Work is a third of our life, and it seems reasonable that many people would want social interaction during that time. Further, at least in the workplace I had before Covid, people could work from home as needed, or even part time, depending on their management. Granted this was for IT, not for the whole company though.
You think WFH is every individuals choice in this new world. It isn’t.
The last place I worked had 25,000 people on its main campus. Three gyms, three coffee shops, four cafeterias and more square footage than the pentagon.
When every person chooses, in a fit of glee, to WFH all the time, that community dies. Maybe in a generation, the world will adapt, but I look back on the mid 2010s as what will possibly have been the best part of my lifelong career due to the energy, the learning, the comraderie, and the amenities of my tech job.
WFH is a group decision. Don’t think it’s morally superior to choose WFH.
I’m like OP, I see many benefits in terms of living flexibility and people caring for dependents. But it will have profound negative consequences on professional development and social development for workers going forward.
> The last place I worked had 25,000 people on its main campus. Three gyms, three coffee shops, four cafeterias and more square footage than the pentagon.
I interviewed at a place like this, with all the in-site amenities. They were particularly proud of offering breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day to the staff. As I finished my last round of interviews, it became obvious that they offered this because they expected everyone to be there for breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day.
I did not accept the offer, and I have no regrets.
That’s an interesting observation about the effect of social norms and the inability of granular individual choice to make everyone happy. The WFH people say the same thing—the WFO folks have advantages in hybrid meetings, etc. Allowing individual choice doesn’t necessarily lead to everyone being happy, because you give up synergies that arise from everyone doing the same thing.
The same is true for parenting as well. In 1970, almost 35% of the population was kids. Today, it’s closer to 20%, and in many states and cities less than that. There has been a resulting collapse in the infrastructure supporting parents. Parenting is just a lot better and easier if everyone around you, especially in your cohort, also has kids. I think the only way around this is pluralism. If you want to have a lot of kids and be around people who have a lot of kids, go to Utah and let Utahans maintain the social norms that encourage everyone to have kids. If you don’t want that, move to New York.
Same thing applies to WFH. I don’t think letting people choose at a granular level is optimal. Instead, organizations should probably decide whether they want to be an office-first or remote-first organization. And then people can self select into the organization that fits their needs.
I love love love wfh. Makes a world of difference when you have a family. I walk my kids to school. I can take care of tasks that require small amounts of active work- load dishwasher, etc.
But I wouldn’t be where I am today without wfo early in my career.
It would be nice to come up with some new ways of handling this. Maybe the more senior folks who want to be in the office lead a team of juniors, who can then choose to wfh over time, as they decide how much benefit it gives them.
> Work is a third of our life, and it seems reasonable that many people would want social interaction during that time
Yeh thats reasonable enough. I do miss the social aspects of working in an office, I just don't miss the logistics of it like the commute, or the cost, the social pressures or the lack of freedom. As you say work is a third of our life, it seems reasonable that people wouldn't want it to be any more consuming.
> You think WFH is every individuals choice in this new world. It isn’t.
You say this and then don't really expand on it further. Do you mean its not a choice for those not in IT? Of course we all know this, thats the point, if you can do your job from home it should be a choice thats open to you. Its not for everyone, thats the problem.
> WFH is a group decision. Don’t think it’s morally superior to choose WFH.
1. No its not. Its an individual decision. It affects a wider group, as does any individual decision, as is the decision to force working in an office.
2. Nobody said its morally superior, other than that it seems to me morally superior not to force decisions on people because it makes you personally happy.
As for the arguments on community, that community mainly seems to be involved with shops and land mass. I'm not sure I'd call that a community, at least one thats not corporate controlled or impossible to replicate remotely.
What I mean by "WFH is not an individual choice" is that in the post-COVID jargon, WFH is a company policy. And when people advocate for WFH in this environment, they are implicitly advocating for no one to be in the office - because me being alone in an office park because everyone else is at home does nothing for my ability to collaborate or have a positive work experience. As someone else stated, I think the end result will be different companies choosing how they want to have their workforce operate, and workers deciding whether to work for a WFH or WFO company.
And I do think some are saying WFH is morally superior in that they think WFO is something "forced" on introverts. My point is that WFH is something "forced" on extroverts. Introverts' decision to WFH affects an office advocate as much as an extrovert's decision to have everyone work from office affects a WFH advocate.
> What I mean by "WFH is not an individual choice" is that in the post-COVID jargon, WFH is a company policy.
Ah, apologies, that makes much more sense, though it is of course an individuals choice as to whether you will work somewhere that allows WFH or not (all factors considered, of course).
> As someone else stated, I think the end result will be different companies choosing how they want to have their workforce operate, and workers deciding whether to work for a WFH or WFO company.
This seems to be a fair solution, though I don't think we're there yet. If a big tech company decided to declare itself as entirely WHX, you'd get a wave of people resigning (because it doesn't match their preference, so they're going somewhere that does), which would restart the whole fight over it, which is why a lot of companies are still in this middle ground of not doing anything yet. But after that initial wave you'd hope it'd get a lot more smooth, and it'd just be treated as any other job preference thing.
> I do think some are saying WFH is morally superior
I haven't seen this myself, but as another commenter pointed out there are of course bound to be a load of subcultures on both sides. I'm sure there are some that say WFO is morally superior. But I don't think the majority of either group are saying that.
The issue is the moral weight of action vs inaction. WFO advocate for action from people who don’t want to do this. WFH do not advocate for an action. WFO do suffer from inaction of WFH, but in almost every moral system suffering caused by inaction is preferable to suffering caused by forcing someone to act.
You think WFH is every individuals choice in this new world. It isn’t.
The last place I worked had 25,000 people on its main campus. Three gyms, three coffee shops, four cafeterias and more square footage than the pentagon.
When every person chooses, in a fit of glee, to WFH all the time, that community dies. Maybe in a generation, the world will adapt, but I look back on the mid 2010s as what will possibly have been the best part of my lifelong career due to the energy, the learning, the comraderie, and the amenities of my tech job.
WFH is a group decision. Don’t think it’s morally superior to choose WFH.
I’m like OP, I see many benefits in terms of living flexibility and people caring for dependents. But it will have profound negative consequences on professional development and social development for workers going forward.