I don't want to spend time with you

I’ve been meaning to write something about why I’ll likely never go back to an in-office role, and why hybrid working is unworkable, but I’ve been struggling to find the right angle. A company approached me recently and while checking the role description—just out of curiosity, not because I had any real interest—I saw wording along the lines of “we like spending as much time with our colleagues as possible so we want you to commit to at least three days a week in the office” and there’s the angle, because I don’t want to spend as much time with my colleagues as possible.

It’s not that I dislike spending time with colleagues. At Jitty we get together in person about once a month and it’s great collaborating with people then heading out for a few beers afterwards. I enjoy the “Jit Tea” chats we have most mornings which are purely sociable remote meetings with no work talk, and no obligation to join. But outside work hours I’d generally rather spend my time with family and friends, not colleagues.

These don’t have to be mutually exclusive. Many of my friends are or have been colleagues over the years. But being remote means I can choose which colleagues or ex-colleagues I spend time with outside work, rather than just defaulting to whoever I’m currently working with. Since more senior people are spread out across organisations, and because you tend to want to socialise with people around your age (give or take ten years) and at a similar life stage (kids, etc.), it’s relatively unlikely that the people I happen to be working with are the same ones I’d choose to spend time with.

Being remote means I see a lot more of my family. My wife works from home so we can go for a walk before work and have lunch together most days, sitting outside in the garden if the weather’s nice. My kid’s school is just over the road and it means I can drop him off and pick him up and take him to cubs or Krav Maga. These are things I’d rather do than stand on a cramped, sweaty train to and from the office with people who aren’t even my colleagues.

Being remote means I’m in control of my diet and alcohol intake rather than getting lunch from the same place as everyone else, eating calorific takeaways or cardboard Pret sandwiches, and having cheeky beers a couple of times a week. I’ve got time to exercise in my home gym several days a week because I’ve got flexibility around working times. At one point while working at Deliveroo I hit almost 100kg (220lb) in weight and it was all fat. I’m now down to the mid-70kgs (160-170lb), I can run a 5k in around half an hour, and I can bench more than my bodyweight for ten.

This is what matters to me now, at forty six.

When I didn’t have a wife or a girlfriend or a child or many friends or much money or a nice house or a home office or a home gym, and I lived in London, and I could drink six pints and feel fine the next morning, working in the office was great. It was exactly what I wanted. But that was then and this is now.

And that brings us on to hybrid working.

Hybrid working works for nobody.

Young people often want to be in the office all the time. They’re early in their careers, maybe single, living in small flats, and want the energy. Meanwhile, people with families usually don’t. Sure, there’s a spectrum, but most fall toward one end or the other. And hybrid satisfies neither. Nobody gets what they want, either socially or logistically.

It gets even worse if you’ve got a policy of being flexible on days because most meetings will include someone working remotely that day, so you’ve got the choice of having them dial into a room and being a second-class citizen, or everyone dialling in individually—at which point, why bother coming in at all?

The only thing it says if you do hybrid working is the execs really want everyone in the office all the time—I suppose because they love micromanaging or think seat time equals productivity or something—but can’t hire the older more senior people they need because we just won’t do it.

I have to give the company mentioned in the introductory paragraph credit though: When I replied saying three days in the week would rule me out, they just thanked me for letting them know. That’s a whole lot more dignified than the usual “we can make exceptions for more senior roles”. If you’re going to implement a hybrid model then at least have the conviction to stick to it. The absolute worst thing you can do is make exceptions for the most senior people; what does that say to everyone below them?

Most companies end up negotiating their two or three office days a week down to one or two a month before I’ve even spoken to them in the hope that might want to make me work there. But it doesn’t, because companies that do hybrid working always prioritise people on-site, and I’d spend half my life as a second class citizen, as a small screen peering into a meeting room where everyone else falls over each other to interrupt because they don’t have the much fairer queuing mechanisms of remote meetings.

Either go fully in-office or fully remote. Anything in between is a cop-out.

Yes you’ll limit your hiring pool, but at least you’ll limit it to people who want to work the way you do. And if your way is being in-office, that’s totally fine. It just won’t include me.


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