(08-19-2025, 10:30 AM)bravado Wrote: I think there's more to it than just the revenue from $30 salads downtown or whatever. Not having a physical work place is genuinely eroding people's friend circles, making us more insular, and robbing new young employees the chance of actually meeting people and learning + networking. If you're an established worker who doesn't need much of these non-monetary benefits of working, remote work is an amazing option. For everyone else, I think the costs to their career and personal development can be quite large.
Again, I know that modern offices barely even have a free water cooler at this point - but I think there is something genuinely valuable about physically separating work vs home. I think it has personal costs that vary in severity with each individual.
I loved working in an office when young and my friend group very much grew from my work life.
I also loved working from home (well before Covid) once I had a family and how much easier it made it to spend quality time with my family and my friends (who were not particularly connected with my current employment and were more related to being in the same life state as me).
When I was young my networking and career progression was very much focused on my current place of work. And so being physically present was very valuable. When I was further along in my career much of my networking and career progression was external to my current employer and working from home made that easier.
All this to say, early in my career working in the office was overall beneficial to me in many ways. But later in my career it would have absolutely been detrimental (both personally and professionally).
Doesn’t make one or the other right or wrong. Just different and something every employer and employee should figure out for themselves. Tons of trade offs here and no clear right answers, imo.