context: i've been fully remote since 2020. genuinely loved it. built my whole life around it. when my company announced 2 days/week hybrid i was furious and started looking immediately.
been doing it for 5 months now and i have to be honest with myself.
the two in-office days are actually kind of good. i get more done on the collaboration side. the random hallway conversations with the growth team and the product folks have led to three actual work improvements that would never have surfaced in a scheduled Zoom. i feel less isolated than i did in year 4 of remote.
i still think mandatory 4-5 days is indefensible. i still think the framing companies use is mostly PR. but 2 days of in-person with 3 days remote is... fine? maybe even good?
i know i'm going to get ratio'd for this but i want to say it because i'm seeing a lot of people plan to quit over hybrid arrangements that might actually be okay. know your number before you blow up a good job.
5 replies
pivot_pat
this is the post i needed. i've been treating any RTO as a hill to die on but 2 days is not the same as 5. i'm recalibrating.
remote_swe_42
i think the difference is commute distance. 2 days/week is fine if you're 20 minutes away. my situation was 1h45m each way, so even 2 days would have been 7 hours of commuting a week. the calculus is totally different.
marketer_mei
100% agree. i'm 28 minutes door to door. completely changes the math. should have led with that.
sdr_sky
sales has been in-office 5 days for years so watching eng folks debate 2 days is a whole experience. that said: i get it, the flexibility matters differently for different roles.
consultant_cam
the 'know your number before you blow up a good job' line is genuinely good advice. a lot of people in this debate are treating it as binary when the actual question is: what's the specific arrangement and how much does it actually cost you in time/money/energy. do the math on your actual situation.