A lot of comments are indicating you're alone on this, but I'm finding the contrary. Our team doubled in size in the last 6 months or so with an office mandate (to almost 20 now). With aggressive hiring goals, we discussed whether we might have to transition to a remote company to satisfy market expectations, but found that as long as we're completely transparent in the initial conversation, there are people who are all-in on RTO.

One of our recent senior hires specifically wanted an in-office role and a lot of our junior engineers are hungry to learn from the seniors.

What I suspect is there will be a divide in the coming years and as long as companies are open about who they are, people can make the choice of where they want to work.

A lot of people will say to do your socializing outside of work.

IMO the kinds you described are really helpful for work collaboration and even politics.

Plus when you build better communication relationships with coworkers for regular chatter then it drastically improves respect and discourse in important team discussions and code reviews.

I prefer the office as well. Work 4-5 days / week.

A big part is my employer allowed me to transfer to a closer office to my home, so now my commute is ~15 mins via light rail rather than ~1 hours via car.

Some food for thought: seems like the majority prefer to WFH, now think of all the coworkers you were having lunch with, how many of them would prefer to have lunch with you if they were not forced to go to the office? Not many.

Don’t get too attached to people from work.

This may be your experience, but I made lots of friends at work, and kept in touch for a long time after leaving. People I first met at work are currently a large fraction of my real-world friends.

I regularly meet with the same people I used to work with before I changed jobs to a remote one. I have zero friends in my new remote work (except I person that I knew before).

It's OK to make friends at work.

As a parent who also enjoy lunch with co-workers and in person time, I'm a big fan of hybrid going to work a couple times a week. I'm also the only parent that goes in regularly.

I'm in a small "remote-first" company where there's only a handful of other engineers in the area, most of us used to work in in-person offices. Even just a handful of us is enough critical mass to have a good conversation and even collaborating on a few problems together that would otherwise require more effort to schedule and work through.

Do you mind me asking if you're under 30yrs old?

I'm over 50 and I'm in the same boat. Hybrid is ideal for me for the same reasons.

I'm 40 and I work from the office 5 days a week for roughly the same reasons. General expectation from the company is around 2 days a week in the office, but I prefer it, so I come in every day.

Not OP - I'm in my mid 30s and do this for roughly the same reasons.

Do you mind me asking you if you are anti-social?

I don't mind, and the answer is 'no' - I am quite social on a regular basis. I was asking the OP out of genuine curiosity.

Not OP, but I'm under 30 years old and I agree with OP 100%.

I'm 45.

What do you think of having it completely voluntary to RTO?

You mean like it is now?

You pay a few hundred bucks a month to rent a wework desk so that you have an excuse to commute somewhere?

He explains why he does this in his post.... >But I miss the bustling office culture, going out to lunch with coworkers, forming friendships with people from the office who don't necessarily work in the same department/team.

Not everyone is built the same way

No, they say they do it for the change of scenery and nobody else is there.

Some people find they benefit from physically separating home life from work life.

Bingo. Work and life are two separate spheres for me. Having physical separation of them is important.

I realize not everyone is like that. I’m also not a parent which would probably tilt the equation for me.

No, I don't pay for it myself. My employer setup the WeWork and pays the monthly bill, on the premise that there would be a handful of people in our city (Portland, OR) who also want to work from an office. There have a been a handful of other people who used to come in occasionally, but now it's dwindled down to mostly just me.

I also ride my bike ~10 miles each way (even in Portland winter!) because it's a great way for me to make sure I get daily exercise and breathe some fresh air.

Without the commute, I get cabin-fever in the dreary Portland winter.

I have a pretty robust social life with my wife and other non-work friends, but if I work from home every day, I start to get some major cabin fever...

And I specifically miss the PROFESSIONAL SOCIAL LIFE that comes from having a close face-to-face relationship with my collaborators.

Same. I do like the flexibility but miss the "bustling office culture" as you call it.

Seems like the idea for me would be some kind of hybrid where 2-3 days a week at least most co-workers are together in-office and the other days people are where they are personally most productive.

Wouldn't have to be draconian, leaders could say "I highly encourage" and provide things like lunches and expectations that that's when collaboration, meetings, etc would happen and then also have expectation that there would be "get shit done" days on those non-collaboration-focused days

I feel the same way. Unfortunately, I work for a "remote only" company so I either 1) have to find a coworking space, or 2) find a new job.

Being on Zoom for even an hour a day is miserable.

For a lot of employees, RTO is not a matter of preference but wether they can get away with not being at home.

I think many of the full WFH people might actually have enjoyed offices very much, but given a choice it just doesn't make sense.

If your choices is between chatting with your colleagues and enjoying low latency communication vs supporting your spouse and family in their everyday life, even if you personally enjoyed the former, it's tough to throw away the latter.

Commute time is one of the killer apps of WFH.

Mmm I like interacting with people but hate being forced to every day. But I was remote long before COVID.