We have to face realities. It's obvious that companies have found that working from home negatively affects productivity. Companies are all about saving money and maximizing productivity. If working from home had been at an even level, or even a bit less, to working from the office then they would had chosen it over having people go into the office since maintaining an office, and all that goes with it, is very expensive.

Yes, some of us tried hard to make it work but like always there was a minority that probably did not and now we all have to pay for it.

At this point, the best we can hope for is a hybrid work schedule. It's not what we want or wish for but, if we are lucky, it's what we can get.

> It's obvious that companies have found that working from home negatively affects productivity. Companies are all about saving money and maximizing productivity. If working from home had been at an even level, or even a bit less, to working from the office then they would had chosen it over having people go into the office since maintaining an office, and all that goes with it, is very expensive.

Or middle management forces this on everyone so they can keep pretending they're useful, while most of middle management is absolutely useless. Most managers are there to ask something one person and forward the answer to another person, or gather multiple ones to sum them up in a single sentence. That's literally the job. People who have actual business influence sit at 'the top', people who have technical influence sit near 'the bottom', most people in between are just... there. I know, I worked with middle management heavily in my last corporate gig, those people usually barely even know what we do, they are incapable of making any decision without 'running it through upper management', most of them are not even trained properly to resolve interpersonal issues or work with people in general. Going to the office just so you can sit in your cubicle or on a random desk in the open space and spend whole day on calls with other people is just... pointless.

> It's not what we want or wish for but, if we are lucky, it's what we can get.

This sentence reads like corporate management is your overlord and you're happy if they let you do something. Working in IT you're privileged enough to be able to actually choose who you work for, thinking you're 'lucky' because you can work 2 days from home, is kind of... sad really.

> Companies are all about saving money and maximizing productivity.

I have yet to hear any company even robustly define productivity for tech workers.

Characters per minute (CPM) according to the guy that tried to convert me to VI.

I kid you not.

Assuming your employees are not charlatans, WFH normally means a bit more work for the manager in exchange for somewhat improved productivity.

Maybe your managers are lazy or incompetent?

By realities, do you mean middle management neuroses driven anecdotes, or actually statistics and study? Because the latter shows that it's more productive to wfh

Your list of first-world grievances also describes: healthcare workers, literally anyone in the trades, grocery store employees, retail, etc. At some point tech employees have convinced themselves that they are likewise "essential" employees and deserving of special exceptions. But the fact of the matter is most tech jobs, apps, etc. could go away tomorrow and life would continue unabated (in contrast to the list above). Sure, with mild inconveniences, but society will find a way. It also proves how easily replaceable you are by employees in developing countries who are glad to show up in person to the office (for 1/6th the pay).

Also, who doesn't bring their own coffee from home vs. drinking the three-day-old moldy diarrhea at the office?

> Your list of first-world grievances also describes: healthcare workers, literally anyone in the trades, grocery store employees, retail, etc. At some point tech employees have convinced themselves that they are likewise "essential" employees and deserving of special exceptions. But the fact of the matter is most tech jobs, apps, etc. could go away tomorrow and life would continue unabated (in contrast to the list above).

Honestly, if multiple of my colleagues would quit their jobs in the department where I work at (or simply all became sick or took vacation at the same time (the latter can of course not be allowed)), whole departments of the big company where we work at might stand still at least for weeks. The central reason this all has not yet ended in a huge disaster is a quite capable section head who

- manages to stick the department together (to avoid quite a lot of people quitting as has happened in other sections)

- for some reason is able to play the political game with his superior really well

Field of work: "shadow IT" (DevOps work) at a well-known big company.

My old offices had two espresso machines and a drip machine, all cleaned on a bi weekly cadence by professionals. Fresh coffee arrived from a local roasters every Monday morning. Seven different varieties of milk are provided for the frother. Much better than my home setup... And yet here I am, still working from home.

I hope this serves as an example of why tethering your understanding of working needs to your extremely limited experience - as it is for all of us - makes your argument a bunch of weak anecdotes that add little to the debate.

Talking of limited experience - you think that the tech industry can disappear overnight and life will just "continue unabated"? Yikes.

"We can always go back to the stone ages", sure, sure we can.