I’ve heard this argument before and I don’t buy it. By that, I mean it may be true (that people want to prop up real estate prices), but I don’t think that this is enough of an explanation.
If it were just about real estate, then Amazon would not be calling for 5 days a week return-to-office. I don’t think real estate interests are powerful enough to push Amazon around and I don’t think they’re entrenched enough in Amazon leadership to make it happen. As an alternative contributing factor, I suggest that Amazon wants employee attrition, and five day return-to-office is a convenient tool for that. One of the things that makes return-to-office such a convenient tool for employee attrition is that it’s a deniable tool.
In cities like New York, it’s pretty clear that commercial real estate interests are in bed with the city government. I just don’t think that real estate has enough power to push through a return-to-office agenda at the scale that we’re seeing. Don’t get me wrong, I think commercial real estate interests have a ton of influence. I just don’t think it’s enough influence to explain RTO at this scale (but it can explain RTO policies in some specific cases).
My theory, which is kind of informed by what I saw it play out in my company: The reason is a psychological one. Most leaders
derive their power from in-person interactions. Remote and video calls severely impact that. Those leaders also love having an audience that needs to listen to them whenever they are in the room and the lack of that kind of feedback and adulation shellshocked a lot of them.
It feels a lot worse to deliver a lame joke at the start of an all hands meeting to a bunch of muted zoom windows with their cameras off. How much of the return to office is leaders wanting that polite chuckle from that captured audience back?
I'm barely being facetious. "That polite chuckle" is really a stand in for all the soft power they wield in person that evaporates with WFH. They have lost a degree of control and power, it is basic human nature to look for a way to claw that back.
I really wonder if there's a tribal / psychological effect of this kind and if not having to play the submissive / adoration dance made people more interested in practical information passing. Saying this because a few articles mentioned that some full remote teams were much much more effective at actual work, spreading data so that everybody could find solutions or continue work right away.
And that goes up to every levels of the hierarchy.
It's definitely about power and control.
I'd add that it is also a question of geography. The work place is the place where power exists. And so having you inside the company's walls means you are under control.
Exactly this. When I was a junior investment banker we worked brutal hours, often 80-90 hours a week with most days ending at 1-2am. Yet the head of investment banking insisted we always make it to his Monday 8am meeting since he wanted a bigger crowd when he talked. Going from a Sunday all-nighter into this was quite painful.
Obviously this is a multi-causal issue. RTO policies spring up for a variety of reasons, often a mix. All those negative narratives sure have some founding in reality, but maybe you can think of benevolent reasons why companies call for RTO?
Here is an example. Ms. Follett [1] made a good case a century ago that value is not created by people but between people. So you need interaction to add value -- something companies are imminently interested in, even if some employees are not. Some interactions, actually anything with more than 3-4 participants, break down over Teams and require face-to-face contact to be effective. Cutting everything down to 4 participants is to put the tool above the people and, to add insult to injury, will create a new pyramid of management levels, which we chucked for good reasons in the last century. So just get together in the office, which you have anyway to set up your football table. Does this mandate a 5-day RTO policy? No, but it shows that there is at least one good reason to get into the office once or twice a week.
This is the conclusion I have come to as well. So much of what happens in society can be best explained (imo) by human psychology and our relationship with ego, desire, perceived success etc.
Totally agree. Add to that the fact that in many cases, businesses ran fine without the in-person interactions of these managers… which could mean that we actually don’t need them, the managers I mean. And they are very scared of that.
It's a fair theory and I agree it is one motivator.
But, I also know non-leader individual contributors who firmly believe that in person is better for collaboration, design, and problem solving. Yes, they prefer to be at home, but they believe they need to be in person to do their best work. So, I wouldn't be surprised if many managers believe this too. I disagree with this personally, but I recognize that different things work for different people.
I also believe there are some CEOs who don't own any real estate investments, but feel some responsibility to uphold certain economic values that they believe will help prevent a massive recession that may impact their business down the line.
In other words, I believe there are several factors that are influencing different people to believe in-person is right for their business.
In addition to what you mentioned, most of today's corporate leaders rose through the ranks in 2010's or even before. They have thrived in offices and hence have habits and cultural norms more suitable for in-office work. No wonder they think offices are a better setup.
In addition, a lot of people facing functions (Sales, Management etc) were done in person. There might be a world where those are possible on Zoom, but the workforce has to be trained for that. Why should a company train their 35+ management stack about online people management, when they can just force the RTO?
I agree with the basis of this, but it assumes that a significant portion of people derive their influence and motivation by in-person interaction. Once you take that at face value, there are going to be things you can get done with that tool, that you can't otherwise. It's not a requirement for 5 day RTW, but it also speaks to the challenge of remote only work.
There's a reason people do LAN parties even when you have to lug your rig around, and it's not just food and drink.
Why not all three? Helping their feelings of power, Helping their bottom line with attrition, and Helping their real-estate buddies with big dumb investments in tall buildings.
thou, leaders are more dependent on it, imho it impacts all human interaction and mostly for the worse.
we need to adjust our recipe/theory for coherent/functional constellations of humans unless heightened denial of humanity is in our collective interest
I talked to an acquaintance who ran a startup that went remote during the pandemic. His view was that the self-motivated conscientious employees were just as productive remote as they were in the office, if not more. The problem was that when they left the office the people in the office became less productive.
To me that makes a lot of sense and aligns well with my experience of office life. Some people depend on seeing others around them working, or they can’t get much done.
I asked him if he thought it was fair that his self-motivated employees essentially had to provide this service for free to the company, and spend time commuting to do it. Don’t think he could fully grasp the question, didn’t see a problem with that at all.
(This was in Sweden, which has a more collectivist work culture than the US.)
EDIT: But to be honest I think there might be more truth to @kitsune_’s sibling comment.
I think a lot of this comes down to perception of ROI for management. If the employment market is giving you qualified candidates at the price you seek in-office, why would you expose yourself to risk? I'm in this situation now where I'm hiring early employees and looking to grow, and about 90% of the decisions is how well can I derisk this hire.
I don't need elite developers; I need competent, conscientious "75%" developers. It doesn't make sense to spend time interviewing, onboarding, and hiring, just to expose myself to another risk factor.
Your friend was probably not thinking "fair" or "unfair", rather, what is the employment market bringing him.
That's a problem that can be encountered by companies that don't think through how remote work is supposed to work at their workplace. It's easier to craft processes when everyone is remote (i.e. if the company is remote-first).
A significant majority of the total wealth in the US is in real estate (~$90T of ~$150T). Most of that is residential, but about a third of it is commercial.
So about 10-20% of the total wealth in the US is in the form of commercial real estate, a significant amount of which is offices or office-adjacent-services that lose value if offices are not occupied.
I’ve long suspected it’s a PR campaign/propaganda and talking points aimed directly at the c suite class. A lot of people with a lot of money stand to lose a lot. Banks, investors, retirement funds…
Start circulating studies showing people working multiple remote jobs at once, steer thinking around company culture, normalize it through repetition, send out talking points. Eventually dominos will start failing.
If it would be bad for people's pension funds and such, shouldn't it be everyone's interest to actually keep showing up to prop up those real estate values?
You miss a part: it's not just real estate. If we WFH, we own homes, not in dense cities. If we own homes we start having maybe a shed with p.v. and storage, a homelab, which with modern FTTH connections could be a small machine room alike datacenter, which with modern tech could be a part of a decentralized network so the SME/startup instead of buying someone else resources in the cloud buy their employees resources in their home at similar rates and equal reliability but with much more balance of power and much less private censorship possible (like arbitrary PayPal and co blocking of payments for Wikileaks or porn-producers). In such setup who will rent a Waymo? Who wont a more shiny macrobug aka smartphone? Who want JustEat or Uber?
We will came back quickly in a real modern "StrongTown" economy, of many SMEs fighting with their dynamism, instead of creating slaves with taxes and rents to keep people moving. We will really implement the Green New Deal because we can't in a modern dense city without rebuild it from the ground, but we can for small buildings. We re-create the middle class society instead of the neofeudal society of giants and neoproletarian poor.
Real estate is the most immediate threat for the giants, but not the only.
There are also tax incentives. Cities like big company offices because in theory their workers would become customers of local businesses, which would not be possible with remote work. Maybe cities have been threatening to take away the tax breaks unless leadership did a RTO?
It's also highly likely that this is a soft layoff, trying to delay the real layoffs in 2025
yeah this isn't mentioned enough. cities desperate need the tax revenue and are pressing larger business -- doubly so if they're places like Texas, who offered sweetheart tax deals to businesses to attract them into the state.
Employees quit for all sorts of reasons. When a company gets big enough, it's just resource management, like a board game. Employee attrition is getting employees to quit without firing them, which is usually cheaper for the company.
That's too obvious of an explanation and probably the likeliest one. It is common knowledge that almost every big corp is trying to downsize now, and RTO announcement does force a lot of employees to reevaluate their situation.
If we oversimplify everything, yes... it's all about prop up real estate prices. But if we want to talk about this, we need to have in mind the capital amortization. The value of every business goes up or down if their fixed capital gets old or unused. For example, if you have 100 computers and every computer costs 1000, your company has that value as capital. But if they lose value in the next years and those same computers have a value of 50 in the market, then your company's value is halved (oversimplifiying it). The same happens with buildings and offices, if they lose values the company loses value too. Forcing workers to move to the office gives value to the area and the building, and the buildings around, and that's one of the main reasons why they are forcing the back to office thing.
If a company leases their building (and I think most do) then the capital value is of little interest to them and won't influence these sort of decisions. The businesses that are struggling through all this are their landlords.
I think there could be legit reasons for RTO, such as improved mentoring opportunities, and developing deeper productive relationships with co-workers. I'm in my 50's and have worked fully remote for 15 years, but most of my business comes from past coworkers with whom I formed close relationships via working late nights in the office, going to happy hours, grabbing a coffee at the break room, etc. So, while I agree the companies are pursuing their own agendas, I think workers (especially young workers) could benefit from RTO.
There is no conspiracy theory here.
Most people will work 4 hour work days when working remotely. (And if they're working an 8 hour work day it's because they're working two remote jobs at the same time.)
> And if they're working an 8 hour work day it's because they're working two remote jobs at the same time.
I'd love to see actual stats on this, because I hear it a lot on HN (pretty much exclusively from the pro-office side) but I can't imagine there's that many people doing this. Even if there was, why is this a problem? Presumably they're getting work done in those 4 hours that is satisfactory to the business, so what if they do some work on the side as well? Who cares?
I do hybrid (2 times a week in the office) and don't mind it, but I know for a fact that pretty much every single person in my team does much less work on the office days than when they're remote, because we're mostly socializing, taking coffee breaks and taking full advantage of our 1-hour lunch break (rather than the 15 minutes it takes at home to just eat the meal). Most of us will even opt out of office days when we have a big deadline.
Hell, I'm much less productive at the office simply because the chairs & monitors suck. At home I've got a quad 4K monitor setup in an extremely comfortable chair, my own desk, my own food & beverages of choice, my own music blasting as loud (or quiet) as I want it. How could I be more productive in the office?
Turns out most people aren't mischievous children that have to be under constant supervision to get work done, and in fact they were better when given the freedom to approach the work in a way that suits them best.
Ok, so which “elites” are holding real estate portfolios and creating these stories in the media bashing remote work? Who are they?
I don’t think the world is so coordinated. Some people made a bad bet on real estate. Some other people want to write click bait pieces about lazy workers. Some other corporate leaders are scared that employees are goofing off outside the office (because productivity can’t be measured for most work).
The "think tanks" that are pre staffed and fully capable of churning out and placing 3x major long form articles per week that are pro or con {Subject X} (and an additional few that fence sit and are "just asking questions") already exist and have been about since at least Nine out of Ten Doctors Recommend Smoking.
You know, 5+ decades ago.
The "elites" that are losing money in {Domain X} simply have to question their circle, get a line on a half decent agency or three and hire them to pitch for the thought changes that will move money back towards {X}.
Can you link some think tank pieces arguing against remote work? I tried looking but couldn't find any. I found a few things but clearly none of these are part of an anti remote work effort:
"Source Attribution" gets a whole subtree in Linebarger's 1954 propanal scheme:
a. Source
(1) True source ("Where does it really come from?")
(a) Release channel ("How did it come out?") if different from true source without concealing true source
(b) Person or institution in whose name material originates
(c) Transmitting channel ("Who got it to us?"), person or institution effecting known transmission—omitting, of course, analyst's own procurement facilities
(2) Ostensible source ("Where does it pretend to come from?")
(a) Release channel ("Who is supposed to be passing it along?")
(3) First-use and second-use source (first use, "Who is said to have used this first?"; second use, "Who pretends to be quoting someone else?")
(a) Connection between second-use source and first-use source, usually in the form of attributed or unacknowledged quotation; more rarely, plagiarism
(b) Modification between use by first-use and second-use sources, when both are known
(i) Deletions
(ii) Changes in text
(iii) Enclosure within editorial matter of transmitter
(iv) Falsification which appears deliberate
(v) Effects of translation from one language to another
(nb a.3.b.iv suggests "fake news" is not a recent phenomenon; indeed, Linebarger's book provides biblical examples)
It's all the people you'd expect, some purpose-built REITs, big investment firms and private equity, Blackrock, Blackstone and other wealth management, the larger investment banks and the commercial mortgage paper owners are also directly invested (double dipping just like we saw in 2008, where banks would buy mortgages and also leverage those mortgages with derivatives)
Many of them are some of the companies that wax lyrical about remote work being bad and are often featured in articles. Submarine PR is absolutely rampant alongside "native advertising".
It's so crazy to me how 2008 was barely a decade-and-a-half ago, and people already forgot how much of a coordinated, organized, and pseudo-fraudulent shitshow the CDO merry-go-round was. Loans were given out, rating agencies were being bought, and everyone was skimming off the top until the music stopped. Are we really pretending it can't happen again?
> Ok, so which “elites” are holding real estate portfolios and creating these stories in the media bashing remote work? Who are they?
It’s not just that. The article talks about “landlords who buy up trophy office buildings”, but fails to draw the connecting line to the managers who demand RTO. The managers aren’t the landlords but the article seems to treat them as one single “elites” entity. How can the landlords demand RTO? Where is the financial incentive for the managers to RTO?
There’s a story here when Amazon gets tax breaks, for instance. But that doesn’t generalise to RTO mandates everywhere; it’s the exception rather than the rule.
I don't think it is far fetched tho. If you have a couple of millions to spare, you can easily set up a little think tank on how to effect certain changes. If you're willing to throw money at something, it requires minimal effort to coordinate.
Your question as to who these people are, is still valid. So my objection is only to the extent that it being unknown doesn't mean it isn't likely.
Or if maybe big landlord pay millions to consultants to fix this problem dollars get involved and you start seeings these PR pieces and these CEO edicts and so on.
If you have billions of dollars in real estate losses and think can offset the losses by driving some anti remote work stories in media, I don't see why rich people would not do this. Also you think planting stories needs coordinated work across media. It doesn't. Read more about it.
Wealthy people are in the same social circles, of course they keep hearing these concerns about commercial real estate. They don't have to formally coordinate because they share the same class interests. You could even argue part of this coordination happens subconsciously.
Of course, not all wealthy people invested in commercial real estate. But they still have an interest in preserving the existing economic system. They certainly don't want a domino effect.
It's not exactly coordinated. Powerful businesspeople usually own real estate, it's great for financing new ventures and so on, and they have habits. They go to clubs, golf courses, rather exclusive hunting trips and so on, where they meet other people with power in business. And they talk, speculate on the future and develop a community.
A community where they go looking for contacts when they need something, like a public affairs firm for pushing political buttons, or a real estate investment to put a big payout into, or whatever. If you are in this environment and fuck around you'll make enemies. People won't recommend you as a public affairs customer, won't tip you off on good investment opportunities, might start to talk shit about you behind your back.
Undermining the value of real estate can make these networks and communities a serious hazard to your business. And undermining the value of office estate means you undermine the really tasty cash cow in real estate, residential properties within commuting distance. Enforcing commutes to offices means that people will pay a premium to shorten the commute.
> I don’t think the world is so coordinated. Some people made a bad bet on real estate. Some other people want to write click bait pieces about lazy workers. Some other corporate leaders are scared that employees are goofing off outside the office (because productivity can’t be measured for most work).
Right, I think there's pretty clearly a combination of factors at play and it's difficult to untangle them (adding one factor you didn't mention, soft layoffs).
I'm incredibly skeptical of any attempt to quantify "productivity" with this granularity, and this is especially true as technological advances over the last couple of years like LLMs are providing some substantial time savings for many tasks people do.
Exactly, these articles always just make me face palm because the authors never manage a cogent argument about who is making the actual RTO decisions and who cares about commercial real estate values. It's much easier just to chalk it up to the nebulous and scary "elites" and then the authors don't have to do any actual research.
For one, look at the expenses of some of the large tech companies that often make the front page here on HN due to their RTO plans. Real estate is a relatively teeny portion (salaries are obviously the biggest). Point being, no sane CEO would demand RTO to "prop up commercial real estate" if they thought it would be a net negative for their actual business long term, precisely because their concerns about real estate values are so far down on their list of priorities.
If you're a C-level at a Fortune 50 company, some massive percentage of your personal assets, if they're invested in the stock market or private equity, are in commercial real estate.
There's no mystery here. People with assets want those assets to remain valuable, and act directly to reinforce it. This is why we don't let athletes bet on their own games.
> Point being, no sane CEO would demand RTO to "prop up commercial real estate" if they thought it would be a net negative for their actual business long term, precisely because their concerns about real estate values are so far down on their list of priorities.
What if they thought it didn't make any difference, or was mildly net positive to the short term value of their shares? Like, say, 2% increased value through voluntary attrition over the next 2 years, followed by 10% reduced value? And it propped up their portfolios? Is that really so far fetched? We see companies making a lot more questionable decisions in pursuit of quarterly numbers.
Well here in the UK Lord Sugar has vocally complained about people working from home (whilst doing so himself).
He's well know to have made most of his money in commercial property and has said he wants to protect that.
If a billionaire, lord of the realm, TV celebrity doesn't count as "elite" I don't know who does. I can't really think of a bigger hypocrite that that.
I can't answer this definitively; I doubt anyone can, but I can suggest at least two possible mechanisms that don't require a shadowy cabal of elite conspirators. These don't require anything other than people acting in accordance with incentives that they already have. I'm sure it's not hard to find more.
Mechanism 1: Those S&P 500 shares that you own through Vanguard and BlackRock index funds, you don't actually control the voting rights to them. Vanguard and BlackRock do. They have coordinated voting power and a big voice in the C-suite of many large corporations. I do think that execs will listen when they make a suggestion, and it's in their interests that the value of assets under management stays high, because that's what determines their pay.
Mechanism 2: C-suite comp is tied to stock price, often through options. Well, as it happens, asset markets are tightly interrelated, and high valuations are a result of leverage. Strangely enough, a dollar invested in real estate can also be a dollar invested in Amazon (even if it's not Amazon's real estate). When asset valuations are high, their owners can borrow against those assets and use that money to bid for other assets, raising the price of everything together. In this process new money is essentially created ex nihilo and increases the price of assets. Conversely, when asset prices start deflating, that can trigger a sell-off of other assets, and this money doesn't simply change hands, it disappears along with the leverage that created it. A pop in commercial real estate valuations can mean that many investment funds which own Amazon will have to sell them off at fire-sale prices to cover a margin call. If you're an exec, this wouldn't be a good thing to happen before your equity compensation package vests.
There's two curious things happening at once that are not often talked about together: there are RTO mandates and tech companies are also dropping stock compensation without a replacement.
Whether that lends credence to the authors theory or not is an open question, but it's another financial motivator.
Right, they don’t all have to fly to a secret island. They can just read each other’s blog posts. They understand the hierarchy, too. The smaller companies usually parrot whatever the “prestigious” companies do. “Google is doing it, so should we”. It’s like the saying “Nobody got fired for picking IBM”. Same for these trends: nobody gets fired for mimicking Google or Amazon, even though it doesn’t make sense or is downright harmful to the company.
The world doesn't have to be coordinated. People mistake the fact that it's easier to selfishly gain from chaos for conspiracy: what you see is a result of every man for himself thinking, combined with their being little downside to seeding a narrative and seeing if it sticks.
I didn't think of Jeff Bezos as a benevolent community member of "the elites", doing everything he can, for free, to save the real estate portfolio of his unlucky landlord friends.
The truth is that after the initial movement toward remote work, we are starting to see the secondary effects.
For instance, starting as a junior in a remote job can be really daunting, and you're sure to never make any personal connection with anyone. Being stonewalled by a non-cooperative senior coworker in a slack chat while you start your job is a very stressful experience, I can tell you.
Remote also allows some slack if you don't enforce a very tight and intrusive management. See the countless stories about people holding two jobs at the same time.
I do not think that you need to be around to make connections. I have had colleagues who were at office once every blue moon but everyone in the office knew them and invited them everywhere. And I also know of people who sit on opposite desks for years and only have greetings and coffee chit-chats when forced to.
Anyone with good people skills will break any barriers to connect and build a network of influence regardless of their expertise level. Anyone with communication issues or extremely introverted will have more difficulties to connect however, not that they would be doing great in person.
If non-cooperative senior coworkers are stonewalling, then it is a cultural or personal issues that needs to be managed, not the mode of work.
Starting a new job is always stressful, as any major change is difficult for human to adapt and needs time.
> See the countless stories about people holding two jobs at the same time.
This needs to stop, there were few reports, not countless. A few bad apples does not generalize the orchard. Also, if the pay is decent and living costs are affordable, no one needs to hold two jobs. If someone is holding two jobs remotely, it mostly means they are in "bulls!!t" job where they are not utilized to adequate levels and the symptoms of low output is not correctly noticed.
All of your posts supposes that companies are managed and composed of perfectly balanced and reasonable people.
The truth is that other employees may have personal issues, too much work, lack of will to let go some moat, and so on. Management usually doesn't care, especially if a junior is complaining. Especially in IT where workers aren't selected for their social skills.
Remote lacks the casual interactions, at lunch or at the coffee machine. We are social animals and the lack of face-to-face contact reduces a lot the bonding, especially if you know that everything personal you write is recorded and can be read by the HR department. Will you tell about your divorce on a company Slack?
I work remotely, I enjoy it most of the time, but I have seen the difficulties that emerge from it. And yes, people holding multiple jobs at the same time is common, I know several persons who do, or have done, this.
> If someone is holding two jobs remotely, it mostly means they are in "bulls!!t" job where they are not utilized to adequate levels and the symptoms of low output is not correctly noticed.
You are putting too much faith in human nature. Lot of times, people are simply greedy and abuse the cultural norms put in place to allow slacks when truly warranted. Seen those stories first hand, and then there is https://www.reddit.com/r/overemployed/
While I can agree that starting as a new hire can be daunting, there should not (theoretically) be a case where a single colleague stonewalling a new hire is a problem. At least in an org set up correctly for remote work. Smaller teams (or those with a single decision maker) are more susceptible to failing this, but thats a management problem that needs to br highlighted and addressed.
And requires management to be actual people and process managers, and not psuedo manage by following some random guides and ticking off items on a checklist and "managing" by graph/stat outputs and only attempting to make some dashboard green, lines moving in the direction etc.
As for allowance of some slack, yeah, theres possibility for that to happen. But management doesnt need to be intrusive: what does anyone care if some employee is working a 2nd job for example? Does anyone care how their colleagues or staff spend their time away from work as it is? As long as their work is done within acceptable timeframes (or there is reasonable limiting factors preventing it) , its of sufficient quality to meet expectations, and they meet expectations of availability, what they do in their spare time is none of anyones business. In other words, so long as someone is not breaking company requirements/policy (which would include working on competing products, etc), whether they hack away on side projects, volunteer their time somewhere, work a 2nd job, do nothing... it doesn't particularly matter. Management only needs to measure performance relative to the org's expectations of performance for that position, and timeously address any concerns if need be. Theres no need for the org to reach beyond whatever is agreed to for that role.
The idea that there's a global cabal of ultra-wealthy real-estate owners who have globally conspired to control people to go back to the office holds about as much weight in my mind as the idea that there's a global cabal of ultra-wealthy who have globally conspired to create a virus to control the population.
Covid was an outlier event, and the outcomes that occurred as a result of it will revert to the mean over time.
Is that what we are calling business now? As if industry players don't buy media outlets precisely to push their narratives (look at tech outlets, crypto outlets, pharma etc). How is this a "cabal"? It's cheaper to just talk to your friend who owns business insider and also invests in the same RE funds to ask "journalists" to research on the topic.
Also, plenty midmanagement in many industries love RTO: it's harder to justify their roles (and what they got promoted for) unless they have bags of flesh to oversee. It's not a cabal of midmanagement. It's just midmanagement slow pushing for RTO internally.
The conspiracy theories are frequently based on the optimistic idea that the world is under somebody's control. Mind you, it's a bad control, but the idea is still optimistic because we can theoretically have a revolution and put it under "good" control.
The reality is much more depressing -- nobody is in the control. Not the Illuminati, not the Jewish bankers, and not the C-level executives conspiring to force RTO to maximize their investments in the (unrelated) commercial real estate. These all are just conspiracy theories.
You can believe COVID happened however you want — but it’s documented reality that the elites practiced exactly the authoritarian response they used mere months before the virus outbreak.
Similarly, those same elites wrote a book about how they want to use the authoritarian measures they implemented during COVID as a gateway to imposing their vision on society. Again, documented reality.
> it’s documented reality that the elites practiced exactly the authoritarian response they used mere months before the virus outbreak.
Isn’t that point of training and exercises? To be ready and have a plan when the situation you trained for actually occurs?
If you read the John Hopkins’ Center for Health Security link you provided, they did similar exercises in 2018 ("Clade X"), 2005 ("Atlantic Storm"), and 2001 ("Dark Winter").
To me this doesn’t prove that there is a conspiracy of any kind.
It simply and reassuringly shows that some of those who’s responsibility it is to be prepared for and help us collectively get through these kind of situations are actually taking their jobs somewhat seriously.
I guess you could call that a conspiracy. A conspiracy to do their jobs well.
Aside from conspiracy theories, remote working was already a thing before Covid, Covid just accelerated the process and showed to everyone that it worked. IMHO what we are now seeing is a "counter-revolution", an attempt to get the genie back into the bottle, and those are mostly doomed to fail...
It’s more there’s a bunch of people who put their life savings into cheap structures on expensive land in SF and Seattle. If the next generation of high income professionals doesn’t have to buy their shitty 100 year old money pit, they’ve now taken a loss on the single biggest purchase they’ve ever made while the schools they bought for get worse. Many of these folks work at places like Amazon.
No conspiracy needed for a bunch of people to act in their own perceived best interest and work backwards to a justification.
This is backwards. When covid started, the executives were saying that working from home will not affect productivity. They said zoom and slack are the new way to work. Some even said that productivity increased when people didn't have to commute. Some said people were working longer hours than earlier.
Now, all of a sudden, they realize their blunder. While the workers are happy, they are not. So now they will try to convince us that we are not productive enough, or that some of us are slacking, or that we have stopped innovating, or another 50 reasons for which going to the office will help us.
More recently, they have realized that they are not fooling anyone. So now they are threatening lower pay or layoffs for those who refuse to come back.
The whole “remote work kills productivity” argument is outdated. Studies and real-world examples show the opposite: many people are more productive at home without the daily commute and office distractions. Plus, companies have tools and strategies to keep teams connected and engaged, so the idea that culture just dissolves over time isn’t based on reality. Culture isn’t about being in the same room; it’s about values, leadership, and communication. And remote companies are proving you can have a strong, action-driven culture without a traditional office.
Also, let’s talk about this idea that employees’ good intentions aren't enough and that without the office, everything falls apart. This screams of a lack of trust in workers, which is not how modern businesses run. Successful companies trust their people, set clear expectations, and hold them accountable—whether they’re in the office or working from a coffee shop. It’s not about babysitting; it’s about outcomes.
And this notion that computer science professionals won’t have bargaining power because of some glut is just not accurate. Sure, there are more CS grads, but the demand for skilled talent is still high, especially for top performers. Companies offering WFH flexibility are not just doing it out of kindness; it’s a strategic move to attract and retain talent in a competitive market. Restricting WFH options actually puts companies at a disadvantage.
Bottom line: dismissing WFH as some kind of fad or liability ignores the reality that a ton of companies are making it work and even excelling. If anything, leaders worth their salt are those who adapt, trust their teams, and leverage the benefits of remote work, not those who cling to outdated office norms.
Really?
A workplace with no proper desk, chair, lighting, multi screen setup, isolation from domestic distractions, crappy phone lines due to bad internet, the hurdle of contacting someone who used to sit next to you, and the impossibility of scribbling something on a whiteboard etc?
Sure, remote work can be productive for certain work, and for certain people. But people underestimate the value of an office.
Working in a coffee shop? Sure, if you have nothing to do but read some email.
I love both. And I don’t mind a short commute, as it starts and ends your work, resulting in a better work-life balance
In my case my office offers: Horrifically uncomfortable chairs, desks that are fought over because the monitors aren't shitty or flickering or buggy on a select few of them, constantly breaking power bricks that we have to call facilities to fixup, not a single person is happy with the temperature, the internet is slow for the amount of people there, CONSTANT distractions by the people around me. I can go on and on about this. All of this for the sweet, amazing convenience of having to commute to the office either in crammed busses/trains or by cycling in shitty weather.
In contrast, at home I control my environment, have my hyper comfortable chair in which I can spend 48 hours sitting without complaints, my own monitor setup that is infinitely superior to the crap they have at the office, I can control my own AC, I can control my noise level, I don't get casually interrupted by someone wanting to contact me out of the blue with irrelevant questions, I have 8 gig symmetric fiber internet that is literally never down and it's entirely 100% dedicated to only myself and my machines rather than being shared with 100 other people, and who uses whiteboards still? You can just buy a pen and paper if you really need to scribble something down
> Working in a coffee shop? Sure, if you have nothing to do but read some email.
I loathe remote work, but support others in pursuing what works best for them.
With that being said, Coffitivity¹ exists for a reason. Some of us work much better in environments like that, myself included.
I did the majority of my studying at Rutgers in the student center on College Ave, as my ability to focus is much better when I'm around people, but not interacting with them. While not as impressive as if I had done so at an Ivy League institution, I believe this was essential to graduating from there summa cum laude.
> Really? A workplace with no proper desk, chair, lighting, multi screen setup, isolation from domestic distractions, crappy phone lines due to bad internet, the hurdle of contacting someone who used to sit next to you, and the impossibility of scribbling something on a whiteboard etc?
1. The desk, chair, lighting and multi-screen setup I have at home is vastly superior to any I had in any company I worked for in the past, including FAANG.
2. Know what is worse than domestic distractions? Office distractions. People around you constantly talking in those noisy, nightmarish open offices. At home I can tell my wife I need to focus, shut the door to the home office room, and be productive. During the 15 years I worked from the office I had to wear fucking headphones with loud music to drown out the incessant office noise.
3. Not sure what you are going on about bad internet. Where the fuck do you live that internet connection is unreliable these days?
4. The beauty of asynchronous communication these days. I don't even like slack very much, but it is so much better than in-person communication, that even in the odd occasion when I am at the office I prefer to use it rather than speaking in person.
5. Ah, whiteboards. Funny you mention that, there are numerous excellent collaborative tools for that sort of thing nowadays. They end up being clearer since my writing and drawing skills are shit, and they are also asynchronous, which makes it so much nicer.
The added benefits are worth it in my opinion. The gains in freedom, lack of need to commute, access to good food from your fridge, the freedom from the tyranny of farting, loud, obnoxious office peers. Of course there is a down side for juniors and power seeking middle management but they are in the minority and can learn to adjust. The gains in mental health and personal life have to outweigh what is lost.
Won't work, because those who work remotely are already striking every day, by slacking off. From management's perspective your strike changes nothing.
(Yes, yes, I know you personally are a conscientious worker with a stellar work ethic and would never slack off on the company's dime, but let's be real here and recognize the population averages.)
These slackers you mention will slack in the office too while the productive remote workers (that would be the productive ones at the office) will leave for the competition.
I don't understand the logic behind this argument.
Yes, some people made a bet on office real estate, and they're in a bad position right now.
But those aren't the same people who are running businesses that use those offices. Why would most businesses care if real estate is propped up or not? How would increasing utilization of their buildings actually help them?
I guess the argument is that business leaders feel that their unused office space is a waste and/or they want to exercise more control as mentioned in other comments.
Also wouldn't the most sensible strategy for these ruthless capitalist to let in entirely crash and then scoop it up at the bottom and then mandate RTO...
Readit News
If it were just about real estate, then Amazon would not be calling for 5 days a week return-to-office. I don’t think real estate interests are powerful enough to push Amazon around and I don’t think they’re entrenched enough in Amazon leadership to make it happen. As an alternative contributing factor, I suggest that Amazon wants employee attrition, and five day return-to-office is a convenient tool for that. One of the things that makes return-to-office such a convenient tool for employee attrition is that it’s a deniable tool.
In cities like New York, it’s pretty clear that commercial real estate interests are in bed with the city government. I just don’t think that real estate has enough power to push through a return-to-office agenda at the scale that we’re seeing. Don’t get me wrong, I think commercial real estate interests have a ton of influence. I just don’t think it’s enough influence to explain RTO at this scale (but it can explain RTO policies in some specific cases).
I'm barely being facetious. "That polite chuckle" is really a stand in for all the soft power they wield in person that evaporates with WFH. They have lost a degree of control and power, it is basic human nature to look for a way to claw that back.
It's definitely about power and control.
I'd add that it is also a question of geography. The work place is the place where power exists. And so having you inside the company's walls means you are under control.
Here is an example. Ms. Follett [1] made a good case a century ago that value is not created by people but between people. So you need interaction to add value -- something companies are imminently interested in, even if some employees are not. Some interactions, actually anything with more than 3-4 participants, break down over Teams and require face-to-face contact to be effective. Cutting everything down to 4 participants is to put the tool above the people and, to add insult to injury, will create a new pyramid of management levels, which we chucked for good reasons in the last century. So just get together in the office, which you have anyway to set up your football table. Does this mandate a 5-day RTO policy? No, but it shows that there is at least one good reason to get into the office once or twice a week.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Parker_Follett
But, I also know non-leader individual contributors who firmly believe that in person is better for collaboration, design, and problem solving. Yes, they prefer to be at home, but they believe they need to be in person to do their best work. So, I wouldn't be surprised if many managers believe this too. I disagree with this personally, but I recognize that different things work for different people.
I also believe there are some CEOs who don't own any real estate investments, but feel some responsibility to uphold certain economic values that they believe will help prevent a massive recession that may impact their business down the line.
In other words, I believe there are several factors that are influencing different people to believe in-person is right for their business.
In addition, a lot of people facing functions (Sales, Management etc) were done in person. There might be a world where those are possible on Zoom, but the workforce has to be trained for that. Why should a company train their 35+ management stack about online people management, when they can just force the RTO?
There's a reason people do LAN parties even when you have to lug your rig around, and it's not just food and drink.
I think that this is the heart of the issue. Everything else is relatively meaningless.
There’s no reason it has to just be one thing
we need to adjust our recipe/theory for coherent/functional constellations of humans unless heightened denial of humanity is in our collective interest
To me that makes a lot of sense and aligns well with my experience of office life. Some people depend on seeing others around them working, or they can’t get much done.
I asked him if he thought it was fair that his self-motivated employees essentially had to provide this service for free to the company, and spend time commuting to do it. Don’t think he could fully grasp the question, didn’t see a problem with that at all.
(This was in Sweden, which has a more collectivist work culture than the US.)
EDIT: But to be honest I think there might be more truth to @kitsune_’s sibling comment.
I don't need elite developers; I need competent, conscientious "75%" developers. It doesn't make sense to spend time interviewing, onboarding, and hiring, just to expose myself to another risk factor.
Your friend was probably not thinking "fair" or "unfair", rather, what is the employment market bringing him.
Ask him if he ever considered actually asking the self-motivated conscientious employees their opinion and preferences - and watch his mind boggle.
So about 10-20% of the total wealth in the US is in the form of commercial real estate, a significant amount of which is offices or office-adjacent-services that lose value if offices are not occupied.
0. Readably summarized at https://www.barrons.com/amp/articles/net-wealth-is-over-135-... .
Start circulating studies showing people working multiple remote jobs at once, steer thinking around company culture, normalize it through repetition, send out talking points. Eventually dominos will start failing.
We will came back quickly in a real modern "StrongTown" economy, of many SMEs fighting with their dynamism, instead of creating slaves with taxes and rents to keep people moving. We will really implement the Green New Deal because we can't in a modern dense city without rebuild it from the ground, but we can for small buildings. We re-create the middle class society instead of the neofeudal society of giants and neoproletarian poor.
Real estate is the most immediate threat for the giants, but not the only.
It's also highly likely that this is a soft layoff, trying to delay the real layoffs in 2025
If they chase them out via RTO, they can be replaced with H-1B's.
Deleted Comment
"No loss of productivity" is a flat out lie.
I'd love to see actual stats on this, because I hear it a lot on HN (pretty much exclusively from the pro-office side) but I can't imagine there's that many people doing this. Even if there was, why is this a problem? Presumably they're getting work done in those 4 hours that is satisfactory to the business, so what if they do some work on the side as well? Who cares?
I do hybrid (2 times a week in the office) and don't mind it, but I know for a fact that pretty much every single person in my team does much less work on the office days than when they're remote, because we're mostly socializing, taking coffee breaks and taking full advantage of our 1-hour lunch break (rather than the 15 minutes it takes at home to just eat the meal). Most of us will even opt out of office days when we have a big deadline.
Hell, I'm much less productive at the office simply because the chairs & monitors suck. At home I've got a quad 4K monitor setup in an extremely comfortable chair, my own desk, my own food & beverages of choice, my own music blasting as loud (or quiet) as I want it. How could I be more productive in the office?
Turns out most people aren't mischievous children that have to be under constant supervision to get work done, and in fact they were better when given the freedom to approach the work in a way that suits them best.
And if there are people working 4 hours a day remotely, how productive do you think those same people are just because they're sat in an office?
Nutshell: I think this is a nonsense argument.
I don’t think the world is so coordinated. Some people made a bad bet on real estate. Some other people want to write click bait pieces about lazy workers. Some other corporate leaders are scared that employees are goofing off outside the office (because productivity can’t be measured for most work).
The "think tanks" that are pre staffed and fully capable of churning out and placing 3x major long form articles per week that are pro or con {Subject X} (and an additional few that fence sit and are "just asking questions") already exist and have been about since at least Nine out of Ten Doctors Recommend Smoking.
You know, 5+ decades ago.
The "elites" that are losing money in {Domain X} simply have to question their circle, get a line on a half decent agency or three and hire them to pitch for the thought changes that will move money back towards {X}.
Job done.
an AEI interview https://www.aei.org/workforce-development/the-future-of-remo... which seems pretty balanced overall (and doesn't take a prescriptive position)
an AEI piece https://www.aei.org/research-products/report/the-trade-offs-... which seems pretty balanced too
a Heritage piece (from early in Covid) https://www.heritage.org/jobs-and-labor/report/labor-policy-... that seems mostly bullish on remote work (but mostly focuses on other issues, like labor rights)
a McKinsey report (also from fairly early in Covid) https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/future-of-work/wh... which is mostly descriptive and also seems pretty balanced
a Cato piece https://www.cato.org/commentary/remote-work-here-stay-mostly... which argues in favor of remote work
Many of them are some of the companies that wax lyrical about remote work being bad and are often featured in articles. Submarine PR is absolutely rampant alongside "native advertising".
It’s not just that. The article talks about “landlords who buy up trophy office buildings”, but fails to draw the connecting line to the managers who demand RTO. The managers aren’t the landlords but the article seems to treat them as one single “elites” entity. How can the landlords demand RTO? Where is the financial incentive for the managers to RTO?
There’s a story here when Amazon gets tax breaks, for instance. But that doesn’t generalise to RTO mandates everywhere; it’s the exception rather than the rule.
Your question as to who these people are, is still valid. So my objection is only to the extent that it being unknown doesn't mean it isn't likely.
Of course, not all wealthy people invested in commercial real estate. But they still have an interest in preserving the existing economic system. They certainly don't want a domino effect.
A community where they go looking for contacts when they need something, like a public affairs firm for pushing political buttons, or a real estate investment to put a big payout into, or whatever. If you are in this environment and fuck around you'll make enemies. People won't recommend you as a public affairs customer, won't tip you off on good investment opportunities, might start to talk shit about you behind your back.
Undermining the value of real estate can make these networks and communities a serious hazard to your business. And undermining the value of office estate means you undermine the really tasty cash cow in real estate, residential properties within commuting distance. Enforcing commutes to offices means that people will pay a premium to shorten the commute.
I suggest you read or watch something about McKinsey.
"People who believe in conspiracy theories have never been project managers."
Right, I think there's pretty clearly a combination of factors at play and it's difficult to untangle them (adding one factor you didn't mention, soft layoffs).
I'm incredibly skeptical of any attempt to quantify "productivity" with this granularity, and this is especially true as technological advances over the last couple of years like LLMs are providing some substantial time savings for many tasks people do.
For one, look at the expenses of some of the large tech companies that often make the front page here on HN due to their RTO plans. Real estate is a relatively teeny portion (salaries are obviously the biggest). Point being, no sane CEO would demand RTO to "prop up commercial real estate" if they thought it would be a net negative for their actual business long term, precisely because their concerns about real estate values are so far down on their list of priorities.
There's no mystery here. People with assets want those assets to remain valuable, and act directly to reinforce it. This is why we don't let athletes bet on their own games.
> Point being, no sane CEO would demand RTO to "prop up commercial real estate" if they thought it would be a net negative for their actual business long term, precisely because their concerns about real estate values are so far down on their list of priorities.
What if they thought it didn't make any difference, or was mildly net positive to the short term value of their shares? Like, say, 2% increased value through voluntary attrition over the next 2 years, followed by 10% reduced value? And it propped up their portfolios? Is that really so far fetched? We see companies making a lot more questionable decisions in pursuit of quarterly numbers.
He's well know to have made most of his money in commercial property and has said he wants to protect that.
If a billionaire, lord of the realm, TV celebrity doesn't count as "elite" I don't know who does. I can't really think of a bigger hypocrite that that.
https://fortune.com/europe/2024/02/05/british-billionaire-lo...
Mechanism 1: Those S&P 500 shares that you own through Vanguard and BlackRock index funds, you don't actually control the voting rights to them. Vanguard and BlackRock do. They have coordinated voting power and a big voice in the C-suite of many large corporations. I do think that execs will listen when they make a suggestion, and it's in their interests that the value of assets under management stays high, because that's what determines their pay.
Mechanism 2: C-suite comp is tied to stock price, often through options. Well, as it happens, asset markets are tightly interrelated, and high valuations are a result of leverage. Strangely enough, a dollar invested in real estate can also be a dollar invested in Amazon (even if it's not Amazon's real estate). When asset valuations are high, their owners can borrow against those assets and use that money to bid for other assets, raising the price of everything together. In this process new money is essentially created ex nihilo and increases the price of assets. Conversely, when asset prices start deflating, that can trigger a sell-off of other assets, and this money doesn't simply change hands, it disappears along with the leverage that created it. A pop in commercial real estate valuations can mean that many investment funds which own Amazon will have to sell them off at fire-sale prices to cover a margin call. If you're an exec, this wouldn't be a good thing to happen before your equity compensation package vests.
Whether that lends credence to the authors theory or not is an open question, but it's another financial motivator.
Deleted Comment
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAFd4FdbJxs
Didn't we just see a giant string of mass layoffs in spite of excellent company performance for no apparent reason besides investors wanted them?
I rarely believe in conspiracies, but mindless group-think is very real.
If investors want it, I don’t see why any other reason would be necessary, ever, to explain a company’s behavior.
The truth is that after the initial movement toward remote work, we are starting to see the secondary effects.
For instance, starting as a junior in a remote job can be really daunting, and you're sure to never make any personal connection with anyone. Being stonewalled by a non-cooperative senior coworker in a slack chat while you start your job is a very stressful experience, I can tell you.
Remote also allows some slack if you don't enforce a very tight and intrusive management. See the countless stories about people holding two jobs at the same time.
Anyone with good people skills will break any barriers to connect and build a network of influence regardless of their expertise level. Anyone with communication issues or extremely introverted will have more difficulties to connect however, not that they would be doing great in person.
If non-cooperative senior coworkers are stonewalling, then it is a cultural or personal issues that needs to be managed, not the mode of work.
Starting a new job is always stressful, as any major change is difficult for human to adapt and needs time.
> See the countless stories about people holding two jobs at the same time.
This needs to stop, there were few reports, not countless. A few bad apples does not generalize the orchard. Also, if the pay is decent and living costs are affordable, no one needs to hold two jobs. If someone is holding two jobs remotely, it mostly means they are in "bulls!!t" job where they are not utilized to adequate levels and the symptoms of low output is not correctly noticed.
The truth is that other employees may have personal issues, too much work, lack of will to let go some moat, and so on. Management usually doesn't care, especially if a junior is complaining. Especially in IT where workers aren't selected for their social skills.
Remote lacks the casual interactions, at lunch or at the coffee machine. We are social animals and the lack of face-to-face contact reduces a lot the bonding, especially if you know that everything personal you write is recorded and can be read by the HR department. Will you tell about your divorce on a company Slack?
I work remotely, I enjoy it most of the time, but I have seen the difficulties that emerge from it. And yes, people holding multiple jobs at the same time is common, I know several persons who do, or have done, this.
You are putting too much faith in human nature. Lot of times, people are simply greedy and abuse the cultural norms put in place to allow slacks when truly warranted. Seen those stories first hand, and then there is https://www.reddit.com/r/overemployed/
As for allowance of some slack, yeah, theres possibility for that to happen. But management doesnt need to be intrusive: what does anyone care if some employee is working a 2nd job for example? Does anyone care how their colleagues or staff spend their time away from work as it is? As long as their work is done within acceptable timeframes (or there is reasonable limiting factors preventing it) , its of sufficient quality to meet expectations, and they meet expectations of availability, what they do in their spare time is none of anyones business. In other words, so long as someone is not breaking company requirements/policy (which would include working on competing products, etc), whether they hack away on side projects, volunteer their time somewhere, work a 2nd job, do nothing... it doesn't particularly matter. Management only needs to measure performance relative to the org's expectations of performance for that position, and timeously address any concerns if need be. Theres no need for the org to reach beyond whatever is agreed to for that role.
Covid was an outlier event, and the outcomes that occurred as a result of it will revert to the mean over time.
Is that what we are calling business now? As if industry players don't buy media outlets precisely to push their narratives (look at tech outlets, crypto outlets, pharma etc). How is this a "cabal"? It's cheaper to just talk to your friend who owns business insider and also invests in the same RE funds to ask "journalists" to research on the topic.
Also, plenty midmanagement in many industries love RTO: it's harder to justify their roles (and what they got promoted for) unless they have bags of flesh to oversee. It's not a cabal of midmanagement. It's just midmanagement slow pushing for RTO internally.
The reality is much more depressing -- nobody is in the control. Not the Illuminati, not the Jewish bankers, and not the C-level executives conspiring to force RTO to maximize their investments in the (unrelated) commercial real estate. These all are just conspiracy theories.
which implicitly means "their own" control!
What you’re describing is a cognitive bias.
https://centerforhealthsecurity.org/our-work/tabletop-exerci...
You can believe COVID happened however you want — but it’s documented reality that the elites practiced exactly the authoritarian response they used mere months before the virus outbreak.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Reset
Similarly, those same elites wrote a book about how they want to use the authoritarian measures they implemented during COVID as a gateway to imposing their vision on society. Again, documented reality.
Isn’t that point of training and exercises? To be ready and have a plan when the situation you trained for actually occurs?
If you read the John Hopkins’ Center for Health Security link you provided, they did similar exercises in 2018 ("Clade X"), 2005 ("Atlantic Storm"), and 2001 ("Dark Winter").
To me this doesn’t prove that there is a conspiracy of any kind.
It simply and reassuringly shows that some of those who’s responsibility it is to be prepared for and help us collectively get through these kind of situations are actually taking their jobs somewhat seriously.
I guess you could call that a conspiracy. A conspiracy to do their jobs well.
No conspiracy needed for a bunch of people to act in their own perceived best interest and work backwards to a justification.
People need not work together to conspire, only vaguely in the same direction. Incentives do that like radio waves
Now, all of a sudden, they realize their blunder. While the workers are happy, they are not. So now they will try to convince us that we are not productive enough, or that some of us are slacking, or that we have stopped innovating, or another 50 reasons for which going to the office will help us.
More recently, they have realized that they are not fooling anyone. So now they are threatening lower pay or layoffs for those who refuse to come back.
Sure, remote work can be productive for certain work, and for certain people. But people underestimate the value of an office.
Working in a coffee shop? Sure, if you have nothing to do but read some email.
I love both. And I don’t mind a short commute, as it starts and ends your work, resulting in a better work-life balance
In contrast, at home I control my environment, have my hyper comfortable chair in which I can spend 48 hours sitting without complaints, my own monitor setup that is infinitely superior to the crap they have at the office, I can control my own AC, I can control my noise level, I don't get casually interrupted by someone wanting to contact me out of the blue with irrelevant questions, I have 8 gig symmetric fiber internet that is literally never down and it's entirely 100% dedicated to only myself and my machines rather than being shared with 100 other people, and who uses whiteboards still? You can just buy a pen and paper if you really need to scribble something down
All other issues are easily solvable too, either with the right tools, or the right processes.
(nb. I also think working at a coffee shop isn't for most people)
I loathe remote work, but support others in pursuing what works best for them.
With that being said, Coffitivity¹ exists for a reason. Some of us work much better in environments like that, myself included.
I did the majority of my studying at Rutgers in the student center on College Ave, as my ability to focus is much better when I'm around people, but not interacting with them. While not as impressive as if I had done so at an Ivy League institution, I believe this was essential to graduating from there summa cum laude.
[1] https://coffitivity.com/
1. The desk, chair, lighting and multi-screen setup I have at home is vastly superior to any I had in any company I worked for in the past, including FAANG.
2. Know what is worse than domestic distractions? Office distractions. People around you constantly talking in those noisy, nightmarish open offices. At home I can tell my wife I need to focus, shut the door to the home office room, and be productive. During the 15 years I worked from the office I had to wear fucking headphones with loud music to drown out the incessant office noise.
3. Not sure what you are going on about bad internet. Where the fuck do you live that internet connection is unreliable these days?
4. The beauty of asynchronous communication these days. I don't even like slack very much, but it is so much better than in-person communication, that even in the odd occasion when I am at the office I prefer to use it rather than speaking in person.
5. Ah, whiteboards. Funny you mention that, there are numerous excellent collaborative tools for that sort of thing nowadays. They end up being clearer since my writing and drawing skills are shit, and they are also asynchronous, which makes it so much nicer.
Do you live in the past?
The reasoning behind the work from office mandate does not concern me; nor I will attempt to rationalize it.
I will not return to office, and I will organize with colleagues to make sure our interests are protected.
See you in the strike.
(Yes, yes, I know you personally are a conscientious worker with a stellar work ethic and would never slack off on the company's dime, but let's be real here and recognize the population averages.)
Yes, some people made a bet on office real estate, and they're in a bad position right now.
But those aren't the same people who are running businesses that use those offices. Why would most businesses care if real estate is propped up or not? How would increasing utilization of their buildings actually help them?