I work for a company that is taking the “hybrid” approach to bringing people back to the office. It's quite a large company so they haven't been taking harsh measures to get people back. Basically since they started the hybrid approach, they've been letting some teams decide what is best for those teams as to whether people need to come back. My direct managers have been letting us stay permanent remote even stating as recently as today that going back makes absolutely no sense.
Well now that's slowly changing. There's lots of murmurs going around even from my direct management that they're starting to take more notice of who is and isn't badging into the buildings. My management essentially is telling me specifically that I'll need to come up with a reason so that it can get approved by upper leadership. Upper leaders are trying to enforce the very old-school mentality that face to face interactions improve work ethic, mental health, etc.
Here's my issue with it. The company has many locations throughout the world. I just happen to live near one. The team I work with is full of very independent workers. Meaning we don't really ever need to interact. Even worse, no one else on my team that I work with directly is at my location. So this face to face interaction they're trying to push wouldn't happen for me anyway. But, the people in charge of making this happen still want people like me there. So what this boils down to, is that they want people like me to go back to the office essentially so we badge in and show that we were there and still have our meetings virtually anyway.
Now believe it or not, I'm the literal top performer on my team. Remote work has been great for me because I've added time to my life in my work/life balance. I get up every morning and do some light exercise before logging in to sitting and working at a desk all day. And then I can clock out and have so much more time to you know…live?
I moved during the pandemic because I honestly didn't foresee ever going back to campus. So I'm farther away and an hour commute. Where I live, people are idiots and never took any part of the pandemic seriously. That means no vaccines, no social distancing, no masks. The company did at one point enforce those things, but not now that everyone believes the pandemic is over. The problem is, I still live where I live. So of the thousands of people showing up to my campus, a very large portion of them took nothing of the pandemic seriously and still don't. Which means when they catch COVID now, they still show up to work and blame their coughing and sneezing on allergies. This has happened multiple times as told by a buddy of mine who was essential, had to be on campus.
I have gone this entire time avoiding getting COVID and remaining the top performer for years. And now they want me back as essentially another body that's badging in and providing validation for keeping the lights on.
So my question is: What can I do to remain remote permanently? The company does technically have full remote positions, but anyone who wasn't technically remote prior to the pandemic is considered in the category of, “wanted back” regardless of how good you are or how little sense it makes for you to be there.
TL;DR – Upper management wants to validate keeping the lights on by forcing everyone near campuses back. What can I do to stay permanently remote?