I do think that remote work is much more productive and I'm not exactly excited about the prospect of going back into an office, but if you don't have strong community / friends / family outside of work it can quickly become unhealthy.
Newbies (those who’ve been remote for under a year) were more likely to be experiencing loneliness (33%). Those who’d worked remotely for over 7 years seemed to have overcome feeling left out, but were more likely to overwork themself (33%). Creatives were more likely to cite lack of career advancement opportunities as a challenge (25% vs. 22% of engineers and 20% of marketers).
Time to move on I think. I'd give remote another go if I can find a company that has >50% remote workers.
IMO, it has to be a 100% commitment to remote work, where even the bosses are remote. First problem is communication - half of the team will rely on Slack, Jira, etc, while the other half rely on face to face. The tools that are used to handle remote work are abandoned by the team. The proper processes for handling remote work is never set in place.
The other big problem is that the non-remote workers get salty or distrustful. I find that they (consciously or not) try to sabotage remote workers. I find people can build even stronger relationships purely online than offline, but it has to be inclusive. They form cliques otherwise.
I see only benefits, can exercise during the day, take a nap after lunch, which makes me much more productive in the afternoon, at the end of the day, I just walk away from my office and I am home :-)
