What engineers and people on this site seem to not grasp is that "working" is not a strict definition that maps to "writing code" to management, business operations, marketing, sales... basically every non-engineering department.
If that concept starts to take root in the mind, then it becomes a bit more clear why people like the office. Engineers on HN seem to be incapable of considering that the social aspect of work is important to most non-introvert non-engineers in an office and that a lot of "work" is forming bonds, developing relationships, and yes, "playing politics" to some extent.
I don't doubt that the 10x engineer is well-represented on this site and that their worth is quite high for their work output. Lesser engineers and developers who work on glorified CRUD apps and mobile adware can easily be replaced, and the issue is that often they think they are also elite 10x engineers who have the same type of nobility and don't have to play the office game.
Time will tell if they're right, but I'm betting not. Especially since I know a lot of hiring managers exploring outsourcing during the Great Resignation and Remote Work Only craze and finding results being... quite good.
There can be a lot of ideas that a stated in way that makes it seem like most people would totally agree, like that "socializing at the office is obviously a chore that's a waste of time", that "work is about maximizing your programming output", or that "managers want employees back at the office is because they feel insecure about their value and don't trust their employees to get work done". But I don't think the vast majority of the workforce would necessarily agree to those ideas. As much as HN types like to make fun of MBAs and their bean-counting, there's the feeling that in their own heads the primary directive is to try to maximize the throughput of neatly parceled work units and would deride those who disagree as "time wasters".
The risk with this kind of thinking is that you end up not being nearly as objective as you think you are, and worse, you will fail to predict how things are going to happen. If you were reading Reddit during the 2016 and 2020 democratic primary; you would have been sure that Bernie was going to be the nominee. My workplace surveyed whether people want to do full-remote, hybrid, or full-office. Reading HN, you'd think the obvious top choice would have been full-remote, since most of us could actually work fully remote. As it turns out, it was not the winner. (Before saying that management fudged the numbers: The outcome was supported by my informal questioning of my coworkers as to how they voted.)
I do this all day in private Slack communications, 1-1 video conferences, and everything else.
This "watercooler effect" myth may seem important to some, but I know my team members closely because I am talking to them all day, whether we're staring at each other face to face or not. I already know their kids are in college, or the sports teams they are interested in, or the typical company rumor mill.
I'm 2+ decades in this game and I am familiar with the office. I spent 10 years driving an hour-each-way commute to spend 10+ hours in an office to help start a company with one other person. Which ended up growing to 20+ employees.
What is the purpose of "in person"? I have friends and a life outside the office. That doesn't make me an "introvert", it makes me a person who wants to spend the company's money wisely, especially against tight deadlines.
They need me writing code, or architecting a project, or leading a team.
That doesn't just happen. I'm glad your company/team has apparently figured it out; mine certainly hasn't.
It's one thing if your job is to stay at the assembly line punching holes in metal sheets 40 hours a week. And another thing if you have the capacity for improving the overall process (and profits), while still spending 10 hours punching holes part-time because it brings you joy. From management perspective, it's those 10 hours that are wasted.
Or if you're taken out of your dear assembly line and flown to the other part of the country in business class, to attend a week-long series of meeting with a customer. Somehow that ends up helping to secure a huge contract, just because your presence affected the customer's perception. From your perspective, that might look like the company has wasted a fine week of your work on useless meetings and communication. From company's perspective, just with that they have made more money than you'd bring them in a two years otherwise.
When there was friction involved in organizing a meeting (Needing to gather participants all in one place, book conference room, get projector working etc.) people were reluctant to call trivial meetings.
Now it feels like everyone has discovered Microsoft Teams and people feel obligated to call meetings for all manner of things that would have previously been solved by email or 'water cooler conversations'.
The volume of meetings I find myself attending now has skyrocketed compared to how often I'd be physically present in meetings when I worked in office. The only saving grace is you can mute yourself and alt-tab which is much more difficult when you are physically present at a meeting.
My current job is 100% remote; I've never met my coworkers or my users. I love not commuting, but the lack of personal bonding and the need for all communication to be 100% intentional is a real drawback. I think it's especially limiting for people that I don't work very closely with. E.g., I can't just go hang out with users and watch them work. Which makes it much harder to build relationships where I say, "Hey, let me show you something."
So... what you like is making it harder for other people to work by forcing them to pay attention to you according to your whims. I much prefer a coworker reaching out to me on Slack and saying "When you have time, let me show you something." And then I get back to them when I've finished what I am working on.
Do you have empathy towards 90% of the remainder of a company who doesn't like that?
You clearly want other people to show empathy and try to honor the way you like to work. So I'll repeat icelander's question: Do you have empathy towards 90% of the remainder of a company who doesn't like that?
It doesn't matter much in the good times when everything is going smoothly. But when the crap hits the fan and you don't have that connection - things tend to get contentious a lot faster. If you're the only one on the team without a human connection to the rest of the team, you're set up to be the scapegoat when things go wrong. It's just human nature.
Is it necessary? Definitely not. But I have the opportunity and I think it’s great to do, and great to plan together.
Consider how you define yourself, and where you see your life going over the long term.
Different strengths/reservoirs of energy and motivation are needed to "make it happen" in the real world.
How can you ensure your team will be there when you need them?
The irony of writing this doesn't escape me, as I weigh the frankly-more-time-efficient-for-me working at home I have now, versus the team-efficiencies of being in the office.
That’s a lot of benefit to me? I like knowing that the person on the other end of the camera actually exists in 3D.
What's interesting is that I flew in for a meeting with my company recently, the first I've had since I've been hired.
This took hours upon hours of my time. Time I could have spent working.
We spent it between a conference room and at restaurants, and much of the time was spent discussing things with the larger team that were not relevant to me. So I spent that time on my laptop fixing bugs, in the conference room.
There was zero benefit to any of this outside of a solid handshake and getting to "meet people in person".
However, I have 3 meetings a week with the entire team on HD video, so I already knew exactly who I was meeting and what their mannerisms and personalities were.
That included walking through an office where people jumped out of the cubicles and offices when they saw me and said "hey! Great to finally see you in person!" without a second thought. They knew exactly who I was without having ever met me.
Is this really necessary? This was a huge waste of company money that I could have spent working.