Why we're going back to the office

Maybe it's a personality thing. Team bonding? Pppffff. I've almost never bonded with a coworker IRL as much as I have people I've met online. "My couch was the office, and the office my couch." So, uh, buy a desk like the rest of us?

Then I got to the photo of the whiteboard with sticky notes plastered all over it and it's like I'm back in the dark ages. What the actual hell.

BTW, this isn't a WFH vs. in-person office thing. Remote work can happen in a variety of forms, including offices! I'm at a SPACES location right now and it's awesome. I'm fine with working at an office. Just not necessarily your office, Corporate Overlords. ;-)

Remote work is here and it's here to stay, and companies pushing back on it are literally holding back progress in both worker productivity and well-being.

Reads like a trite mission statement minus the word "synergy." You can't force creativity, teamwork, or bonding by locking people in a room together. Butt-in-seat-mentality is make-the-galleon-slaves-row-together-because-everyone-else-is-and-because-because. Also, propinquity only does so much, and most people seem to be immune to it these days by being so incredibly anxious, fearful, avoidant, withdrawn, alienating, alienated, and like teenage hermits (hikikomori).

My kind take on this is that the author is more social than a lot of developers. Some people like water cooler conversations at work and a lot of informal meetings. That makes sense for some jobs in some companies.

My less kind take is that the author is not at all a self starter. Structure is something that absolutely can be applied to life even without an office. The example of faster feedback loops was supposed to be positive, but it was a pair of developers who very quickly broke their production environment.

It's clear the author is better off working in an office and I think that it's good they can. I'm also pretty sure that I wouldn't want to work in _that_ office.

After a long stretch of remote work, we're excited to share why we're transitioning back to the office.