I have been working for 35 years now (is that blast of cold air just the feeling of getting old?), and have been mostly remote since Covid. I did go back during the RTO wave, but only for about a year. Some family medical issues forced me to ask to work remotely, which the company somehow approved.

It has been a mixed bag. Some random thoughts.

On good days, I get an enormous amount done. Long stretches of uninterrupted, focused work. On other days, I drift aimlessly.

I have always been somewhat disorganized (ADHD or whatever), but the office provided some structure. You had to show up, sit at your desk, and at least make a reasonable attempt at working. Remote work removes the external discipline.

It is not that I don't get things done. When something needs to happen, I can still pull myself together. Just last week I worked until 2 AM to meet some deliverables. But the chaos between those bouts of productivity has grown.

I always had a habit of using a Tuesday evening to speed-run whatever I had been putting off and occasionally sacrificing a weekend to catch up. But with remote work, the boundaries between work and leisure have become very fuzzy.

Maybe it was just the last 2 months of election season that were bad. I tried to fix it before but could not, but the last week since the elections got over has been magical :)

I miss the casual interactions that come from being around other people. But I think at least half that nostalgia is for an office that doesn't really exist. My actual work is with teams scattered across the world. Most of the people I would meet in the office are colleagues who report to my manager, rather than the people I collaborate with every day. But the ability to go out for lunch or coffee together, or meet at least the local people I work with, did count for something.

I can not really go back at this point in time due to continued family needs, but I wish I could.

I know this is not ask/tell HN, but a story about an article, so apologies for the digression.

I'm really torn on WFH.

I started my whole programming career as a freelancer and worked fully remotely for 6 years before ever going to an office. But that's a bit different, because I advertised as a freelancer/consultant, and in that period I rarely worked in a team. And even when I worked in a team, my areas of responsibility were completely mine.

On one hand I vividly recall my last BigCo full time employment. I enrolled to a newly opened office, which at that point in time wasn't even an office but a few rented cubicles in WeWork-like space. My daily routine for first couple of months was to come to the office, get into my cubicle and login to the Skype call with the rest of the people I was working - in different offices. And for the rest of the day I sat there alone, occasionally hoping on other impromptu Skype calls.

I specifically asked couple of times if it would be possible for me to work from home, because I have zero personal interactions in the office, but over and over again I was told that WFH is strictly forbidden by the company policy.

That was pre-covid.

On the other hand, as someone who wore hats of leader/manager/director I have to admit - to this day - I find building teams, from ground up, in remote environment, almost impossible.

My very first office job had a very clever trick up their sleeve - we had a free lunch each day. Nobody skips a free lunch. Took me some time to realize how clever it was. To this day I have a draft of article in my desk titled "eat your scrum master".

Oh, and 20 years ago everyone was smoking. Between smoking, lunch, and bumping into each other at coffee desk - everyone knew everything. It's so simple - people like to talk, but eventually you'll run of small talk topics and start talking about the job.

I've been working on home full time since the pandemic. Before that I worked from home most days for about a year.

I have much better focus at home, I get much more done. But what really improves my life is three things.

1. Working from home, for me, means I skip the hour of commute one way, freeing up two hours a day to do other things than waiting on a crowded train. This is time spent mainly with my kids.

2. When I need a break I just do some chores. This means when I turn off the PC for the day not only am I already home, most chores are done. I no longer feel I come home late drowning in stuff I need to do.

3. I'm home with my own things, with my beautiful garden. When I need to think I do so while tending to my greenhouse, sitting in the backyard, or strolling through the forest. At the office I used to struggle to find a peaceful corner of the office where I could think properly.

I am perverse - self-employed, sub-contractor - I rent a commercial office space.

In 2020, when everyone was moving home - I was moving to that office. Much better focus than home - much better equipment than 99% of all former employers or clients.

It's not shared, I see no one all day - outside of 'meetings' (which are soooo much nicer with a giant screen, quality camera and microphone - the camera only gets used for the "getting-to-know-you" break-in period with a new client, then it's almost all audio-only) - and that is just the way I like it.

Been WFH since covid full time. But, tbh I really miss the office. And I think the remote lifestyle killed our team at my last place.

We do what we can at my current place, but I still wish we had ways to get together. I've met a couple people that live(d) near me, and one has since moved.

If you have the option, don't be remote fully. At the very least be hybrid with a strict in office policy. You will not miss your at-home time.

I've been WHF for over 12 years, but before covid we would travel about once a month to customers and every now and then to the main office. After covid, everyone just sat at home. Often you would ask where someone is and they would be gone "taking care of things" for a few hours.

Next year, we will be required to work from the office if we are within a 50 mile radius. Those that are outside the circle will not be eligible for promotions or changing jobs, unless they are somehow except or move.

Hard to say, but I think it's a good move. I tried going to the office before but it turned out no one was really there.

Plus there's the fuel cost and lost time, but this also might open new doors.

I've learned it requires sacrifice by others on the team to make it possible for me and other developers to sit on our asses at home.

We wouldn't be doing any of this if it weren't for the customers. We cannot acquire these customers without physically meeting with most of them. Some are such a handful that we need to regularly meet indefinitely. Some we could have maybe acquired purely remotely in retrospect, but it's not worth the risk for rare B2B contracts.

The scene from office space about the customer and the engineer might be the most accurate thing ever. It took me a long time to get it. The engineers are actually really good at working with the customer up to a point. After which things get really messy really fast. The walls close in once the technical person learns that they are fighting political forces well beyond their understanding. Working remotely with an unaligned customer is a lawsuit factory. You need to get a representative on-site to sit down with the local warlords and negotiate terms.

I worked from home or coworking pretty much my entire career since about 2005.

One time I got a job at an open space office. I lasted a month. It was so distracting I couldn’t get anything done. I quit the job without having another job lined up.

I started working from home when I took a programming job in 2005 and did it for nine years. Eventually, I realized my social skills needed some work, so I found a good local in-office gig. I stayed there until COVID and have been WFH ever since.

My kids are 11 and 13, and I feel really lucky to be here when they ride their bikes home from school. I manage a team of engineers these days, and I do everything I can to make remote work enjoyable and productive for them.

I'm sure I'd enjoy being in an office again, but what I have right now is pretty great, and I appreciate it.

WFH 2 days a week since covid finished up. It works well when things go smoothly, but sometimes when the kids are home from daycare/school it can be a challenge.

WFH since 2016. I can't imagine commuting again, having less time with my family, and working only for companies that happen to be located in my area.

WFH wasn't emotionally or even physically good for me. Please understand that WFH is not everyone's cup of tea before attacking and downvoting which often happens on forums because people assume that someone saying "WFH isn't for me" means they are opposing WFH. I am not. My last company was 100% remote. It really affected me badly. My interactions (amount, wish to engage, motivation etc), mannerisms started changing. Yes, one can try to supplement human interactions to some extent (groups, hobbies etc) but it's not organic and it's not the same (besides it absolutely doesn't work for everyone). After those ~4 years ended (a bit more considering COVID time at the workplace before that) I tried freelancing for a bit. But only now when I am just trying things on my own, I started going to cafes and co-working spaces to work, or just do things on my laptop there, even for 1-2 hours, and that has helped a lot. I so much feel better, I can decisively do more than at home. I hope I had started doing that when I was already working at my last place. I might not have grown this detached and distanced from the inudstry and work. I might not have sort of lost a few years of my life. I am again gearing up to find full time work and this time I shall try my best to get one in some office, or office like space, somewhere. I really do not want to do WFH anymore. Though I see lot of people benefit from it and use it quite effectively. I think a fantastic balance would be a hybrid approach but I believe employees should just given the option to pick from hybrid, WFH, WFO and the employers ought to make that happen. Because every individual and their needs and wishes are quite unique in this regards.

Working from home since 2014

Worked 5 days a week in the office at the start of the career, about 1h20m each way. Many days I was exhausted, but I enjoyed the job and liked my colleagues.

If I lived next door to the office it would be a no brainer for me, and I think for a lot of other people. I would go to the office. Unfortunately because the West is too scared to build homes and solve the housing crisis, we live further from work than we would like.

My commute in London when I do go to the office these days is a £16 round trip, and being crammed into a tin can with a bunch of imbeciles that can’t understand the concept of letting people off the train first or using headphones to listen to music. Nah, I’m good thanks.

I WFH 2 days a week. I find this works out quite well for me.

Full time since 2014.

Work has always been organized by those who thrive on social interaction, being immersed in people. Not everyone is this way and the other side has been disregarded since ever and those who need a quieter, more introspective workplace have suffered.

Now that the tides have turned the extroverts complain that they can't do their work properly but it's only fair that the introverted finally get their shot at working like they feel more natural.

As someone who has suffered for decades in a noisy and chaotic workplace, I am never going back.

Almost anyone who works from home is legitimately on the way to replacement because almost all of it can now be done by bots. They excluded themselves from the "human" part of it, and now it became critical.