For your comment about the turn towards authoritarianism, yeah, there's a reason every DEI program at every large corporation was pulled back within a few months, and it's not because the C suite all reads the same Musk tweets on X.

Employees started making demands of management to actually look at some... structural issues. Those demands had teeth because employees acted and organized as a bloc. Only a matter of time before other lines of questioning besides race and sex were explored at work.

Yeah.

> It's not about productivity at all.

> WFH forces employers to compete. It gives a lot of power to employees, because they can [...] work fewer hours, moonlight for multiple companies, etc

Probably "working fewer hours" and "moonlight for multiple companies" has negative effects on productivity that employers would like to avoid.

Is it not likely that people are more motivated to collaborate, talk about their work, plan together, feel a sense of excitement about work, etc. when they are communing in person? The ol watercooler mindset or whatever.

I mean - there’s this popular topic of the issue of loneliness lately. People are less motivated to do things that would maybe normally bring them social joy and get them out of their own homes and bring them together with others in the flesh. You’d expect people to be motivated to do that kind of thing, maybe? But it’s hard. And it’s harder every day when there’s a zeitgeist of growing isolationism.

I certainly don’t think the inflexibility of a 5 day in person work week with a hellish, uncompensated commute is the answer to the loneliness issue, nor the lack of motivation to do good work. But maybe there is some middle ground that would serve as a kick in the pants of sorts, without making us all miserable little ants going to and fro once again, that could help people get back out there in a way that helps.

I mean, at least, it doesn’t seem like the metaverse or whatever else is filling that gap as the techno-seers foresaw… but maybe future generations will prove that to be more realistic than bringing people back out together in meatspace. Or maybe we just stoop deeper into this new reclusiveness without any real stand ins for grabbing lunch together at all.

> What we need is for people to be happy

that is irrelevant to company management - in so far as that happiness has negligible effect on productivity.

However, from anecdotal evidence i've gathered (only sample size of 5-7 or so), in office has been more productive, but they (with the exception of one, who lives 5 mins from their office) all dislike RTO and would've preferred WFH; but not enough to quit over it as it's not a 5 day mandate, but a 3-4 day mandate.

Only a 100 years — the whole history before that was working in the vicinity of a home, it does feel natural to return to that. Instead of anvils, we hit keyboards and instead of swords produce alignment, but either way it brings food to the table and allows flexibility in work-life?

My previous employer ran an experiment. They had us come in two days per week for six weeks and ran the numbers. We ended up going 100% wfh with a downsized office. We been planning to double our office capacity before the pan.

I’m convinced that more than half of orgs would see similar numbers if they cared to look. I bet a bunch of the ones mandating RTO see them but do it anyway.

At work, we have the opportunity to choose. Many people are like you and find that going to the office helps their productivity and mental health. Most of us (including me) visit the office only a few times a year.

I think having the choice is great. Although it comes with its own challenges, it works really well when you establish the right culture.

> You would benefit from not assuming that everyone is the same as you.

So would you. A typical office is not an "environment conductive to work" for everyone.

Noise, recirculated air, lifeless rows of desks, bad company and a 2h total commute? No thanks.

Whenever I'm in the office, I get zero work done. It's great for socialising and catching up with colleagues, but abysmal for productivity.