I've been getting a lot of messages on LinkedIn from recruiters, a lot of these are asking me to be in the office 2 to 3 times a week. If I was to commute, I'd leave before my son is awake and arrive after he has gone to bed, working from home, I see him whenever I want.
Never saw my dad growing up unless it was the weekends and by then he was tired. He commuted a decent amount. Now he's in his later years and unable to physically do much. I wonder what kind of relationship we would have had. I wish I knew him at his best.
I missed all my kids young years due to work and commute, I'll be damned if I miss their middle/older years. work from home isn't just a preference it is literally giving our family irreplaceable time back. your comment made me sad, I hope you have a good relationship now
I like being in the office but the commute is so fucking dumb. Giant swarms of gridlocked cars blasting pollution into the air, wasting vast amounts of time/money/public resources... then you think about how you worked perfectly fine 100% remote for a year and yet these tech companies are all of a sudden herding everyone back into the office doing everything possible to piss away a valuable tool to reduce pollution, increase space for housing while reducing their own overhead, and build resiliency against future pandemics.
It's almost certainly much more about commercial real estate and making sure they don't lose out on the huge investments they have made there. It's always always about money.
It's just weak management. Some people work best from home. For some people, that doesn't really work. For people like myself, I need to come into the office once per week and I'm good.
But it's easier to manage via policy instead of managing individuals. So that's what they do.
I'm not suggesting that people should be forbidden to work in the office, just that they shouldn't be forced to do it. My company has a completely liberal policy concerning home office, so you can work from home pretty much all the time, but I still come to the office regularly because I want to.