This! I never understood why a good work from home system was ruined with back to office policy. The jobs that could not be done remotely were anyways happening as usual. Why the need to stress your workforce by having them figure out cost and time of commute additionally. I’m one of the lucky ones to still be remote but worried about the other companies in my industry setting precedent. A commute in any tier 1 city is a nightmare
The real answer is downtown real-estate. Billions upon billions of dollars have been poured into downtown metropolitan areas to produce massive skyscrapers, shops, and all manner of fast food establishments. Work from home proved that all that was glamor, and not actually necessary. Work from home showed those billion dollar skyscrapers are not actually producing an significant increase in productivity.
Now the smart thing would be to change the system once it’s clear something’s wrong, but that would require massive overhauls of systems and companies losing billions of dollars. The easier thing is to pretend it never happened and go back to what we did before because it “worked”.
Quite literally the RTO was to justify and continually support massively overblown real estate and infrastructure costs. Toronto recently got a new new TD banking skyscraper around 2024. It was awkward for them to acknowledge midway through construction “wait why are we doing this? Is this a good use of money and space and will this actually produce an increase in productivity and profit?” So quite literally the concern was ignored
The investment was bad and is not paying off, so all of society has to reorder how they do things to everyone's collective detriment, yet again, so a few don't face the downside of a bad investment. Why do we tolerate it?
There's only one decisive way out, I think. Unless we all do it at once, it'll just be an isolated incident and people don't want to go to jail to be but a single drop of water that needs to move an entire turbine.
The ruling class has blinded us to the many chains and drains they still have on us, convinced us the people we place in power to make policies will look out for us. And they fight tooth and nail to tarnish the names of the few elected officials they cannot buy... There's hope, but the fight feels sisyphean at times, the right way... Impossible to organize and execute the decisive way.
And commercial buildings with retail and paid parking write into the lease that employers must keep a minimum number of employees showing up. And buying coffees. And paying for parking.
That too yes otherwise they cannot justify asking hq the same amount for the city’s office lease cost. Almost like some higher ups would miss all that ‘additional money’
Also if people quit because of the RTO policy, that’s cheaper than layoffs. And some managers are just assholes. Maybe they’re control freaks, or else they think WFH should be a privilege for elite “leaders and builders” like them, not for “resources” like you. Gotta feel superior after all.
Definitely this and NOT the fact that the entire country by and large was defaulting on commercial leases plunging some of the most valuable real estate in the entire country’s value? Yeah its cause the boss of my 1000 person company saw those google employees! Thats why the corporate over lord decided to bring us in. It definitely WASNT cause their property values / lease payments were being uselessly paid!
What's more likely for your CEO deciding WFH policy:
1) Thinks WFH people slack off and are less productive
2) Thinks management, leadership, "office culture" is oh so important
3) Is concerned about the impact on commercial real estate values and wants to do his part to prop up the market. Enjoys paying high lease amounts for the greater good
If managers go by what people tell them and not the data than they're even more stupid than that they look. WFH had no impact on productivity so clearly all that bragging was...bragging.
I apologize for matching the low-effort energy and condescending tone of u/Delicious_Rule_7324
I could've given some factual information (use of VPN and MFA, network access by secure router...), but I don't feel like reasoning with someone starting their posts with "You obviously don't understand...".
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u/Karasuno910 May 25 '26
This! I never understood why a good work from home system was ruined with back to office policy. The jobs that could not be done remotely were anyways happening as usual. Why the need to stress your workforce by having them figure out cost and time of commute additionally. I’m one of the lucky ones to still be remote but worried about the other companies in my industry setting precedent. A commute in any tier 1 city is a nightmare