these things compare in my mind to the absolute life-deranging daily
pain that is 2 hours a day on public transport, dressing up in physically
uncomfortable clothes for 10 hours a day, constantly being surveilled and
judged by how busy I look, or (most importantly) trying to concentrate in a
room with 100 people having random conversations around me.

There's a part of my brain that works with language, and I need it to write
code. If somebody is talking near me (doesn't have to actually be to me), that
part of my brain is listening, and I can't use it. It's not under my control,
all I can do is try to block the sounds.

~~~
analog31
>>> There's a part of my brain that works with language, and I need it to
write code. If somebody is talking near me (doesn't have to actually be to
me), that part of my brain is listening, and I can't use it. It's not under my
control, all I can do is try to block the sounds.

This is the best I've seen this explained. Thanks.

------
stellalo
Also:

\- Working remotely adds 10s of micro-frictions (through chats and calls)
every day that complicates or even break a sane flow of information, as well
as focus. This is not some “technical issue” that will go away as technology
improves: speaking to someone in person is as frictionless as it gets, and
cannot be matched.

\- The social component of work is completely erased, and that matters _a
lot_.

\- Private vs working space and time blend into each other, essentially making
you “always on”

Work from home is nice when needed, and if the conditions at home allow it; on
the other hand, imposing work from home on everyone may create a distinction
between “efficient workers” (= with no children) vs “less efficient ones” (=
with children)

Work from work, home from home

~~~
52-6F-62
I wouldn’t say in person communication is frictionless for everyone.

There are a lot of people who do not communicate at their best in person and
both feel and represent themselves better in writing or with something of a
“barrier” (for lack of a better word).

I generally disagree with this and most, if not all other, blanket statements.

I think, and hope, that the good that can come out of this isn’t some absolute
decision over whether we have offices or not, but that we become yet more open
and recognizing of differences and nuances. That kind of thing always seems to
be a long, argumentative road, however.

------
vii
There are many good points here. Companies depend on in-person proximity for
automatically communicating. The article identifies a few cases where remote
structures fail, like in responding quickly to new circumstances but it's a
more general problem.

Ideally, groups manage to articulate priorities in a planning process and
share what people are working on. However, these processes sometimes do not
exist, and when they do they rarely identify all the work. People are
regularly drawn into unplanned work, e.g. helping other teams. Also, to excel
as an knowledge worker (e.g. software engineer) you need to have a few
experimental projects, too risky to fit into the planning process and which
should not be discussed there. Getting help and mentorship on these can
greatly accelerate career growth, and that's often what people do late at
night in the office. This is definitely not inclusive, but is how people
signal that they are going above and beyond.

Remote work exposes the gaps between official processes and the informal ones
that spring up to enable human collaboration. Making these explicit would be
valuable for fairness, to help people without experience understand what is
really going on.

Doing that is very hard. If these informal power dynamics were documented,
indubitably they would be improved; they are very often unfair. Another way of
looking at it, is that the informal processes typically fill in gaps in poorly
designed formal processes :) It would take extraordinary organisational
maturity to be comfortable sharing this dirty laundry.

In summary, companies that go more remote will find ways to fill the gaps that
are currently patched over by in person proximity, and this is for the best as
it means tackling tough cultural painpoints

~~~
xfour
This is a great way of articulating this issue. A engineering group I interact
with loathes to document or version their code, and they maintain this in-
crowd mentality that I call Arms-Length development. It works great when
everyone is in the know because they’re so close to one another but breaks
down quickly, and will see increasing frustration with this attitude as we
remain remote for longer and longer and forever, eventually. It seems like the
engineering in one place as the rule rather than the exception is flip
flopping.

~~~
ghaff
The one comment I'd make is that _lots_ of companies already have distributed
teams and, in the case of open source software, are typically working with
outside people distributed all over the place. So "in-crowd mentality" is
pretty much an anti-pattern as soon as the butts-in-seat co-located assumption
is broken for whatever reason.

------
Bubbadoo
I started working from home around 2006. My torturous commute was around 4
hours, assuming the train was on time, so working from home was a godsend.
Also my kids were young and with my commute, time with them and time for
fitness activities was truly compressed. Problem was, managers always acted
like they were doing you a favor. My work day would go from 8-10 hours to 12
hours, easy, working from home. But it felt like there was always the
suspicion by management I was quaffing down brewskis while watching Oprah.

Fast-forward to 2020 and finally, after 15 or so years, WFH is going
mainstream. At least for the duration of the pandemic. The savings in air
pollutants, gasoline burned and exhaust emitted, and most of all, time, is
huge.

~~~
supernova87a
At what stage of your career though, and what role were you? What worked for
you then might not swing in so many people's favor right now.

------
pelasaco
Now on my 40s, I love to work from home. It gives me the freedom to better
distribute my workload through the day. I can surf early in the morning, work
some hours, go to the supermarket, work again, sometimes cook with my wife
when we have time, work late night.. I work more than 8 hours day and I
produce much more, but I enjoy my life more too. However, it was really
important for my professional development to have worked 15 years in an office
before. Almost all points on this article are right, and I really see no
possibility to grow as remote employee, BUT, I don't want to spend 8-10 hours
in an office anymore, and I can really see, via video call, how it kills
people mood

~~~
x62Bh7948f
this sounds really good. my company wouldn't let me work like this (Japanese
mid size, with no remote before covid). Just last week I left my phone
charging while still coding (my manager could have seen my commits) in another
room. When I checked slack again "he was afraid I had an accident" because I
didn't send the "I'm back from lunch" message after taking my break.

~~~
pelasaco
wow, another level of micromanagement. We have our core working time, from 11
to 15, and we have to be accessible this time - we arrange our meetings around
this time frame, and the rest of the day you use like you wish. Some people
are early birds, others work late.. but in the end of the day, you have a
sprint, you have tasks, and that's what matters..

------
eucryphia
"There is one consensus prediction that is emerging...[WFH]... good thing for
workers and welcomed by all."

No such consensus is emerging where I am.

Our computer intensive workplace ran a survey and 90% liked WFH and 80% wanted
to do it all or part of the week.

Top reasons for, were time saved commuting, saving $250/month parking fees and
ability to deep dive for hours without interruptions. Top against, was young
people missed social interaction and impromptu teaching/mentoring moments.
(I've told them all I am happy to talk, just line up a time, most do)

The bosses are packing death; they signed a long lease on a building even
deeper into the CBD of our city. Also they have to write an email detailing
what work they actually want done, not walk over and reel off half a dozen
brain farts leaving no evidence of what they asked for.

They've now pushing for everyone to come back to work before they move
permanently to their holiday homes down the coast.

~~~
Kwantuum
> they have to write an email detailing what work they actually want done, not
> walk over and reel off half a dozen brain farts leaving no evidence of what
> they asked for

This has still been happening where I work, instead of walking over they hop
on the voice channel, same old.

~~~
blaser-waffle
You're at a desk during most of that call, right? Share a screen and start
typing out bullet points as the PHB blabs and blabs, and then email it out.
Then hold people to it.

------
ralmidani
I’ve flip-flopped back and forth between liking and hating remote work. Right
now, the biggest issue I have with being remote is work life and home/family
life bleeding into each other, resulting in a deterioration of both. I’m sure
there are people who are better at compartmentalizing their lives, but there
are probably others who struggle with it more than I do.

------
solidasparagus
I don't know why people think that remote work means that you can hire from
anywhere in the world. You still need to be able to be able to schedule
meetings to have discussions/make decisions quickly and that really limits the
spread of a single team to a couple timezones.

~~~
ghaff
More like 6 or so but I agree with your basic point. (US East to Central
Europe works. More starts getting difficult.)

~~~
solidasparagus
I've done US East to EU and it didn't work very well for us. You couldn't make
decisions in a single day. You only overlap from 9am-noon US East time
(assuming 9-5 working hours).

~~~
ghaff
Perhaps the groups I work with have fewer ongoing synchronization needs. We
have meetings in the morning ET and it works fine for us.

------
stakkur
I just discovered you can invert the headline and the leader and they still
say the same thing:

'Office work is not necessarily a good thing for the worker'

"Why are we always assuming an office-based workforce is a good thing for the
worker?"

~~~
codegeek
It is not a binary thing and that is the point of this article. There is a lot
of noise especially lately that remote work is the future and the point is
that it depends. Just like being in office has its pros and cons, remote work
has its pros and cons.

------
brailsafe
I normally love working remotely, but only on something I find compelling and
only if the rest of my lifestyle is viable. Prior to COVID I was working on a
PDF sdk product in-office, which was sometimes rewarding, but mostly quite
banal. After work I'd continue working remotely on another thing, then hit the
gym, then go to the skatepark. When the office shutdown, so did everything
else. When I'd normally work out of a cafe, I'd be sitting at my desk at home.
When I'd normally go get exercise, I'd at best be able use some bands at home.
Generally speaking my day consisted of waking up and spending 8 hours doing
the meanial work of piecing together a next.js app, and then... nothing else
except for media consumption and watching the rain. I seemingly burnt out,
could persuade myself to type my render functions, and got fired from the
highest paying gig I've had so far. Now I've spent 3 months basically doing
nothing but skating, hiking, hitting the gym, and otherwise enjoying myself.
It's hard to convince myself to even look at my computer for work purposes.

I wonder what the rest of the year will look like.

------
la6471
Remote work is great for consulting gigs ... nothing like remotely talking to
clients and being objective about it . Much better tan spending cycled to take
the client out to lunch to build “relationship”. Guess it’s up to each of us
but as far as the writer of TFA is concerned it seems he is one of the kinds
who just like to throw his weight around and influence everything that moves
in his office. Too bad COVID has democratized the situation and he is now
exposed for what he is. This is common problem where all the styles and
coolness of hipsters are not mattering much any more :)

~~~
refurb
Yup, I think there is no one-size-fits-all with remote work. For some jobs,
it's great. Like management consulting - if you're traveling anyways, who care
if you work from home.

Other jobs? Not so much. I'm thinking the more creative work like advertising
agencies where brainstorming over Zoom makes you want to gouge your eyes out.

------
say_it_as_it_is
The dehumanizing aspects of remote cuts both ways. For instance, it's more
difficult for people who rely on exploiting human nature and politics to find
cover while working remotely. Do you know someone who is attractive and very
easy to get along with but doesn't really contribute valuable work? This
person is having a really hard time right now and will not ever advocate
remote work.

Although it will take effort for managers to maintain a human connection with
subordinates, managers aren't necessarily empathizing less with remote. They
may never have empathized to begin with.

Tech outsourcing has existed in various forms for many decades. It is
demoralizing. People will always compete with you for a job, and if the market
for talent is unrestricted by geography, there is valid cause for concern.

~~~
LordFast
Yep, there are always trade-offs. The current remote work paradigm is
benefitting folks who are more senior, more capable of getting more done with
more focused time at the expense of younger, single folks who have a lot more
to gain from having close-knit relationships in person with other coworkers.

The other side of the coin is as you mentioned: people who mainly rely on
relationships and politics to get ahead without contributing concrete value
are starting to feel the squeeze under this paradigm.

As is the case with everything though, I expect that the pendulum will swing
back at some point. Nothing lasts forever.

~~~
ghaff
Yeah, if I'm being honest, I'm quite senior as an IC, I've been at my current
company for a long time, I've been skewing increasingly remote for an even
longer time, and a lot of what I do is individual with relatively limited
syncs and collaborations. Some aspects (mostly I miss travel to events) are
lousy right now but otherwise everyone individually on video conferences is
pretty good--though most of the teams I work with are pretty distributed
anyway.

I think as a junior person more or less just out of school I'd find it pretty
awful.

------
k__
I'm all pro remote work, but...!

I thought most of my problems with work stem from working from an office, but
in the end being forced to work on an schedule imposed on me by someone else
was a much bigger problem.

I don't like having a boss, even if they let me work from home.

I like to work on my own schedule.

No motivation this week? No problem!

~~~
LeSaucy
I think you need both. I find that working towards big real deadlines(not bs
dates!) can really focus your attention on a critical path, but always
operating in that mode is a straight path to burn out.

~~~
k__
Deadlines aren't an issue for me.

The problem are artificial deadlines that are too soon.

------
CPLX
Odd that he didn’t mention the sort of first obvious reason, which is that
remote work makes the worker responsible for the cost of the space/real estate
in which they perform their work.

~~~
HPsquared
Although to be fair, the worker is usually on the hook for the time/cost of
commuting. It depends on the person, but I prefer this deal!

------
tgsovlerkhgsel
As I wrote on an earlier post on this topic, remote work is going to be a huge
benefits cut for the top end of tech employees, and a massive cost-cutting
measure for their employers.

I could set up my place to be both a home and an office, but it wouldn't be
cheap (for starters, I'd want to rent something bigger). Considering taxes,
this would be equivalent to at least a 20k pay cut due to costs being
offloaded on me.

I totally see why employers love that.

Additionally, FAANG and startup tech offices often serve as more than an
office - they tend to have a lot of shared amenities that are just not
practical to have at home. I don't use a 3D printer often enough to own one,
but there is one in the office. Gym? Office, and it has more than a pull-up
bar. Post office? Office. Inbound packages? Post office. In the office.
Grocery shopping? Happens much less often if you eat out. In the office. Why
would I want to eat out of my own fridge and pantry (and have to prepare the
food myself) when I can grab tasty food prepared by people who actually know
what they're doing?

The benefit isn't just that the stuff is free; the benefit is that it's all
right there. It's an incredible time saver.

If the office is just an office with no amenities, you have a sucky commute,
or you have a family, then I can see why WfH would be attractive. However, if
you're young and single, have a nice office, this is going to suck.

~~~
city41
It's true the amenities at offices like that are very nice. But the reality is
the vast majority of workers don't get them. So in the grand scheme of things,
not sure it's a very strong argument in the WFH vs office debate.

------
say-vagnes
> It’s baffling to me that American workers would cheer an acceleration of
> this trend that would place downward pressure on their wages.

I see shades of this in a lot of discourse - is it an alien idea to be for
progress even if it means potentially more strife on your part?

Further, I'd say, not necessarily. People think that working from home is this
grand new frontier, but cultures and subcultures have existed on the web for
ages. It isn't going to be a wide open playing field. You're still going to
have networks and self-selection into subgroups.

And finally, there's still a ton of money to be made by the few who are
actually good at this. I hope everyone here is or has worked with someone of
this type - where something they ship quickly actually leaves you speechless.

\--

As to the rest of this article, it really doesn't resonate. A lot of the
problems listed are problems even in the office. The long and short of it is
that the world is changing, and so while we can cherry-pick examples of how
companies are failing to adapt, rest assured there are organizations out there
that are adapting.

I'd say - keep an open mind, and find ways to get what you need - the most
important mental shift you can make right now is to be your own advocate, and
be proactive.

~~~
nkohari
People have been raising the bogeyman of "off-shoring" engineering jobs since
the 90s. The reality is that it's always going to be incredibly hard to do
collaborative work in an asynchronous fashion, and timezones are an immutable
reality.

More remote work is much more likely to cause a diaspora of workers from large
cities, causing downward pressure on salaries in major metros but lifting
salaries elsewhere. Unless demand for software engineers stalls -- which seems
awfully unlikely for the foreseeable future -- it seems more likely that the
median salary for American engineers will increase.

------
kovac
There are some good points here but I think it's partly because we are too
used to how it was and have a hard time letting that go. We can't assess
working from home in isolation as if everything else stays the same and only
this changes. It'll have to be brought about alongside a mindset change.

While it might put one at risk of getting replaced due to outsourcing, it also
opens up opportunities for them to get things outsourced to them which they
couldn't due to the previous setup.

While not being in the office may hamper one's career progress may be true, we
also over look the possibility of having to put up with socialising and other
corporate bullshit to progress at work over actually doing your job. With this
kind of setup, values and skills may get more focus over charisma and just
good looks.

For me it's hard to say how this will turn out. I think it'll be as boring as
most other changes that happen in life where the actual impact is not nearly
as severe as it looks from where we are now. Either way, I think the prospect
of having the option to work from home for those who are willing and able is a
positive outcome. After all, life is about having options :)

------
artpi
I am a dude from Poland, taking that American job, correct. I am paid the
same.

But mind you - If I am able to do that job, communicate in _my second
language_ , and still get it - maybe there are other problems at play?

The core premise of Remote Work is that it removes an unfair bareer (where you
happened to be born)

\- Oh no, Women in the workplace? Gonna steal your job!

\- Oh no, immigrants? God forbid!

> This will cause your work to “flatten.” Whatever soft skills you bring to
> the table will be minimized when working remotely

On the contrary - you have to work on your soft skills 3x as hard. I wrote an
entire (free) course about making Slack suck less:

[https://deliber.at/chat/](https://deliber.at/chat/)

> Remote work can stifle your career growth

There is a nugget there, but if you are the one working remotely with
everybody else in the office - that is a situation to avoid.

But if everybody else is remote - somebody will progress their career, won't
they?

That is beside the point - for me (again, NOT an American worker) this is
unparalleled opportunity to get mentorship without uprooting my entire
existence. I am a Team lead, and i also lead Americans.

~~~
brandoncordell
Just wanted to let you know that your link 404s.

------
4WIW
This is a new situation, and is going to stay with us for a while, if not
forever. Instead of complaining about "good old days" of water cooler culture,
wouldn't it be better to take this as an opportunity to adapt, learn new
tricks and enjoy the advantages, of which there are many? We'll have to
anyway. Or else...

~~~
jjjensen90
If you're referring to the WFH situation staying with us forever, it
definitely will not. Things may change somewhat, but in discussing WFH with a
variety of execs who employee tens of thousands of engineers collectively,
there is a very strong majority of engineers who would come back to the office
tomorrow if able.

------
StopHammoTime
If the only thing stopping you being forgotten in a job is being visible in an
office, it might be time for a new job.

------
abellerose
Early 30s here and I hope WFH continues till the day I die. I hated going into
work every day. Sure, it's nice every once in awhile but what a complete waste
of resources it happened to be. Nothing lost from working at home. I save a
lot more now.

------
Tade0
_It’s baffling to me that American workers would cheer an acceleration of this
trend that would place downward pressure on their wages._

Will it though? Coming from a country(Poland) that is a rather popular target
for outsourcing I can tell you that companies pay around $70k per
annum(ballpark - don't quote me on this) for contractors over here(the
contractors themselves receive 50-80% of that) and there's still _plenty_ of
work to go around.

Sure, that's not a lot, but it comes with the additional issue of having the
person in a very different time zone, which is not ideal.

I'd say outside of SV your wages are safe.

~~~
WalterSear
You are comparing outsourced contractors to salaried employees. The low end of
typical contract rates here is, IME, ~$100/hr.

Also, as a rule of thumb, a salaried employee cost twice their salary after
benefits and other costs are factored in. Given the median salary I recall
from a recent placement company, this is in the region of $300k.

If the reduced physical presence of remote work reduces the value that
salaried employees can bring, contracting out work will become more
attractive.

~~~
Tade0
_Also, as a rule of thumb, a salaried employee cost twice their salary after
benefits and other costs are factored in._

What kind of benefits? Total cost for the employer is seriously around $300k?
I find that hard to believe.

~~~
charwalker
3x is a wide margin. I remember seeing numbers at my last contract job that
suggested it was close to 1.75x and was using that number in the process of
getting hired directly. I knew the companies costs to hire could be under that
1.75x value but still be a pay bump for me especially as I didn't have any
benefits through the contractor saving them costs with no return to me.

For the contracting agency the value of my labor to a third party is how they
make money. Seemed simple enough to me but not a racket I wanted to bounce
around in.

------
sacks2k
I've been working remotely for 10 years. Well before Covid.

The only reason I ever wanted to work remotely is so I could juggle my side
businesses and work at the same time, without wasting any commute time or
using company equipment. When I first started out, it was so I could travel
around Asia for a couple of years.

Now, it allows me to spend more time with my family. I see my daughter all
throughout the day and it's great.

The downsides are that you just don't get those close relationships with co-
workers. If you need that social aspect of work, it will be very difficult
(and possibly depressing).

------
sys_64738
These articles never explore the types of remote work at a company. You can be
a contractor working a specific contract for a deliverable. The company might
be geo dispersed so that only small groups of people are located together and
your meetings need to be via Zoom. Your company is fully remote which means
all meetings are via Zoom. You are one of the few remote people in the org so
have no idea about what's really going on. Most of these are workable except
the last. Don't do that gig.

------
justatdotin
> Those jobs go to anyone, anywhere.

I live in a very small (not USA) city classified as 'rural and remote'. There
is no local opportunity to do the sort of work I'm interested in, so for a few
years I just didn't (obviously not USA :)

WFH allows me to participate. For some years, it was a complicating liability,
and I had to gently massage potential employers to seriously consider a fully
remote config. But this year when hunting I found my years of remote
experience recognised and valued.

------
elSidCampeador
My experience with wfh: I work in one of the audit companies' advisory arms
(and I have only been in the workforce for around a year now), and for me WFH
was a dream benefit that was only available to those in tech.

At first (i.e., around the first 2-3 weeks), I loved WFH - because I was very
motivated to finish my work ASAP and spend time playing the guitar, or
writing, or doing whatever the hell I wanted to do. And because the country
wasn't in lockdown, I met friends for lunch/dinner every other day, so I was
having fun.

The next 2-3 weeks, I began to hate it, because I hated not meeting people so
much (because by this time the country had gone into lockdown), and I felt
like shit tbh.

After that, I made it a rule to video call one of my friends/colleagues every
day, which improved my life tremendously. Should have thought of this earlier,
smh.

Around the same time, I fell into a bad habit. I started to think that I'm not
really going anywhere, so why work so much? As a result, my work started to
drag on after office hours, and I started to feel more tired. I had to
actively tell myself that my work day ended at such-and-such a time, so that I
wouldn't drag my my work to after office hours.

Once this entire period of around 2 months passed, I realised that I prefer
WFH, and started to dread the day we'd be called back in to work, because of
the following reasons: 1\. I save an hour of travel time each day, so instead
of waking up at 7 to be able to reach office at 9, I now wake up at 845. 2\.
I'm quite motivated to finish work early and then do whatever I want. 3\.
Because I'm so new to work, I don't really need to go around meeting people -
hence there is no reason for me to be anywhere near office.

------
TomSwirly
> remote work makes you vulnerable to outsourcing, reduces your job to a
> metric, creates frustrating change-averse bureaucracies, and stifles your
> career growth.

None of these are on the worker, though. They're all on the company.

I personally am far more effective remotely. Simply having a perfectly quiet
and controlled environment is such a big plus. Not commuting, such a huge
plus. I had the best commutes for most of my non-remote life, I walked to work
for years (quite a hike sometimes, but I love to walk - but it was still a
drag.

I find the timeframes of remote better. When someone walks into your office,
you need to respond intelligently right away. You lose focus.

So many of my bugs could be attributed to being interrupted and forgetting to
some detail in the code!

Remotely, you can quickly triage interrupts and give an instant response with
a time estimate ("On this, will report back within the hour"), finish what you
are working on, and then take the time to really look into their question.

(I am very sympathetic to others who aren't. Considering the great savings in
resources and time we get, is there some way we can make it up to you?)

------
alkonaut
When you are in your office, are you even having verbal communication with a
manager? Is the manager even in the same office? None of this is a given. When
I was in an office I had a closed door and communicated mostly via chat and IM
and I often reported to managers in different offices. My office was remote
from my manager's office. When I moved to a home office, it made no difference
to that manager.

------
rdlecler1
So basically remote work leads to meritocracy. Maybe society would be better
off if businesses actually worked like that.

------
m0zg
Full-time WFH makes it much easier to rear kids though. You get to help them
with homework, have a dinner with them, and just in general be available. IMO
it's fucked up that this isn't even a consideration in all these discussions.
It's as if work is all there is to life.

------
samename
I am one year out of college, been working as a software engineer at a non-
tech company ever since. This article as me conflicted. I enjoy the benefits
mentioned in the article, so much so that I am considering moving to a bigger
city that has more tech jobs (while keeping my current job). Although I was
working in the office before, the transition to remote has presented me with
the opportunity to move to where I want to be. However, this article makes
clear the risks now include missing out on career opportunities, mentors, and
skills that could stunt my career growth - if my job doesn’t get outsourced
first. As someone who’s still starting off in their career, I’m afraid of
making a misstep - but also believe this time is the time to take risks and
see how they play out.

~~~
skewart
Honestly I wouldn’t worry too much about it. This article vastly overstates
the benefits of offices. Sitting in an office every day doesn’t magically make
mentorship opportunities appear. You need to proactively seek those out no
matter where you’re working - ask questions, ask for advice - and if someone
is willing to talk in person they’re almost certainly willing to talk over
video chat too.

~~~
P_I_Staker
> and if someone is willing to talk in person they’re almost certainly willing
> to talk over video chat too.

Strongly disagree. The culture is different. I didn't always love other people
popping by, but they could just do it in a way that isn't really done with
voice chat where I work. It was probably better for the team that they did. I
definitely found myself doing this too.

Unless you work somewhere with a policy to avoid stopping by someone's desk at
all costs, unless you were sure the other person wanted it (in advance), it's
not like voice calls at all. If I just call someone, I'm being pushy. I have
to ask first, and even then I feel like I'm inconveniencing them. I'm
certainly not going to just call people out of the blue, even ones I'm
friendly with just to chit chat. In the office, we'd "run into each other",
though.

~~~
skewart
Oh, I didn't mean just calling someone out of the blue. I meant that people
would be willing to get on a video call if you set up a time to talk. I would
typically message or email people first.

Heck even if we're in the same office I'd often ping someone on text chat
before walking over to their desk - it's just less rude and intrusive than
forcing them to stop what they're working on and demanding to talk with them
right then. A lot of teams I've worked on have communicated heavily by text
chat even if we're all sitting just a few feet away from each other.

Do you find people less willing to send a message on Slack or whatever chat
app you're using than they are to physically stop by someone's desk?

------
zelphirkalt
When I was in home office (ridiculously am not any longer, although the virus
is still out there and I can work perfectly fine from home) I saved 2h time
every working day. It was an immense free time productivity boost. I also got
a lot of personal stuff done, which simply did not happen when I came home
20:00 or similar, when there was no home office.

Make use of your time. Start some of Your own projects in that new found free
time or finally get to work on things you should have done years ago.

Perhaps I am too used to staying at home and sitting at the computer, so that
it does not affect me as much?

I for sure liked those extra 2h each workIng day. Sums up quickly.

------
abalashov
I wrote an article to this general effect a few years ago,

[https://likewise.am/2017/05/19/in-response-to-the-cult-of-
re...](https://likewise.am/2017/05/19/in-response-to-the-cult-of-remote-
working/)

and I’m glad to see some of these more global, psychological arguments about
the larger role and meaning of work in the human experience are gaining
currency. The current wave of uncontained euphoria about remote work in the
business press, which began in earnest with Covid at the mass level, needs to
be tempered with some blunt realism.

------
ornornor
> you do gain a bit of freedom from your boss (which doubles as a loss of a
> mentor)

I don’t know about the rest of HN but everything I learned and all my career
progression happened _despite_ my various bosses.

~~~
DoingIsLearning
I think your mileage may vary. I've had bosses as you describe in your
situation.

But as a counterpoint, I also had bosses who were definitely mentors and were
growth oriented. Those were the workplaces were I felt I learned the most and
perhaps not surprisingly those people are the 'former bosses' in my network
that I still stay in touch with and that occasionally check-in to talk about
life/work/family.

I've only really had two bosses/mentors like that in my career so I agree that
they are statiscally much more scarce.

------
jl2718
Remote work is only preferable to the ‘distributed office’ to which we’ve all
been inured. Most have no comparison to physical presence.

Is there a way to search for tech jobs that minimize electronic communication?

------
info781
Remote work and remote work with people in different time zones is a totally
different thing, I'm not sure why they get lumped together. I'm on East coast
of United States and don't mind working with people on West coast but further
than that would be a problem.I've had jobs where everyone went out to lunch
together and it was fun,but I've had jobs where everyone just wants to eat
lunch at their desk and go home.

~~~
kieselguhr_kid
I completely agree. I live on the US West coast and work with people from
Israel to Australia and let me tell you - it's a challenge. It can be done but
it requires a slower pace of decision making, a lot of flexibility, and a team
that's dedicated to cross cultural communication. I also used to work remotely
with everyone in the same few time zones and, on reflection, it was basically
like being in an office.

------
apexalpha
Everyone seems to think you either WFH or in office all the time. Personally I
hope this new situation will enable me to work in office for 1 or 2 days a
week and WFH the other days.

It would enable me to live farther from my office, and thus buy a bigger house
for less money. It still allows me to meet (new) colleagues and clients in
person.

Personally I think either 5 days WFH or 5 days Office would be the worst of
any situation.

------
iovrthoughtthis
Maybe we can separate our social lives from our work lives finally?

I want to work with my friends from somewhere while we all work for different
companies.

------
balladeer
I love that there’s no open office anymore which I hated. It had nothing good
to offer other than saving rent for my employer.

I hate that meetings have already started to spill into Saturdays, Sundays,
and beyond 6pm and attendance in those meetings are now being subtly demanded
which began as requests because someone’s calendar would be “full”.

------
xenihn
I miss having the freedom to choose between being remote or in-office. I don't
know if I can decide between which I prefer. I always rent near work, so
commuting isn't a huge issue. If I owned a home and had to commute, I would
definitely prefer being remote.

------
PeterStuer
Very poor article.

I have worked remote for about 8 years now. I used to have to spend 3+ hours
in commute each day.

To put it bluntly, those that complain the loudest are those who's career
rested on politicking and stealth deferrel of their actual productive work to
others.

You aren't 'outsourced' offshore or otherwise because of WFH, you are because
your type of job allowed for it. The current crisis might just have woken up
the company to it sooner.

BTW, people that have only just now started WFH, don't confuse your current
experience with WFH under normal circumstances. That commute time save
normally allowed you to have an actual life outside work.

Finally, do not underestimate the huge lobbying going on currently to get us
all 'back to the office' from what is called the 'lunch economy' sector. God
forbid you would get used to not spending huge amounts on overpriced coffee
and sandwiches or junkfood each day.

------
john4532452
Considering ageism in the software industry Remote work feels like a boon. Not
to mention the uninterrupted productive work you can do. Remote work is bad
only for the middle managers who don't know how to account for their time.

------
Animats
_In reality, remote work makes you vulnerable to outsourcing, reduces your job
to a metric, creates frustrating change-averse bureaucracies, and stifles your
career growth._

And, it's more cost effective than slavery!

------
usefulcat
"We bemoan the loss of empathy and context created by solely getting our news
and interacting via social media … and we then turn around and set up our
working lives in their image."

------
solinent
I'd say ultimately it depends on the worker's manager, if they follow the
Babbage style of management you're gonna have problems, wherever the worker is
working from.

------
Havoc
I’m taking the opportunity to play digital nomad a bit.

Pretty modestly & locally though given that major intl travel isn’t a thing
right now

------
Overtonwindow
I kept my office because I just can’t get work done at home.Too many
distractions

------
coronadisaster
Anything can be a bad thing in excess... Even water.

------
thrir736
Hm, basic begginer problems. You need good connectivity, video conferencing
gear, dedicated room and nanny. All that is affordable if you do not live in
expensive city.

~~~
scarface74
If you were at work, you would still need someone to take care of kids.

Pre-Covid, it was considered really bad form to be interrupted by children
while working.

~~~
xfour
Society as a whole had a system that largely dealt with this called public
school. Most had some version of 3-5pm after school care to allow working
adults to have readable inexpensive childcare. With Covid we’re going through
for most states the second school year / semester at least of closed physical
space schools. It’s just a reality right now that the kids are going to
interact with WFH adults during their workday until schools get reopened. Say
nothing of the kids mental state after being isolated for so long.

~~~
scarface74
I did say “pre-Covid”.....

------
al2o3cr
Summary and comments on the points of this article:

* remote work widens the competitive playing field. Boo hoo. If you think non-remote work is somehow immune to offshoring, take a look at the last three decades for counterexamples.

* remote work enables you to be forgotten: sure, if your managers suck. Again, see _gestures at the entire industry_ for examples of people getting "forgotten" at in-person offices.

* remote work breaks large companies: better phrasing - "remote work makes it plainly obvious that large companies are broken"

* remote work can stifle your career growth: again, sure - if your managers suck. They likely suck in person too, in that case.

* Conclusion: "what if instead of remote work companies just stopped acting like companies act"

As a content marketer, Sean is doing a great job of supporting a target
customer persona: sucky bosses who are desperate to find a way to get back to
an arrangement that makes it harder to spot how much they suck. I'm sure he'll
get a lot of clicks.

~~~
partyboat1586
Just because offshoring was happening before remote work doesn't mean remote
work won't accelerate it's adoption. Part of the reason its not already
ubiquitous is because we are still working out the best way to do remote work,
the more that gets refined the more attractive offshoring looks. Americans
will get priced out of the market and they should be concerned about that.

~~~
nsl73
> Americans will get priced out of the market and they should be concerned
> about that.

It’s just good planning to have multiple potential forms of income.
Programming might be the thing I do that can pay the highest, but I have plan
B, plan C, and plan D ready to be put into action if I suddenly don’t have a
career in software engineering, or I don’t want a career in software
engineering.

Interestingly enough, having options also puts you in a stronger position when
discussing salaries and benefits with your employer or perspective employer.

~~~
BiggsHoson
>... I have plan B, plan C, and plan D ready to be put into action if I
suddenly don’t have a career in software engineering, or I don’t want a career
in software engineering.

I would like to read more about that if you would care to share more details.
I cannot imagine a career in anything but software, but this year has me very
low on contract work and some backup plans are something I am trying to
devise.

~~~
P_I_Staker
Very skeptical of this. The reality is that most professions shut people out
unless they have very specific backgrounds, otherwise you'd see service
workers routinely jump to something higher paying. A degree may be enough to
get more of a foot in door somewhere, but it's very tough. Chances are you
wind up doing something highly undesirable, unless you manage to go the self-
employed "entrepreneur" route.

------
ponker
This virus has taught me that I absolutely loathe WFH. I don’t even like
people or talking to them but I like having them around and I’ll drive an hour
each way to make that happen.

