That's exaggerating a bit (e.g. I'm still home on weekends and evenings, meet friends, and there are places that are neither home nor the office), but is not entirely wrong, especially during work days.
Keep in mind that "in the office" doesn't mean "at my desk" or "working". People who don't have such a nice office would spend some of the already scarce time e.g. first getting to and from a gym/maker space, and I'd much rather spend that time working on some hobby project. I'm certainly in company-owned buildings quite a bit longer than 40 hours, but I don't work longer, so I do feel like my work-life-balance is pretty good.
(And if you start arguing about mindset/being "at work", then surely being "at work" 24/7 because work is now at home would be worse).
These office amenities were a major argument in hiring, and a company that didn't have them would have to pay me a lot more. All the amenities being near a place where I am, with low-friction access, is one of the key benefits that's hard to replicate.
Maybe if I lived in a large complex with many like-minded people there'd be a way to set up shared spaces like that, but I haven't heard of any place like that, and it's hard due to access and trust issues.
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.
Don't understand either, there me and the missus and the boy in a 2 bed flat, my PC and dual 27" monitors lives in the corner of the living room (facing in since the screens act as a barrier) - we are tight for space but working at home wouldn't be an issue for me at all, in fact it's something I want actively.
At a Facebook office I saw many people bringing their other half + kids to the office for dinner.
I know all the arguments of "it's to make you stay longer" but having the option of a free, zero-effort, healthy & balanced food option available to my family is a very useful perk in my eyes.
As a family, a healthy zero-effort meal is going to set you back £40-80 in London (£10-20 per head). Even on a FAANG salary, doing that regularly on your own earnings is a little frivolous.
Learn to cook, guaranteed you will have healthier meals then any chef will make you with ingredients that you chose and with a low overall cost and to be honest it doesn't take much effort to do once you get a good routine going.
I fully agree and grew up in the kitchen so know a thing or two about cooking. I am time poor however and juggle many activities (including exercising 10+ hours a week)
To cook you need a well stocked pantry and you need to buy fresh ingredients. Then cooking itself takes time - prep work + cooking time. Afterwards you have washing up.
All of that takes time and effort. It's nice to have the option to get back that time and energy 1-2 days a week.
One of the best things about working from home is you can go stick something in the oven or slow cooker long before dinner to amortize that cooking time. But that doesn't solve meal planning and inventory management of your kitchen.
It's nice to be able to turn up at a canteen and know there will be 8+ varieties of fresh veg and 2 meat options and a fish option without fail. I also rate the canteen over a restaurant in some ways as the incentives are slightly different. A restaurant wants you to come back as much as possible so has incentives to make food "tasty" aka jack the food with sugar, butter, oil, msg. A canteen generally just tries to not to make too much of a loss.
I full support and advocate for this - however, eating out is often an experience vs just having a nice meal. I love cooking, but occasionally a nice meal out is preferable. In the absence of that, my bank balance has grown, but my desire to do more cooking of the sort I'd get out has diminished.
I do love cooking, but to replicate some of the experiences you'd get out, you do have to spend a lot more. Obviously you can cook a lot more home-friendly meals, but when you start doing anything especially interesting there's a large increase in cost as you pick up specific little ingredients to do a nice meal at home once in a while.
that is one the of the amazing things about living in or close to downtown. the apartment is good for private uninterrupted rest. entertainment can be outsourced or abstracted away from the 'home' - stand-up shows, musicals, theatre, dining, parties, all things that would be less fun if you did them at home anyway.
