WSJ: Fully Remote, and Hating It

Most people want to work at home at least some of the time. But a small, sad cohort just wants their cubicles back. My latest Wall Street Journal essay.

Meet the People Who Work Fully Remote—and Hate It

By Joanne Lipman

Illustration: Zohar Lazar

Travis Woo is living the dream, working remotely from the Hawaiian island of Oahu. On a recent Tuesday, the 35-year-old entrepreneur posted a YouTube video of himself walking his dog on an idyllic beach beneath a cerulean blue sky, white-tipped waves crashing on the shore behind him.

It’s an envy-inducing scene, until you listen to what he’s saying. “Working remote, it allowed me to move to Hawaii,” the Seattle native acknowledges, but “there’s a lot of social negatives…One of the costs is loneliness.” Being on a computer screen all day, Woo says, feels like “being a captive animal in the zoo. You know, like a captive human.”

Five years after the pandemic shutdown, we’re in the midst of a major back-to-the-office push. Companies from AT&T to Chipotle are cracking down on remote work, as is the Trump administration, which has threatened to fire federal employees who don’t show up five days a week.

Employees, for the most part, are furious, fighting back with petitions and lawsuits. More than 90% of Amazon professionals in a recent survey objected to the company’s demand for five days a week on premises. A recent Pew survey found that almost half of employees say they’d likely look for a new job if their employer eliminated remote options.

But lost in the crowd is a small, sad cohort that just wants their cubicles back. Most are stranded at home either because their physical office no longer exists or their position in the org chart has been designated remote. Reddit is filled with threads from this lonely crowd, with topics like “Working from home has ruined me,” “I absolutely hate working from home” and “I hate remote work, am I insane?”

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Meet me in Santa Fe…

Recently, “Not Too Late” author Wendy Gwendolyn Bounds and I co-hosted our first "What's Next? Strategies for a Powerful Pivot" workshop, for more than 300 attendees online. We had a blast, but we were also blown away and humbled by the response of participants, who ranged from fired federal workers to retirees.

Next stop: in person! In Santa Fe, the week of April 14, we've been invited to be "guest faculty" for an MEA Wisdom workshop, at the gorgeous Rising Circle Ranch (named one of The World’s Greatest Places by Time magazine). You can register here - and use the code MEA30 for a 30% spring workshop discount.