I had read a comment(that I completely agree with) from someone here on HN (sorry I forgot the username), that the current WFH is working because EVERYONE is working from home.<p>The moment half of the work force starts working from the office again, the dynamics are going to change. Those offtopic, face to face chitchats you have with your colleagues or boss hugely help your career growth.
The WFH people are going to miss out on that.<p>One positive that this crisis has created though, is all businesses and institutions will take remote work seriously, and take the steps required to make it possible, especially as another wave of COVID19 is expected.
I'm unconvinced. The current WFH environment is not representative. It's only been a couple of months so the effects aren't fully understood and we are still in the honeymoon period. More importantly everyone has to work from home so there is no comparison between people who are WFH and those in the office - when WFH goes back to being a choice, I think we'll remember all of the frustrations remote workers had at non-fully remote companies.
> Presentation Final Final [2].pdf<p>Alexey - please make sure to use 'Copy of Presentation Final Final [2] (Matt's version) (Copy).pdf' going forward. Presentation Final Final [2].pdf is out of date.<p>Thx.
I understand the impulse to believe this is all temporary and that the extroverts who lead our companies will get us all back into the open office as soon as they can. Consider a financial reality. There is likely to be a terrible recession over the next few years. There will be layoffs and bankruptcies. Office space is hugely expensive. Some competitors are going to choose not to renew office space or to downsize their offices as this crisis drags on. And your company will have to compete with those companies who have cut costs without loosing efficiency.<p>We are living through a black swan event, so it's a healthy exercise to forget everything you think you know about how the world works. I don't know how this is going to play out.
> <i>Techies have been leaving San Francisco for cities like Portland, Austin, Denver and Seattle (PADS) for over a decade. We seek a place to settle down and improve cost-to-quality-of-life ratio.</i><p>As someone born in a small North Carolina town into poverty who has lived in Portland for close to a decade, this is both hilarious and depressing.<p>Bay Area tech folks are really suffering from some sort of economic Stockholm Syndrome. I’d love to see what would happen if one were to move from San Francisco to a city like Chiang Mai, Thailand. It can’t be much different than winning the lottery.
Hmm a decade or two? IDK, could be way sooner. If Corona comes back at the fall (this time accompanied by regular influenza) there's just not much choice I think. When this is all over all companies will have experience in running things remote for a year or two.
It could be there'll still be an office but 50% of the personnel is remote.
We'll see what happens, but I don't think this is gonna take 20 years.
WFH is now mainstream. In past everyone had to love noisy open plane office, and sacrifice two weeks of holiday to flu every year. Now there is a solid argument for alternative.
I think another interesting data point demonstrating progress in this is the fact that the US Supreme Court can now receive requests, vote to listen to them, receive pleadings and also listening to oral arguments remotely.<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBrzxt7l7q4" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBrzxt7l7q4</a>
> It’ll retain a “city emeritus” status, like London, Philadelphia or Palo Alto.<p>Unless this means London, Ontario, it's unintentionally hilarious that this guy considers Europe's largest city and financial capital to be a has-been 'city emeritus'.<p>It goes along with the idea that because some microblogging website is allowing remote work, that suddenly the idea is mainstream.<p>For an industry that claims to think big, the tech startup world is surprisingly small and insular.
I don't think you can institutionalize remote work. The team has to gel. I've worked with extremely efficient and motivated team, where we basically communicated through Skype and chat.
We met at the office once a week. Best job I've ever had.<p>And I've also worked on a completely disjointed and disfunctional remote team.<p>Only the team can make it work, not any mandate from above.
I would not predict future for that far.<p>I am imagining a world where coming to office everyday isn't a requirement. And it is probably going to be true.<p>However, I am not sure WFH will become the NORM. I definitely feels that my co-workers close to their manager gets more attention and thus their career tracks faster.<p>All need to be put under perspective.
I always felt that remote work would eventually come. I've seen it in how my friends would slowly converge to 2-3 days wfh a few months after graduating and starting a job. It seems like adoption has just been accelerated by circumstance now. People are realizing that they can do everything they need to do at home within 2-3 hours.<p>The most attractive part of the office are the water cooler conversations and social activities completely unrelated to work. And that's why I still think there's a place for shared workspaces. Companies will shrink their large centralized headquarters and start building satellite presences. No need to fit everyone into one big mega-campus.
I think the increasing openness towards remote work is certainly encouraging, but it still seems a bit too early to conclude that these companies will consider going fully remote to be sustainable in the long run.<p>As the author notes, once companies figure out a streamlined and scalable way of onboarding and supporting a remote-first workforce, we should see much greater adoption of this approach.
Outside of The Bay are people really excited about leaving?<p>It sucks here with the NIMBYs, the boring endless sprawl, the high taxes and bad public services, and the insane housing costs. But I've always thought people were generally happy about living in NYC, Seattle, Boulder, and Austin. (Though of those cities I've only lived in New York)
I've been working remotely as a programmer for 7 years, but I still find that even in the current situation, a lot of companies insist that once the current crisis is over, they NEED people on-site. I'm still waiting, and hoping, for the fabled "remote work is the norm".
<i>Techies have been leaving San Francisco for cities ... for over a decade.</i><p>Not so much true if you look at the numbers. It's more just additional growth in the other areas.