For context, the majority of my company is in the process of transitioning out of work from home and back to the office:
I was in the break room this morning, trying to get water from a dispenser to no avail. Someone who works in my building, on my floor, but that I've never seen before just says, “Yeah; it's broken. Even if it wasn't, the filter is in the red.” He said to try another, but I told him that one wasn't working either. He just sighed.
I said, “Geeze, you'd think with the state of this place there's been a pandemic going on for the past two years or something!” That got a little laugh out of him. Then he asked, “Hasn't it been three years?” I said, sometimes it feels like it, but nope. Then offered that the pandemic really messed with my ability to judge the passing of time.
And then he just… kinda broke. Said how the transition back has been so much harder for him than the beginning of the pandemic. How his routine is totally off. How bad he feels about how much less productive he is at work than working from home.
I nodded as he talked, chiming in a few times to explain how it was the same for me too.
He finished preparing his coffee with his head down, and said: “I'm glad to know I'm not the only one,” then went back towards wherever his cubicle or office is.
It's just so sad to me to see firsthand what so many of these companies are doing to the people working for them, all to save face, or justify management, or maintain real estate property, or whatever. It's so unnecessary. And depressing.