Me? None, hence "crazy". :) I just find the idea of long adventures/trails like that to be interesting, and I'm sure it's not outside the realm of possibility that someone would want to do it.
If you started the southern portion of the AT at the beginning of March (which is a fairly common start time for the AT anyway) you wouldn't have to deal with much snow for most of the journey.
I am starting to use coworking spaces now because WFH has something of a toll on my family, primarily because kids are loud, and it can be frustrating to work while your loud kid is screaming in the next room without enough of a sound barrier to prevent you from hearing it. I'm not angry at my child, but sometimes I get upset with my wife for not preventing this, or for telling me it's not that loud when it is impossible to escape the noise.
(And when they're not being loud, they're being cute, and it's a tempting and easy distraction to go spend some time with them in the middle of a work day.)
In this sort of dynamic, I see working at an office as a fairly healthy option. I know it's a bit of an outlier (SAH mother + WFH father), but I'm definitely more productive and less stressed out working from an office.
What is your office like? The ones I've had dubious honor to work in is like you describe, but with dozens of noisy adult children in the same room with me, not the next one.
I agree with this to an extent. Our kiddos are old enough to be in school. But if someone is home sick, I have to take the day off because it’s hard to get anything done.
A reply to you mentioned noise-canceling headphones. That doesn’t work for me, because the kids want to engage and play with the parents when they’re at home. It’s not just a matter of noise.
That said! I still agree with OP’s sentiment. I find that I’m much more relaxed without having to worry about the commute. More time to help the kids get ready and just enjoy the moment. More time to walk them to school.
Before, I would be a ball of stress trying to get people out the door in the morning so I could catch one of only two buses that could take me across the bay to work.
Same thing in the evenings. More time to pick them up, walk home, take serendipitous side adventures and help foster their curiosity. I love it.
I've bought 28sqm apartment to be my office, few mins by foot from our apartment when the kid arrived. It is just better to split work hours and family hours better at that point. Better for everybody. If the main apartment/house is big enough I would not have felt the need to do it probably.
I would still not accept working from office jobs though.
What's somewhat interesting is that at both very low and very high income levels, the % of stay-at-home parent is higher. So for people near poverty, or people making top 1%-ish income, it's less than a 2:1 ratio, more like 35-40%. For middle income like $40k-$100k, it's more like 3:1 or 4:1.
At no income level is it lower than 20% stay at home parent though, so not too much of an outlier in any case.
Hyperbole and language like this is exactly why it's so hard to have this debate in any rational way. The onsite crowd says that all their WFH colleagues are playing video games and doing laundry all day while the WFH crowd says employers are stealing from their employees' children.
I don't think the WFH crowd minds others going into the office. The pro onsite crowd on the other hand wants others forced into the office because their choice is unsupportable if people are given a free choice.
>98% of workers want to work remote at least some of the time 65% report wanting to work remote all of the time.
If 1/3 of your workforce meets 2 days a week your average utilization is about 14%. The logical conclusion is a ghost town that goes away as soon as your employer cuts the building off like a diseased hand.
I definitely like being able to wfh some of the time and I think having to work from office some of the time is a good compromise. When people aren't forced to go people don't go. Even i don't go, and i hate wfh all week. Because once people stop turning up, it starts to be pointless to go. I'm going because i need ftf interaction with people. If nobody turns up its not even fun. Also I have terrible time blindness and if I'm not forced to be somewhere at a certain time I will never get there....
Anyyway, where-ever i've been though that encourages a few days a week in the office, everyone says the big days where everyone comes in and we catch up are fun. The wfh days give us balance. only a handful of people attempt to avoid coming in like the plague. Most people don't like having to commute all the time, but very few people hate going outside and seeing people at work like the wierdos that argue for 100% wfh online.
I have a colleague that takes like a 1.5 hour train to get in and we just went to the pub together after work yesterday, sometimes i let her stay over at mine so she can be in office for an extra day. I love seeing this person. If there was no mandatory office, we would not be friends. Last year I worked 99% remote and I barely ever spoke to human beings and I wanted to die. We are not made to exist like that. And I think the wfh crowd is way too skewed towards middle aged people with spouses and children. If you don't have that wfh ruins your life.
Although you’re probably right, I think you’ve got the motivation of the pro office crowd wrong. They want folks in office because if any significant part of your team is remote then you are effectively working remote, even if you’re in an office.
Yep. Bingo. I want to interact with human beings otherwise my mental health tanks. I don't want to work remote and I even less so want to work in an empty office. If the office is empty I'm not going there because its twice as depressing.
This is basically what I said. The partially/fully remote crowd is the overwhelming majority. The only way to satisfy the minority is to submit the majority to the minorities preference. This doesn't seem altogether reasonable.
An ideal situation would be different companies with different philosophies in proportion to preference but this isn't really what's happening. You had a plethora of options during covid now you have a bunch of old people trying to force everyone back into the office.
I think a good compromise is just partially remote. I 100% see the benefit of not being in the office every day. I like going in 3 times a week. My company has a policy that every person must come into the office 3 days on mode (so like, if some weeks you don't reach 3 it's okay as long as most weeks you do), and allows 2 days for people who live far away. It works really well and satisfies my desire to be in the office and see other people there. Most people seem to enjoy it.
I think this is a remarkably dysfunctional policy that only serves to placate mostly irrelevant middle managers who now look as useless as they are and has literally no other virtues.
If part of your people are there and part are not then you must necessarily adopt patterns and communication techniques fit for remote work. Your remote people wont be happy because they have to come in and your in office people wont be happy because many days less than half the staff will be there.
If you want to have enough space for most people to be there on some days you need almost as much space as full in office. You can't realistically hire anyone who lives more than a 30-60 minute commute and because you want to have access to a large desirable workforce your building is probably located somewhere expensive as well. A large chunk of the most desirable workers who want to work remote are forever off limits or if you do make exceptions you now have jealousy and drama.
Hybrid work is the answer to how can I have all the disadvantages of both styles and none of the advantages while not being shitty enough that all of either group leaves.
There are good points here that would be nice to engage with in a fruitful discussion, but do you see how that's difficult to do when you lead with a provocative, emotionally charged phrase like
> I think this is a remarkably dysfunctional policy that only serves to placate mostly irrelevant middle managers who now look as useless as they are and has literally no other virtues.
You're wrong. Its the best office I've ever worked in with some of the happiest workers and a wonderful culture. I actually work there. You are getting very vitriolic about an extremely skewed hypothetical idea of my workplace that you've made up in your head. Meanwhile, I'm here, seeing happy workers all around me. And I'm not a manager. People like you sound grumpy and horrible and no wonder you don't like being around people. They probably don't like being around someone like you.
I know people with 1.5 hour commutes at my office. They come in twice a week. I ask them about it. They like coming in twice a week because everyone is really nice and friendly to be around. It's refreshing and fun. The only person management reprimanded about how often he came in was a young guy who lives less than 30 minutes away and didn't come in for 4 months. He doesn't really have an excuse. But everyone is allowed to skip a few weeks. It's not a punitive policy.
Let me also point out I'm not in the US. Living more than 1.5 hours away from your office is rare as hell and nobody is driving that distance. They're reading on the train. People leave early to miss rush hour. That's totally acceptable in our office. Because we're not micromanaging people. We just like people being in the office for culture. I know you can't fathom any reason to talk to other humans other than to control them, but some of us can.
And the people coming into the office are happy. We like seeing people, so we come in on similar days. Some people Mon-weds, some tues-thurs, some tues and thurs. Everyone knows noone comes in on friday and very few on monday. Most people come in on tues and thurs. So we coordinate. Because we are human beings with social skills.
Even the guy who avoided coming in for 4 months, when he came back said that he actually liked being in the office and would like to come in more he was just being lazy. I asked a girl who takes a 1.5 hour train and sometimes crashes at my house. She says she doesn't mind it at all she likes to have an excuse to come to the city and she still saves money over living here.
Here in the US the average person relying on public transit commutes 47 minutes each way. Leaving early is verboten and micromanagement as normalized as bringing your sickness to work with you and sharing it with your coworkers. Over 1 hour is not abnormal. Driving is shorter but much more expensive and more stressful.
Most workplaces aren't social clubs much less families. It doesn't make one a sod to pick their friends and family and their work for different reasons and be jealous with their free time. You should celebrate your great fortune and I'm certain work put in to have your life figured out so well.
Most of us settle if we are lucky for something that pays enough to live with a reasonable work life balance and would do well to guard our time to spend with real friends and family we pick rather than the folks who happen to work in the same profession.
Looked up the average commute in London workplaces. It's about 45 minutes so not far off. But it's largely train. Which is a bit less mentally tiring at least if you only have to do it a couple times a week and can avoid the absolute worst time. Mine's 30.
What I'm confused about with the hatred for office work amongst people who are mainly working in tech is that most tech companies pride themselves on good work culture. Even in non tech specific companies there are a lot who want to emulate that in their tech departments because it's famous and revered. So yes, I put in some effort and found a good company. I've never worked at FAANG or even a startup but I found companies that value tech culture enough to not micromanage their tech department. So of all the demographics of people to be moaning so much about their work culture I don't understand why it's tech people.
I would also point out that you should perhaps get more agitated about your labour laws because in other countries we have twice or thrice as much anual leave and live in less siloed communities and both of those are proven to increase longevity. Both having more holiday and going to the office when you aren't on holiday will probably make you healthier and happier. At the end of the day, I'm advocating for working practices that align with human nature and are good for our mental and physical health. The fact that you don't have that is a whole other legal and cultural problem that comes from having no labour movement in your country. Which is really sad. But that's the problem at the end of the day.
Is this also true of an hour spent winding up or down by going on a walk or reading a book or some other adult hobby?
Personally, I don't believe I must either be working or spending time with my children every moment they are awake. I'm a person too, not just a worker and parent, and need to have my own time.
At my last job, my manager was being flown in every week. He was in the office for three days a week and stayed at a hotel. His kids were apparently furious. The company was really committed to being in the office, but kept hiring people from different cities. It felt very destructive.
What about all of us that don't have children. who need social interaction outside the house to be sane? who have just started our careers and need friendly colleagues around us who will support us? who have been cast out of adolescence into a world where everyone tells us to stay in our room alone and maybe download an app if you don't want to be suicidal. not everyone is a middle aged parent my guy
You shouldn’t depend on work for a social life, or even social interaction. Moreover, it’s not the responsibility of your coworkers to provide that to you.
If you need mentorship, your employer may offer that as a formal program. You also might be able to reach out directly to more senior people. Frankly, I find more and better opportunities to provide mentorship over Zoom than I did in the office.
Good luck with your career and mental health, my guy.
I always thought one particular line was interesting:
Magnus: "I'm worried I might pass out, fall and die"
Alex: "If passed out in your car on the highway here, you'd still be dead".
Just an interesting perspective on danger. If we were to run the numbers, am I safer as Alex free climbing a wall as I am Regular Bob driving on a highway to work?
No, almost certainly not. For example, if you are in stop-and-go traffic on a highway, and as long as the visibility is good and the road has good traction, you could drive for literally hundreds of years straight before reaching 1 mean expected death from the driving. If you fall asleep in those conditions and are driving a modern car, the car is likely to be damaged but you probably won't die. I don't have numbers for free soloing, but if you pass out, you will die with a high confidence.
“Experienced climber”? Magnus in his prime was one of the best climbers in the world, could have probably out-climbed Hanold at his best. Not just an experienced climber.
That being said, it’s a really interesting look into the mental side of doing scary things bc it’s really a very easy climb for magnus
I don't mean to downplay Magnus's achievements but wasn't he really more of a gym/comp climber? It's kind of a different sport. I don't think Magnus was ever as good on rock as Alex
edit: I'm wrong, Midtbo apparently climbed a 5.15b. I think Alex's hardest climb was 5.13d, but he also primarily pushes the limits on trad, so it's still not a straight comparison. For context, the hardest trad climb ever done is 5.14d which is 3 grades away from the hardest sport climb ever confirmed (5.15c)
