Multiple-choice reading

On my first day working from home, I wore a shirt and smart shoes, even though nobody could see below my desk. I did it partly out of habit and partly because I wanted to believe the change was temporary. Three years later, I still work remotely most of the week, and the shoes are mostly decorative. What surprised me isn’t the practical side of remote work—video calls, shared documents, online calendars—but the way it has quietly reshaped my relationship with the city I live in.

Before, the city was a route: home to train station, train station to office, office to supermarket, and back again. I knew the cafés near my workplace better than the shops on my own street. My “local area” was a place I passed through, not a place I belonged to. Now my days begin and end at home, and the spaces in between have become more visible. I notice how the light moves across the buildings opposite my window. I recognise the dog that barks at delivery vans. I know which neighbour waters her plants at lunchtime, and which one plays the same piano piece every evening, always stopping in the middle.

This new closeness has had unexpected benefits. For one thing, it has changed my spending habits. When I used to rush out early and return late, I relied on chain shops because they were easy. Now I buy bread from a small bakery that closes at four, and I’ve learnt that the owner is saving up to send her daughter to university. I’m not pretending this makes me a better person. In fact, I sometimes wonder whether my new appreciation for local businesses is simply a luxury of having more flexible time. Still, it feels healthier than living as if everything I need can be ordered with one click.

Of course, remote work is not only about warm feelings and fresh bread. It has also brought a strange kind of loneliness. In an office, you can have a bad day and still end up laughing at something stupid in the kitchen. At home, a bad day can stretch out in silence. I didn’t realise how much I depended on small, unplanned conversations until they disappeared. Some companies have tried to solve this with “virtual coffee breaks”, but scheduling a chat defeats the point. The best moments at work were never designed; they happened by accident.

Another change is how I travel. I used to think of commuting as a normal cost of adult life, like paying bills. Now the idea of spending two hours a day on a crowded train seems almost unbelievable, as if I once volunteered to carry heavy shopping bags everywhere just to prove I could. There’s an environmental argument here too: fewer commutes mean fewer emissions, and that matters. Yet I’m cautious about celebrating remote work as a green miracle. The energy we save on transport may be partly replaced by heating and powering thousands of individual homes all day. It’s a reminder that simple solutions often come with hidden trade-offs.

Technology is the obvious hero and villain in this story. Without reliable internet and affordable laptops, remote work would be limited to a lucky few. At the same time, the same tools that give us freedom also make it harder to stop. When your office is a corner of your bedroom, the line between “available” and “off duty” becomes thin. I’ve caught myself answering messages at ten at night, not because anyone asked me to, but because I could. Convenience can turn into a kind of pressure, especially for people who worry about being seen as less committed when they’re not physically present.

What interests me most, though, is the way remote work has started to change city culture. On weekdays, my neighbourhood used to feel empty until evening. Now, at midday, cafés are full of people with laptops and headphones. The local library has added extra tables and charging points. Parks are busier too, as if the city has finally remembered it can be lived in during working hours. Not everyone is happy about this. A friend who runs a restaurant in the business district says lunchtime trade has fallen sharply. Meanwhile, rents in quieter areas have risen because more people want space for a home office. The benefits are real, but they are not evenly shared.

I don’t think we’re heading towards a world where offices disappear. Some jobs can’t be done from a kitchen table, and even in digital industries, there are times when being in the same room makes decisions faster and relationships stronger. But I also doubt we will return fully to the old routine. Once people experience a different way of organising their day—collecting a child from school without panic, taking a walk between meetings, eating lunch that isn’t a sandwich at your desk—it’s difficult to accept that such things were impossible before.

Remote work hasn’t made life perfect. It has simply made it different, and in doing so it has revealed what we used to treat as normal without questioning it. The real lesson, for me, is not that home is better than the office or the other way around. It’s that the way we work shapes the way we live, and we should be careful about handing that power entirely to habit, technology, or any single company policy.