Do you have small kids? Do you not like spending more time with them?
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I do and I do. I also don't like having to crush them over and over every day saying "not now, daddy has work..." Going into the office means I'm gone when I'm working, but when I'm with them I'm 100% with them. Days I do work from home and they're not in school can be rough for them.
Also, while I'm lucky enough to afford a whole room of my home as an office two little kids can still end up being quite loud and interruptive. It's nice having a dedicated space to have some quiet on my work schedule.
Plus, free gym for exercise, free tea/coffee, free AC/electricity, there's a free bike share if I drive in and want to ride through the nature preserve near the office or to the restaurants or other parks nearby, meetings in person when we're all right near each other seem easier, free car charging, etc. There's a lot of amenities in the office for me as well.
My commute is only like 2mi from home. It's a 15 minute bike ride. It's not like I'm spending a ton of time and money commuting. If there's something important for me to go to in regards of the kids it's not like I have to hop out for over an hour; the pediatrician is like 10min from the office, the library is closer than that, their school is across the street from the library, etc.
I get not everyone has great amenities, I understand some people have like half-hour commutes or worse. Everyone has their own math to do on if coming in is good or not. But it's not like having kids is instantly a remote work is better.
Good for you. A 15 min bike ride is a hell of a difference for the most of us with 45+ min train/bus/car ride.
Whenever I do take the trip to the office, I spend on average 1.5 hours less time with my 4 year old. This is why I will always refuse to work in an office for as long as my services and talents are marketable with WFH arrangements.
I’m not the person you’re replying to but I do. And absolutely yes, I do. When I work from the office I’m gone longer (maybe 1.5 hours a day) but I’m significantly more present when I’m at home. If I WFH I’ll spend the evening ducking back into my home office to send that email or check that document etc and my mind will be 50% thinking about work all evening. I like a hard cutoff, when I’m home my phone goes off and I’m 100% there for dinner, bath and story time.
> If I WFH I’ll spend the evening ducking back into my home office to send that email or check that document etc and my mind will be 50% thinking about work all evening
If you can resist checking emails after your commute I'm sure that with some self discipline you could also do it without the commute. You're basically admitting that there is no good reason or expectation for you to be working after hours anyway.
It's a state of mind thing, and I can easily fall into the same thing.
When I predominantly work at the office, I can kind of compartmentalize my working mindset to that place. When I leave, I'm done, finished, checked out. Laptop closed, in a bag (or even left at the office). It takes actual effort to return to that state.
When my office is just another room in the house, it's far easier to be stuck in that work mindset. The computer is all set up, it's just a quick password away to getting back exactly where you were when working. It's easy for me to think about a problem I was working on and easily slip back into it. Not so if I need to go grab my backpack, clear off a space for the work computer, hop back on, etc.
During COVID I was in a small apartment. My office was my living room. It felt like I was just always in the office, always working, never at home.
> When my office is just another room in the house, it's far easier to be stuck in that work mindset.
I can see how this can happen, but at the same time it seems like there's such an easy fix: just stop doing it.
But it may actually be a form of addiction, so maybe eaiser said than done. I could probably say the same thing about someone who wants to quit smoking but can't. People that smoke typically enjoy smoking, though, so they probably don't actually want to give it up, they only try to stop because they know it's bad for them. This may be the case here as well: maybe you have a hard time disconnecting from work because you actually want to work.
I'm WFH and I have absolutely zero problem flipping the switch at the end of the day, notifications off, done. I didn't sign up to work nights and weekends and it's not something I want to do, so I'm simply not going to do it (unless it's an emergency).
> an easy fix: just stop doing it
> it may actually be a form of addiction
For me it absolutely is. It is pretty much telling a drug addict "just say no." I get a lot of enjoyment out of many parts of my work. It gives me a lot of pleasure fixing some REST endpoint or optimizing some problem. Given the opportunity my mind will just keep chewing on the problem at all hours of the day when it is a problem I like. It is a dopamine rush to get that thing working. And since its work, there's actual deadlines and what not, real customers waiting, so even though I mentally know I shouldn't let those things affect me personally, emotionally it is harder for me to step away especially when I'm literally sitting in the same chair at the same desk with the same keyboard and mouse I'd use to solve those problems instead of tinker on my own projects that are far more nebulous.
In the end with my office at home set up primarily for work, personal projects take a back seat. With work at the company office, my work setup stays primarily there. My desk at home is free to be littered with my halfway done projects. Breadboards, soldering irons, all the various parts I'm toying with, etc. can take up the whole space. When I get home, that's my space, not their space.
> you actually want to work
Yes, I actually do enjoy what I do most days of the week. There's always the overhead and paperwork and what not that isn't the fun parts, but actually digging in to solve a problem is one of my favorite things to do whether that be at a datacenter or in the cloud or on a car or motorcycle or plumbing or an embedded device or a radio or whatever. Getting paid to be able to work on cool problems is practically gravy on top for me.
And FWIW, it also cuts the other way at times when I WFH. Sometimes my mind wanders and starts thinking about the personal projects at home. Let me go check on this thing, maybe I could just slip out and spend a few minutes trying to dial in the new irrigation controller, I probably need to check the chemical levels in the pool, that glue on the rocking chair repair is probably dry now let me move that along, I should really look into that leak on the wet bar drain, it'll only take a minute...suddenly it is an hour later.
Good for you? I also struggle with work/home boundaries when I have to WFH. "Oh, I should go kick off that build so it's ready in the morning... oh, there's an email... oh, someone had a question for me..." If I leave all my equipment at the office, then it's simply not an option for me to do work outside work hours. It's a system that works well for me, there's no problem to "fix" here.
> it seems like there's such an easy fix: just stop doing it.
If it was such an easy fix you wouldn’t be having this discussion about them going into the office I imagine.
For what it’s worth, I completely relate. If computer is sitting in the place I’ve just been working from the whole day then I’ll walk by and automatically start again.