> Companies these days bend over backwards to make the office experience as optimal as possible.
The "open office" has been repeatedly studied and proven sub-optimal on many aspects that impact both employees and companies. Yet companies continue to design new offices with these designs. I would love a fully-remote gig mostly because it would be respite from the open-office.
"Remote work requires discipline" is true. Some people find it hard to stop working, others find it difficult to focus.
I'd say it's 100% different, but it's not necessarily difficult. We need to talk about how change is hard on the one hand, and how remote work is different on the other, and not conflate the difficulty of the two together to have an effective conversation.
There are fixes to just about all of the problems people mention including dedicated in-person time occasionally - just not all the time.
Based on your "onsite" it sounds like you're a consultant or with a pro-services firm servicing clients, rather than part of a product company. I don't think as consultants you can really have the same freedom because you cannot control your client culture, and the client culture will dictate how effective you can be when remote. I would argue that if you're a client-facing consultant you first have to put in the time before you can really consider going remote because you need to build the trust and understanding to do that. That can be hard, and many client cultures do not understand it and will have a hard time connecting delivered functionality to value. They value, instead sometimes, a butt in a seat.
Recently transitioned into consultant work, before that I was a silicon valley native who worked at big names and startups.
Remote work is difficult because when you are remote and care you feel pressured to do more work to make up for the missing office political presence you get from being onsite.
That human interaction is much more important than people want to acknowledge
Been there and understand that completely. I transitioned from full time on-site to a remote worker with the same organization which meant that I understood the things I needed to work to replace when I started working outside the office - that was a huge edge compared to folks that joined 100% remote.
While I don't feel pressured to do "more work" necessarily, I think where I have seen intensity increase is in making more of an effort to actually speak to other humans adjacent to your work. This might require taking time out of your day and end up causing you to spend more time.
Overall I find being remote allows you to focus more which means you can often get more done in less time (if you're on maker time) so hopefully this doesn't result in many extra hours.
If you're on manager time (which I often am) then this is a whole different challenge of course, but it's an interesting one.
Mainly I would say it's best to balance your self-pressure to do more (coming from a fellow person who cares). Doing more work probably won't help, but ensuring you have regular touch-points with the right people will go a long way toward people knowing you exist, what your value is, and providing you with context to execute effectively without guidance.
Probably saying something you already know but feels good to type it either way :)
Like maybe a week ago there was an article on HN arguing that true blended remote/onsite is impossible. That at least some of your office co-workers won't be inclusive to remote workers (e.g. refuse to use slack).
It's all about forcing in-person workers to use the same communication tools as remote workers - which is worse for those particular interactions, but better for the company overall.
After 9 coding jobs and a year or three in labor and service work at each end, I much prefer fixed schedules.
On-site is best, tho I think taking away time flexibility could actually be a boon and help make remote work tolerable.
Working for minimum wage now as a green waiter with people juggling 2-3 jobs and/or kids and a marriage in the Bay Area, more than any office colleague, I observe that fixed schedules work. The gig people I interact with are far more stressed than my colleagues.
Apparently tangental perhaps, I think this case helps isolate factors of logistics well when contrasting the more common cases; and I think it’s a wise way to go, and am building a life to support that type of engagements. Thanks for sharing.
The opposite can sometimes be true. I work remotely about 1 day a week. Some days I get in about 4 hours of real work and others it's in the 12-16 range. In any case it's a different environment and requires some self-awareness to be effective.
The "open office" has been repeatedly studied and proven sub-optimal on many aspects that impact both employees and companies. Yet companies continue to design new offices with these designs. I would love a fully-remote gig mostly because it would be respite from the open-office.