I think being remote worked for me for a while. I have a kid, I totally get the freedom and flexibility of it, but I also miss being around and working with human beings in person. Coffee shops and co-working spaces are no substitute for this. Interacting with people in other social settings is also not a replacement for this. I miss a team dynamic and one that's in person. I miss going somewhere that's out of my house for the purpose of doing a job that's fulfilling or at the very least in the service of something.
Not knocking the choice of being fully remote. It works for people and that's great, I still take advantage of that freedom, but there is something hugely lacking because I'm not going somewhere to work with people. And I think some of that will entirely change how and where I work next e.g do not want to work in a fully remote company, do not want to work across timezones, preferably want to be in a team of less than 10 people.
Who else is with me?
Meta comment: Maybe it's not the best use of "Ask HN" if you only want to hear one answer. IMO this really isn't the place to go if you just want validation.
This Ask HN feels like "What's the best programming language? Please don't say anything except Rust."
Out of interest, what are you hoping to learn? Your feelings about remote working are valid regardless of whether 10 people agree with you, or 10,000. You do you!
These were my reasons. Since all that "be in office" was an utter load of shite and corpo toxicity (managers wanted to see you sitting at your desks or call for pointless meetings which could've been an e-mail), I am also extremely toxic about "return to office" unless it's guaranteed that the whole team is in the same office (which, in larger companies, doesn't happen).
If you, asim, want to work from the office and prefer real human contact (which, TBH, cannot be replaced by Teams, I agree with that - I spent my fair share of time away from my wife (luckily no kids at the time) and yes, a Skype call and couple of dungeon runs in World of Warcraft can't replace the experience of being at home :-D ) that's absolutely fine. I wish you find a workplace which suits you (that shouldn't be so hard these days). Do you really need a couple of weirdos on HN to assure you that you are correct? Guess what, speaking of the WFH, hybrid or "office" crowds, we all are! These are our preferences. Mine is different from yours. That's all. ;-)
Dead Comment
The freedom and flexibility to structure my day as I see fit without anyone raising an eyebrow is something I'll continue to look for. There's no more performative productivity and I can focus on doing my best work and maximizing my impact for the organization while working a schedule that works for my lifestyle. It's the best of both worlds for me and my organization.
The things I do miss, though, are the in-person connections. These don't have to happen every day or even every week. Quarterly offsites are enough to get benefit. It's also likely cheaper for an org to get everyone together for a week-long than have standing real estate obligations (lease or otherwise).
Additionally, optimizing for regional concentrations and allowing folks to get together more frequently would help bridge this gap.
Biggest thing is that hybrid-remote is inflexible and doesn't allow the team to self-organize. The future is to decentralize in-person versus remote work to the lowest level team and let them figure out what works best.
Anyway, I do disagree with you, but that's fine. Enjoying remote work or not is entirely a personal preference, and there's no single answer. Which is why it feels wrong for so many companies to have strict policies either way.
I personally enjoy remote work, and wouldn't want to go back to an office. I can be much more efficient working in a home office, have less distractions, and be happier overall. I do occasionally miss office banter, and bonding over lunch, but I definitely don't miss the drama and politics that goes along with it. Not having to commute, working in my own environment, and the additional flexibility are cherries on top.
For me, the office wasn't a social club. There are other venues much more suitable for that. I also don't think that you need to know someone personally in order to work well with them professionally. The team-building events many companies insist on having to improve "team spirit" and "work culture" are cringe beyond belief.
When I moved to bigger companies, teams were larger, not necessarily in the same town. And we had colleagues spread across multiple timezones. And not only across EU (we have 3 but the vast majority of countries are in the same timezone as I am). We had colleagues in USA, Canada, EU, India. No difference whether I was in the office or at home.
You probably don't want to hear that but unless the whole team is in the same office I don't want to "return to office" because there is nothing for me in it. It's not worth the wasted time and fuel for commute.
Yes there are some circumstances where being in the flesh is better, particularly in intensive early design and architecture meetings. You can achieve a creative flow that's harder when apart. But that's always been a small part of my job, and the longer march of building the thing benefits from slow, separate thinking and prolonged focus that's harder for me when together with a team. I love to have the flexibility to respond to someone in minutes or hours instead of seconds.
But for me the lifestyle thing is bigger. I love my rural life, nowhere near an office building, let alone my other team members. In particular I'm a dog person, spend all day with my mutt, and couldn't bare to leave her alone all day. I'd rather not have dog than do that to it. What an awful prospect.
I suspect the range will be 2 to 3 days a week in the office and very few will be more or less.
I am exhausted by the people on the outer edges of the range arguing that their preference is the one true path and that nothing else is acceptable. Just because it (WFH or WFO) works for you doesn’t mean it works for your team, your division, your company, your customers, etc. Stop being selfish and accept a compromise in the middle that strikes the right balance of freedom.
I just absolutely marvel at this attitude, like it is such a massive put-out to have any form of inconvenience by the entity paying you. The entitlement in this industry is going to bite a lot of people in the ass.