If I was working at Google I'd want to be in the office just for the experience. Know someone who did work at Google for a few years and he said he would often bump in to incredible people in the rec areas and get to talk to all kinds of interesting figures like the creator of Vim or some of the top brains of ML. It's a bit different when you are just pumping out some generic SaaS product and can do fine in isolation at home.
I worked as well in the Zurich office where Bram was working, and it was amazing experience until they took out the walls and made open offices. I would never go back to an open office.
Just go to a conference once a year if that's what you feel you're missing. To sacrifice a good portion of your life commuting, just for the chance of bumping into an idol figure seems like a net loss.
Walking or biking to work is quite nice for me when I live close enough to work. A good friend of mine loves her walks home from work, as she's told me many times.
When I've lived train distance, a 20min commute has been quite fine. I'd say neutral, which is sufficient to make the point.
I live near one of the subway stops in Boston (10 minute walk) and I absolutely miss my commute. Before the pandemic I would typically walk 7 miles a day, now I have to force myself to walk 3 miles.
Most of my hobbies would be in the city as well (meetups, concerts, board games, dating). All that has took a massive hit but the city is slowly coming back.
My current team prefers working remote and TBH I don't like it. I want to be in an office with others. It's nice having a clear separation of work and home. I don't like how companies are able to subsidize business costs (electricity, rent, maintenance, food, internet) through my home. They aren't reimbursing me for this, nor would I expect it.
I buy I might be in the minority but I like my commute a lot, I'm in NYC, it's a great 15-30 min buffer/bookend for my day, and I've started biking to work which I enjoy a lot.
I wonder how much of these remote vs. office convos are effected by the maybe unstated fact that commuting in the Bay is maybe especially bad?
I think almost the entire office vs wfh argument is based around commute quality. When I lived an hour drive from the office I hated going in and WFH was a blessing. Then I moved to the city and lived a 10 minute walk from the office and ended up going in half the time just because it was no bother to go in.
