My company has been pushing for a return to the office for about a year now, and it really rubs me the wrong way. I'm not normally one to be upset about petty things, but this one just irritates me, for the following reasons:
1) Very soon after my company told us to work from home, a lot of people moved to their vacation homes far from the office. So guess what? They don't have to return to the office
2) When the company mandated 2 days per week in the office, I complied. But every time I'm in the office, it's so empty. Some days, I'm literally the only one there, which makes me feel like a fool for even following the rules. Granted, a few people have been trickling back in recently
3) About 3 months ago, they started pushing for 3 days per week. I'd found a good routine with 2 days per week, so I asked my manager about staying at 2. He couldn't care less as long as the work gets done, but he formally agreed to 2 days per week via email just so I have documentation. My manager is outside of commuting range, so he is fully remote anyway. However, there's a stronger push for enforcing 3 days per week now
4) I am productive both at home and in the office, though in the office, conference calls are harder due to other people on their own calls at the same time. Very distracting, and they've eliminated a lot of the office space so we don't have what we used to call “focus rooms”. I listen to music via earphones when I need to concentrate on tasks so that the noise doesn't distract me (it's an open office setting…sigh…)
5) The company says that they'll make the office a place we will want to come to, but they can't provide 2 monitors for each desk, or even a freaking mouse pad (I bring my own mouse pad in lol). I had to grab a monitor from another desk to get my second one (I am a system admin/developer, so 2 monitors is super important for my efficiency)
6) I somewhat understand the whole collaboration in person thing, but most of the time we're on conference calls talking to people from around the world anyway
7) My entire team is exempt from coming into the office, either they have medical issues or they're in a different state/country/continent
8) Working from home is so comfortable and makes me happier. I can wake up later, or squeeze more exercise in, etc.
9) In an FAQ, it was asked “What if my entire team is not local to my office?” The answer was that you still need to come in 3 days per week
10) We are listed as remote employees in the directory. Additionally, I left the company for a short time and rejoined a year ago and was hired as a remote employee. So now they can just change that at will?? What about the people who moved to their vacation homes??
Sorry, that was a long rant…but wtf, I am so tired of this awkward RTO push. Why do things have to go back to the way they were pre-COVID?? Ugh…
/end rant, and thanks for listening…