Gordon MacRae Blog

I’ve found the last 2-4 years at work to be kindof lonely. I’m not looking for sympathy here. Just acknowledging a feeling that has changed post-Covid. It specifically relates to companies that are hybrid. Not fully in-person, not fully remote, but comfortable with the idea that people work from home on Mondays and Fridays but come into an office “at least two days a week”.

That setup seems to describe most people I know who work in office jobs.

I’ve found the social life in these types of offices to be poor. There are no longer drinks after work on a Friday. Fewer team lunches on a Wednesday, and less organised socialising in general.

Paul Millerd touches on this in a recent essay. I tend to agree with him, I don’t have a strong take on whether this is good or bad. I do feel it is real though.

At a personal level, I do think its really important that people think about how their work path interfaces with their community, friends, and broader culture. For people, especially those who enjoy spending time experimenting with and redesigning their lives, the upsides can be enormous. But for others, who just don’t want to do that, or like to have a standard workweek protocol to opt into, it can be a bit more lonely and uncertain than a traditional work path.

How a company thinks about remote or hybrid work is a key consideration now. Gitlab has a good overview of the range of options that companies are experimenting with. This should help weigh up the pros and cons of the jobs listed below.

Here’s a super crude drawing of what this looks like. My first-year art teacher was right, I’m not an artist, perhaps you can tell. Sorry, Mrs Adams.

Most tech companies say they hire for “remote hybrid” but the reality is they can sit anywhere from “remote tolerated” to “remote first”. And you likely won’t know until you get into the hiring process.