People will not choose to spend their working lives alone at home

The argument

The second argument concerns what people want rather than what firms can measure. Proponents of this position argue that the enthusiasm for working from home was formed under conditions that made the office unattractive and the home the only safe place to be, and that the preference has not held up as those conditions receded. Proponents argue that the costs of working alone are real and cumulative. Work supplies a large share of most adults' social contact, and the colleagues people see daily are where many friendships and relationships begin. A home that is also an office offers no boundary between the two, so the working day expands to fill the evening and there is nowhere that is not work. And the arrangement is unequally available: proponents argue that a spare room in a quiet house makes remote work pleasant, while a shared flat, a small home with children in it, or a kitchen table makes it a daily imposition, and the people in the second situation are generally those with the least say. They add that the physical consequences point the same way. Proponents argue that a day without a commute is often a day without leaving the building, and that sitting in one room for most of waking life is not something people sustain by choice once alternatives return. On this account the office is not merely a place where work is supervised but a reason to go out, see people and separate the parts of life, and proponents argue these are needs that outlast a particular technology. The argument concludes that because working mostly from home is worse for most people than they expected, hybrid work is not the way of the future.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Critics answer that every drawback listed is an argument for hybrid work rather than against it, since a mixed arrangement is precisely what supplies the social contact, the boundary and the reason to leave the house while keeping the time and money a commute consumes. They add that the point about unequal space tells against requiring attendance too, because the people with the worst homes often also have the longest and most expensive journeys. Critics further argue that preferences differ sharply, and that a claim about what people will not choose is answered by the many who choose it and say they would resign rather than return.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] The preference has persisted well after restrictions ended, and surveys and resignations both show workers treating it as a condition worth changing jobs over. [Rejecting P2] Every drawback listed is an argument for a hybrid arrangement rather than against one, since a mixed week supplies the contact, the boundary and the reason to leave the house. [Rejecting P3] The point about cramped homes tells against requiring attendance too, because those with the worst space often have the longest and most expensive journeys. [Rejecting C] At most it follows that fully remote work suits few people, which is the case the hybrid position itself makes.