This article appears in the October 2020 print edition with the headline “A Cubicle Never Looked So Good.”
To be honest, I've never really had a cubicle. Usually just a desk in a bullpin type arrangement. No privacy. Distractions galore. The sound of co-workers flushing the toilets in the restrooms nearby. Nothing to reflect fondly upon in my opinion.
If I had wanted or needed a new job, completely changing careers would probably have been easier than getting another gig in my field with the experience I’d accrued at home.
No doubt my experience is different doing technical work, but I have never relied on my co-workers to line up my next position. I flip the switch on linkedin to let recruiters know I'm looking and call or email the recruiters I have worked with in the past. Sometimes an employer might ask for a reference. I suppose I do have a short list of those.
“Outside of immediate family, people’s co-workers become their most consistent opportunity for social interaction,” Peditto told me. “What happens when you lose that is one of my greater concerns.”
My social interactions really do revolve around my family and long time friends. It's not a large group, but I'm not a social butterfly either. I have a hard enough time keeping up with those social interactions. Who knows, maybe I was born for remote work.
Overall this feels like yet another hit piece against remote work with a lot of anecdotes and not much else. Here I am arguing against it with my own anecdotes. I really don't understand why these keep cropping up. Are commercial real-estate conglomerates paying for these?
Personally, I am happier than I have ever been working remotely. I don't struggle to keep a routine or maintain separation between my work life and my home life. I don't feel starved for social interaction either. I would hate to see the sentiments these articles convey ruin something that has been very positive for myself and my partner (and my dog).
The social aspect is interesting because the pandemic induced remote work has happened at the same time as many people's non-work socialization has also been taken away. Whenever people start going back to the office, they may try to use socialization there to make up for the socialization that has been taken away from them due to restrictions on public gatherings. I've been doing remote work for three years, so I'm used to not socializing with coworkers in an office context, but the general restrictions on the public as a whole has been a bit rough. I have no desire to go back to working onsite in an office but could be tempted back in if it were the only way to have some level of socialization again. My guess is that offices probably won't become the primary white collar work location again until well after the restrictions on public gatherings have been relaxed so maybe going to the office to regain socialization won't be necessary (knock on wood).
> Overall this feels like yet another hit piece against remote work...I really don't understand why these keep cropping up. Are commercial real-estate conglomerates paying for these?
I appreciate the perspective you shared in the rest of your comment, but was this bit really necessary? Just because someone has had a different experience than you doesn't mean that they're a corporate shill paid to manufacture dissent.
I do think it is necessary. It's one thing to share your experience about remote work as the author does. It's something entirely different to interleave it with with vague concerns of economic hardship for younger people or stunted career growth for women. What is the purpose of this?
In my mind I imagine a boardroom full of Don Draper types sipping scotch and smoking cigarettes fretting over the decline in office leasing revenue while Draper spins a brilliant web of fiction. "We'll tell them that it is bad for the careers of women and we'll make them miss the smell of their co-worker's day old spaghetti as it spins on the microwave turntable. We'll even make them long for the awkward interactions in the hallway while they go down a level to the inconveniently placed restroom on the floor below. They'll eat it up."
The anti-remote work hit-piece aspect is really my point. To me these articles feel like some kind of thinly veiled attempt to make people believe they missed working in the office. Maybe even make people fear for their futures if they don't work in an office. Maybe this isn't the case and isn't what the author intended, but that is how it reads to me.
Sure, if there's evidence that the author is not really who they say they are, by all means go ahead and point it out. However, you just seem to be making vague accusations about some grand conspiracy by corporate real estate developers, rather than addressing the article's very legitimate points.
As a young person working remotely, everything the author says reflects my own experience. It is very much a fact that remote work removes a lot of the unscheduled office interactions that younger / newer employees use to learn and advance their careers. I don't know about women specifically, but it is very plausible that remote work hurts social and economic mobility for young people, and for people without a stable home life.
Yes, we should certainly collect data to measure the real impact of remote work, good and bad. But now that remote work is a part of everyone's lives, whether we like it or not, it's also valuable to listen to these individual stories, to get an idea of the breadth of possible outcomes when we get rid of the office.
The author may be authentic, it does not prevent her to have an agenda. The article has some points, quite weak, unstructured and unsupported with evidence (like "it's bad for women"), there is nothing that guarantees it's not paid for by someone with an agenda. There is no proof in the opposite direction either, so we should read it open-minded and without expectations.
Sure, if there's evidence that the author is not really who they say they are, by all means go ahead and point it out. However, you just seem to be making vague accusations about some grand conspiracy by corporate real estate developers, rather than addressing the article's very legitimate points.
I think all of your points are completely fair so I don't want you to feel that I am being obtuse or overly pedantic. You're correct that I have not provided any evidence to indicate the author is not authentic. However, you made me curious so I decided to open the article in a private browsing session with no ad blocker enabled.
Maybe everyone sees a different advertisement, but what I saw struck me. The article is peppered by advertisements from facebook.
"Support Small Business Together." Is the tag line of the facebook advertisement.
What I say next is facetious of course. This article isn't part of a grand conspiracy by corporate real estate developers, it is a grand conspiracy by one of the largest advertising platforms in the world, facebook. Remote work is hurting facebook's advertising revenue because small business are dying off.
Again, entirely facetious. Still, The Atlantic is partially supported by advertising and I found this particular advertisement to be interesting given the content of the article and the discussion on HN.
Draper's eyes gleamed as he delivered the line that would seal the deal. "We'll make them nostalgic for their offices and that is how you will sell more advertisements to small businesses mister Zuckerberg."
> Remote work is hurting facebook's advertising revenue because small business are dying off.
Do you actually know the breakdown of Facebook's advertising revenue by company type? I would expect that small business is not their bread and butter, and with the current status of everything in the world, other businesses would pick up the slack. And FB's usage stats are probably through the roof with people unable to socialize in person.
I think it's a bit weird to assume that FB would be attempting to promote "hit pieces" on remote work. In fact, I bet FB itself stands to save a lot of money by closing down or reducing in size many of its offices and transitioning a lot of its employees to permanent or semi-permanent remote work even after the pandemic has passed.
I feel like you've let your imagination get away from you here.
Perhaps its not a web of lies and this situation really is hurting this persons career? I think it's usually a good idea to assume that there isn't a large misinformation campaign going on.
There has been a lot of selection going on until an article makes it into a newspaper though. The individual writer needs to want to write it, their editor needs to think it's a good idea, and there are plenty of chances for it to get pulled or rewritten in a major way. "It's just this person's opinion and by chance it landed in The Atlantic" does rarely happen.
It doesn't require a conspiracy, of course. I find it much easier to believe that it's essentially pre-chewed stuff a large audience can nod along to. No need for any agenda other than "I want eye balls on my article, and I want lots of them and I want the brains that are attached to share the article because that will get me more eye balls".
For what it's worth, I also wondered if this was a reaction to tech companies going fully remote and canceling their office lease. Especially because we just had another article about how remote work is hurting small businesses 2 days ago, which started with the incredibly flawed assumption that people would stop going to local restaurants if they didn't accidentally walk past them on the way home from the office.
And yes, offices are big business. And yes, they'll surely try lobbying and PR.
I'd give it a 50% chance that this das paid for by real estate and a 50% chance that the author just wants to virtue signal by mixing in these seemingly less related topics.
Nonetheless, I'm skeptical of the proliferation of these articles in general. On the one hand, it's the talk of the whole world. On the other, what are the motives of the individuals and publications producing this content? Are they perhaps victims themselves of a subtle PR campaign? Others have said I am being too skeptical and making assumptions. I don't disagree, yet I remain skeptical.
Clearly you are someone who strongly believes in the superiority of remote work, but is it really that hard to believe that there are people who disagree?
I'm a software engineer with no connection to the commercial real-estate industry, and I'm pretty sure I haven't been a "victim of a subtle PR campaign." And yet I find remote work alienating and psychologically difficult, and I'm eager for a return to the office.
In addition to just...not enjoying remote work, I agree with the author that it would have been especially hard to be remote when I was younger. I would have missed out on a number of opportunities and connections that have been very helpful to my career.
Clearly you are someone who strongly believes in the superiority of remote work
For myself. I strongly believe remote work is a net gain for me and others like me. I appreciate that others do not feel the same way, but when the dust settles I stand to lose if I am the odd man out, no? I strongly believe that the sentiment conveyed in this article will be used as ammunition to drag those of us that prefer remote work back to the office. I'd prefer articles like this to find a balance that allows everyone to have their preference, but they seem to grapple for downsides that don't apply to everyone.
Both sides tend to do that. Hey it's great it's the best thing! Nah man it's terrible and the worst thing.
It's like the same pointless discussion HN about hiring once or twice a month. I see this WFH debate on heavy rotation here also. It's always the same.
This already does happen, c.f. coworking spaces, but it's not really a solution. Many of the benefits of an office (career-wise) only happen when one's coworkers are in the office with them. Coworking spaces where everyone is working remotely together aren't really the same.
I mean, small businesses will be getting tanked, but mostly in office districts with very high lunch foot traffic; the assumption of the increased lunch custom is kind of baked into rents and the business model, and commercial leases are measured in years.
The way you said it, it seems like small businesses are being screwed over by real estate companies. That's a different cause than people not going to the office.
Really any restaurant model based on high, peaky lunch traffic is just going to get hosed.
So I would imagine that in the worst case scenario, some food models, like the lunch truck, the NYC hot dog cart or the NYC deli, are going to have some severe issues generating enough cash even just to play their employees, since they are low-margin, high-volume businesses. At current volumes they will never make enough money to cover even non-rent costs at <$5 a sandwich.
> My social interactions really do revolve around my family and long time friends. It's not a large group, but I'm not a social butterfly either. I have a hard enough time keeping up with those social interactions. Who knows, maybe I was born for remote work.
> Overall this feels like yet another hit piece against remote work with a lot of anecdotes and not much else.
I think you've answered your question there. It is an unfortunate aspect of modern society that for many people, work is their only opportunity to socialize with other humans (other than trivial interactions with the cashier at the grocery store, and so on).
>I really don't understand why these keep cropping up.
But you gave the answer yourself - you're different, other people are unlike you:
> Who knows, maybe I was born for remote work.
Me too, but my wife suffers from it, she dreams about the day when we're going to return to the office. I'm just starting to miss the office, it's been easier on me.
To be honest, I've never really had a cubicle. Usually just a desk in a bullpin type arrangement. No privacy. Distractions galore. The sound of co-workers flushing the toilets in the restrooms nearby. Nothing to reflect fondly upon in my opinion.
If I had wanted or needed a new job, completely changing careers would probably have been easier than getting another gig in my field with the experience I’d accrued at home.
No doubt my experience is different doing technical work, but I have never relied on my co-workers to line up my next position. I flip the switch on linkedin to let recruiters know I'm looking and call or email the recruiters I have worked with in the past. Sometimes an employer might ask for a reference. I suppose I do have a short list of those.
“Outside of immediate family, people’s co-workers become their most consistent opportunity for social interaction,” Peditto told me. “What happens when you lose that is one of my greater concerns.”
My social interactions really do revolve around my family and long time friends. It's not a large group, but I'm not a social butterfly either. I have a hard enough time keeping up with those social interactions. Who knows, maybe I was born for remote work.
Overall this feels like yet another hit piece against remote work with a lot of anecdotes and not much else. Here I am arguing against it with my own anecdotes. I really don't understand why these keep cropping up. Are commercial real-estate conglomerates paying for these?
Personally, I am happier than I have ever been working remotely. I don't struggle to keep a routine or maintain separation between my work life and my home life. I don't feel starved for social interaction either. I would hate to see the sentiments these articles convey ruin something that has been very positive for myself and my partner (and my dog).