[fnfjfk]

> I am fully remote and I'll admit that it would probably be better if I was at the office once or twice a week.

Yeah, probably. The thing is, why should a remote worker care? Even if in office is somewhat more productive, how does that benefit the workers? Why should they care? Maybe the stock price goes up a bit? But my impression is it’s way more impacted by market forces or exec decisions than anything a measly IC peon does.

So, if you add “for the company” after “better”… yes. But is it better for the worker? Not really?

[rqtwteye]

I am in it for the money. And usually the best way to make more money is to get promoted. And to get promoted it’s best to have visibility within the company. And the easiest way to get visibility is to be at the office and chat with the right people.

[happyopossum]

> Why should they care?

So expand this out a it for me - at what point do you care about doing your job well? Or do you just want to do the bare minimum to keep your job?

[consteval]

It's a cost analysis thing, I think. If I'm already working it's fine to want the company to do good so I do my best.

But even outside of remote work stuff people do this analysis. Like if I take on more work related to X people might get the impression, I own it, and then I'll get way more emails and my workload will be too large. Or if I finish feature Y in Z time then the customer might get the impression that's as long as it takes when really, I got very lucky, so they might tighten their expectations. So, sometimes, you make decisions that are "worse" for the company to save your own sanity and workload, depending on the issue and scope. It's complicated, but what's good for me is also good for the company to an extent.

Working in an office 2 days a week has a cost. The drive could add up to 4+ extra hours dedicated to work a week (that's a lot!). If the improvement to the company is only marginal based on my perception, I might say that's not worth it. Of course, in these bigger scenarios, we don't necessarily make this decision. But we make very similar micro-decisions almost every day.

[earthling8118]

The company doing well is a lovely outcome. However, at what point do they care about me doing well? Or do they just want to do the bare minimum to keep me alive and in my seat?