I'm struggling to find the bit where I demand all the remote-first or hybrid companies changes their ways and conform to my preferences.

No, I'm looking for companies that fit my preferences. Which is making my job search much harder, but I know what I need.

Right, but the louder opinions like yours are, and these are the ones that surface most in the public debate and wrapped in some good-for-productivity ideas, the more fuel it adds to the fire of moving everyone back in office.

Louder opinions like mine? In all the places i've seen remote work discussed, I've been made to feel like my preference is a distinct minority -- to the point of feeling like the preference itself is being erased from the discourse.

If your experiences are different, I'm sorry for that, the last thing I want portray remote as an invalid preference. But when the topic comes up, I'm not going to sit on mute if it feels like my preference isn't getting any airtime.

Look, your preferences are totally valid.

What I’m referring to is this. I’ve worked at a few places that maintain an in-person office option for employees like you to support hybrid offices. These offices are frequently libraries though. Nobody is there. So the following happens.

If it’s a disciplined, remote-first place, this is accepted and ok. The subset of companies that can support this is small IMO.

For most others, they look at the empty office, hear preferences like yours that want in-personal back via appeals for community, at the extensive and the loud culture of OpEds in the Wall Street Journal/NYT by Peggy Noonan or Malcolm Gladwell about how remote work is critical for national and personal meaning, and then the return to office discussions start b/c employees support it as do thought leaders, the media, and politicians, and the nearly-empty office is expensive.

To be sure, there might be work places that stay totally in-person and you’re free to work there.

But the other issue is a lot of people don’t want work friends as their friends. This is loose scientific evidence, but Office Space is a very popular movie in the US and the Office in UK/US for this reason, for example.

So calls for return to office means, imo, a lot of people who would also love to be remote but can’t bc they’re not software engineers or wherever get swept back in. So your personal needs harm that greater good as I see it.

I don't think OP is. They know how they feels and they're betting others feel the same. Employees wanting to work in an office isn't the same thing as employers forcing people to.

Right, my base assumption is betting a lot of the other employees don’t feel the same. There are a core group of work friends that maybe stick around after leaving a job as friends, the rest are evenings you’re taking from me, my family, and my time at a pub b/c those pub nights are ultimately important for career management and matter little for meaningful socialization.

I feel like people get this or not. The relationships at work are more for career advancement than friendship (or I’m a sociopath). This has been a thing forever, Office Space was a hit for a reason.

No, he’s looking for a job where his coworkers have similar desires. I don’t see the problem with this.