A founder who wanted me to work for his company called me immature when I said I would not be able to join if the job he was offering wasn’t at least hybrid.
That it’s all the rage to want a remote or hybrid job but that I was failing to see what the consequences of that were for my career.
He was also offering me more than twice what I had been consistently making through freelancing at that point, 6 months after I’d been laid off. I needed the money for my sanity.
But there was no salary in the world that could ever take me back into working full time in an office 5-6 days a week.
I wept like a baby making that decision. It’s hard enough to turn down money without an older man telling you you’re acting like a child.
Almost a year later, I make more than thrice what he had offered me back then. And I make all of it working from home.
Am I actually losing out on a lot of things he mentioned I would? ABSOLUTELY.
The collaboration & innovation that he mentioned that both I & the product would lack is definitely real. I see it.
I see some of the frustration that clients I work with have around syncing up with a team that’s completely self-employed & remote.
The confusion, delays, and stalls are evident.
But aren’t we caring a liiiiitle too much about that?
Employees, their families, friends & pets have been frustrated for a long long time.
And hybrid work doesn’t feel like ‘now the other side is suffering’ to me. It feels like balance.
But to some, it just feels unfair.
I find it laughable to hear that remote work is being considered a ‘failed experiment’ because it leads to a lack of innovation.
I’m so over the argument of remote vs office when it comes to productivity.
There is more to human life & there is more to work than being the most productive we can be.
I can’t attempt to speak about the significant losses that being remote is having on tech innovation.
But I can speak about everything that tiny-me has gained from being remote:
I cooked all of my meals, went on a walk 3 times a day & had a dance party every afternoon. This helped me lose 20 kgs.
I went on so many dates in 2021 (the year I dedicated myself to finding my life partner). And I spent so much quality time with my partner which eventually led to us deciding to get married far earlier than we would have if we were only spending tired nights & weekends together.
The time I had to breathe & think let me pursue so many random goals. My partner & I started a podcast, I enrolled in a Master’s program, I self-funded & planned my wedding, and I made videos & wrote things.
I don’t miss family events even when all my other cousins can’t make it because they have to go to work.
My pets aren’t lonely.
We don’t miss deliveries. We get all our packages.
All errands get done on time.
Our house is clean & peaceful. Things get picked up & put away every day, not only during the weekends.
I’m excited at the thought of having kids. Not only do I know I have the time to accomplish everything I want to which will make me feel ready but also when I think about it, I don’t worry about how long of a maternity leave my company will offer before they call me into office.
I scroll through my pictures, & there are so many amazing memories I’ve created & so many of which were made on weekdays. Can’t believe they would have never happened if I had gone to work those days.
I have a wonderful quality of life.
I’ve had 3 different work-from-office jobs in the past during which:
I sat in traffic for a minimum of 4 hours a day.
I would get home after everyone was asleep.
I regularly went into office unwell because I only had 1 sick leave a month.
I suffocatingly wore 2 masks to go work on my laptop, by myself at a co-working space at the peak of the pandemic.
I bought & wore extremely uncomfortable office clothes.
I spent money & gained weight.
Time moved really quick. Weeks would fly by without having done anything.
We’ve been having the office vs remote conversation for atleast 3 years now, it might seem like old news but so many people around me got called back into office this year.
So, yes there might be tons of articles about this but I look outside my window right now & there’s still tons of people walking tiredly back from their work.
They’re going to go home & crash on the bed, drained after their day, when instead they could have been shutting their laptop & getting ready for a workout or going out on a date.
But instead, all they did today was work.
Till now we've been trying to convince employers that remote can be just as or if not more productive than office work. So that they'll let us work remotely.
And they've been trying to convince us that it's not.
But maybe it doesn't actually matter which is more productive.
I used to imagine a world where everyone was self-employed. We all did exactly what we’re doing now, offered the same services, used the same skills, and made the same money.
But as independent contractors. Where we got to actually decide each one of those elements. The role, the pay, the work hours & the rules didn’t come as a package deal. That it was hand curated by what worked for both parties.
How wonderful that world would be.
Will the economics of this make sense? Probably not.
But the humanity of it all will.
Damn, those last two lines. 🔥
I second you! At the same time it's disheartening to see tech influencers like Sam Altman, Kunal Shah and so many more totally against remote work. I believe, a lot of employers have tendency to micro manage which works better when you're in same building. I also can't imagine going back to office, my speculation is future of work will be part-time/self employed gigs, hopefully it will work out,