elisa

The year is 2025. It’s been five years since the COVID-19 lockdowns began, and our lives changed fundamentally. No longer could students and workers simply “go into the office” and continue on with life as normal. Suddenly, it was dangerous to leave your house. Everyone wondered: “will I get sick?” or even worse, “will I get my loved ones sick?” To deal with the predicament, governments and companies alike quickly pivoted to remote work. For the first time, office workers no longer had to physically go into the office. Instead, they could just log in from home and still get all of their work done. But it’s been five years since COVID, and many are wondering why anyone is still working from home. The push for Return to Office (RTO) grows increasingly stronger every year, and people are mad about it. .

You might be asking, “Elisa, why do you even care about this? Your job can’t be done remotely.” You would be right: the vast majority of public library work requires workers to be physically at the branch. I have to sit at the circulation desk and answer questions; I have to assemble craft supplies to test my programs; I have to collect books off of the shelves; I have to sit beside a senior to troubleshoot their computer question. Unless I become some form of manager (which wouldn’t happen for at least a decade), I will never have a remote or hybrid position as long as I stay on this career path. And yet, I am still very passionate about how utterly stupid the RTO mandates are.

Let’s rewind to the year 2022. In Winter 2022, I was completing the first year of my library science master’s degree in Toronto, and desperately hunting for a placement in my field that would employ me over the long university summer. My quest for money and experience was complicated by the fact that my then-boyfriend, now-fiancé, Bennet lived in Kingston, where he was completing his own masters. I scoured the internet, but there were no positions to be had anywhere in the Thousand Islands region. So, it fell to me to make a choice: should I put my career development first, and take a job in a major city, and continue to suffer the misery of a long distance relationship? Or should I choose love and happiness, spend the summer with Bennet in Kingston, and hope to find a retail job that would likely not give me any relevant experience to put on my resume? But then, the answer to all of my problems appeared on a beam of pixelated light, as if sent down from God herself: a remote job. It was the perfect solution; I could gain experience in a new aspect of librarianship based in Ottawa, while still living in Kingston and having a gloriously happy summer with Bennet. So, I took the position, and it was so worth it. Summer 2022 was an excellent one, filled with drive-in theaters, mini-golf, double rainbows, and adventures in upstate New York; none of which I would have experienced by myself in Toronto.

And at the end of Summer 2022, I had a similar yet opposite choice to make. Should I go back to full time classes in Toronto (which I was super disillusioned with) and deal with the one-two punch of seasonal depression and a return to long-distance, or should I take a different work placement in Kingston, where I could continue to learn new professional skills and also generally enjoy life. Due to the perks of remote schooling, I was able to work in-person in Kingston and do a remote class based in Toronto so that I could still graduate on time. Fall 2022 was also one of my happiest ever, featuring corn mazes, fall fairs, bar trivia, and my first Hoco. I will be forever grateful to the time and opportunities that these two remote options (work and school) provided for me, and I think everyone should have that chance.

Now that you know why I am fighting this battle, let's zoom out a bit and clarify what exactly I mean by remote work. In my mind, jobs that are largely computer based that involve minimal physical work or face to face interaction are well suited for remote work or hybrid positions. Obviously not all jobs meet that criteria, but many do meet them at least partially, and their workers could thrive with various levels of remote or hybrid working. To add, I also believe that a remote job should not be constrained to a strict 9-5. If you want to shift your working hours to 10-6 or 8-4, or split your shift so that you can take a longer lunch, or catch up on work on the weekends, I think that remote work should give you that chance. As long as you can attend any meetings and get your work done, I think that employees should be free to choose the hours that they keep.

And now, with all of that exposition out of the way, we can finally get into the many, many benefits of remote working.

Geography

If you have a remote job, then you aren’t physically tied down to your office location. This means that jobs can be distributed out of major cities and provide opportunities for residents of small towns. This is about more than just people who moved rurally during COVID, although this would benefit them too. I’m primarily bringing up this point because it would allow people to stay in their own communities without having to move out. So if the major employer of SmallTown, Ontario goes bust, there are options for people to get jobs without moving away. As an aside: I know that these opportunities are not one-to-one. Obviously someone who has worked a very physical job of manual labour will not be able to seamlessly adapt to a high-tech fully remote computer job, but I think the principle still stands.

Being able to work from anywhere also means that you can work while travelling, whether for pleasure, obligation, or emergency. This is good for employers because it means that their employees are more likely to keep working while out of town, which increases productivity. It’s also good for employees because it gives them much more flexibility to keep working without having to take vacation or sick days. Obviously I’m not advocating for employees to never take vacation days; quite the opposite. Remote work should empower employees to work from anywhere they want to, and still take all of their vacation days. Consider an employee that only has 10 days of vacation per year who wants to take a two week trip. They could take two days of vacation for travelling to and from their destination, and take three full vacation days at their destination, and then work remotely for the remaining five weekdays while at their destination. In this scenario, they are still able to save five vacation days to use another time during the year. Sounds amazing to me. On a personal note, during my summer of 2022 remote job, I had a family emergency back in Toronto. Since my job was remote, I was able to travel to Toronto and be with my family without missing work (and therefore without missing pay). It was a relief for me to not have to worry about taking time off when I didn’t have any vacation days, or not having to choose between paying rent and seeing family.

Even more, the ability to work when travelling doesn’t just have to be about jet-setting to Europe or Asia. Remote working means that you can work from your house, but also your favourite cafe, your friend’s house, your cottage. If you have a stable wifi connection and a power source, the opportunities are endless. My personal favourite place to work remotely that summer was on the front porch of my rental house, where I could sit in the sun and be surrounded by trees and fresh air. It really made working a lot more enjoyable for me.

Traffic & Commuting

When you don’t have to physically go into the office, you no longer have to commute. It’s a simple statement but it makes such a big difference. I have multiple friends who technically live and work in the GTA, but one lives in Markham and works in Mississauga, and two live in Burlington and work in Toronto. For all of them, it takes at least an hour each way to commute into work. Being able to live close to your work is a privilege that not everyone has access to. Often, people are forced to choose between a long commute and a precarious or unaffordable living situation, especially with the current housing crisis. If you work remotely, your commute becomes the 10 second walk from your bed to your desk. And that means that you get those two hours back! You can do whatever you want with them: get on top of your daily chores, get some exercise, do a hobby, spend time with loved ones. The world is your oyster because you have that extra time back in your day.

Less commuting also means that there will be less traffic. Obviously there will still be some traffic for the people who work jobs that cannot be done remotely, and travel that is not work-related. But traffic overall, especially the dreaded rush hour, will be significantly reduced. This has a lot of excellent downstream effects. Less cars on the road means that there will be less reliance on cars, and makes more space for a non-car centric way of existing. If your primary use for your car was commuting to and from work, then remote work could give you the freedom to get rid of your car. This is probably most realistic for larger households, who may be able to downsize from three cars to two cars, or from two cars to one car. This obviously reduces the costs associated with owning a car (maintenance, insurance, gas, etc etc), and likely would be a net positive for households overall.

Fewer cars on the road will also be better for the environment in multiple ways. Obviously it would reduce air pollution, which was memorably noticed during the first few months of COVID, when major cities worldwide began announcing that their smog had visibly reduced during the height of restrictions. However, vehicle emissions are not the only factor that we should be considering. Rubber particulates that are released from car tires as they wear and tear are a huge source of microplastic pollution, reportedly accounting for more than 25% of global microplastics in the environment. The auto industry itself creates so much waste and is also energy and resource intensive. Although remote work cannot by itself solve any of these problems, the chance to reduce the amount of cars on the road, or even reduce the overall amount of cars in use is absolutely one that we should be pursuing. It’s also worth noting that the reduction of cars on the road would help reduce the amount of car accident-related injuries and deaths, for both drivers and pedestrians.

Pivoting away from cars, widespread remote work also has the power to change how public transit infrastructure is planned. Many major cities, including my hometown of Toronto, have their transit prioritized to shuttle office workers to and from the downtown core. This is great if you actually need to go downtown, but makes it a lot more inconvenient to use transit to get across town, say from North York to East York. If there were fewer workers commuting downtown for the traditional 9-5 workday, it would free up transit resources. Instead of being forced to focus on adding capacity to the existing downtown pipelines, they could create brand new routes that spread access more equitably around the whole city.

Illness

Remote working is generally a much more supportive environment for people with illnesses. Let’s start with acute illnesses: a strong work from home policy means that people no longer have to come into the office when they are sick. No one likes it when their coworkers come into work with a cold; it’s easy to spread germs and become the office patient zero. And yet many people struggle with the idea of taking time off for minor illnesses. I personally struggle with this even though I have a healthy sick day allowance, because I don’t feel like a common cold warrants me taking off 5-7 days of work. If I was able to work from home, it would be a non-issue: I could still work as much as I saw fit without majorly stressing out about accidentally infecting my coworkers. Remote work also benefits people with acute injuries. Say you broke your ankle and had difficulty getting to and maneuvering through the office with your cast and crutches. If you were able to work from home, you would not be forced to put unnecessary strain on your body.

Remote working is also great for people with chronic illnesses. They can save a lot of spoons by not having to commute to the office, and well as not having to do other miscellaneous tasks like packing a lunch or putting on makeup that are often necessary for in person work. A flexible remote work setup also makes it a lot easier for people to take the time needed to go to doctor’s appointments. If you have to be in the office 9-5 but you have an appointment, it often requires taking at least a half-day off in order to attend it. Whereas a flexible remote set-up could let you take a few hours in the middle of the day to visit the doctor, and make up the missing hours in the evening. Even without having an appointment, the flexibility provided by remote work would allow people with chronic illnesses to work at their own pace and take breaks as needed. A potentially underrated point in favour of remote work means that people with chronic illnesses wouldn’t have to interact with the physical environment of the office. One of my coworkers is allergic to dust, mold, and perfume, all of which are abundant at my workplace. Other things at a workplace to consider are stairs or other physical accessibility barriers (both at the office and on the way to it), non ergonomic work stations, poor ventilation, and bad HVAC settings (being too hot and too cold). In all fairness, this is based on the assumption that someone’s home is better suited to them than their office, which is likely but not guaranteed. However, I do feel like people often have more control over their living spaces than their offices, which is a major point in the favour of remote work.

Freedom to Be Home

Extending from the previous section, a lot of people consider their home to be their happy place. A place where they enjoy being, and something they have set up and arranged to their specific liking and needs. I don’t think it would be a huge exaggeration to say that most people would prefer to spend more time in their homes, instead of in the office. Homes typically have a lot more amenities than an office, such as a private bathroom, a full kitchen, and access to all of your clothes and possessions. The amount of times that I’ve forgotten something for work at home, or something for home at work is more than you would think, and I know at least that I would appreciate it if I didn’t have to lug a giant tote bag full of all of my things between the two places. Having access to your own kitchen during the work day means that people are more able eat home cooked food instead of having to spend money on unhealthy take out. Having access to your own space means that it’s much easier for you to sneak in a quick workout and shower in the middle of the day instead of having to get it at an unholy time before or after work. The standards at home are a lot more relaxed, so you can work in your own personal uniform of comfortable clothes instead of a stifling office ensemble.

Besides the comforts and luxuries of home, there are also more important reasons one might want to stay home. A big one is pets: many animals benefit from having their human around all day to interact with, instead of being cooped up all alone. If they need to be fed, walked, given medication, or just snuggled with, their human is available to meet all those needs while working from home. Being at home is also convenient if you need to receive any packages (increasingly common while the hysteria of online shopping has a firm grip on our society) or have any repairs done. The last time I had to receive a furniture delivery from Ikea, I had to specifically schedule it on a weekday that I didn’t work in order to get the pieces delivered up into my unit, and also not be charged exorbitantly for a nighttime or weekend delivery. I’m overall very lucky that my in-person job has some flexibility of hours, but it would have been even easier if I was a remote worker.

On a more serious note, being at home allows workers, primarily women, to perform more caregiving duties while still participating in the workforce. Women often bear the brunt of caregiving responsibilities in their households, which means that if the family can’t afford daycare then it’s the woman who most often stays home with the children. This means that women are participating in the workforce to a lesser extent, so they are sacrificing career growth and future earning potential. Some women ideally would like to be stay-at-home moms, and I fully support them. However, I worry for the women who, for whatever reason, want to be working mothers but are unable to work while caring for their children. Being able to work means that you have access to your own income, your own relationships, your own goals, and your own achievements. Women who don’t work and don’t have their own incomes are more easily exploited by abusive partners. So, having a remote position with flexible hours allows women to be at work while actually being at home keeping an eye on their children. It should also be a good reminder for any men who have remote jobs that they too could become the primary caregivers for their children. I clarify that I’m not implying that it’s easy to work full time while caring for your children, but it is at least possible to do so, compared to how impossible it is when you have to be in the office 9-5 every day. It also allows you to perform less intensive acts of caregiving, like picking your kids up from school, or taking your older relatives to appointments, without having to constantly sacrifice work and career. As someone who may have to care for children, and very likely will have to care for parents, this point feels more significant to me, and it’s a non-insignificant factor in my overall thoughts about having kids of my own someday.

I Agree, Remote Work Is Better!

Thanks for agreeing with me! I know I’ve been very eloquent and convincing. :) But to be fair, we should also examine some of the downsides of remote work.

Space and Equipment

I worry that companies may use remote work as an excuse to not adequately equip their workers. In the office, you are ideally provided with a computer, monitor, keyboard and mouse, a desk and a chair, and other more specialized equipment that is required for your role. When working at home, you definitely have to provide your own desk and chair, and potentially even your own tech. It unfairly puts the burden onto the worker, when this is something that the company has and should still be responsible for. In the same way, I have to recognize that not everyone has an adequate space to work from home. Traditionally, it’s the responsibility of the company to provide the office space, but in remote work that goes back on the worker. During COVID a lot of people talked about how they were stuck in their homes with absolutely nowhere to go, and while that’s more of an indictment on the lack of third spaces in our current society, it should be recognized that the office is a space that you get to go to, and might even enjoy going to.

Social Isolation

If you’ve watched any workplace comedy show then you might think that your coworkers will become your best friends, and maybe even your lovers. Television is obviously not the same as reality, but it is true that you often spend more time with your coworkers than anyone else, and that a certain bond definitely forms. I know that if I wasn’t part of this wonderful thing called Code Monkey Cafe then I would have a lot less friends, and would definitely turn more to my coworkers to fill that resulting gap in my life. As much as we love to hate them, our coworkers are indeed a major part of socialization or many workers. In a fully remote position, it becomes much harder (but not impossible) to make social connections when you are always separated by a screen. There is no longer any chatter when you first get into the office, no shared lunch breaks or coffee runs, and no holiday parties. The camera-off culture during video calls also contributes to this lack of social interaction. It’s such a relief to have your own camera off, but it’s so demoralizing to stare into a void of black boxes with no one looking back at you. At my own workplace, we have department-wide meetings once a month; part of the reason why they are such a waste of time is because we don’t actually get to interact with other members of our department. These remote meetings don’t really give us any opportunity to meaningfully connect or build solidarity with one another, and I wish that they were at least occasionally in-person.

Lack of Downtown Customers

An argument against remote work that seems to constantly be brought up is that if there are no downtown workers, the businesses that cater to downtown workers will go out of business. “Oh won’t someone think of the poor workers!” they cry, “the poor dry-cleaners, shoe-shiners, dentists, and lunch-counter workers! Will no one think of them??” Well, I am thinking of them, and I am not too distraught about it. First of all, there will still be downtown workers, because not everyone’s job can be done remotely. Second of all, why should we prioritize these downtown businesses over similar ones that are located in people’s home neighbourhoods? They too have dry-cleaners, shoe-shiners, dentists, and fast casual lunch spots. Ideally neither one of these groups would suffer, but it’s impossible to make a cake without breaking a few eggs. Frankly, I think a widespread shift to remote work would be an excellent opportunity to make more mixed-use neighbourhoods, and redistribute resources around the city instead of only focusing them in certain high-value areas (like the downtown core). This also ties into one of the major reasons that companies are forcing their workers back to being in-person: their office buildings are languishing empty. Corporations have egg on their faces for wasting all this money on a large workspace, and they’re forcing people back to the office just so that they don’t look embarrassing to shareholders. This too could be a great reason to consider redeveloping downtown areas to become more mixed use, but no one wants to foot the bill for the renovations. Tragically, most office buildings can not simply be converted into apartment units with a wave of a magic wand, no matter how much I might want that to be true. But there has to be a happy medium between empty offices and forcing people back to in-person work just to save face.

What does this all mean?

Hopefully you still believe in the many benefits of widespread remote work. All of these advantages that I’ve talked about so far are worthwhile and worth keeping. I’m a firm believer in a healthy work-life balance; whenever possible, people should be working to live, instead of living to work. The flexibility and opportunities granted by remote work can help make the need to work more tolerable and manageable, as well as more affordable.

The return to office mandates that have recently become popular destroy all of the things. Return to office means a return to commuting, pollution, traffic, illness, being uncomfortable, barriers to working, and much more. It should also be noted that the return to office mandates aren’t even being done well. There are hundreds of stories about offices that are not large or private enough to accommodate workers and their tasks, people schlepping themselves to the office just to be on remote calls all day, overcrowded and underfunded amenities and services. But most of all, people are less happy and less productive. Remote work wasn’t perfect, but it granted a lot of possibilities that we could have only dreamed of pre-COVID shutdowns, and it shouldn’t be arbitrarily taken away based on the whims of CEOs and politicians.

And that, my friends, is why I think Return to Office is stupid.

i am, your most faithful blogger, elisa