I hope work from home continues

This. Plus, I myself am living in a top floor apt, but over the past year I learnt the power of just taking walks, having quality weekend times, taking trips, and exercising. Just because I'm supposed to work at home does not mean that I should stay home all the time. If anything, this has taught me what I was doing wrong in my pre-covid life.

I have a hard time wrapping my head around why companies are mandating 100% return to office.

Cost issues aside, I've always maintained that the absolute best experience is a hybrid/flexible schedule and location policy. I'm currently full time remote (I'm on the East Coast working for a West Coast company). My previous company had its main office in my current city, but allowed a super flexible choose-where-you-work-from policy. It was the best.

Didn't feel like dealing with the commute or had a ton of heads down work to do? Stay at home. Wanted to go in to be present for meetings? Easy. Start the day at the office and go home to finish off the day and avoid the commute? Sure.

Of course they made it possible by actively managing it. No meetings before 11am ET (to accomodate those in different TZs). Every scheduled meeting required a Zoom/conference link. Dedicated offices were set up as "conference rooms" so remote people could call in. And of course, people all the way up the ladder worked from home at least some of the time.

Being full remote doesn't work for everyone. Providing a space for those who want it is such a huge quality of life bonus imo. But the biggest factor is creating a culture of inclusion, despite your employees working preferences. This is the hardest thing to do, especially at scale.

> I could imagine myself enjoying being at the office much more in such a place.

It gets old too. There is a reason why companies create an environment like that and it's not to make you genuinely happy. I hope this dip into remote work makes people move somewhere they like, being able to create a work from home environment, work (remotely) for a company that doesn't make them miserable and focus on the things that really matter in life.

>We’ve had whole teams not located within our area and have worked with them just fine.

A lot of people look at in-office through the lens of entire companies or at least pretty much everyone they interact with being co-located. I, on the other hand, am on a broader team spread over about 9 time zones and, on a given day, I can be talking with people in 5 different offices plus remote/traveling. If I went into a local office pre-pandemic, there was a good chance I wouldn't run into anyone I knew.

Copying from a less popular thread

>The conspiracy theorist in me believes this is more about stimulating the local economy around tech jobs then actual productivity. Millions of people essentially work in support roles in cafes or bars that cater to office workers. Even auto mechanics will eventually start to lose work as less people need to drive.

I seriously never want to return to the office. It's useless. I don't miss spending hours a week trying to commute to and from work.

Has anyone ever thought working in an office actually spreads illness ? At most you can go to a concert once a week, you need to come into work 5 days a week exposing you to various illnesses