I think there are many “subcultures” (for lack of better description) within WFH and WFO. You’re describing two of them, but there’s also a group of WFH’ers that believes the whole organization should be remote as to standardize the processes to be asynchronous, and there are WFO’ers that still like to work from home one or two days a week.
There’s also WFH but within the same country, WFH globally across all timezones, etc etc etc.
As such, I personally consider it more of a company culture thing rather than WFO vs WFH. Where does the company fit in these philosophies.
There’s definitely no such thing as the WFO’er that wants to force their preferences upon others any more than there are WFH’ers doing the same thing.
This is the best way to think about it imo, there are all kinds. I'm lucky enough to be able to comfortably bike to work. Unsurprisingly; I like to go in a few times a week for a change of scenary (and to still keep a big screen. A number of my teamates aggressively defend their right to 'never come in ever again' up to and including shaming those who like the option of WFO.
I think we're at an odd almost feverish inflection point right now. I say this typing on my (giant) home monitor.
> There’s definitely no such thing as the WFO’er that wants to force their preferences upon others any more than there are WFH’ers doing the same thing.
Given that the WFH crowd has no expectation of collaborating in person with anyone and 90% of the WFO argument is predicated on other people being there with you, I don't see how this statement could be possible. WFO absolutely want other folks in the office, whereas I don't see WFH feeling the same outside of some kind of safety in numbers (e.g. they won't force me to come into the office if a lot of my coworkers are also at home)
Absolutely, there are always going to be subcultures within this kind of thing, but I highly doubt the majority of those want to force their preference to others, certainly for the WFH crowd and to be fair I'd assume from the WFO crowd either, at least not consciously.
> There’s definitely no such thing as the WFO’er that wants to force their preferences upon others any more than there are WFH’ers doing the same thing.
I can only go anecdotally on this but that certainly hasn't been my experience. I assume there are some WFH'ers who want to force their preference, but I've never seen any of them. However, I've encounter it many times from the reverse. I am pro-WFH, which might explain why, but again all I can go off is personal experience here.
I've had a job where I was the only remote developer, and the experience was terrible. I was excluded from or forgotten for lots of important meetings and social events.
I personally wouldn't want to force everyone to WFH, but I'll never willingly repeat that experience either.
It's best viewed as a continuum between nearly no control over your working environment and nearly total control over your working environment. On that continuum, WFO is clearly closer to the latter pole and WFH is clearly closer to the former pole. It's not a binary though. The best WFO experience I had was where I had, shocker, an actual office, just like I do when I WFH. I could shut the door, shut out noise and visual distraction, and get stuff done. On the other hand so-called offices today aim to replicate the experience of a high school lunchroom and are about as good a place for me to get work done. They are very close to the nearly no control pole and I and many others frankly despise them with good reason.
There’s also WFH but within the same country, WFH globally across all timezones, etc etc etc.
As such, I personally consider it more of a company culture thing rather than WFO vs WFH. Where does the company fit in these philosophies.
There’s definitely no such thing as the WFO’er that wants to force their preferences upon others any more than there are WFH’ers doing the same thing.