The Last Stand of the Corporate Peacock

I think I'd agree with you, but I'd put it this way: "Fine, co-locate teams at the same office with their customers. No more distributed teams, anywhere, for any reason."

The only reasonable exception to that rule is first-line support team in the opposite time zone, that's it.

Also ban, hoteling/hot desking. You know what also f-cks up in person collaboration? Not knowing where your coworkers are sitting.

Most RTO is executives trying to have their cake and eat it too. The decisions are directly contradicted by other decisions they've made and ideas they advocate for.

The internet likes black & white. There's little room for shades of grey and any expression of nuance just invites hot takes. Like this one.

"I don't work as well when I'm not in the office, so all those other guys are slacking off" would presumably be the thought process.

What I think's interesting is that those pushing for RTO rarely seem to be using data to support their positions. I don't know if it's that they're people who prefer "intuition over evidence" or just that there's a lack of evidence supporting a stance that they're emotionally committed to, but it's something I've noted quite a few times now. Or perhaps it's just that once you introduce the decision as data-driven you get into interminable arguments about methodologies and so on?

I don't really buy the various borderline conspiracy theories about a tie between corporate management and local property prices simply because that same set of people seems to have been wildly enthusiastic about the various offshoring waves that preceded Covid and the resulting WFH boom.

And there are people who insist others come back since they themselves are extroverts, and they need someone to talk to (not my company, but family).

I’ve definitely found that having other people around during some of my work week has a positive psychological impact for me, and solve it this way. At the coffee shops and spaces I frequent, I often see and cowork with folks I know from my various hobbies and clubs in town.

I remember that, even when I was in-office full-time (pre-2020), sitting in the same cube/desk area as my teammates… we mostly communicated over Slack about work. Only very occasionally would we come look at one another’s screens - less than I screen share over Zoom or Slack Huddle with them these days. (Slack Huddles are especially more efficient than anything that could be done in-person, as you can both view one another’s screens.)

I definitely did enjoy hanging with my colleagues in those days - really, socialization was the majority of our in-person interaction (well, and meetings, which I might argue are better conducted over Zoom, as some people being physically imposing, reducing helpful input from others, was always a thing).

I’d also say all our in-person hanging made us more of a monoculture - half my team would hit the gym downstairs and be spotting each other on bench press during lunch breaks. Whereas in my current remote role, I work with folks who never go to the gym, but are into dance, cooking, theater - all sorts of more varied things! I think the variety of life perspectives may make us more productive as well, though obviously there are too many variables at play to really compare these work scenarios with any sort of objective metric.

I'm not a particularly social person, but in general I'd rather work in an office near my coworkers than remotely. But, I'd rather work remotely than work in a large open office space. A cubicle might be okay, depending on how many people are sharing the same room.

Another big factor is your commute. Spending an hour or more on a daily commute is very taxing, especially if you're raising a family.

That describes only some offices, and also I definitely don’t prefer it to the tune of thousands of dollars and a couple hundred hours per year and a bunch more micromorts.

This is every day for a developer though.