I agree. Those offline jobs are highly productive and fun. I'd like to think they still exist somewhere. They did 15 years ago. But I'm afraid a whole generation of software professionals is growing up without ever experiencing it, just taking the current state of the industry as the norm.
I like the way you frame it as an "offline only" work environment. Offline vs online does seem to be the main distinction here.
It's not the remoteness. It's the apps and the intellectually-lazy culture they encourage. Slack, Jira, Github, Docs, Sheets, etc. So much of modern work is navigating those byzantine digital games to score virtual communication points, rather than actually communicating anything of value. Being terminally online is almost guaranteed to lead to presence monitoring, stilted communication, territoriality, lack of clarity, poor product quality and dehumanization. It can happen remotely, it can happen in the office. Doesn't matter. The app-ification of all communication lines is what's harmful.
At some point, you need to stop with the digital games and just use your brain. Commit to the deep work of communicating. There are a shocking number of people who would rather shuffle tickets around all day than read or write a single coherent paragraph. Thinking in slack responses and Jira tickets is a symptom of brain rot.
I like the way you frame it as an "offline only" work environment. Offline vs online does seem to be the main distinction here.
It's not the remoteness. It's the apps and the intellectually-lazy culture they encourage. Slack, Jira, Github, Docs, Sheets, etc. So much of modern work is navigating those byzantine digital games to score virtual communication points, rather than actually communicating anything of value. Being terminally online is almost guaranteed to lead to presence monitoring, stilted communication, territoriality, lack of clarity, poor product quality and dehumanization. It can happen remotely, it can happen in the office. Doesn't matter. The app-ification of all communication lines is what's harmful.
At some point, you need to stop with the digital games and just use your brain. Commit to the deep work of communicating. There are a shocking number of people who would rather shuffle tickets around all day than read or write a single coherent paragraph. Thinking in slack responses and Jira tickets is a symptom of brain rot.