> I wish they would stop trying to force us into shared working spaces. They can make me work from home, a close office, a far office... I don't care.
Yes. I'm pretty open to the benefits of working in an office. I had a WFH job pre-pandemic that I loved for 8 years, but when I got hired into an office job, I felt like my life changed qualitatively for the better in small ways. Socialization, lunch options, separation of work and home, etc. Nothing earth shattering, but it was ... nice for a change.
Now, post-pandemic, my office job has gone "back" 3 days a week, except the experience completely sucks. They've massively downsized the office so we don't have assigned cubicles anymore; it's just all hot-desks. So you don't have your personal comforts (keyboard, chair, personal effects, stash of handy office supplies at the ready, etc), you don't know where anyone is, and every single day you have to hunt for a desk when you get to the office. There aren't enough conference rooms, people squat on the privacy booths for the entire day, the kitchen isn't well stocked anymore.
If we were actually "returning" to the same office experience we had before, I could probably swallow it. Give me a fucking cubicle at the very least. As is, this crappy facsimile of office life is universally hated and I'd guess compliance with the RTO mandate is somewhere under 10%. When they start actually enforcing it, I will consider it a request to leave.