> The part of the WFH/RTO debate that seems to get overlooked is that people who were hired to WFH are the ones who are now being cajoled into working from offices.
Let's not forget that the opposite is also true. Most of us were hired to work in the office (before COVID), but after COVID most (?) companies kept going in various forms of hybrid work. My team never went back to the office. I didn't sign up to work from an empty office and take every meeting on zoom, but that's what I got.
Don't get me wrong, I'm glad remote work is more popular now because it allowed me to move close to family. But had I decided to stay in the city I lived for the last 6 years, I would have to leave a company I love and look for a new job because I absolutely hate remote work.
You don't. But you interact with your own team 1-2 orders of magnitudes more than the rest of the company. So as long as your team is all in the office, you get a nice boost to communication and you avoid having to do all team activities on zoom.
Not OP, but same experience. Before COVID we had a few teams with some remote members (usually in a different timezone), and we consistently got feedback that:
- they felt excluded from the discussion
- it was hard for them to hear everyone (e.g. people sitting in the back of the room)
- it was hard for them to speak (e.g. the delay made it)
All above issues could be alleviated with some meeting etiquette, but that was challenging on its own. In our case the vast majority of teams didn't have remote members, so there wasn't much willingness to introduce company wide rules.
The simple solution was to introduce a single rule. If one person is remote, everyone must be remote (join from their own laptop).
What a naive take. Simplifying the WFH discussion to be just about the physical location of people doesn't make sense. WFH fundamentally changes how teams and companies have to work. It's reasonable for people to be opinionated about how they like to work. Comparing someone to a 4yo because they might not like how remote teams work is obtuse at best and offensive at worst.
(I say this as a 100% remote worker who's very glad of having had the opportunity to move close to family without losing my job)
> And I don’t think it’s symmetrical: WFH people don’t have a reason to insist that their colleagues WFH.
As if.
WFH people might not care about the physical location of their coworkers, but they certainly care about what their teammates can or cannot do. Every team process needs to be tailored to remote workers.
If you join an in person team and then request to WFH you are basically expecting everyone to adapt to your way. "But hey don't worry, you can still sit the zoom meeting from the office if you want". How generous.
> There’s a very “my freedoms trump your freedoms” mindset to this.
Let's not forget that the opposite is also true. Most of us were hired to work in the office (before COVID), but after COVID most (?) companies kept going in various forms of hybrid work. My team never went back to the office. I didn't sign up to work from an empty office and take every meeting on zoom, but that's what I got.
Don't get me wrong, I'm glad remote work is more popular now because it allowed me to move close to family. But had I decided to stay in the city I lived for the last 6 years, I would have to leave a company I love and look for a new job because I absolutely hate remote work.