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Discussion on: Facebook and more big tech companies are going to lean into distributed work. What is going to suck about this?

 
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Thomas H Jones II

My point was more that whether you struggle or not (or need an office setting), is less a function of seniority than the individual worker. I've spent most of my career working on distributed and/or remote/wholly-offsite teams. Some people are suited for it, many aren't. It was never a problem for me. But, for others it often is. Worse, most people don't really know whether they're suited for it until they accept their first primarily-remote or remote-only jobs. Over the years, I've encountered many newly-hired senior engineers who simply couldn't cope with not working in an office and being able to have face-to-face conversations (not just work-related, but the random "what did you think of the latest GoT episode" or "man, the Cowboys really stunk it up, yesterday" conversations ...possibly finding the absence of the latter more problematic than absence of the former).

Overall, it's sorta like how a significant number of people have had problems with the COVID19-related lockdowns while some don't. I feel fortunate to be in the "don't" camp.

Ironically, one of the biggest problems I had with remote work didn't occur until after I got married. It took my wife nearly two years to understand that just because I was home didn't mean I was available. It took a number of months of me stating — eventually yelling — "that thing you walk by that looks like me? That's not me, that's just a really lifelike hologram" …and that my business-hours availability is just like when I used to travel for a living — if it ain't a legit emergency, I ain't available during those hours (and, no, the fact that your cable box isn't working doesn't constitute an emergency).