It is funny to see how in one (IT) culture there is two narratives, often supported by same people:

1) Office is bad, people more productive working remote from their homes, and corporate C-levels issue and enforce RTO, which is silly and anti-productive.

2) All jokes about Zoom/Meet/Teams, with all these «Each meeting consists of “are you hear me?” questions», etc.

Maybe, I'm unique (I'm sure I'm not), but I was twice less productive at remote (when it was mandated by anti-COVID measures of my Government) and I've happily returned to office as soon as I was allowed to.

For me, there are multitude of reasons to want to go to office, including endless number of shelves I need to mount at home (it is easy to procrastinate when you have OTHER real things to do, like home improvement, and not only meme-scrolling), mental resource to prepare one more meal each day (I have canteen at the office and lunch becomes no-brainer and takes 15-20 minutes instead of additional shopping & cooking at home), etc.

But main and most important reason is, personal meetings and, yes, this proverbial cooler chats. I'm 10x more effective in communication in person than all these videocalls. I dread planned calls, I cannot «read» counterparts well via videocall and it takes me much more time to explain ideas, problems and opinions via any remote communication. Also, a lot of «small» questions are postponed indefinitely because there is no this cooler, when you can ask somebody opinion or bounce off half-backed ideas against your colleague without scheduling yet another meeting and WITHOUT throwing your colleague out of the flow (because you know that he leaved flow to drink some tea already!).

I'm glad, that I can visit office every day, but also I'm glad that I can WFH for one day if I needed to (for example, when I need to meet plumber or alike).

Yes, there is commuting, but my commute is 15-20 minutes one way :-)

▲

tigeroil 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

I think the simple and boring answer is it really depends. As you say, your commute is short, but also I think there's just a personality element to it. Some people absolutely thrive and are way more productive remotely (and I think HN skews towards that type of person), and other people are the opposite, losing their minds if they don't have colleagues beside them to talk and collaborate with.

▲

blacklion 4 days ago | parent [-]

> I think the simple and boring answer is it really depends

Yep, people are different.

> are way more productive remotely

Is this measured, or they are feel more productive? (I think, answer is the same: there is full spectrum here and somebody is less productive but feels more productive and somebody is really more productive and, maybe, feels the same :-))

But my previous team (where I worked at the peak of COVID) was less productive for sure (I can compare release notes between product release and see as they are shrinking from release to release at COVID time!), though we have some team members who thought that they become more productive!.

Also, long time ago I worked in distributed team (St.Petersburg, Russia / Boston, USA / Santa Clara, USA) and we had twice-a-year week-long whole-team in-person meetings in Boston office (I was from St.Petersburg). These were two hyper-productive weeks, when we solved a lot of problems which accumulated between these meeting, fast and efficient. It was before video-conferencing, so all other meetings was phone-calls (only audio), but still.

I understand, that it is not statistics, it is anecdotal, but I'm very skeptical about broad claims that distributed / remote teams (!) can be as efficient (or even more) as local ones. Personal contributors — sure, all people are different, but whole teams — I'm in doubt. We are social animals, and all these video calls are still conversation with pixels, not people.

▲

realusername 4 days ago | parent [-]

Depends of your company, I personally meet my team roughly every 3 months and I push back any task on the calendar because I know the days in the office aren't even half the productivity of the usual remote days. I even avoid big deployments during these days.

Remote is usually all focused work and the office time is mostly coffee chats and random interruptions of unrelated subjects because on how much easier it is to ping people.

So on my case it's the opposite, I'm a bit skeptical you can achieve the level of focus you have in a remote team in a standard open space, that would require some discipline that not everybody has.

Not to mention the abomination of the open space with no reserved desk so you aren't even guaranteed to sit close to your team, removing the only potential useful advantage of being on-site.

▲

blacklion 4 days ago | parent [-]

Open space is PURE EVIL. Don't have fixed working place where you could leave your headphones (and external DAC in my case), cup, charging wires for your gadgets (not everything is USB-C still), some papers, etc is PURE EVIL too. Combined together it is ninth circle of hell.

Never worked in open space and refused (otherwise good) offers twice due to open space in office.

Culture in which everybody can ping anybody at any time is bad too. It is why I speak about cooler chat (when person already distracted), not any chat :-)

	▲	jdbernard 4 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		The combination of these things you're mentioning is one of the main reasons, at least for me, that WFH is so much more productive. A lot of tech companies have evolved a culture and built offices that are in opposition to doing good work. Open plan offices have been the norm in my experience over the last 10 years (maybe more). Anytime interruption via Slack/Teams is the typical culture. I was much more open to working in the office when I actually had my own office.
	▲	realusername 4 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Well sure I do agree but I've never seen a tech company which isn't working in an open space. The non open-space companies feel even more rare than the remote ones. So when you compare remote productivity, that's what you have to compare with.

▲

BozeWolf 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Oh, I agree fully. I enjoy going to office. I also enjoy WFH. But after two days of WFH I am so bored.

Like many above like to call managers 'managers' I like to call developers/devopsengineers/* 'IT people'. Office is not a 'manager' or 'c-suite' thing. Put it differently: not going to office is an 'IT people' thing.

Being productive is not only the number of lines of code you crank out. Being productive is cranking out the right lines of code. You need to communicate for that. Casually joining a few colleagues talking about work delivers so much value. Maybe make a few decisions without planning a meeting. That is productive!

It is also not only about being productive, It is also about having fun with my team or colleagues. But I also like to sense how my team members are behaving, are people super tired? Are they happy? Etc etc.

Oh and the good old whiteboard sessions, I love them and I miss them.

If I tell my non 'it people' friends my colleagues only want to go to office max 1 time a week... or not at all, most friends call it crazy.

Tomorrow to the office again, yes! 45 minute lunch walk through the city... Close the door at 17:00 and call it a day! Love it!

	▲	hylaride 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		TL;DR Flexibility is all we need. I'm a big believer in empowerment. 90% of employees will usually do the right thing for themselves and the business IF YOU JUST LET THEM. For example, mandating 5 day RTO only to have your sales engineers take a full meeting room by themselves to sit on sales calls all day is idiotic for everybody.

▲

poszlem 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You’re speaking from a very privileged position. A 15–20 minute commute and an office with a canteen is not the reality for most workers. Many spend 1–3 hours daily stuck in traffic or on crowded trains, which is pure wasted time. Add in rising transport costs, pollution, and the fact that not everyone can afford to live near their workplace, and commuting becomes one of the biggest drains on productivity and well-being.

So while it’s great that the office works for you, dismissing WFH as “less productive” ignores the fact that for many people, it’s the only way they can actually be productive, stay healthy, and remain in the workforce at all.

	▲	blacklion 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		Commute is very location-specific and will be very different between USA and Europe, and different even between different locations in USA and different countries in Europe, you are right. But when we speaking about Microsoft, Google, FaceBook, etc., workers, I think canteen is a norm, not reality for most workers. And many workers outside IT cannot WFH at all. You cannot be salesman or welder or teacher or plumber WFH... We all are very privileged, no matter how long is our commute.

▲

laurels-marts 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You’re not alone. I absolutely love going to office every day but also love the flexibility to occasionally wfh if needed. I just feel like when I enter the office and put on my “unreachable” focus mode on I’m in the zone and very productive. At home there’s endless distractions (my cats make sure to check in with me every time get too focused). Also I do like interacting with colleagues. I think I started liking going to office even more once I broke up with my gf that was living with me for 4 years. Something about working the entire day from my apartment completely alone is… not appealing to my social side of the brain.

▲

poszlem 4 days ago | parent [-]

It’s completely fine to prefer the office, that’s your choice and it works for you. The problem isn’t people going in, it’s when companies force everyone to go. Reading your post, it almost sounds like you want others dragged back just to fill the gap left in your own private life. That’s not a good reason to mandate office work for everyone.

	▲	sabellito 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		If a portion of the team is remote, then the whole "remote team" apparatus and culture are necessary. Same with hybrid offices in which the WFH days are random instead of set for everyone. I fully understand that this is a polarized personal preference issue. I don't think there's a way to make both work in the same company.

▲

slv77 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

People have different preferences, some people are going to be more productive at home and some less. Some people simply can’t work from home.

I think the challenge is that leadership isn’t coherent when it comes to RTO:

1. Leadership has largely abandoned the notion of geography when hiring or building teams. Building geographic centers of excellence where all team members with the same function working closely together used to be a thing. Leadership wants the flexibility to pick the best talent, at the best prices, on short notice but also wants ad-hoc collaboration. Workers are rightly confused when every meeting they have in an office is on Zoom. 2. Leadership has largely abandoned the notion of timezone alignment and structured working days. Leadership wants to hire talent across the globe which requires more cross-timezone collaboration and non-standard-work hour meetings. That wasn’t possible when at 5PM to 7PM everyone was commuting. It also isn’t reasonable to expect people to hold a rigid 8AM to 5PM in-office schedule and then take 2 hours of meetings from 6PM to 8PM. 3. Leadership is complains that office space is both essential to productivity AND too expensive to spend money on. Employees home setups in terms of working space, noise isolation, connectivity and configuration are now more productive than what is offered in-office. When leadership took people from dedicated offices, to cubicles, to open seating and then to “hot desking” it was justified that commercial real estate was scarce, expensive and required the sacrifice of productivity to manage costs. Now that it is plentiful and cheap? Leadership is saying that RTO is needed for productivity AND that they will continue to reduce spending on office space per employee.

The only way to mentally reconcile that is to either assume that leadership is incompetent or that they want to return to 18th century sweat shops and envy China’s 9x9x6 culture. I can see why mid-level management is struggling getting compliance which is why they are relying on badge swipes.

▲

Mistletoe 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Thanks for being honest. I cannot imagine trying to work from home and I think it is a shared charade we are all caught up in. Be thankful you have a job to go into work to, that may not always be the case for everyone…

▲

timcobb 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

The issue is that it's mandated. I bet most people would say they like hybrid.

	▲	blacklion 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		I'm privileged enough to work in places where my managers understand that life is life and sometimes you need to be at home but don't want to take full day-off because you still work even before COVID and externally (government) enforced full-remote. Managers trusted us (engineers) that we will not abuse this system. It was always like social contract: engineers doesn't complain about occasional crunches and overtimes (not like game industry where it is norm, but may be once a month), managers lets people stay home for a day if they needed without additional paperwork. Of course, when KPI is enforced by automatic clocks-in system or doors logs it is another story. On the other hand, we all are very privileged compared to industrial workers, builders, retail workers, etc. Not only in salary, but in our schedules too.