I think there will be more variance with respect to pre-covid.
I’ve been fully remote for the last year and a half or so—well before covid. It’s been… a’ight. Some of my team mates, in my judgement, have not been good collaborators—they probably wouldn’t be good face to face collaborators, but being remote with them added an extra element of unpleasantness. It requires different skills to remote collab well.
I’d guess that I’m more suited to full-time remote work than at least 80% of people (altho maybe not 80% of programmers..)
Will remote be at least 2x what it was previously? Maybe. Could be. I don’t know what it was previously, but I think it was pretty low, so that’s perhaps not a hard threshold to cross.
I think if one frames the problem w.r.t. individuals that were never allowed remote work (e.g. restaurant staff), individuals allowed remote work on a recurring basis (e.g. office worker with regular, life essential medical treatment), and individuals given remote work freely (e.g. board members, executives, people employed by Basecamp) it’s easier to see a factor of 2 as well-calibrated, or even conservative.
Doing the napkin arithmetic:
Restaurant workers: 0 x 2 = 0 (no change)
Regular office work: (once or twice a month) x 2 = once every week or two
Regular remote employee: 2 x infinity (or 1⁄2 the pre-pandemic office cadence) = just as remote or even less time face to face.
You do raise a good point about certain people being well-suited for remote vs in-person work. I’m not a huge fan of it myself, but mostly because I live in an expensive city and my at-home work situation strains my ability to spatially compartmentalize. But I’ve been productive and I like the kinds of breaks that I can have at home that were never afforded me in an office setting.
Anecdotal aside: I do research work, mostly, so my manager made the argument that being co-located was irrelevant for our team’s collaboration. He seems right so far...
I think there will be more variance with respect to pre-covid.
I’ve been fully remote for the last year and a half or so—well before covid. It’s been… a’ight. Some of my team mates, in my judgement, have not been good collaborators—they probably wouldn’t be good face to face collaborators, but being remote with them added an extra element of unpleasantness. It requires different skills to remote collab well.
I’d guess that I’m more suited to full-time remote work than at least 80% of people (altho maybe not 80% of programmers..)
Will remote be at least 2x what it was previously? Maybe. Could be. I don’t know what it was previously, but I think it was pretty low, so that’s perhaps not a hard threshold to cross.
I think if one frames the problem w.r.t. individuals that were never allowed remote work (e.g. restaurant staff), individuals allowed remote work on a recurring basis (e.g. office worker with regular, life essential medical treatment), and individuals given remote work freely (e.g. board members, executives, people employed by Basecamp) it’s easier to see a factor of 2 as well-calibrated, or even conservative. Doing the napkin arithmetic:
Restaurant workers: 0 x 2 = 0 (no change)
Regular office work: (once or twice a month) x 2 = once every week or two
Regular remote employee: 2 x infinity (or 1⁄2 the pre-pandemic office cadence) = just as remote or even less time face to face.
You do raise a good point about certain people being well-suited for remote vs in-person work. I’m not a huge fan of it myself, but mostly because I live in an expensive city and my at-home work situation strains my ability to spatially compartmentalize. But I’ve been productive and I like the kinds of breaks that I can have at home that were never afforded me in an office setting. Anecdotal aside: I do research work, mostly, so my manager made the argument that being co-located was irrelevant for our team’s collaboration. He seems right so far...