The worst part of working from home is now haunting reopened offices

Every job I've had they are one and the same. You just have PTO.

Sadly I dont think there are good short term incentives for most companies to go 100% remote yet. For example, most companies obtain tax benefits from buying office space which incentivates company owners to invest on real estate without spending their own money, then there are mid-managers who keep people accountable only through meetings. And from the political perspective, why would some local politicians be interested on incentaviting remote works? that would hit hard other businesses like restaurants at business areas and that would also decrease housing prices, rental prices and local population because people could decide to move to other more affordable areas.

Covid19 created a real short-term incentive for remote work, that generated some momentum around it, there are some companies which saw the real productive value behind remote work but most others didn't see it and they are taking these mid-road of "hybrid" work.

> There's no way typing can replace speech in an actual meeting.

I think it can come close, provided everyone involved are experienced, fast typists, but it’s definitely a different dynamic if someone is slower. I’ve had incredibly fast chats in typing that were close to real time, face to face discussions. And when you reach a certain speed, the illusion of actual speech and listening is created, which is a fascinating phenomenon in and of itself. There’s a certain level where you reach peak verbal acuity and everything you type transcends the medium itself. At that point, you can seemingly intuit little tics, idiosyncrasies, sarcasm, humor, emotion—almost everything you get in a real time, face to face meeting.

That sounds like a dream to be honest. I wish I could work without having meetings where nobody likes to say anything and it just drags on.

Wrt the SW job, it might be more difficult in the beginning as it takes some focus to understand the system and how your work fits into the bigger whole. After a time it becomes easier to understand and to jump in, jump out.

Of course this completely depends on the company and job type. My job is very non-demanding and I can easily coast by on just 3-4 hours of work a day. Other people are in a different situation.

"Emergency" WFH at my workplace have been slashed, everyone back in full since the start of the month. No reason publically given, been privately told "not about people like you, but some others have taken a 2 year vacation so management is fed up". I have emails from the CEO personally thanking me for my commitment in going way over what was expected when basically saving the institution during lockdown, so now I also feel kind of personally insulted and victim of ham-handed collective punishment.

I hate being back: My gear at home is better, I have to work in uncomfortable clothes and at a room temperature that makes me sweat within minutes. I have to work in an N95 mask since we are packed in small 4 person cubicles and COVID numbers are still too high in my area. I'm spending more on gas and wasting time in traffic. I'm eating worse quality food. I keep getting interrupted by exactly those sames guys that took the 2 year vacation. I feel hard to concentrate and I'm angry all the time so my output has suffered.

I keep sending IMs to people I work with, we never need to actually meet.

Now you have to apply for a new more restrictive WFH scheme. Those wanting to sign up to it had a meeting with our direct manager where he tried to discourage us with thinly veiled threats about "special performance measuring procedures" and trite arguments about how it is unfair not being here for the people that want to come.

We applied the same, but now HR is telling us that they can't approve our WFH requests since they can't guarantee that our screen setup at home is safe and we haven't completed a "Data Display Device Setup and Handling" course in the last three years. They don't know when the course will be offered again. I've been programming for more than 35 years now, so again I kind of feel doubly insulted, both by the bare faced obstructionism and ridiculous particular hurdle.

I'd leave, I even feel I'm morally in the wrong for not leaving. But the thing is that the pay is good, that I'm of an age prone to experiencing ageism in the job market, and also this is a place where I have ample slack for tuning my output and inmerse myself in side projects or personal improvement, so their loss...