Actually, I think the remote work aversion is completely rational. As background I worked in the Bay Area for about 7 years and worked remotely from LA for about a 1.5 years & moving now I'm moving back to the Bay. Remote work (specifically at home) offers a bunch of benefits like having a lot more flexibility, a lot more free time (not just in commute & traffic but also in being able to wake up 5 minutes before needing to be at work).
The downsides are:
* It's hard to motivate to actually work during "down" times whereas if I were at work physically I'd be much more inclined to do something once my regular tasks are complete.
* You lose a lot of the in-person communication that occurs either because you overhear coworkers or you run into people in the hall & just chat semi-socially.
* You are largely a forgotten quantity. Out-of-sight out-of-mind is real.
* Whiteboards are really hard even with moveable cameras & don't work for collaboration. Maybe there's software to help with this but it's not natural.
* Meeting infrastructure has to be extremely reliable & coworkers need to plan to account for every meeting being remote. A broken telecom unit, internet issues etc make unplanned changes harder to adapt to. Even harder is if, for example, an external partner is visiting & needs to present regularly & the local connection cannot be presented via the telecom system.
* There's far fewer opportunities for work which means it's hard to look for more lucrative opportunities. Similarly, the lack of opportunities means it's harder to leverage that for salary negotiations.
* The opportunities that do exist are at firms that aren't doing the bulk of interesting tech work. Even for multinationals the most interesting tech work (granted at least for my interests) tends to still be centralized in the Bay Area.
* If you're already working for a big tech company you're probably at the top of (or even above) your salary range for any alternative job unless you manage to get a promotion at the same time.
From an employers perspective, the efficiency costs aren't worth it.
For companies that didn't start with remote work, it's hard to justify supporting it when the office space is a sunk cost. Keep in mind that employers don't move employees around regularly for no reason. The bulk of the reason is to have as many people that need to communicate regularly as physically close to each other as possible.
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Actually, I think the remote work aversion is completely rational. As background I worked in the Bay Area for about 7 years and worked remotely from LA for about a 1.5 years & moving now I'm moving back to the Bay. Remote work (specifically at home) offers a bunch of benefits like having a lot more flexibility, a lot more free time (not just in commute & traffic but also in being able to wake up 5 minutes before needing to be at work).
The downsides are:
* It's hard to motivate to actually work during "down" times whereas if I were at work physically I'd be much more inclined to do something once my regular tasks are complete. * You lose a lot of the in-person communication that occurs either because you overhear coworkers or you run into people in the hall & just chat semi-socially. * You are largely a forgotten quantity. Out-of-sight out-of-mind is real. * Whiteboards are really hard even with moveable cameras & don't work for collaboration. Maybe there's software to help with this but it's not natural. * Meeting infrastructure has to be extremely reliable & coworkers need to plan to account for every meeting being remote. A broken telecom unit, internet issues etc make unplanned changes harder to adapt to. Even harder is if, for example, an external partner is visiting & needs to present regularly & the local connection cannot be presented via the telecom system. * There's far fewer opportunities for work which means it's hard to look for more lucrative opportunities. Similarly, the lack of opportunities means it's harder to leverage that for salary negotiations. * The opportunities that do exist are at firms that aren't doing the bulk of interesting tech work. Even for multinationals the most interesting tech work (granted at least for my interests) tends to still be centralized in the Bay Area. * If you're already working for a big tech company you're probably at the top of (or even above) your salary range for any alternative job unless you manage to get a promotion at the same time.
From an employers perspective, the efficiency costs aren't worth it. For companies that didn't start with remote work, it's hard to justify supporting it when the office space is a sunk cost. Keep in mind that employers don't move employees around regularly for no reason. The bulk of the reason is to have as many people that need to communicate regularly as physically close to each other as possible.