This article doesn't mention people who don't enjoy WFH because of the unification of the workplace and home. Personally I hated that I can never "leave" work and it's always with me at home. Also not everyone can afford an office room to "close out" work to a separate physical place (which is a typical reply when this topic brought up) and I don't even think it counts.
I personally like working in office because it's where I work, and then I go home and that's my home. I don't work at home at all (and it's a company policy everyone knows that). But I live in Europe, work is a 30 min bicycle drive from home which I also enjoy. Considering it's an irish news site I'm surprised that was not mentioned.
For reasons I won't get into, after the pandemic our local office ended up with desks for 75% or so of the employees. So if you wanted to come in, you reserved a desk, if you wanted to stay at home, that was fine.
Then the diktat came down from corporate headquarters: Everyone must be back in the office, unless their contract specifically said remote work. Pitchforks! Loads of objection from all the people who had gotten used to working from home and quite liked it. And of course there was the problem that we didn't actually have space for everyone.
Then an opportunity came up to get rid of our sub-lease on the current property, which could potentially simplify the process of getting a newer, larger office that could accommodate everyone; so word went out that everyone was going to go back to WFH for a period of time. Pitchforks again! This time from all the people who didn't enjoy WFH for all the reasons you mentioned.
In the end corporate has had to be satisfied with people coming in at least one day a week; and we're squeezing more people into the current office while still looking for another office to move into. But it's interesting to see the dynamics you mentioned -- lots of people prefer to WFH, lots of people definitely don't.
FWIW I've never had much trouble "turning off" work, even when I was using the same computer for work and personal things. Now that I've got a corporate laptop, it's even easier -- unplug it from the external monitor, close the lid, and forget about it until it's time to open it again, be that overnight or over the weekend or over the holidays.
Amen to that.
That's why the key is NOT FORCING RTO. If you want go to the office because reasons, do it. If you prefer WFH because reasons, do it.
You are either a goal-oriented workplace, where this would be natural, or you are a classical "show me you are committed to work by being there many hours" place, where then it's just WFO.
I found WFH forced a level of personal growth and adaptation for me to handle this, but its growth that I would have definitely benefited from before.
Previously while working in an office, I couldn't disconnect even when not home(on call, often called in while not on call to help). I ended up getting my own phone again to be able to leave work at home and go out to be able to disconnect, but mentally I never really did.
Now I work from home and that additional always on pressure was amplified that much more, and made me face the fact I had horrible life balance mentally and needed to learn to properly disconnect and compartmentalize.
Learning and practicing that has helped me in a lot of cases outside of work, and continues to help me with work. I can easily walk away from work and not think about it for hours/days even without guilt or significant struggles, something I couldn't do the decade before while working in an office.
So for those that struggle to disconnect with WFH, I can empathize but strongly suggest through whichever means they prefer (self directed, therapy or otherwise) they take the opportunity to practice and learn disconnecting more. Even if ultimately one prefers the office learning to disconnect is, at least in my experience, a very healthy skill to build.
I appreciate that a barrier is desirable for WFH, but that can be established without having a dedicated physical space for that. A separate work computer that is shut down at 5pm (or whenever you "leave" work) and not having company chat/email on your personal phone could go a long way.
Having said that this has to go hand-in-hand with company work culture and no expectation that you are available for work throughout the entire day.
There's another side to this: not being able to leave home to work. I, and many of my work colleagues, have small child or children and not enough rooms to dedicate one purely to work. I have my space and my wife does everything she can to help me, but it's really hard to argue with 10 month old child that wants to be held for a few minutes. Due to this, my productivity at home is nowhere near the productivity at the office. I do appreciate the possibility to work from home (I'm actually at my "home office" right now), but I use it as a last resort, not my default mode.
As for the space, some people don't have enough of it to replicate the "designed to work" tools at home. At my office, I have a large eraseable board behind me, printers, fast coffee machines, sometimes lunch is provided, easy access to people for "quick question" (chat/email doesn't have the same responsiveness), not to mention two huge screens and way more comfortable chair than I can fit in my home space. If my company will pay me to replicate this environment (which would have to include bigger place), I'll happily move to WFH for as much as possible.
At the same time I recognize the different preferences regarding WFH and I don't want my colleagues to be the victims of "some people prefer to use the desk at work so everyone needs to RTO". I personally advocate for individual approach, because I can see that many of my colleagues work better from home - overly social office space for them isn't really better than their comfortable home.
> I have my space and my wife does everything she can to help me, but it's really hard to argue with 10 month old child that wants to be held for a few minutes.
I am sure this is both a positive and a negative. Being available at home while your 10 month old child is at home must be great, and even if it's frustrating when you have to break away from work to hold him/her, this must be great for bonding. There must be a reason that you still work from home, and not, say, from a nearby coffee shop.
I am (or was) also in your shoes recently, WFH with a small child at home. She's almost 2 now, still isn't in nursery. I would say that we are very lucky that we can do this and I have no regrets that I am not going into the office to be more productive and potentially earn more. Sure, I do also have the luxury of having a small dedicated office space in the house though, I appreciate that not everyone can have that, and without it it probably doesn't work while a small child stays at home too.
This is also how it is for me. My son just turned 2, and I love that I am able to observe him napping between long meetings. I could also have a small chat with my teammates after 5 PM, and sometimes our kids hop into conversation and say hi to each other.
I’m not sure what your personal situation is, but for most people in the real world, being able to be a certain degree of productive at work is a mandatory part ensuring that they can, say, pay their mortgage, or many of the other things that comprise or sustain the “life” part of work-life balance.
When I went remote, I went all-in with a dedicated home office. Not a bedroom with an office chair, but an actual separate outbuilding on the property that I had to walk to (even if it was only a few second walk) to "go to work." Comfortable chair, many screens, whiteboard for brainstorming and designing, sound insulation, mini-kitchen with a coffee maker, a bathroom... basically everything I need to pull an entire day of work without "commuting" back home to get something. My family knows when I'm out there I'm working, and they don't disturb me.
Understood this is extreme, and not everyone is fortunate enough to be able to build something like this, but it is possible to do remote work and have a hard, clear separation between home and work life.
For you. Everyone's different, and I have no problem closing my laptop and psychologically switching from "at work" to "at home" almost instantly. But I absolutely appreciate that other people need the physical separation and temporal separation to make that switch. I don't begrudge anyone that wants to work from the office and commute each day. Please, do what works for you, but that's not what works for me.
There's more to this than just work from home vs work from office.
I did a PhD and felt similarly: I couldn't ever "leave" work. Home was work. My desk at the university was work. When I finished and started a real job I was indeed relieved that I could come home and, for once, not be working.
But it was never about the ___location of my body. During my PhD, my head was work. I had nothing else in my life. I couldn't escape work because it was my entire life.
When I returned to working from home (during the pandemic) I couldn't believe how unproductive I'd been for the past several years of working in an office. I would finish a day and think "wow, I haven't been this productive since my PhD". This has made me happier than ever.
The difference is, unlike during my PhD, I have other things in my life now. It doesn't matter where my desk is. When I decide to "finish work" at the end of the day, my partner is normally home. When I'm with her I'm not working. If I decide to continue studying at my desk I'm not working. If I go out and do some exercise or walk by myself I'm not working.
I was incredibly stressed during my PhD. I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to complete and lived with impostor syndrome the whole time. Nowadays I have a much more balanced relationship with work. This is something you should strive for too, and then you might find the scales tip in favour of working from home, like me.
> "I personally like working in office because it's where I work, and then I go home and that's my home. "
Well, that's not how IT nowadays works. On the assembly line, sure. But modern IT professionals usually take their "work" with them. I remember the times we had desktop computers and work really stayed in the office when we left, but the default in 2024 is laptop/mobile workplace.
That's true (and for valid reasons, e.g. saving on insurance/security at the office), but that doesn't mean you don't get to have a work/life boundary. There's a EU directive (or there will be) colloquially called the right to disconnect: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/topics/en/article/20210121STO...
modern IT professionals usually take their "work" with them.
This only became really prevalent post covid in my experience. Pre-Covid, when coming into the office every day was the norm, a lot of people, at least at places I worked, left their laptops at the office over night.
We have lockers at work, and I leave the laptop there.
It's a simple decision that a) forces me to go to the office every day on foot, b) allows me to separate work and home, and c) allows me to unwind while I walk home from work.
This is a good Idea. Unfortuntely, most people, especially yonger colleagues, don't have the money to buy a separate laptop und usually use the work laptop for private use.
My previous laptop was a $180 Thinkpad that stayed with me for five years. The claim that _most_ IT workers can't afford that and are forced to do their private stuff on a company computer sounds preposterous.
You’re digging your heels in by cosplaying proletariat. If someone wants a separate computer, they’ll get one. It’s not a matter of not being able to afford it. Maybe their work computer is better than the one they’d buy themselves. Or maybe “afford” in this case (as usual) means that they can’t justify the cost when they could spend the money on something else, and are happy trading the work-life balance.
But don’t pretend that this isn’t a consensual arrangement.
This is less of a concern in Ireland due to the Organisation of Working Time Directive and the Right to Disconnect. Most large employers will be at pains to ensure you stop working outside your normal work hours.
In general, cycling infrastructure is poor in Ireland and public transport is dire unless you happen to live in specific parts of Dublin, Galway or Cork. Added to the EU's worst housing crisis and highest cost of childcare and remote work is extremely popular here. A deal-breaker for many.
The issue with this, and most of articles on the topic of WFH, is they fail to recognize that different people will have different preferences (the horror!) and different situations. They start by putting everybody in the same bucket whatever that is, then argument from there. Luckily smarter companies don't rely on journalists to decide that the best approach is "whatever floats your boat" and keep both options open no questions asked.
I use to agree with this but I work remote and I can go to an office that is about a 15 minute drive away if I want.
Once I got use to working remote the motivation to go into the office went away completely. I not only don't have a home office but I just switch the input to my monitor when I log off for the day.
The song and dance of the office is just a total waste of time, space and money. It is just absurd this is even still a conversation.
This shows why it's important to accommodate both and not impose one way or another. Like for me this unification is exactly what I'm enjoying. I can never "leave", but I never have to "go" either. Not perfect but as an introvert still a better situation. Also not everyone in Europe live at less than a 30min bicycle drive. Why must it always be 100% one or another?
I guess this article is about good quality workers who don’t want to go (back) to the office. I have seldom been in an office (30 years career) and I wouldn’t, at any price.
It's always with you anyway. The contract and the labour relation is there always, even when you sleep.
Whether you can shut it out of your conscious mind isn't necessarily about ___location, though I get that it might help. It's not obvious that you might want to either, many problems in software development require slow, sustained thinking over several days or weeks.
What's important to me is to be able to stop people from work to contact me. And if I want to take a half hour stroll because the weather is nice and I enjoy it, I will, and I can stretch it out to an hour if I find something fun to sit and watch, like some birds or something. No one can stop me, and no one will question it, because the only reason they'll know is that I've told them that I was on such a nice little stroll and saw some baby geese the other day. Or played with my kids or went grocery shopping or whatever.
To my employer and colleagues the important thing is that the work gets done, with clear communication about whether it'll be done on time and why it won't be if that's the case. We're all full remote, in part because the stuff we do require a fair bit of personal maturity and professional seniority, and with that comes kids, grandkids and long established hobbies and side projects.
> I don't work at home at all (and it's a company policy everyone knows that)
I believe this is a somewhat unique privilege. It seems many people have the worse of both worlds you mentioned: unification of the workplace and home, and needing to go to the office anyway.
I work for a big, old-timey, international company. The current policy is WFH or from the office, whatever you like. Some managers have rules that their team members have to show up at the office 1-4 times a month. Our office can hold about 400 employees and this is about the number of employees that could technically commute every day. To my knowledge, there are about 20 people who commute to work daily. No one else is going there unless they have to. It's a very nice, freshly renovated office, with a lot of green plants inside, free coffee, height adjustable desks, ergonomic chairs, relaxation zones, lockers (so you don't have to take your stuff to work every day), etc. located in the city center that is well connected via buses. trams and subway. You can even drive a car to work if you want. And still given that option only about 5% of employees decided to work there daily. People like you exist and their needs have to be filled however most people, if given a chance they'll prefer WFH.
I think this is a possible conclusion you could draw, but not the only one. The value of going to the office is the other people. If no one's there, then it's the same as working from home (you need Zoom for all your calls, even if half of you are next to each other) so if more than about 5% of people are remote, it semi-forces everyone else to be, even if they'd prefer to be working with people as a local team.
Maybe that would bump the people willing to go to the office by another 5-10% but every once in a while we have days when multiple teams happen to be in the office on the same day, and at least half of the desks are occupied. Despite having half of the office dedicated as "the focus zone", most people don't really work or like to work on those days. There are much more meetings, and casual chit-chat but an actual output of "work products" is close to none.
> There are much more meetings, and casual chit-chat but an actual output of "work products" is close to none.
To me that implies that something that is fairly needed is missing by being remote. I think being a distributed factory outputting "work products" might be a net negative, but I could be wrong.
I've done that a lot as well, but that's not traditionally been seen as the best way to accomplish work as a team. It's just so much cheaper it's worth the pain.
> Considering it's an irish news site I'm surprised that was not mentioned.
Ireland is part of the Anglosphere, and suffers from many of the same developmental issues (long commutes, houses in the middle of nowhere, poor public transport) that plague other English speaking countries. That's presumably why they didn't mention it.
I WFH in a small studio apartment where I have two separate spaces for work and for personal stuff. Shutting off from work for the weekend is as simple as turning off my work computer, covering it up and going about my day as normal.
You definitely do not need a separate office space. It helps, but what's key is properly setting your own mental boundaries.
I think from a utilitarian perspective, getting the minority who want to not work from home to find a cowork space or alternative solution is better than mandating working from the office. Won’t fit everyone, but neither does forcing everyone into the office.
In the end it's home office guys bending over and taking it up their ass from office loving fanboys or the other way around. I'd say to the office sickos go work something else, be a fishmonger or something that requires physical presence. Otherwise bend over and shut up.
This is like the first panel on a galaxy brain meme. I can just as easily say that it’s absurd that you demand to only be communicated with through a bloody webcam that you won’t turn on half the time. Don’t play the one-sided victim card. If you can’t find it within yourself to see things from another perspective enough to get out of the mindset of you being the only one that’s hard done by, don’t bother contributing to the conversation.
Yeah I really don’t like working at home. The best situation IMO is a separate workspace that’s within a 5-10 minute walk, preferably with a cafe or some kind of public space en route.
The problem is not liking or not working at home. The problem is being forced to work in an office if it doesn't fit you and other jobs allow you to stay at home. And the impact it has on corps ability to retain those workers.
I know I have received a number of offers for work with higher salary in the last 2 years with forced hybrid work from office/home[1] but I won't accept any of that. At least until my youngest daughter is out of primary school.
I don't mind going to the office once in a while, or even everyday if it is 5-20 minutes from home (as long as I keep possibility to work from home if a particular need comes). But I will refuse one that forces me to burn co2 for no value, that add stress to my day (commuting by vehicle) or that takes me more than 20 minutes by bicycle or public transport as long as I can find a decent one that doesn't force me to do that. My partner's doesn't work from a computer so she will have priority in our place of living for the foreseeable future.
I agree and I do support companies that allow WFH, as it allows for the situation I mentioned - via coworking in my case. But I was replying to the idea of working at home specifically.
When I was living in London after COVID, at first, I didn't enjoy it. I still came into the office but when no-one else was there I realised "what's the point?". The office was exposed as the dull/boring/clinical place it's always been. The people I found going into the office were either those who were young and lived close by and somewhat used work as a social club, or those with nothing else better to do (also me at the time!). Anyone with a family was not there. Meanwhile, I've continuted to work remotely and I moved to the Cotswolds. I swapped a Victorian terrace for a much bigger detatched Cotswold cottage. I have a big garden, a glorious wild flower meadow and sheep grazing adjacent to the garden. There's no traffic on the roads and the nearby countryside is amazing. London is a veritable shithole in comparison. Getting a train to London is like travelling to a different - worse - country.
If I still lived in London and commuted to the office, I would never see my young kids. I'd be out the door by 7:30 and back by 7ish. It would also put a lot more stress on my wife, as she would have to do everything during the day. I'd also get about 30 mins or so a day with my kids. That's terrible. Now, I can play with my kids until 9am and then start work. I finish at 5:30pm and get 2 hours with them before bed. I can also go running during the day.
Switching off isn't really a problem for me because well... work is work. It pays the bills. So I'm quite happy to shut my laptop and forget about it. We had a cabin built in the garden, so my new commute is about 1 minute down the garden to the "shed" during which time I miraciously forget I even have a job in the first place when returning "home". I don't have any work apps on my phone for obvious reasons. I appreciate that's not the same for everyone though.
Regarding cost of commute We've had it drilled into us over the years (gaslighted, even) that it is acceptable for us to spend hours of our day commuting to work and for us to bear the financial burden. Why should that be the case? I used to spend £10 a day on the commute. Commuting 200 days a year, that's £2,000 of my salary I need to spend on just getting to work. For others it is much more. That's absurd but it's just the monetary cost. The opportunity cost in terms of MY time is huge. It's about 2 weeks of the year sitting on a horrid underground train. I realise, you can do things on the train but I guess my point is that being on a train limits you from doing other things like playing with kids or doing some gardening. When recruiters have been getting in touch about new roles I make it clear up front that if said company wants me to routinely attend the office they must pay me for commuting time and the commute cost, otherwise it's a "no" from me. Some companies agree remote is acceptable in that case. I mean, I don't mind paying for the odd trip to the office but on a regular cadence and if it's expected (part of contract), then they must pay.
Also, let's not forget the environmental impact of all this mostly pointless travel to work every day for knowledge workers. How much less carbon would we emit if we stopped doing it? Judging by the dip in CO2 emissions during COVID, quite a bit.
Well, this is honestly a sign of self-discipline and maybe accommodation issue. I WFH and I have "an office" (a room) and "the home" (the rest). So I know when I enter the office and when I leave. The office have it's desk/softphones, who do not ring outside etc.
I live in EU too, but I left the big dense city for the mountains to have such setup. Of course many are still "panicked" since if they leave the city they fear it would be hard to came back if the WFH end, but this is not really an issue in practical terms, it's a psychological issue: people MUST understand where we are, where we going and decide, no one have a working crystal ball but certain changes are moderately easy to predict and reasonably certain. Here the choice is between take the risk meaning potentially having a big prize or a big loss, or not take the risk and being SURE to suffer a significant loss.
Economically the office model is untenable: we have large, big buildings to "live", normally used less than half a day, "empty" for most of the days of the year, and others big as well used just less than half a day, "empty" for most of the days of the year as well. The rest of the time spent "commuting", it's an absurd way to keep people moving to get them "motivated" to work instead of the contrary. In the past there was no alternatives, remote work was limited technically, now is like convincing people that a horse is better than a car, he can go in much more places, he can reproduce itself, he eat grass around the world and produce free fertilizer for crops. Oh, all it's true, but we also all know why cars win. WFH is a key of a social change not only for remote worker but for ALL: we know an enormous amount of people will have to relocate due to climate change and human crisis, this alone is an enormous issue. Being able to move keeping our work means opening a way to move to others who do not WFH for the material needs like fill a cavity or buy groceries of the WFH cohort. Similarly WFH we can move where we need to be for climatic, productive needs, it's a needed flexibility in a changing world. WFH also push semi-autonomy witch is another big need because in a changing world we will experience more and more service disruptions and we need to keep living with them. A home can now have p.v. and lithium storage in most part of the world enough to keep a big of appliance working, can have water storage for a week to a month and so on. We can live well even with intermittent services and being able to do so means we are still productive and those who handle services have more slack to evolve them as well.
Consider that EU density and propensity of many EU country for dense cities" https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php... is a big part of our current crisis. Irish people live most in homes, only 10.6% are in apartments, but Spain, Germany, Italy are the opposite, and that's why they suffer already and they'll suffer MUCH more in the near future being unable to implement the Green New Deal for most.
> Of course many are still "panicked" since if they leave the city they fear it would be hard to came back if the WFH end, but this is not really an issue in practical terms
May I ask where do you live in EU that WFH is stil in palce? Here in Austria no employer tolerates WFH anymore.
Any recruiter I spoke with and I asked them about WFH, they asked "how many days?" and when I answered "well, all of them?", the conversation ended there. All the managers want butts in seats at least 3 days/week. One company here I interviewed recently told me when I asked about WFH "we know people love this WFH thing, so to please them, we're offering WFH on Fridays" lol
Managers can't live without seeing butts in seats here. It's either you come to the office or stay unemployed. The market is really bad here and employees have no leverage for WFH, that's why I asked where you live, since I'm planning to get out of this hellhole and I'm checking my options.
France, on Sophia-Antipolis living in the Alps, "nearby" but still 99% remote. Yes here there is a big RTO push, but at least in IT it find little grip so far. It's easier AFAIK in Scandinavia in general, Finland in particular but I do not consider their future bright enough to suggest them.
Honestly so far in large terms the countries I consider most with some future are the USA in the MID term, Russia in the long term, France might have a future thanks to a lower density and still being an "almost complete" country where almost anything is or can be produced domestically but it's still uncertain, however having old parents in Italy (north west, so relatively nearby) where I'm from I've choose a near-enough country where I can live well enough and work from remote. In Italy the situation is similar to the one you describe for Austria, aggravated by a higher population density...
> Isn't that region very expensive CoL compared to the local wages?
It's depend, far less expensive than Paris, far more expensive than the rest of France, but a thing is the shore, where anything have touristic prices, another is the inner land where prices are far lower.
> Can you work in France tech sector, without speaking French?
Maybe it's possible, but it would be definitively hard. France is an ancient ex-empire fully knowing the power of the langue on individuals, so they do not like using foreign languages. Of course even in France in tech most things are in English, but the fact that docs, exterior costumers contacts etc happen in English you still need French for all, starting from the public administration.
In salary terms, you normally get FAR less than Luxembourg and still significantly less than Belgium, for a not so lower cost of life, but you still get EU level services, a nice climate, a bit hot now, but with cool nights, with nature around. I'm at 1030m altitude at 7km for the "main village" and I still get a 2Gbps/860Mbs FTTH, a small supermarket nearby, a big one at 15' with Drive, various leisure services and few shops. Not at all at the level of a developed big city of course, but still a good level of services, while in nature. So for me the choice was "higher salary with less nice condition for a period than going somewhere else or less salary but a good quality of life and stability", I chose this one.
Well, not yours. I mean, in most countries you can own a flat BUT you own just the unit, not the soil. A home on ground it's your property, you can rebuild it as much as you want (with eventual limitations from local norms, in terms of height, kind of roof, color palette etc but you can), a unit is just a part of something bigger you do not own, so when the building will be ready to get demolished you'll own nothing. You might own some fraction of the building, depending on local laws, but you still can't decide alone.
It's by far not the same.
When I've built my current home I design it (well, sketched, the architects have done the proper design) after I've decided to add domestic p.v., after an EV charging station, a kiosk (gazebo, not sure the proper name in English a structure open on all sides with a tiled roof and a platform on ground to be outside but a bit protected from rain, Sun etc). I can't do nothing like that in an apartment. I can't get backups in an apartment, for instance I have here a heat-pump domestic hot-water system, it's very simple in principle, but demand a certain amount of space for the hot water reservoir, much bigger than classic water heater. I've decided to stock a bit of clean water (1000+1000l with a pump and pressurized tank system to have a week backup or even more if a day water supply freeze (happen once since I'm here) or there is any other interruption), it's pretty cheap but again it demand space. I have also a diesel car with a 1000l reservoir in garage, topped up once in a while when the diesel cost less than the average. Again pretty cheap, comfy, simple, but demand space. There is no space in an apartment for anything like that. In a home there is room to OWN, in an apartment you do not really own nothing but a shelter and some stuff you put in it. For me it's the prototype of the "in 2030 you'll own nothing", the service economy where you are forced to rent anything because you simply can't own anymore, and we know from history how devastating is such model once you get trapped in it.
Good for you, sounds like a comfortable place to live. The concepts of the city and the condominium aren’t going anywhere though. What a strange idea, humans living together, right?
I get it, I love gardening too, and balconies don’t really cut it for me either.
Cities have existed for as long as written history has. They can only get so wide before there’s pressure to build up. What’s the alternative?
> When I've built my current home
Vanishingly few people have the financial privilege to buy, let alone build, anywhere near a city, I’m sure you’re aware.
There simply isn’t a world where every single person can live in a PV-powered, water tank backed up fortress, with ample setbacks to keep your neighbours away. That’s far more dystopian to me than any “you’ll never own anything” boogeyman.
> The concepts of the city and the condominium aren’t going anywhere though
I'm not sure of that, at all: I see the green new deal as something happening that's here to last, and I see no chances to "migrate" to green new deal condos, electrifying them on scale. Yes, you can build a NEW condo "A class, all electric", but there is no chances to transform those built decades ago, and no chances to re-built them as well. Yes, in temperate climate it's still doable to put an air-water heating powerful enough per unit, even a central heating. However the operational cost of such move will be FAR higher than gas at actual prices, not only, if ALL condos switch to such heating setup we simply can't provide enough electricity for them all.
Where I'm from (north-west Italy, so not a cold region) a classic apartment have circa 24kW thermal gas or oil heating system. Converted to an air-water heat pump it would be around 6-8kW normal absorption for 6 hours per day at least 4-5 month per year. With ALL units at 6-8kW + the rest there is simply no generation capacity. No chance to electrify. Meanwhile where I'm now, in a much fresh place in winter, 1kW heat a home far bigger than a typical apartment most of the year, with -25℃ outside 4kW suffice. At this absorption rate there is enough generation capacity to be all electric. That's why we need new buildings.
Now HOW to made them? In a dense city crushing and rebuilt a condo is hardly feasible, in EU anything was designed at a walk distance, crushing a condo means blocking roads nearby for some months, there is simply no space to do so without big issues. It could be done for ONE condo, definitively not en-masse. Single family homes on contrary are easier to rebuilt end generally have enough space around to put a construction site in place without dramas. Aside we have many cities in places more and more flooded, subjected to dangerous subsidence and so on, again we can't rebuild cities, it's simply too costly. Take a look at the Indian's 100-smart city program, where the ENTIRE COUNTRY resources would be needed to built 100 cities able theoretically to host only a very limited percentage of population.
Long story short: modern city, future cities are like the ancient Fordlandia from Henry Ford, equally a failure and a distopic nightmare.
> Cities have existed for as long as written history has. They can only get so wide before there’s pressure to build up. What’s the alternative?
Yes, because we never have had current TLC/IT and logistics. Today it's cheaper to build a chair in China, with wood from Poland, straw seat from Brazil, metallic connectors from India to sell it in Canada than directly build it in Canada few kilometers away of the final customer. We are in a changing world and that means mass migrations, war, we need flexibility to relocate and cope with countless "whole country malfunctioning issues" for a long period of time, in a city it's a nightmare, anyone eat, but all the food came from elsewhere, big infra are need to move food, goods in general, there is little to no room to change, an easy target for bombing during a war, an easy target to spread diseases and so on. The alternative is living in less dense and more geographically distributed ways, so we can relocate easily because number of people to move per single area on earth are not so high, impacted people from extreme weather, war, crisis events far more manageable, there is room for limited autonomy to be resilient, there is space to evolve as the tech change.
> Vanishingly few people have the financial privilege to buy, let alone build, anywhere near a city, I’m sure you’re aware.
Ignore the current economy: can we MATERIALLY build single family home for almost anyone? In terms of industrial output ability, raw materials availability and so on? I think yes in all western countries and in many other as well. Economy it's just a measure. If we, the people, decide to do something doable materially, the economy will change to make it possible, because the current economic state of things is the byproduct of the current failing democratic model, we are in a kind of economic dictatorship modeled after/well described by the ancient pamphlet The Science Of Government, Founded On Natural Law, by Clinton Roosevelt. If we decide to change our countries without the need of a III world war we can. 99% can. If most prefer stop the history train they will fails as regularly happen in history, ending up in city more and more similar to ghettos with a lower and lower mean income, bigger and bigger criminal activities, desperation and so on, as you can already observe in most USA big and medium cities compared to themselves 20+ years ago. As you can see in most EU cities even if at a slower rate than the USA simply because we have much more social protections that slow down the economical effects of current policies.
> There simply isn’t a world where every single person can live in a PV-powered, water tank backed up fortress, with ample setbacks to keep your neighbours away. That’s far more dystopian to me than any “you’ll never own anything” boogeyman.
There is no need to keep our neighbors away IF we slowly change from the city model to the spread model with public investments starting from WFH as a key element to allow people flee the city and behind them paving the way for others to build services outside "now" that there is a market outside. It's a path doable an year after another with a significant economy boost form such enormous general relocation effort.
Actually not really needed: a nation-wide open relocation plan "all living in too dense areas, flood hit areas too many times, buildings at risk of landslides, submersion and so on can give their own property to the State in exchange of a to-be-built new one. Those interested have at their charge find a suitable ground to built, the part the State will pay is a similar size of the old one, the rest is at Citizen charge, the exchange will happen once the new home is built, residing there is mandatory for 5 years or a significant amount of the benefit need to be given back to the State, the State will ensure urbanization (meaning roads, electricity, water services etc of sufficient grade)".
Such "bonus" can ONLY be get from private owner for their old/new main home, and only very few can take it at first because EU job market, specially toady is not as fluid as the USA one, find a new job is not at all that easy and quick, specially if it's not a "desperate level" one, so essentially at first only remote workers with not much big family ties and early retired could accept it. Only some of them will do, people fear the change. Meaning only a small cohort of citizen can get the bonus the first year. Not too much to provoke market disruption as many "eco-bonus" already provoked here (for instance Italian 110%, meaning the State cover the 110% of costs to improve a building for 2 energy class or the French "Isolation à 1 euro" witch lead to an incredible amount of crappy insulation with a gazillion of problems led to significant costs for many who originally spent just 1€ to "better insulate" a new home. However this said cohort is still not too small to not count at all. After them successfully settled others will be convinced and another batch of people will took the bonus. After them it's time for many to look for a new "market" outside the city, instead of 10 restaurants in 1km in the city center there will be some moving outside to serve spread populations, and that another batch. Since building homes here is far from simple like in the USA, it took MONTHS just to buy the terrain and get a project approved, the speed at a certain point will increase but not too much, meaning a decade at least of steady economic growth led by the real estate.
FWIW, when I stared WFH during COVID, I struggled with the home/work split initially. It took a dedicated space to get back to “normal”. It was just too easy to look at Slack when I went into the kitchen (my first work space). Now that I have a desk is in a spare bedroom, that’s better.
But, I’m lucky enough to have a home with 2 extra rooms for work (spouse uses the other).
And lucky enough to walk a mile to the office, which I prefer. I’m not an extrovert, but still find it nice to see other people during the day.
I've struggled with ending my shift and mentally checking out of work. However, I wouldn't impose going back to the office on others who can do this effectively. I think the comment is about maintaining a work-from-some-office-space capability.
Well, as the others have to realize the same. RTO meaning IMPOSING all return to the office, so imposing the will of some on all. WFH does not means imposing the end of the office if so many want it and they want something doable.
I have my wills, of course, some are doable, some are not. I really want to be immortal, never fell ill, find a large plethora of sex-hungry partners and so on, these are just few examples of not really doable personal will. If the office can economically survive because it does work it will, if the slice of those who want WFH is big enough to kill the office that's how democracy works. I do like WFH, I do not pretend imposing others the same, as long as others do not pretend imposing me the office.
Of course I observe issues and strong points in both models, so the future will be decided by the majority anyway. We will see, knowing that any imposition tend to last less and less as more and more it's imposing and impacting people life.
Like "careerist lapdog" in the article. I gave up reading after that.
After 4 years of WFH, not all due to COVID, I make it a point to go to the office 5 days a week even though my company is hybrid 3 days in, 2 days out. Humans are social animals and even though I am an introvert, postage stamp videoconferencing window s don't cut it.
People have been making friends at work since work has existed. It's a place you spend 40 hours a week, very likely with people with similar interests and life experiences. That's a great environment to make friends in and many, many, many people make real friendships through work. It's fine if it doesn't work for you, but telling others it's wrong or bad or unusual to make friends at work is absolute brainworms stuff.
HR makes it clear we’re not to hire anyone with similar interests and life experiences.
At any rate, my reply is under the context of wanting to go to the office for the social interactions. I am not here to socially amuse or validate anyone. Those seeking social fulfillment at the office are exhausting, and they create active stress for those of us with lives outside work who know that work is a thing you do to get paid.
> HR makes it clear we’re not to hire anyone with similar interests and life experiences.
Huh? If you're in the same industry for a long time, you by definition have history in common, and it's pretty likely you've got similar interests if you both ended up at the same place. I don't see how HR could or would want to have an affect on that.
> At any rate, my reply is under the context of wanting to go to the office for the social interactions. I am not here to socially amuse or validate anyone. Those seeking social fulfillment at the office are exhausting, and they create active stress for those of us with lives outside work who know that work is a thing you do to get paid.
Indeed, this is a great example of why forced-RTO is a terrible policy for everyone, including folks who like coming in to the office!
> [...] postage stamp videoconferencing window s don't cut it.
Where I work almost all meetings are online, because the majority of people WFH. And it's easier to join online than to walk to a common room for those that don't.
If anyone enables their camera that's usually causing a short burst of laughter. Not because there's anything particularly funny, but simply because noone is used to see other people's faces anymore.
The screen space is used for more important things.
> "poor self-discipline" is quite the judgy statement to make dude.
I certainly didn't think it was so extreme that it needed to be flagged.
I simply find it an incredible concept that a person needs to physically leave a building before they can mentally adjust to "being at work"/"not being at work".
I don't have a special 'office space' in my home environment. Over the years I've intentionally trained myself to not need anything other than my laptop to program on. In this way _even before the pandemic_ I was able to work under a tree in the park, at a café, on a train, at home or even (the most noisy and distracting place) at the office.
Admittedly, when at the office I also needed noise-cancelling headphones - along with every single other programmer employed there because of the constant distraction of people talking, managers making personal phone calls, sales high-fiving each other, and so on.
> Admittedly, when at the office I also needed noise-cancelling headphones - along with every single other programmer employed there because of the constant distraction of people talking, managers making personal phone calls, sales high-fiving each other, and so on.
Don't you think someone could say to you that those headphones are expensive and unneccesary, and that this problem simply reflects your lack of work focus? Wouldn't that be offputting and annoying if someone were to say that to you?
> Wouldn't that be offputting and annoying if someone were to say that to you?
There's a very emotionally-loaded tone to this discussion, which I don't think was an element in my original comment. I was struck by the fact that some people seem unable to change their mental state just because they're at an "office" or at "home".
This is totally different to the fact that an open-plan office (all I've ever experienced before the pandemic) is a noisy and disruptive environment, with people talking loudly, making phonecalls, playing ping-pong, eating, and often dogs running around and barking.
I think many people did actually read that element into your original comment. I tried to highlight that here from a different perspective, so maybe you'd see what that could come across like if you were on the other side.
For full transparency I use the noise cancelling headphones same as you, I think it's very logical and it does help me in the same way. I don't think that would be a reasonable thing to say to you. But the framing and emotionally loaded tone comes across as comparable to your original comment.
E: and just in case: You will think those are very different scenarios, and your preference makes sense given the context. That's a valid perspective! But the people you were talking about in your original comment feel the same way!
I was exactly looking for this in the article, couldn't find it, and therefore just ignored the whole thing.
Either you paint a truthful realistic picture, or you pick some political side. I'm not interested in the 2nd one.
I work 1 day at the office, and that's my ideal setup, maybe 2 would be better but I don't work fulltime. I have colleagues that after the pandemic "Don't want to work a single day at home during their lives". These guys were locked up alone in their apartment during covid and absolutely hated it. I get it.
For me, if I stay weeks at home, it works on my mood and energy. Humans are social animals, with maybe a very few exceptions.
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I personally like working in office because it's where I work, and then I go home and that's my home. I don't work at home at all (and it's a company policy everyone knows that). But I live in Europe, work is a 30 min bicycle drive from home which I also enjoy. Considering it's an irish news site I'm surprised that was not mentioned.