Even if your commute is longer - being in the office doesn't mean working. If you live alone, coming home at 23:00 and going straight to bed doesn't have to mean poor work-life-balance.
Imagine coming in at 9, having breakfast, working three hours, lunch from 12:30-13:00, working 5 hours, dinner, then spending the evening in the maker space until you need to go home.
That is a poor work life balance. If you are alone then I understand it can be hard coming home to an empty house. I would suggest trying to live with roommates or going out on more dates, anything to build up your personal life outside the office. What happens if you get fired? Where is your personal life at then?
These hobbies can be done at home or somewhere else, but yes, it's a risk. Not everyone needs daily non-work social interaction every day, some people are perfectly happy with not seeing friends outside of the weekend. This is especially common in tech.
> spending the evening in the maker space until you need to go home
that's the definition of single-minded sadness.
life is so much more. heck, even having a SO that doesn't work for your same employer makes the point invalid. imagine having other more important duties, like having to take care of your parents in their old age or your kids.
what you're describing only works well if you're in your ealy twenties and have not much in your life besides work.
Married, no kids here. Youngish tech prof (28) working for one of the companies represented in the FAANG acronym.
We have all the amenities the OP talked about and more available in the office and I’d still rather work from home. Not to mention being full time remote for almost 2 years allows me to live wherever I want, which can be substantially cheaper than the major city my home office is technically in.
His other primary argument was related to not being able to have work life balance when your work is in your home, and this is all dependent on the person. Your work space still needs to be a space you only go in while working. That way there is still separation between life and work, and your SO / family knows that if you are in there you are working.
If you are taking calls in bed, or coding on the couch then of course you have no separation you’re bringing stress and work to your place of relaxation.
Remote work is only going to become more prominent as time goes on (IMO) so people are going to have to figure it out. It took me a year before I truly started being as productive as I could possibly be from home, and I complete 40-50 hours of “work” that I would do in an office, in about 15 hours spread out throughout my week from home.
The 25 hours I get back are put into side work / projects and family.
I also don’t have commute time and save a boat load of money not eating out at restaurants in a city every day.
