Enough With the Absolutes About Remote Work

Why remote vs. office depends on the job, the person, and the moment

With my company, are we trying to get people back in the office? That’s a complicated, nuanced answer: Yes-ish. It depends where.

I believe some people are more productive at home and some people are more productive at the office. I believe young people early in their career learn well from osmosis and asking people that are sitting right next to them, and we here at Vayner do very complicated marketing work. So ironically, I prefer the younger crew to be in the office for osmosis.

But I’m big on freedom and choice. If someone does not want to go into the office, I respect that. They work better in silence, they want to walk their dog, etc. They’re allowed. But leaders are also allowed to let go of those people or not hire those people. Both are allowed!

Now, to counter my point, there are 24-year-olds that would learn better sitting at home and reviewing the material than being in the office. I don’t sh*t on people either way. I don’t sh*t on business owners who want to build a culture and they think that 5 days a week in-office is the way to do that. By the way, if this were 2010-2012, I would not have remote workers because I needed people to be in office to build that foundation.

There’s an entitlement among people thinking “can you believe this boss is making us go back to work?” This is not North Korea… I think everything is f*cking allowed to do what they want.

I’m very big on adaptability. If I’m nothing, I’m adaptable. I think people struggle with adaptability, and I think that that’s the game. People are unbelievably judgmental of humans or institutions that make them be forced into some adaptability, and people are not gracious enough to themselves to be more adaptable.

There are plenty of people that want to WFH right now because they’re 42 and they love taking their daughter to school in the mornings, and they weren’t able to do that earlier.

At 26 years old, they’d be the ones yelling at people for not going into the office, but today at 42, they love it. People talk about sh*t only based on them. The lack of compassion, empathy, sympathy, thoughtfulness, taking a step back and looking at the macro… people come from their personal place. Everyone’s opinions on work from home are predicated on where they are today.

There’s no absolutes in life, friends. There’s just your circumstance.

The Great Debate: $240K in the Office or $120K Remote?

A little while ago, there was a question circulating on TikTok: Would you rather work a job where you’re in the office five days a week for $240K, or a job where you’re fully remote for $120K? It sparked a huge debate that quickly made its way from TikTok around to the other platforms. Naturally, I decided to poll everyone on LinkedIn, and the results were interesting.

After about 1M impressions and 53K votes, 63% of you said you would pick the in-office role for higher pay.

What’s more interesting are the reasons given. Many of you cited long commutes as a reason to go remote, while others favored the in-office option for the camaraderie and social element. Some were motivated by a greater sense of work-life balance they felt from a work-from-home scenario, while others valued the higher salary above all.

The reality is no matter which side of this debate you end up on, there is no “right” answer. As I always say, there is no “right,” there’s only what’s right for you.

If they flipped it and said $240K at home and $120K in the office, I would be $120K in the office. How about that? The thing that matters to me the most is not the $240K or the $120K, or the work from home, I need people.

By the way, there’s a ton of boomers that want to make $120K and be at home because they’re introverted. They like it quiet, they like their home. They want to take care of their kids. That’s all correct. There’s a lot of Gen Zers that want to be in the office, too. I’m so tired of this shit. Why do we think it’s appropriate to bucket all Gen Zers and all boomers in one thing? There’s unlimited Gen Zers that want to be in the office five days a week, because they fucking feed off other people, and learn through osmosis. And there’s unlimited fucking boomers who want to work from home because they want to take care of their kids, or they like their little office, or they like their kitchen. Enough.

Does Remote Work Reduce Efficiency?

That being said, let there be no confusion. I see plenty of wonderful things from the work from home model: work-life balance, people seeing their kids more… I like a lot about it. On the flip side, however, it is very clear to me that the employees that are in the office are winning on the biggest thing — it’s called osmosis.

The osmosis you get from learning from senior people and coworkers around you.. from seeing the efficiencies of learning and getting things done quickly … These things really play out so differently in person than on Zoom and Slack alone, and it’s profound.

@garyvee

Gary Vay-Ner-Chuk | I know a lot of companies and employees are…

I’ll give you an example. An employee came up to me and was very transparent. She said, “I was really considering quitting when we went to a couple more days in the office. I didn’t want to commute. My commute’s a pain in the ass… but I got up yesterday and walked over three seats to ask somebody something, and I got the answer right away. That used to take three weeks. I would ask for a meeting, that person would be available in a week, then they’d cancel it or reschedule for two weeks later, and nothing would happen. It used to take three weeks, but yesterday, it was 12 seconds.”

That’s why companies are in deep sh*t–because speed, efficiency and effectiveness matter.

Remote Work and Loneliness

Beyond efficiency and productivity, working remotely just genuinely sucks for a lot of people. For some, it’s good in theory. I don’t like traffic. I hate the commute. I like hiding.

Working remotely sucks for a lot of people. Working remotely really hurts a lot of people who need other human beings.

There’s unequivocal data that people live longer when they’re in a community. Friends, if you’re sitting and working at home, and all of this miraculous time that you’ve saved by not commuting, you’re doom scrolling.

A lot of you, especially single, under 30, have lost the osmosis of the things you learn in an office. You’ve lost the serendipity of meeting a new friend.

The Bottom Line

Look, big shout-out to everyone who works from home and found more happiness. For some people — say you’re 33 years old, with two kids and a couple of friends in the neighborhood — working from home is a win. For some people, working from home is perfect. Life is about knowing “who you are,” not “what they say.”

Ultimately, as conversations around the workplace evolve, so should our attitudes around remote vs in-person work.

Remember, as with anything else in life, there is no “one size fits all” answer.

Thank you for reading! Please reply to this email, leave a comment, and share your two cents on remote work. I’d love to hear from you. What do you think:

• If you’re honest, are your opinions about remote work based on principle… or your current life season?

• What are you optimizing for in this season: money, speed, learning, flexibility, or community?

• When was the last time “osmosis” meaningfully accelerated your growth?