Out of Office by Charlie Warzel and Anne Helen Peterson combines their experiences of moving to a rural area and working remotely with an examination of the failings of office culture. Given they both live and work in America, it’s US-centric in its outlook. That health insurance is tied to employment in the US makes this outlook understandable. It was an interesting read, but I’m not the book’s target audience.

It's an interesting book, full of food for thought, but I also found a bit hard to relate as the target seems to be middle management.
I think there're some interesting remarks, there's a lot of food for thought but I think that it's a bit lacking when it comes to solution.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

Anne Helen Petersen is one of my favourite writers and even though this book didn’t really sound like something I was necessarily interested in, I knew I’d find what she had to say interesting and it would be well-researched and well-articulated.

This book is written by her and her partner, Charlie Warzel, and I did find it difficult to identify the “author” when it would refer to one or both of them by name.

As I said at the start this isn’t the kind of book I would normally read so to be honest I did find it quite hard work, especially after a long day at work, to read about work. I thought it would be quite one-note, focusing on working from home, but I did like its big ideas for the future of not only work, but the world.

Of course it’s very specific to a specific type of person. And obviously for an American audience. This became most apparent to me in the last section on hobbies outside of work - as a person with lots of hobbies I found it strange to have the value of hobbies explained to me and how to cultivate a new hobby.

I would say it probably needed a bit more time post-pandemic. I don’t think enough time has passed for this to be as relevant yet while the world is still figuring things out.

An interesting read, if not for me especially fun.

3.5 stars

An indispensable manual to creating a better work-from-home culture, no matter your field or specific role at work. Petersen is a must-read author for me and she cuts through the business jargon to create useful and actionable tasks. Cannot be missed!