
Half of American workers would rather work from home forever: poll - chrishynes
https://www.zippia.com/advice/coronavirus-remote-work-survey/
======
gspr
I wonder if this is related to the long commutes Americans have gotten used
to. I'm not in the US, and while I would say I definitely appreciate the
flexibility of being able to work from home (or from "not the office") every
now and then, and I do like the present drop in meetings, I cannot fathom how
people stay sane without a variety of other people around.

My productivity has definitely dropped, and it feels like my brain never
really fully turns "on". It feels a lot like those times in university I
decided to study for exams from home instead of going to campus. I can't
explain it, but 9 out of 10 times it just feels bad, like the way your brain
feels if you've spent the day watching TV or something (when, in fact, I
haven't). This doesn't even begin to consider the social punctuations of work
that are essential to my psychological well-being.

Does anyone feel the same? I'm a little bit worried that I just have a
personality type that isn't well-suited for the remote work culture that is
likely to become more prevalent after this crisis is over. I'm in my early
thirties, but I've felt this way for as long as I can remember, independently
of whether I was in a relationship, whether I was working or studying, etc.

~~~
dbingham
Extrovert / introvert.

You're clearly more towards the extrovert part of the spectrum. Please try to
have empathy for people on the introverted part of the spectrum who cannot
fathom being forced into an office with tons of people distracting them all
day every day. Heretofore they (save for a lucky few like me) have been forced
to not just fathom it, but live it.

The "half" of Americans mentioned in the article probably has heavy overlap
with those introverts.

Honestly, your post reads pretty heavily to me of "status quo privilege bias".
You fit the current status quo very well, and are expressing worry that a
change to that status quo would hurt you, with out extending empathy to those
the current status quo hurts badly.

The world is not going to flip to fully remote work. It's likely going to inch
towards remote work being more prevalent or available. What you are expressing
is a case of "When you're accustomed to privilege (your way of working being
privileged in this case), then equality (remote work being equally available)
feels like oppression."

Not saying that makes you evil or any thing, just pointing out that this is a
pretty standard human bias that gets expressed and winds up working to defend
harmful status quos all the time. Worth being self aware of.

~~~
gspr
> Extrovert / introvert. You're clearly more towards the extrovert part of the
> spectrum.

That's the thing: I don't consider myself very extroverted! Probably on the
extrovert side of the scale, but very moderately so!

> Please try to have empathy for people on the introverted part of the
> spectrum who cannot fathom being forced into an office with tons of people
> distracting them all day every day. Heretofore they (save for a lucky few
> like me) have been forced to not just fathom it, but live it.

Oh I do, I really do. I guess I'm just a bit (selfishly) scared of what awaits
people like me in the future.

If we allow ourselves a lot of optimism, workplaces will see the need to
accommodate both kinds of people to a great extent :-)

> Honestly, your post reads pretty heavily to me of "status quo privilege
> bias". You fit the current status quo very well, and are expressing worry
> that a change to that status quo would hurt you, with out extending empathy
> to those the current status quo hurts badly.

You may be right, but to defend myself on this point I think it is in part
fueled by the overwhelmingly positive press WFH seems to be getting in this
crisis. Nobody is writing articles exhalting the virtues of regular offices
(rightly so), and I guess I have all this praising of WFH a bit stuck in my
throat at this point - it leaves me thinking "is it me there's something wrong
with?"

> The world is not going to flip to fully remote work. It's likely going to
> inch towards remote work being more prevalent or available.

I guess I'm just afraid it'll be a reinforcing cycle driven by potential real-
estate savings on the part of both employers and employees, and infrastructure
savings on the part of society.

~~~
dbingham
Well, here are two things to think about that may salve your fears:

1) There are just as many extroverts as introverts. You are very much not
alone in your desires.

2) Management is overwhelmingly extroverts, because of the people managing
required in the management profession. The C-Suite is almost entirely
extroverts.

~~~
danaris
> because of the people managing required in the management profession

While I agree with the rest of your statements, I disagree with this.

Management is overwhelmingly extraverts because extraversion lends itself very
strongly to the kind of elbow-rubbing that our culture sees as more important
than performance for determining suitability for raises, promotions, and such.

I know some introverted people who are absolutely brilliant people managers.
They understand leadership and what people need so much better than any
extraverted manager I've ever personally met.

For all too many people, management isn't even about "people managing". It's
about being on a power trip. And this applies triple to the C suite.

~~~
dbingham
Fair critique.

For the record, I'm an introverted manager (and seemingly a decent one judging
by my record and the feedback I receive). I do find the people managing
aspects to be pretty exhausting (though also fulfilling and totally
worthwhile).

------
drewg123
I've worked from home since 2001, except for a brief 2 year stint at Google. I
think I'm far more productive at home because I have:

\- An office, with a door I can close

This was going to be a big list, but I actually think that just about sums it
up. The cube environment at Google was utterly intolerable, and made it hard
to concentrate. It didn't help that the guys in another group next to us had a
game where they flew rc drones around for fun, or the folks on the other side
of my group that were always discussing food, or the loud door to a lab behind
my desk that was constantly slamming, etc, or just the constant stream of
people walking by my cube.

At home I have a door that I can close. I can _think_. So I get a lot more
done.

I'm not saying all office environments were terrible. Before 2001, I worked
doing research at a University and I had a fantastic office with a door. I
think I was just as productive there as I was at home. Because, again,
distractions were minimal.

~~~
mark_l_watson
I also worked at Google after almost 20 years of working at home. I didn’t
mind the cube environment because I worked from about 6am to 3pm, giving me a
few hours of quiet heads down time every day. My last job before retiring at
Capital One was the same, I started work early in the morning for heads down
work time, was available for brainstorming, etc., then knocked off work mid
afternoon. I really recommend time shifting for people having problems
concentrating in a cube environment.

~~~
kevstev
You didn't find that there was pressure to work later? I tend to prefer to
come in late because you can control your bound on that, but leaving early
makes you look bad (despite the irrationality of that), and its just easy to
fall into the habit of "oh just another hour, I will still be home for
dinner..."

Then there are meetings scheduled for 3-6pm....

~~~
drewg123
There was some, but we tended to put a bound on meetings to 10-3. I had a good
excuse in that I had hard deadline of 3:45 to pick my son up from school most
days. The days that I stayed late, it was mostly for social events. Either
TGIF on thursdays, or group celebrations which were generally at 4.

~~~
mark_l_watson
I was in Mountain View and my manager was in NYC, so we started working at the
same time, given the 3 hour time difference.

Also, the manager of everyone in the ocean of people around me was my peer, we
had the same manager, and he came in almost as early as I did.

So, no problem, or at least no problem that I worried about.

------
Tade0
No wonder given that the daily commute is both mentally and physically taxing
for most.

I've been working remotely since 2015 and have already decided to settle in a
perhaps less attractive, but definitely cheaper neighbourhood so that I could
have some office space in the house.

In the long run it's probably going to cost as much as the sum total of fuel
and vehicles used over the years, but the main benefit is not having to go
over this stressful routine of negotiating my place in a stream of cars.

~~~
Taek
Make sure you account for the value of time saved. Time is precious and
there's never enough, if I can find a way to add 40 more minutes to my day I'm
going to value that immensely.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Don't use it for additional time spent working uncompensated! Your commute
wasn't paid for (typically), so don't give that time away to someone else for
free now that you're saving it.

~~~
dagmx
Personally, having a long bay area commute, i now use that time instead to
sleep in AND go for longer walks with my dog, that we’d usually reserve for
the weekends

------
willvarfar
I'm anticipating that most HNers prompted to comment here will be those
thinking this unlikely or wrong or whatever. Every time something positive
about remote working is on HN, only those opposing it seem to comment...

So, anyway, here's my vote in favour of remote working!

I've worked from home for the last 10 years straight, and two years in the
decade before that. Working from home has always been best for me.

Historically, colleagues have always been amazed I get anything done, and
wondered about how teams can possibly function etc etc. Lots of people have
been skeptical.

And now so many of my colleagues are working from home, and all the awful
destruction hasn't happened, and in fact many people are saying they've never
been more productive...

Yay to remote working, long may it continue!

~~~
PragmaticPulp
> I'm anticipating that most HNers prompted to comment here will be those
> thinking this unlikely or wrong or whatever.

On the contrary, this seems like the most honest take on the topic of remote
work preferences.

The headline says that 50% of Americans prefer working from home. That
suggests that 50% prefer working from the office or aren't sure yet.

In other words: Some people like to work from home. Some people don't. That's
the point that many of us have been trying to make all along.

When quarantining started, a lot of the WFH advocates came out of the woodwork
and declared an early victory for WFH. There was an influx of hot takes that
office spaces would be closed forever once people saw the benefits of WFH.
They all ignored half of the population who really does not benefit from
working from home.

~~~
Galaco
> The headline says that 50% of Americans prefer working from home. That
> suggests that 50% prefer working from the office.

If you even glance at the article that's just not true. The remaining vote is
split between 'Prefers the Office' and 'Unsure'.

If you were to split the 'Unsure' based on the current ratio of 'Prefers
Home':'Prefers the office' between the 2, you're looking at closer to 42%
'prefer the office'.

~~~
PragmaticPulp
> If you were to split the 'Unsure' based on the current ratio of 'Prefers
> Home':'Prefers the office' between the 2, you're looking at closer to 42%
> 'prefer the office'.

I updated my post.

Given my prior experience managing remote teams, WFH tends to come with a
honeymoon phase where people enjoy their new freedom but don't yet miss the
social interaction of the office. Over time, some people tend to get cabin
fever and feel isolated, especially if they don't have strong social networks
outside of work. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the "Prefers Home' group
switch to 'Not decided' or even 'No' over time.

------
deevolution
I think alot of people will want to go back because they've now associated
working remotely with being in an isolated jail cell. Also I'm sure couples
and people with kids are ready to jump out their windows.

I wont be going back to the office for a number of reasons, however, and I
think everyone should boycott the office as well. Weather you want to work in
the office or not should ultimately be the employees choice.

1\. Commuting pollutes.

2\. Commuting is lost time. Almost a month of lost time every year.

3\. Office spaces are expensive. Without them, companies would have lots of
extra cash. Ideally that extra cash goes to wages or hiring.

4\. VR workplaces can be and will be a sufficient substitute. You can get
about the same quality of social interaction + more in VR as you can in meat
space. Its a different experience and until you try it you aren't really
entitled to an opinion.

5\. You can go to the gym whenever you want (assuming businesses open up
again).

I'm sure there are other benefits that I'm missing.

~~~
chosenbreed37
You make a compelling case for more people to opt to working from home given
the choice. I wonder in all of this whether or not we might be losing
something. I'd say that co-location (and possibly commuting) are a part of a
larger ecosystem. For instance there are a number of businesses that cater for
the office based folks. This could be providing breakfast, lunches, coffees,
cigarettes (vapes), etc. In some cities you have coffee shops/restaurants that
are mainly open during office hours. Without the offices many of them wouldn't
be there. These may be businesses of various sizes employing several people.
Then there's the staff required to maintain the office space from
receptionists, porters, security, cleaners, technicians, etc. Then there are
the pubs/bars that people go to after work (one of things I miss when home
based). I could go on. You could argue that many of these people could simply
be employed elsewhere. I think we should consider the potential ramifications
of the shift before we jump full steam ahead.

~~~
deevolution
These are definitely valid concerns but usually the way changes happen is
slowly and then suddenly all at once like we are witnessing with COVID-19 or
as we saw with the transition from horses to automobiles, and from blockbuster
to netflix. Technology is an incredible force and slowing it down is hard.
Ultimately it will come down to which companies, bussinesses and people
display the most adaptability.

------
yodsanklai
I was working from home before the virus. The difference for me now is that my
other colleagues work from home too. The quality of our meetings has improved,
and I feel that I'm on a more even playing field now (in term of evaluation
for instance). It's great. I'm also collaborating more closely with some
colleagues with whom I had little interaction before.

That being said, working from home is not for everyone. Not everybody has a
good working environment. Some people get distracted, feel lonely, or are
unable to maintain good work/life balance.

It really has pros and cons. What I hope at least is that it will be less
taboo in the future and more employers will be open to that option.

~~~
js8
> That being said, working from home is not for everyone.

Actually, even work (in any particular set of circumstances) is not for
everyone. And still, people do manage.

For example, open offices are not for everyone. Yet they do happen.

Imagine, if at your future employer, you could simply decide whether you want
to WfH or not. And they would plan the office accordingly. They would rent
less space. Why not give people the freedom?

------
mabbo
I'm going to strike a very different reaction to most here: I miss my office!

The office is where I work. Home is where I don't work. I have a 30-40 minute
subway ride between the two for changing gears. Home-no-work. Office-yes-work.
Sudoku and Kindle in between. It's a pattern I hadn't realized I'd so strongly
driven into my mind.

The first two weeks of this pandemic? I accomplished nothing. I sat down and
tried to work at my desk (I even have a dock and a KVM switch so I could use
my dual-monitors, keyboard, and mouse) and I did almost nothing for two weeks.
I just could not change gears. It was agony.

I finally was able to get working again by moving from my desk to a chair
beside it, with just my laptop. I have no pattern for this place- it's a chair
usually covered in stuff I need to put somewhere so I have no really deep
patterns for what I do when I sit here (is my own self-psycho-analysis). I'm
still not as productive as before, but at least I'm getting some things done.

Even then, I miss running into people in the kitchen that I haven't talked to
in a while. I miss grabbing lunch with friends from other departments. I miss
that first 15 minutes of the day where we're all waiting for the caffeine to
kick in, asking what the weekend plans are. The social aspects keep me sane.

And right now I'm trying to train new guys. One guy, we started him during the
lockdown by just mailing him a laptop with instructions for how to get on the
VPN. Training people remotely is _hard_. Even mostly-remote companies often
start new people in the office for a week or two, then send them back home.
There's video calls and screen sharing- it's not the same. I find it very
difficult.

I have many criticisms of modern offices, but I still want mine back.

------
Arubis
This article (like most discussion of these work styles) conflates remote work
and work-from-home. I feel it would _greatly_ help clarify discussion to keep
in mind that these aren’t the same thing: the latter (WFH) is _mostly_ a
subset of the former (work from a location of your choice), and of the two,
“remote” is _much more enabling._

WFH is okay. It beats an office. But it blurs the lines between work and not-
work life further than they already are unless you’re highly skilled in
setting boundaries, and if you have kids or other dependents it’s a fresh
challenge to stay focused every day.

Working remotely, in non-pandemic times, opens up real possibilities. The
young and the restless can try the nomadic worker thing; that looks like it’s
be fun for a while. Coworking (in the small community sense, not WeWork) gets
you the separation of work and home on your own terms and can be a fabulous
balance for the extroverts (and also introverts) among us. And WFH gets rolled
in there as well.

At present moment, as the world suddenly is all doing this at once, while
confined at home—of course these concepts will be conflated. But let’s be
deliberate to ensure we aren’t setting ourselves up for a world where managers
get suspicious of you for leaving the house during work hours. That sounds
worse than the situation we started with.

------
mark_l_watson
I think that I have relevant experience to talk about the advantages and
disadvantages of working from home. In 1998 my wife and I moved from
California to the mountains in Central Arizona. Until 2016, I almost
exclusively worked remotely and sometimes I took long periods off work to
write books and enjoy nature hikes. For about a decade I only accepted about
20% of offers to provide service.

Working remotely got old. In 2016 I worked on a project at Google so we lived
in Mountain View for a while. I really enjoyed the change of working in an
office (and the food was good). After we returned home, I accepted a gig to
work for an AI company in Singapore and after that worked onsite managing a
deep learning team at Capital One (an excellent company to work for, BTW).

We are back home now, and I am retired except for writing and working on a
commercial software product (in Common Lisp) in the semantic web/linked data
space. Frankly, as much as I love my day to day life, to be honest I really
miss working in a team with face to face brainstorming, etc.

~~~
hestipod
This can be heavy and I need to talk about it but feel it runs people off, but
I had a recent suicide attempt resulting from years of chronic pain and
increasing isolation. I am not getting enough help or support. The relevance
is how you mentioned you miss face to face and as I sit here alone trying to
recover I see how terrible an effect the increasing isolation has had on me.
But I live rural with no support network and no options. Looking back it's why
I was far better mentally in a city. People need people...even the introverts.
I don't fit in politically locally, cannot find support online. Even healthy
and wealthy people get down when all alone.

------
Ygg2
Who are these people? I've been working from home and I've noticed a steep dip
in my productivity.

~~~
dx87
A dip in productivity is a problem for your boss, not for you. Anecdotally,
I'm much more productive at home because I can take breaks whenever I want
instead of getting burned out after working for 3-4 hours at an office, but
knowing that I still have to stay there for 4 more hours.

~~~
mcv
How about, after working 3-4 hours at the office, you go outside for a walk
before you start on the next 4 hours? I know people who do that, and I think
it's a great idea.

------
keiferski
As someone else mentioned, the real culprit here is probably long commutes.
Personally, I've worked remotely for 5+ years and don't like staying at home
all day. The perfect setup for me is a small office that I can walk to in 5-10
minutes, preferably with a gym and coffeeshop en route. I get out of the
house, interact with people, and have a designated _work_ space, without
having to sit in a car or a crowded subway train for an hour+ each day.

------
dathinab
Honestly remote working to save commute time is awesome. But there are a lot
of problems with it too for e.g. mentally unstable people or situations where
people can't setup a proper work environment at home (as it's to small for
it).

So while I like remote work a lot I think it's best "in general" to only have
it just part of the week.

Honestly best is still to not work remote but have a way to work of 10-15min
__walking __or similar (e.g. cycling, reliable public transmute). Enough time
to clearly separate work from home and think a bit.

Naturally this is very unlikely to happen.

But worst is if cities are seperated in "residential" and "office" areas as
this will make transmute times spike. Having a nice intermixing it much much
better. Sure it doesn't guarantee short travel times (or else you would need
to potentially move every time you change the job). But it allows them.

------
deevolution
I absolutely won't be going back to the office, even if it costs me my job.

~~~
Joe-Z
I decided to look for a new job after our management only very reluctantly let
us all work from home (it was very obvious they just don‘t trust their
employees to still do their job when not on site). My productivity has gone up
due to no more walk-ups distracting me with questions whenever they like and I
don‘t have to waste an hour in the subway every day. My next job will for sure
be remote, or at least for a company with strong remote support.

------
kevinherron
I've been joking with my coworkers that I'm never coming back to the office
when this is over...

I'm sorta serious but not sure I'd be allowed to. We were already allowed 2
days per week of remote working but 5 seems like a stretch.

FWIW I have a dedicated office at home and no kids. Commute is not a factor -
I live ~7 miles from the office, it takes 10-15 minutes to get there or get
home. There's also an alternative ~7 mile route that is almost entirely bike
path I can ride to work on.

~~~
lexicality
Time to start questioning why that rule is in place?

If you're that close to the office then you can easily argue that you can
drive in for important meetings and such.

------
formercoder
I’m very curious about the sampling methodology here. This is anecdotal, but I
am a millennial and precisely zero of my friends prefer working from home. So
there must be bias in one of those two samples.

~~~
tantalor
I asked the author:

 _The survey was conducted using mechanical turk for American workers with
full-time jobs. We didn 't control for age, as you can see in the age
breakdown of "are you more productive working from home," so had some age
groups more represented than others. The margin of error is 4%._

So that raises some red flags, because turkers are WAY more likely to be
favorable towards WFH conditions. They already do that!

~~~
formercoder
Yeah. Massive, massive sampling bias.

------
rb808
I heard on WFH opinions there are two groups of people, one that think this
will usher in a new age of productive freedom working from home never having
to commute again, and the group with kids.

~~~
rb808
I should add our juniors are getting screwed. Usually we spend a lot of time
training and coaching, now at home they're mostly ignored. I think our intern
class is going to get cancelled too.

~~~
tfigment
My company cancelled its intern program this year. I actually did hire one but
I was very proactive in making it happen and barely got it done before
shelter-in-place kicked in. It's really challenging for both sides compared to
last year due to lack of in person but it's working.

------
shortoncash
I worked at home for 9 years and then I had kids. (They are great kids but
they make working at home hard.) That was enough for me to not want to work at
home anymore. I then got a new job, and then covid-19 hit and I am working at
home again. Argh!

~~~
dustingetz
We can structure our choice of house around kids, e.g. an attached office with
separate entrance. An office complex with facilities and maintenance costs on
the order of $600/mo per desk, which is about what a city commute costs.

------
therealvayne
Don’t people miss social interaction? I don’t understand how these articles
are written. As a single man living on my own, this lockdown has made it
pretty lonely.

~~~
andarleen
Time for a lifestyle change I suppose.

~~~
cjrp
I have friends and hobbies outside of work, but I still miss my "work
friends". If you're going to be somewhere for ~8 hours a day, I find it's nice
to have some company.

~~~
gspr
Yeah, and while one's "work friends" may not be the perfect kind of friends
(otherwise they tend to migrate to being "regular friends", no?), they have on
important property to me: they're _around during work_ and they punctuate work
with social/human interactions. Sometimes those interactions are annoying and
disrupting, but my god I'm realizing how incredibly important they are.

------
thrownaway954
THE BIGGEST thing i HATE about office work is the shoulder surfing. i go
insane with rage when some idiot is standing behind me while i'm trying to
figure something out, i feel under the gun and i start to make mistakes. i
have huge anxiety issues and that doesn't make it an easier. not to mention
the fact that if i wanted your damn input, i would ask for it.

since working from home, my anger and anxiety level are at a lifetime low. i
don't have bleeding ulcers and i actually get a 4 mile walk in in the morning
since i'm not rushed to fight traffic. my life is so serene now.

I hope this lasts forever.

------
lordnacho
People used to all work from home. If you read a bit of economic history, it
seems that working in an office or a factory is a rather recent invention,
only a few hundred years old.

Prior to that there was something called the "putting-out" system, where you'd
sew some clothes or whatever and put it outside for someone to collect. And
they'd leave you some raw materials.

I'm also of the WFH persuasion, but I'm unsure whether it's great for people
who are starting their career.

For experienced people, they already know what the business is about, they are
more likely to have kids and need a longer commute from the suburbs.

For people on their first job there's a lot of informal learning that happens
in the workplace. You run into more people randomly at a traditional office,
and you learn more about what exactly your role is.

What would probably make sense is for businesses to get more relaxed about
whether you actually come into the office. If there's no meetings or
requirements to get immediate feedback on a given day, why make people sit on
a train for an hour?

~~~
jamil7
> Prior to that there was something called the "putting-out" system, where
> you'd sew some clothes or whatever and put it outside for someone to
> collect.

Something similar to this exists in rural Germany, at least in Brandenburg,
mostly for fresh or preserved produce where you leave a donation in return.

------
mslack616
Not sure if generalizing something like this based on a survey from "over 500
Americans" is correct, but anyway. I believe that most millennials will
definitely feel more comfortable working from home permanently (I'm one of
those) however there are a lot of other factors to take into account, as
mentioned in other comments it can depend if you're more introvert rather than
extrovert, do you have the appropriate workspace, tools?, commute time. It can
be incredibly tough if not stressing to be working on a rather small place
without a desk, a proper computer/laptop, kids/toddlers hanging around you,
random noise coming from outside, etc. I think the point is clear. IMHO it
really depends on the resources and environment that each individual is able
to have.

------
rootusrootus
I have found that working from home is great, right now. During normal times,
though, I could not really handle doing it for more than a couple days a week.

I suspect the reason is that my wife and kids are at home right now. So I can
close the door and they will leave me alone, but I still have a sense of them
being around. So I am comfortable. But during normal times, the kids would be
at school all day and my wife would be at her office. So then the house would
be empty except for me, and then I get a little stir crazy after a couple
days.

We will find out eventually, when offices reopen. I am secretly hoping that I
will be able to continue working from home while maintaining my sanity.

------
jdhn
I've been working from home for the past month, and honestly I'm tired of it.
Perhaps I'm just more outgoing than I thought, but this whole forced WFH
episode is really proving to me the importance of face to face communication.

------
HenryBemis
For many/most people working from home is something new that is "forced" on
them. I have been working from home (or on the road/'wherever I may roam'
_)(wander_ )(wander _) 80-90% of my time and I really enjoy it.

For people who just started WFH they may combine WFH with virus, kids
screaming, lockdown, isolation, etc.

Circumstances are not BAU right now, for 99.9% of us. Once this blows over,
and the infrastructure remains in place, and business start making their
typical revenue, it will be interesting to run the same survey and compare it
with 12 months ago.

_sorry for the Metallica reference, I couldn't help myself.

~~~
Guillaume86
Yes I'm in the same situation and I was thinking the same thing reading the
negative comments. It's important to not conflate the work from home aspect
with the lockdown aspect.

------
cik
I've been working from home a minimum of one day a week for 10 years,
frequently 2 days a week - and for rare bursts of a month, the whole deal.

The reality is that environment more than makes up for all of it. At home, I
completely control my work environment. Sure, there are elements to
communication you have to change - amongst other things, but working from home
is fantastic if you WORK from home.

I find those days at home are significantly more effective - and the clients,
partners, and employees I've worked with have always agreed. There's also a
lot to be said for face-to-face time though.

------
krisroadruck
Whenever I read these WFH HN threads and see all the comments about people who
"just can't do it" I'm always curious if it's truly that they can't enjoy
working from home, or that they are doing it wrong. Have worked from home for
the better part of 10 years off and on and some things that make all the
difference:

Have a dedicated office. Yeah you aren't going to be as productive on your
kitchen table or your couch on a laptop as you would be in a quiet dedicated
room with a desk, multiple monitors and clear delineation between work and
play time.

Get the kids/dog/whatever distraction dealt with. You don't have kids at your
office, why would you think your productivity wouldn't take a hit if you have
them around at home while you are trying to work? Not now obviously because
Covid, but under normal circumstances, send them to day care or whatever
arrangement you gotta make to have quite during your business hours.

Figure out your coms! If your team/company isn't built around remote work,
obviously there are going to be issues. You have to have a strategy for
communication that's designed for remote. Both to keep you from feeling like
an island or second class citizen and also because remote communication
requires a totally different regiment than the random water cooler check in.

If you are doing all of these things and remote work still isn't your cup of
tea I'd love to hear about it. If you aren't doing most or all of these
things, It's probably not remote work that is the problem, it's how you are
treating it.

------
duxup
I worked from home 3 of 5 days a week.

I loved it.

Now with my wife and kids home ... working form home is horrible.

COVID-19 has ruined work from home for me ;)

I want some alternate bandwagon "work from home sucks" articles.

------
jpxw
I have a feeling this will change over the coming months.

~~~
jsjddbbwj
Exactly the same thing would happen if you asked people if they'd rather be on
vacation forever. Yes, but after a few months, they'd be begging to get back
to work.

------
papito
I once took three months off work when I had a pretty sweet severance deal.
Let me tell you, going back to the office from 10AM to 6:30PM was HELL. It
ruined worked for me. I realized that there was, you know - life.

It's the sort of epiphany you get after you retire ("oh crap, I worked too
much and now my healthy years are gone"), except this time a lot of people
will realize it when they are still young.

------
twodave
In the last 15 years, I've worked as a developer:

\- on site for a non-tech company

\- on site for 2-3 small tech companies (10-100 employees) between 20 and 60
minutes away (depending on traffic)

\- fully remote for a tech company 5 hours drive away (with on-site visits 2-3
times per year)

\- a blend of on-site and remote at my own discretion for a tech company 20-45
minutes away

\- fully remote as a contractor with occasional (monthly-ish) on-site visits

What I have learned through the years is that my needs change with the growth
of my family and the dynamics of my work. I have by far enjoyed working the
remote/on-site blend because it allows me the freedom to make a mature
decision about my own work needs each day.

What we especially as thought workers ought to be advocating for as an
industry is the freedom to CHOOSE where we work each day, not a fully-remote
mandate or an on-site mandate. To me, this is a compromise among many
concerns, such as infrastructure costs, accountability, collaboration, a quiet
work environment, and generally the ability to break up the monotony of doing
the same thing every day.

------
shadowpawn
My last two roles had management expect you to be in the office because they
had spent a lot of money on the rent/furnishing even though 50% of the
companies roles could be done remote. Now Ill admit it is easier to walk over
to someone's desk to ask a question then the endless are you free email/phone
call tags before all this COVID-19

------
baron_harkonnen
I suspect this is going to have a pretty profound impact on the commercial
real estate world. Aside from workers wanting to WFH, anecdotally I know of a
few now cash-strapped start-ups that are very seriously considering breaking
their leases and having much more of the work force WFH.

If you live in a city right now, just peer out at all of those sky scrapers. A
huge amount of that is currently empty office space that costs a fortune. For
many companies the idea that this space was truly optional was absurd, but
right now companies everywhere are seeing that they _have_ to be able to do
100% remote to survive.

Within a month an office space has gone from essential to being more and more
of a luxury, way more expensive per employee than a automatic espresso
machine.

I suspect a small but non-trivial number of companies will break their leases
in the coming months. But far more companies will emerge from this crisis no
longer believing that every employee needs a desk in an office.

~~~
smileysteve
> Within a month an office space has gone from essential to being more and
> more of a luxury

More like a liability. Any company with office space is currently paying rent
with no utilization.

------
oblib
It was in the `70s that I first heard the concept "Telecommuting". I knew
right off I would have to learn a skill set that allowed me to do that and
started exploring the options.

It took me until the late-1990s to get there, but that's when I started
working from home full time. Right now I have my office in the basement of our
house. It's quiet, and spacious, and cluttered with the stuff I tinker with.

For me, the "shelter in place" thing we're going through hasn't really changed
much at all in my routine. I prefer being alone in a quiet space when coding
and have spent most of my days doing that for the past 20 years.

Since I could choose anywhere to do it, I chose the Ozark Mountains. I packed
up and left Malibu and haven't regretted it for even a moment. I've hardly
spent any time at all sitting in traffic since I got here. Before then it was
common to spend a couple hours sitting in traffic getting to and from work.
And often the same on days off going somewhere to have fun.

But it's not for everyone. My wife is way too social to spend much time alone.
Right now she's on the phone or facebook almost all day chatting with friends
and family, or watching TV.

I have all kinds of stuff to do aside from coding. We've got a big yard and a
few acres of forested land with a menagerie of "critters", a barn, and a big
veggie garden. All of them wanting my attention. I spend most all my time at
home working on something. Shoot, I have to remember to drive my car now and
then to keep the battery charged.

Most of my friends in LA could never live here. My wife struggles with it. She
was raised Lake Forest, Il and loves whooping it up "Downtown". For me, all of
Los Angeles felt pretty much like a "Downtown". Malibu Canyon St. Park in the
Spring is actually a lot like the Ozarks, and I did love it there. But I hated
sitting in traffic. I felt like I was wasting my life doing that.

------
dec0dedab0de
Many people are blaming the commute, but I've been working from home for
almost 6 years, and I actually miss the commute. Especially the bus, but the
train was nice too when I had to switch. It was a nice buffer of being able to
read or think quietly to myself. The start and end of my day were absolute.
Whatever I didn't get done would have to wait, and I wouldn't start until I
got there. Along with the social interactions, and having more choices for
lunch in my immediate area, the commute is in my top 3 things I miss about
working in an office.

What I don't miss is waking up early and getting ready, picking out clothes,
combing my hair, and all that nonsense every single morning. I even had 8 of
the same exact outfit when I worked in an office, and it was still such a
drain.

~~~
bart_spoon
I think the difference is that for you, many of those same things can be
accomplished by choice. You can still have an absolute start and end to your
workday, you just have to be proactive about it. You can still take the same
amount of time to read or think to yourself. Perhaps the requirement of a
commute makes doing those things easier, but its entirely possible to do the
same thing by simply being more mindful about it.

For those who hate their commute, being forced into the office every day
doesn't offer the same latitude for adjustments to their personal lives. And
many of those things you enjoyed are only possible via public transportation.
Given the woeful state of public transportation in much of the US, many
commuting are doing so in cars, which don't afford the same opportunities for
peaceful self-reflection and unwinding.

------
AndrewKemendo
As someone who has done remote working more or less exclusively for 6 years,
the current state of affairs for most homes does not reflect the reality of
what "Work From Home" looks like in normal, non-emergency times.

You can't competently work from home full time and also manage children. Even
for people without children, they are dealing with co-workers who are juggling
a new normal, have not set up dedicated work spaces, are fumbling to learn how
to use zoom/meet/hangout etc...

I say all this to point out that, even in non-ideal conditions with little to
no preparation or planning, most people would still rather work from home.

Work from home should be the STANDARD, not the exception, for white collar
work.

------
jve
> Half of all Americans want to continue working from home following the
> coronavirus

That is a VERY rough (actually false) sentance, considering they have only
surveyed ~500 Americans out of 205'950'000+ population at working age.

> We surveyed over 500 Americans...

~~~
CydeWeys
You should look up polling theory. You don't need to talk to every member of a
population, only a representative sample.

~~~
jve
My point was that sample size is too small. According to Standard Occupational
Classification [[https://www.bls.gov/soc/](https://www.bls.gov/soc/)] there
are 459 broad occupations.

Multiply that by age group and you still haven't tossed a coin even a single
time for every combination of occupation/age group.

~~~
bart_spoon
And OP's point is that you don't necessarily need to have representation for
all of those occupation/age group combinations. It's highly unlikely there
isn't high amount of overlap in perception among those occupations. There's
going to be supersets of those occupations that are fairly homogenous. So you
really don't need a huge sample of respondents and coverage of all of those
possibilities. You just need the makeup of the sample to be reasonably
representative, and that's the problem with this poll. Seems like it was
conducted in a way that the respondents are not representative.

------
hprotagonist
I don’t necessarily want to WFH permanently, but i do treasure the large
reduction in my commute that happened in 2010 for me. I would be hard pressed
to go back to the days where i was losing almost 3 hours a day in a car.

------
Mountain_Skies
I've been remote for two years and don't want to go back to the daily commute.
I've been happy to sacrifice one room in my home to be an office in exchange
for not running the traffic gauntlet each day. The one thing I still prefer in
person is whiteboarding. We have good collaboration tools but none of them yet
match the efficiency of people in a room together working on a common
whiteboard. There are digital whiteboards that might fill this niche but
currently they're too expensive to distribute to entire teams. Maybe over time
this will change.

------
tilolebo
Let's note that distributed companies almost always clearly make the
distinction between "remote work" and "work from home".

Some of them are openly "against" work from home.

~~~
mcv
As a freelancer, especially in between on-site projects, I made a habit of
getting a workplace outside the home, explicitly to avoid all the distractions
of the home. For a while, I rented a desk at an office, but I've also worked
in the lobby of a work-friendly hotel, I've tried working in the library (but
their wifi sucks) and various other places. Anything but home.

------
beepboopbeep
Personally, I can definitely do away with my commute (while it's short, it's
still a twice a day anxiety event)

I think there is something to be said about the autonomy we're given while at
home. No pretend needed when your interactions with coworkers are purely work-
event driven and not social for the sake of "team building" or "Culture".

Give me a paycheck to do work, beyond that transaction I shouldn't owe any
more of my mind and body to a job.

------
nerdbaggy
The 25-34 age range had the most “Yes” I want to work from home. I wonder if
experience made the later years want to not work from home, or what caused
that.

~~~
nck4222
Children probably. Don't get me wrong, I love being home and spending time
with the family more, it's really the best part of this experience for me.

But there's no way I'd be able to be as productive as expected under normal
circumstances. I'm lucky if I get 4 hours in.

~~~
willvarfar
Presumably if you continue to work from home after the crisis, then your
children return to school...?

~~~
nck4222
Not in my case, no. They're not school aged, and are at home during the day.
Elementary schools where I am run roughly 9-3 as well, except on Thursdays
when they run 9-2.

Maybe I could make it work, but I would still prefer to have an office to go
to most days.

------
icedchai
I find constant "WFH" isolating and a bit depressing. I prefer to work out of
a coffee shop, but obviously that is not possible these days.

------
ff317
I've been working from home (in full time positions for a couple of tech
companies) for the past ~12-13 years now. During that time I've done both
purely-technical work and managerial work (managing other remoties).

I'm excited about the work-from-home revolution that's going on here, and I
think it will benefit society and some level of work-from-home will stick for
the long term, for many people. However, it's not for everyone. Some people
just don't like the remote work lifestyle at all. It's also not for every kind
of job or office.

I think we'll see a lot of hybrid arrangements in the post-covid world. Some
offices might institute work-from-home only for tuesdays and thursdays. Or
just have everyone come into the office on Mondays and cram all the important
in-person meetings into that day. Or in some situations it will be an at-will
flexibility (come in for specific meetings when it makes sense, or come use
the office like you would a co-working space when your home life is a little
crazier because the kids are out of school for the summer and/or there's a
contractor remodeling the kitchen, etc).

I think most seemingly-virtualizable businesses that had offices before will
still have offices for the foreseeable few years, but by implementing various
hybrid policies they could see their average headcount onsite per day shrink
significantly over time. For many the office will become optional and/or a
part-time thing. One way they could react to this is to downsize their
commercial real estate the next time contracts are up. Another way they could
handle it would be to remodel the space they've got, trading out cube-farm
areas for more private offices and private conference rooms that can be
reserved ahead, which will draw some employees back for more hours on-site,
until they find a balancing point.

The deeper transition for managers is getting away from the control-freak
model of tracking "hours worked", and starting to focus instead on the "things
done". The reason you hired your employee is not to punch a clock and stare at
a wall for a fixed number of hours; you hired them to accomplish goals, and
you're actually going to have to focus directly on measuring true work rather
than time in a post-office-hours world. Once you break free of the chains of
time-tracking, all kinds of efficiencies that benefit both the employer and
the employee are unlocked through remote and flexible work arrangements.

------
jefftk
The survey doesn't say how many people they asked, but looking at their chart
sliced by age it's a very small sample: looks like ~30 in the 55-64 age group?
They also don't say anything about how they found their participants. I'm
pretty skeptical that asking these questions to a large representative sample
would give similar results.

~~~
raisedbyninjas
I'm skeptical of the 19% who can't work from home. BLS says that food prep,
transportation, production, healthcare practitioners are the 3rd, 4th, 5th, &
7th most common jobs. This totals 43 million, most of whom probably can't work
from home.
[https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_nat.htm](https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_nat.htm)

Edit: Another commenter claims the author sampled workers through Mechanical
Turk. WTH.

------
mpalmer
This survey is ...bad.

\- _Seventy-nine percent_ of workers can work from home at least some of the
time? Maybe the ones your survey reached, but I'm pretty sure I've read the
real fraction is under 30%. \- "Do you think your employer will make working
remote permanent?" is a bad question because it's easy to interpret it
multiple ways.

------
rurban
Understandably so. I'm working remote for 7 years now, and before also for
over 10 years. I'm at least 10x more productive. No interruptions is the
biggest cause. And only asynchron communication, in written form.

Also I do much longer hours, because it's much more fun, and I can take a
siesta nap when I need it. I'm an extrovert btw.

------
ianai
Anytime a poll or election comes back 50/50 you seriously have to critique and
justify whether any actual signal was uncovered. A yes/no question being
answered 50/50 on the face of it tells you nothing. It’s good she breaks stuff
down here, but that’s all ex-post rationalization - keep that in mind.

------
RickJWagner
I've been working from home for 9 1/2 years, and I really like it.

It suits me-- I'm more of a quiet, research-type worker.

But some of my friends are more 'cubicle hoppers' / social butterflies. I
really don't think those folks would do well with it in the long term.

------
smartDevel
WFH for almost 2 years 50-60%. Due to corona now 100% for almost 2 months.
Used my car 3 or 4 times the last 2 months instead i often walked or used my
bicycle, before i used the car at least 5-6 times a week. So WFH can
definitely help to save the planet from global warming

------
maceurt
I think it is easy to say this in the first few months of working at home, but
after an extended period of time it can be unbearable to spend so much time in
the same place. Cabin fever is very real, and human beings are social animals
who want to be around people.

~~~
chadlavi
Yeah, but after the pandemic is over, if you're still working from home you
can go out to restaurants and bars in your free time and hang out with
friends, unlike today where your office and your social space and your
restaurant and your bar are all your living room.

------
mhinton
I have been working remotely for 6 years and I mostly love it. My wife has
been working from home for about a month now and she is not a fan. Lots of
people just like working in person with others.

------
NoSalt
I do like working from home, but I will admit that my hygiene has suffered. I
don't shower daily and that bothers me. Obviously not enough to actually do
anything about it.

------
PragmaticPulp
TL;DR: A job search website (Zippia) surveyed 500 people about their work from
home preferences during the Coronavirus-related quarantining period.

No mention of the study methodology. Given that this was performed by an
online job search website, it's not clear that they invested effort into
collecting unbiased samples. Visitors looking for new jobs on a somewhat
obscure online job search site aren't exactly an unbiased sample.

Regardless, I think the important takeaway is that work from home preferences
vary. Not everyone enjoys working in an office. Not everyone enjoys working
from home. And not everyone has made up their mind on the topic yet.

They also asked whether or not people thought they were more productive
working from home. 44% said yes. When asked if people thought their companies
would move to permanent WFH after this, 17% said yes.

------
mkl
Wow, using the same colours but swapping the meanings is seriously misleading!
In the circle graphs, red is No, but in the bar graph red is Yes.

------
flurdy
The office, is the holiday home for parents with young kids.

They might represent the other half...

------
AzzieElbab
It is nice to have a choice

------
AmazingTurtle
I stopped reading when I hit "baby boomers"

------
ebg13
I'd rather not work forever regardless of the location.

------
mendelmaleh
The other half would rather not work at all.

------
yters
Working from home is the norm. Most of civilization has been farm based.

------
andarleen
Sadly many tech workers can barely afford more than shared accommodation or
tiny apartments. Wondering that is the half that would rather waste away in
crammed offices, long commute hours and lack of privacy from flatmates.

~~~
PLenz
Because they're living in expensive places. If you don't need to live where
you work you can find cheaper places to live.

~~~
andarleen
They are - but what is the benefit of being poor in an expensive place?

------
AtlasBarfed
Well it probably means we don't actually do much useful work in America.

Cube farms in America are like adult day care that doubles as a basic income
mechanism.

Although of course MY work is very important and useful to civilization...

