Remote working – Bringing sanity to mind and lessons worth learning
Both Remote work and office work can be really great for certain people at certain times.When I was younger I was full-time remote for more than five years, and at the time I enjoyed it. There was some difficulty separating work from life when it all happened in one apartment, but overall it was a good fit.Then I had kids, and that distinction became much harder. Little children have a really hard time understanding that mom or dad is right there in the other room but can’t play now. At that point moving to an office job became a really nice change.As a hiring manager, what I’ve found is that there aren’t so many people who truly want to work from home all the time. Rather, what most people want is flexibility and compromise. For example:- “I want to work from home on Tuesdays and Thursdays so I can easily pick my kids up from pre-school over my lunch break.”- “I want to live in (insert almost any city here) where I grew up and have roots, but  there aren’t many good jobs.” Or the similar variation, “I want to live in (place that is very cheap or pretty or both)...”- “My wife and I want to be able to visit both sides of our family that live far away, and the logistics would be a lot easier if I could work remotely for a week here and there to make that work, rather than need 3 extra weeks of vacation.”The best thing about remote is that all that flexibility and freedom is just built into the job, and in my experience it’s easier to find a full-remote job than an office job with comparable flexibility. The downside is you don’t get the fun and energizing environment of working with neat, smart people in person, nor the work/life separation that many people find very helpful.I think most people’s stated preference just reflects which one of those is more important to them in their present circumstances.