I am on a fairly strict, headlines-only news consumption diet right now for mental health, but periodically something goes by that really interests me that is NOT about current events. I saw this headline and jumped on it:

nytimes.com/2026/06/17/opinion…

I was 100% remote for 3 years long before the pandemic, and that made it completely clear to me that this was a bad path for me. I can see that it is useful for certain personality types, but the hype around 100% remote for tech workers has been maddening. It's been affecting the way jobs are structured. Heather's job relocated to an office too small for the amount of staff who actually WANTED to work on-site. For a while, all the teams were on a MAXIMUM in-office day of ONE. Now that has eased off, and Heather's in the office 2-3 days a week usually.

My team went from one work-from-home day to two, with a lot more flexibility toward working remotely for specific reasons -- I am writing this from a B&B in Maine, where Heather and I are on a week's workcation while the kid is at camp up here.

I haven't looked at the linked science article, but it does seem like a lot of babies are being dumped out with the bathwater here. My team has settled on 2 days for everyone in to be in-office, with a 3rd for people who want more contact. Basically, there's a healthy office environment Tu-Th. M and F are vacant. You don't need a M-F, 9-5 office life to deal with the mental health caused by 100% remote work. But also, office relationships deteriorate not just because in-person contact is healthier, but because there's a whole collection of interactions that are almost impossible to do remotely. The office politics in my job right now are THICK AND COMPLEX. This is stuff we have to be in the office to discuss and sort through. Remote collaboration on problem-solving is also hit-or-miss. Virtual whiteboards exist, but the learning cost is high, and I'm skeptical that most teams bother to learn to use them.

So, yeah, you can improve mental health by expanding out-of-work social engagement, BUT your office relationships still deteriorate in most cases, and those are still valuable.

I do speak as someone who fantasizes about some tech career paths that would have to be all-remote, and I'll definitely do it if the job satisfaction reward is high enough. But the tradeoffs are way steeper than the general conversation seems ready to admit.

I was unprepared for how vicious the comments were, though. I used to hang out in the NYT comments a lot before putting myself on news rationing, and I've generally found them civil. But whoa, folks feel REALLY threatened by a narrative that fully remote work is not a panacea.