Before the pandemic and surge of remote work, a lot of us complained not just about going to the office, but that the office itself was pretty crappy. The open plan creates an environment of high distraction, low privacy, and physical discomfort. Whether or not people wanted to listen to music or anything for hours at a time, they were pushed to do it just to drown out a constant background noise of words that are highly salient in your problem domain. You're probably constrained to the desk or chair set up that your office manager picked. The bottom line is you're spending a lot of time in an environment about which you may have zero input or control.

At home, I can work in silence if I want. If I want background noise, I can play music on a stereo or turn on the TV in the next room. When my back hurts, I can lie down on the sofa, or stretch and foam roll in a way which would be conspicuous in the office. I can be barefoot all day if I want. I can snack on the food that I like enough to buy, without broadcasting the pretention of bringing my own food to the micro kitchen. I can eat healthier lunches than the office catered food. Even without considering commuting, or the amount of time spent in synchronous interactions, just being able to control my own space is sooo much more comfortable. I injured my back this year, and taking care of it has been so much easier at home than it would have been in open plan hell.

A bunch of that stuff is nominally compatible with being "in the office" -- just give me a private office, with real walls, the ability to buy my own furniture, etc. But tech long ago decided that engineers get cubicles or open plan desks, that the way you know we're working is seeing that we're looking at screens rather than seeing our actual output, that a clean modern spaceship aesthetic is more important than workers being able to control or customize their workspace. Is it that we don't value the office, or that the office has been created by people who don't value us?