This is probably unpopular, and certainly a personal opinion; but the more time I've put into remote gigs (in-person gig going remote during COVID, then switching to a full-remote company) the more I agree.<p>Everyone has different life contexts, and for some people remote is the best way for them to be productive. It's also likely that it's generally a better balance between corporate demands and peoples' lives. For me; its made work worse.<p>The worst part is on-boarding new remote employees; especially those with less seniority in the industry. It SUCKS. It really sucks. Effective onboarding is quite fundamentally predicated on drive-by questions; and remote makes asking any drive-by question ten times less efficient, even in the most well-meaning teams, its typing, its timezones, its meetings scheduled for the next day, its screen sharing at 720p because someone doesn't know how to use Zoom, its that gut uncertainty that the "hi do you have ten minutes to meet" message from your manager could mean anything from a catch-up to a you're fired because you're blind to every nonverbal social cue anyone in-person could pick up on.<p>Then there's the separation of work and home. Driving sucks; undoubtably. But put that aside and just look at the space. Everyone's home is different, but I'll describe the few experiences I've had. At the start: living alone. Going from constant, positive human interaction every day to nothing but pixels on a screen. The people who will clinically admit this negatively affects their mental health are oftentimes the same people pushing for more remote work; like having their cake and eating it too, except "eating it" means "destroying your brain". Then, living with a SO who was also working remote. I actually have no idea how people manage this without a 3 bedroom house in the suburbs. Most people don't have this, and I'm sure it works for those who do. She's on meetings half the day; I'm in meetings a quarter the day; the cats are zooming around at 10 miles per hour; the dog needs to be walked; we agree "we need a bigger space" and then look at real estate prices and realize that has to mean moving to the middle of nowhere and leaving our entire lives behind (don't worry; we can still play games and chat online with our old friends; thus, we've remotified our entire lives, from work to play; the only experience we enjoy in-person anymore is shopping at the suburban walmart in the strip mall. And, of course, each other, and we'll keep telling ourselves that's enough).<p>I can't reconcile the facts that I worked in this industry for five years, in person, and never experienced the burn-out I am now, with the fact that <i>everything</i> should be better. The job is fantastic. Remote coworkers, unbelievably friendly, smart, knowledgable. No commute. Great technology. Pooping on my own toilet every day. Everything is great, most of it sucks.<p>Working for Tesla would suck though. "40 hours a week at least" is insane.