Working Remote

89th

There is another office 15 miles from where I live, about 25 minutes very relaxing drive along country roads, and it's lovely - right out in the middle of nowhere, close to the Rhode Island/Connecticut border - we own hundreds of acres of woodland out there, don't ask me why. I've been going there, but I don't think I'll be able to justify it once my team are all back.

I used to take routes that were 5-10 minutes longer but much more peaceful. Was way better for my mental health than being stuck on the beltway.

Is there anyone on your team talking about quitting now that remote work is over? I know someone who's been working remotely and their team is talking about quitting now that they are being required back in the office for... shocker... 3 days a week.

Aqua Letifer

@89th said in Working Remote:

Is there anyone on your team talking about quitting now that remote work is over? I know someone who's been working remotely and their team is talking about quitting now that they are being required back in the office for... shocker... 3 days a week.

Depending on the reasoning behind the mandatory return to the office, that could be a very smart move.

Mik

@89th said in Working Remote:

@Doctor-Phibes said in Working Remote:

I used to take routes that were 5-10 minutes longer but much more peaceful. Was way better for my mental health than being stuck on the beltway.

I do that a lot, especially driving back and forth to Chicago. Taking US 52 to US 41 was about 15 minutes longer, but much better than 3 hours on the white knuckle I65 between Indy and Chicago. Four lane highway, virtually no traffic at all. Better scenery.

Driving to Madison and back I'd skip going through Chicago, instead going through Champaign-Urbana, Bloomington IL and Rockford. Again, very little traffic. A few minutes longer, but much more enjoyable.

Rainman

It's interesting that you guys have such options when driving. Not so much here. Get off track, you're on a road where one-way bridges are still standing, and the alternate takes hours longer. And, wrong time of year, dangerous. We're not that much in the boonies, but there hasn't been much built around Portland since when I was a kid, and of course no beltway.

Mik

Mountainous terrain will do that for you. But the roads out there are quite pretty, so it's not so bad.

Rainman

Yeah, I'd imagine this time of year the drive would be beautiful with all the fall colours.

Doctor Phibes

@89th said in Working Remote:

@Doctor-Phibes said in Working Remote:

Is there anyone on your team talking about quitting now that remote work is over? I know someone who's been working remotely and their team is talking about quitting now that they are being required back in the office for... shocker... 3 days a week.

Not on my team, but they're all middle aged guys with a house and a pension. The corporate office has a lot of younger folk, so that's going to be interesting.

taiwan_girl

"There are 3 key reasons why remote work is actually bringing you down, according to top management experts"

1. Culture clash
A recurring theme for Cappelli and Nehmeh was the erosion of organizational culture and community. The authors described how, in a hybrid world, newer employees in particular struggle to learn by observation or build relationships—key aspects of professional growth that depended on physical proximity.
But that’s just the tip of the iceberg, or the top of the waterfall. They described a cascading effect downward onto mid-level and senior-level employees, who become increasingly detached from their jobs as work gets defined down to something that happens on a screen, not in real life.
Nehmeh said new hires suffer in this hybrid environment, because they cannot really learn by example and they don’t get the guidance or support that facilitates professional growth. They both described the horror of the “ping” familiar to any remote worker.
Consider the entry-level worker who needs help, Nehmeh adds: “You have to schedule a call, you have to ping somebody, they may not respond back if they don’t know you … there’s so many issues there.”

2. Everything is a transaction
A less obvious outcome of the cultural erosion, Cappelli added, is that remote work leads people to think about their job more narrowly. Work has been boiled down to key performance indicators, or KPIs, blurring the line between the letter of the law and spirit of the law, so to speak. He said this started during the pandemic, when supervisors were told to hold people accountable, and with everyone working remotely, the easiest solution was to emphasize KPIs.
Cappelli conjured a world of strict KPIs and constant pings, but the problem is the people you’re pinging have their own KPIs, too. “If you want help from somebody, you have to ping them, and you ping, and, you know, they get the message, but it goes to the bottom of their stack.”
He said they conducted 38 separate focus groups, 760 people in all, and many responded that they would get to their “pings” after they finished their own work.
Cappelli said this might seem small, but he thinks it’s a huge change that really affects performance management. The office involved social relationships, while the world of pings and KPIs is reducing everything to a transaction.

3. The productivity-sapping meetings problem
None of this should diminish the breakthrough of remote work in 2020, they argue, but that was a solution to an emergency, and cracks in the system are now more visible after several years.
The authors argued that Zoom meetings, which seem more efficient, actually make workers less productive while adding to the length of their average workday, meaning that productivity per hour is actually down. Cappelli said he thinks there are too many of these meetings, they go on for too long, and too many people tune out, turning off their cameras when they are likely doing other things.
Cappelli urged managers to rethink meetings that take up too much of people’s time, full of awkwardness that seems normal now but would have seemed bizarre five years ago. He said that more recently, he has heard of people skipping meetings and sending their AI agent to take notes in their stead. “They’re not even pretending to listen!”
Cappelli said that as meetings get bigger and less gets done, some people are even turning to post-meeting meetings to make sure they’re still on track. “It’s a mess. Those things could be fixed, right? But they’re not being fixed.”

https://fortune.com/2025/10/01/remote-work-bad-culture-gen-z-entry-level-productivity/

Horace

Glad I started remote work after I was already on a glide pattern towards retirement. It would have been impossible to integrate into the company to any extent, if I'd started this way.

Mik

I don't know. That article had a predetermined result. Remote work works great for me. But then I've worked remote off and on for 40 years. State of SC is trying to make everyone come back but it will fail.

jon-nyc

@Mik You working a project with someone in SC?

Mik

For the last 3 years

Mik

I'm exempt because I'm more than 50 miles away. Several of my team members are not. A one size fits all policy like that statewide is bound to fail and have exemptions. Especially with Epic folks who can find another remote job in a heartbeat.

jon-nyc

@Mik said in Working Remote:

For the last 3 years

I work with MUSC. A guy there is the co-lead of the Columbia-centered grant we lost and then got restored.

Mik

Who is that? I work with the research team.

Mik

Must be Strange. I have not met him.

jon-nyc

Yep. He’s here in London with me (I assume haven’t seen him just yet) and was in DC with me last month. I see him and his staff every Monday on a call.

Mik

Do you know Diaz, Lennert, Graboye or Obeid?

jon-nyc

Nope. Charlie is the guy I deal with.

In December I’ll be down there for a patient education day.

taiwan_girl

@Mik said in Working Remote:

I've worked remote off and on for 40 years.

I think this is the key. I think remote working REALLY hurts people starting out or still quite early in their careers.

The New Coffee Room

Working Remote