Work from office is absurdly expensive for society.
5/7 of the days, relocating an entire city worth of knowledge workers across town to a computer screen is fairly nonsensical.
You force everyone to live within a radius of economic hubs if they want job mobility, or you have to be comfortable relocating your family every N years for upward mobility in your career (or take the career hit, wait for internal promotions, and risk the company folding).
It’s socially not great. It’s economically not great. It’s environmentally not great. Working from the office is just all around not great.
Speaking personally, I live in a good community, with a good quality of life, a good school district, I can afford a good home here, and I can provide for my family. I’ve setup roots and intend to raise my kids to adulthood in this house.
I’d be surprised if anyone could afford a competitive package that would convince me to relocate my family, pulling my kids out of school, selling my home, and paying the toll of a daily commute.
The rest of my career is remote. Companies can do hybrid. They can return to office. They can do whatever they want. Unless they support full remote, I’m not part of their talent pool.
I know many people who think this way. And that number is growing.
Yeah it’s plain silly. As a remote worker for going on 3 years, I can’t ever see myself going back to a commute. You could double my salary and I wouldn’t do it..
Yep, I don't care what they do. I've been remote for 7 years now, I made it work before COVID, now it's like playing on super easy mode.
My Dad was a work from home pioneer, from back in the early 90's. We got all the latest modem and other tech growing up. If he could make it work with a 2400 baud modem, we can make it work for pretty much every office job.
>>I’m not part of their talent pool. .. I know many people who think this way. And that number is growing.
you enjoy that freedom due to low unemployment, and stable(ish) economy currently.
Unfortunately the fundamentals of the economy are not sound right now, and very likely we will start seeing companies fold, and unemployment numbers go up.
It is very easy to have a hard stance on fully remote when you have 2 jobs for every employee on the market... if that flips I have a feeling peoples demands will change.
> Work from office is absurdly expensive for society.
That assumes everyone lives in American suburbia with one extra room for your home-office. Guess what, most of the knowledge workers live in dense cities with tiny apartments. Average flat sizes for various cities (sqft): Bangalore (1260), Singapore (667), Tokyo (710), Paris (520) etc. See this image for more details: https://files.buildworld.co.uk/average-home-size/03_Average-...
To make it permanent remote would involve a huge restructuring of those societies and that cost is much greater than maintaining office towers.
Who the hell is trying to work remotely from their shoebox apartment? That's the point of WFH -- you can move out of Tokyo to rural Japan and live in a larger space for cheaper. Or rural France. Plenty of space in rural India.
Not much luck for Singapore tho, but that's the nature of the city-state.
> To make it permanent remote would involve a huge restructuring of those societies and that cost is much greater than maintaining office towers.
bollocks. MS Teams or Slack is cheap, and the cost of moving to a rural locale isn't hard. Smaller towns will develop their own amenities, and 2nd and 3rd tier cities would do well.
But I have been told for a very long time that no one actually wants to live in a rural space, that people are just forced to do so because of cost, or some other such thing..
or that people that live in rural spaces should not be allowed that because it harms the eviroment or something.
I have had many many many conversations where people tell about how wonderful urban life is, as how that is the best way for people to live, in shoeboxes where everything is in walking distance from them...
seems WFH is in direct odds with the "walkable cities" movement
It seems you don't have any family and friends near where you live? Or you don't have any hobbies which are possible only in the cities (eg. being a foodie with a taste for various types of cuisines)? Or you are a native born who will find it easier to blend into rural communities who are typically more homogeneous? Unless you can only see costs in financial terms but not in social or personal terms?
Cost of urban to rural transition is HUGE, first at individual level due to social ties and personal preferences. And then at societal level due to personal preferences of the electorate. Dense cities are here to stay in most of the world.
The lack of empathy in your comment is surprising.
I’ve lived in quite a few places across the size spectrum. I’ve lived in big cities, small cities, suburbs, and small towns.
In all of those places I’ve seen strong communities and social isolation. I’ve seen opportunity and poverty.
Your painting of rural life, small city life, suburban life, etc. is unfair.
Cities have a lot to offer that rural life can not compete with. Rural life has a lot to offer that cities can not compete with. So does everything in between.
For that reason, I suspect you are correct that dense cities are here to stay. I also suspect that small cities, rural communities, and suburbs are here to stay.
5/7 of the days, relocating an entire city worth of knowledge workers across town to a computer screen is fairly nonsensical.
You force everyone to live within a radius of economic hubs if they want job mobility, or you have to be comfortable relocating your family every N years for upward mobility in your career (or take the career hit, wait for internal promotions, and risk the company folding).
It’s socially not great. It’s economically not great. It’s environmentally not great. Working from the office is just all around not great.
Speaking personally, I live in a good community, with a good quality of life, a good school district, I can afford a good home here, and I can provide for my family. I’ve setup roots and intend to raise my kids to adulthood in this house.
I’d be surprised if anyone could afford a competitive package that would convince me to relocate my family, pulling my kids out of school, selling my home, and paying the toll of a daily commute.
The rest of my career is remote. Companies can do hybrid. They can return to office. They can do whatever they want. Unless they support full remote, I’m not part of their talent pool.
I know many people who think this way. And that number is growing.
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