So I recently left my previous company I worked at for 9 years to work for a new company within the same industry for the primary benefit of the new job being completely remote. My previous job used to be in-office until covid, then switched to WFH, but the idea there was always that it was going to be temporary. So when the opportunity arose to work for a new company where that wasn't even a consideration (plus a nice pay bump), I jumped at it. I originally never cared about remote work, but the lockdowns occurred during an interesting period of my life. For starters, my wife and I had our first kid literally 3 months before the pandemic started, and I also had started a serious diet where I was trying to lose a bunch of weight and get in shape. When things went remote for covid, I was able to fully commit to not only being present at home and helping my wife out during her maternity leave, but I also was able to really focus on the diet and nailing it to perfection.
I subsequently lost a TON of weight over 2020/2021, and got into the best shape of my life. Being home all day meant I could go on frequent walks on the trail behind my house, and eat mainly home cooked meals. It was great and I really took to remote work. Just overall my quality of life VASTLY improved. I've since completely overhauled my home office to better suit remote work, built a home gym in the garage, and have a really nice daily routine with the kid that works with my wife's schedule (she's an MD) so we're both pretty happy. Also, getting to spend time with my son like this is something I never would have imagined. Growing up, my father was an executive at his company and thus was constantly traveling. I have so many memories of being a little kid and anxiously staying up super late waiting for my dad to come back from some work trip. I'd be so happy I would finally get to play at the park with him and stuff like that, so I know what it's like to have a dad that's constantly working. Now I get to work the same hours he did, make the same money, but do it all from home while not sacrificing family time. It's a massive massive game changing perk.
Anyway, fast forward to last week. I'm 3 months in at the new job and loving it. I'm on a call with our CEO, CTO, and direct supervisor. Our CEO, who works at our HQ based in New York (I live in Florida) suddenly floats the idea that he'd like to rent out an office space for myself and my direct supervisor (the ONLY two people that live in Florida) to occasionally work out of. I was a bit taken aback by this proposal as you can imagine, but I sort of played along so as to not raise any alarms. The idea is that since labor in Florida is cheap, they were considering hiring a small support team that would be based out of Florida, and wanted them to work in a physical office. The office would be “centrally located” between my supervisor and myself, and we'd be able to “go in when we want”. The proposed location is a fucking 45-1 hour long drive from my house both ways. I sort of gave a less than enthralled reaction to this idea, but again, I played along because I like this job and this is the CEO/Founder talking. In my head however I was thinking no fucking way do I want to completely upend everything I've built in the last two years to make this new travel/schedule work. For what? My supervisor and I literally spend our entire days talking on Discord. Work gets done efficiently, and there has never been any issues due to the remote nature of our work.
Now just an hour ago on a call with my supervisor, he mentions how he's excited for the new office and excited to be around people again. His reasoning being that he feels lonely working by himself every day, and has no one to “come home to” (single guy in his 30's) when he's off work, so for him, the physical interaction at an office is a big deal. He's also worked remotely for the past 10 years, so for him it's also a change of pace he'd like. Me on the other hand, I'm like yeah honestly dude it sounds super cool, but I have a kid and a whole ass daily routine that really works for me and gives me the exact work/life balance I've craved for years. It's hard to suddenly let that go and drive an hour in terrible traffic every week. He almost seemed offended I also wasn't super excited like him. The conversation ended with a very “let's agree to disagree” conclusion, and “well I'm sure we're still months away from anything happening anyway, so let's just wait and see”.
I am not happy about this. It's already ruining my day today at work. This wasn't in the contract I signed to work here, and even my offer letter specifically states “this is a remote position”. How do I properly convey to this company that I have no interest in coming back to an office without sounding like I just want to be a “lazy Floridian that hates commuting” as it was jokingly referred to by one of our New York people.