I'd do it because I think it's better to have separate work / life areas; right now my WFH spot is also my PC gaming spot and the bedroom and the place where laundry dries, and I wouldn't mind more distance between work, leisure and private life.

That said, five minutes means one could come home for lunch.

But anyway, five minute walk to work is highly unlikely; a lot of people (most? citation needed?) have a commute to work, either driving or public transit. I'd rather have a nice private office or small team room than a big open and loud office space.

>I'd do it because I think it's better to have separate work / life areas; right now my WFH spot is also my PC gaming spot and the bedroom and the place where laundry dries, and I wouldn't mind more distance between work, leisure and private life.

Long time ago I used to rent a room in a shared house 5 min walk from work. My housemates were all cool people, but working on a laptop sitting next to the bed I slept in every night would e far worse for me than just going to the office. But this was decades ago. I can understand why someone in such position would prefer an office.

But if you can have a house, and you're mid/senior in your role there is nothing better than wfh.

Also I've recently noticed a disturbing trend. Companies advertising 100% remote work, then you go through the whole recruitment process and at the very end they tell you. BTW, it's not 100% wfh. You gotta come to the office 1 day per month (sometimes even 1 per week). Anyone looking for real wfh job should be aware of such tricks to nip them in the bud early on.

There was a study about that and there was a direct correlational between the size of you home and your desire to return to the office, people with small apartments enjoyed the office much more than those with larger houses. I'd also guess that the people with larger homes live father away from work than people with smaller homes so a longer commute comes into play.

That makes total sense. My house is about 1900 sq ft over two levels. During lockdown, my wife converted our guest bedroom into her office. My HS aged son did online school in his bedroom and I basically had the entire downstairs. Our cats moved around throughout the day depending on their mood.

This would have been much more uncomfortable in a smaller 2BR apartment and almost unmanageable in any space smaller than that.

I've been WFH of over 20 years and my wife has been WFH for 10, we live in the city so our living space is smaller than most ~1100sqft and we've worked within 10 feet of each other for a decade. I do have a small office but I only go into it when I have an important customer call and I want to put everything on a bigger monitor than my laptop and I expect to do a lot of talking. Aside from that she's usually on one end of the couch and I'm on the other, with the two fat cats sleeping in between.

I had to get a second desk in my place for WFH. It was way too jarring to log off and keep sitting in the same spot. Contextual learning made me feel awkward to browse Reddit “at work”.

Given my space, my WFH desk is much crappier and smaller than my personal one, but still so much better than losing my life commuting.

What's funny is my boss, a total hardo, during latter stages of COVID did live 5 minutes from work.

He used it to his advantage to show his face in the office, but rarely ever put in a full day. So sure he might show up on reports as being a 2-3x/week attender while others were doing 0-1, but many of those were morning-only, afternoon-only, or drop-ins for an in-person meeting of importance. Plus the occasional Friday solitude getaway to the empty office.

To his credit he really put no RTO pressure on us relative to his management chain.

I did what your boss did. WFH means that other people at your home might be there too, your wfh spot might be uncomfortable, and for me changing the scenery and getting some peace and quiet helped me productive. If I have a delicate call I don’t want my kids barging in telling me the Wifi is slow or my wife asking for dinner plans. Also, changing scenario helps me leaving problems at the door.

I really don’t get when people defend WFH as a Holy Grail and complain that are catalogued as lazy or freeloaders, only to become fierce critics and cataloging anyone who prefers going to the office as boot-lickers or mediocre middle-management (not your post SteveBK123, but a common attitude across this type of thread)

Everyone has different circumstances, different jobs, and our minds work differently. Let’s live and let live.

I used to live 5mins from work. The office catered lunch every day, but I still went home every day to eat lunch with my wife instead. Hated being at that place

even if you like the place, hard to beat lunch with the wife

I don't mean this as cras, but even better is "lunch" with the wife.

I.e., when the two of you are finally home alone and awake, because school is in session.

I suspect for some marriages, WFH has been a real blessing.

And for other marriages, WFH has been a disaster. I know so many people who have ended up divorced after they were both WFH everyday.

What you're describing seems to be healthy vs unhealthy relationships (marriages). If two people are forced to be around each other and don't like each other you're going to speed up the decline. It wasn't WFH that did it, it was the fate of their relationship the entire time.

Things like this make me thing the idea of basing society on monogamous marriage is unrealistic and doomed to failure. It only worked in the past when work prevented couples from spending much time together, and social pressures prevented them from separating.

Yeah, it's sad. I didn't mean to imply that WFH was a net positive for every couple.

I tell recruiters I want remote because there's nothing better than seeing my wife or playing with my cat when I need to take a break. Every single recruiter understands completely. Some will push remote, others respectfully end the conversation because they know they cant beat that.

I lived 5 minutes away from work for a few years, I could see my office window from my apartment window. Going into the office wasn't a big deal, it was just a 5 minute walk. I really didn't care about going home for lunch because we had a cafeteria and I'd eat lunch or go get snack with my friends and there were probably 20 restaurants within a 10 minute walk so I had better options than a PB&J. It was much more of a social thing than a work thing, why sit in my apartment by myself when I have a half dozen people I enjoy hanging out with 5 minutes away. The only disadvantage was that due to my proximity I was always the go to person in case someone had to physically go to the office, the guy who lived 80 miles away was never asked to pop in on a Saturday to reboot something but I was asked all the time.

When I lived close to my office, I found the office became an extension of my home. I don't mean that I took my work home with me, or worked longer hours. I mean that I found myself crossing the street and going into my office on weekends, to work on personal projects, or sometimes just to watch movies or play video games on my laptop. The office started to function like a second living room. It was weird and did not last long, but it was sort of nice. Occasionally someone would be there, working on the weekend, and they all thought I was a really dedicated employee because I was always there too.

I would work almost exclusively from the office in this scenario and even keep my work belongings there (if possible).

It's much easier for some to have a complete separation of work and home spaces. Also a change of scenery in the morning and getting to move a bit before starting to work is nice.

If you work 5 mins from your home you can just walk there for lunch. No need to bag a lunch, no?