The deadlines are imperative and unmoving, projects are at high risk of failing due to recent layoffs and low morale, but we need you remote folks to quit on top of that to reduce headcount. It all the remote folks left, including myself, our current project would fail spectacularly.

What industry would you shift to, though? This seems to be endemic amongst most industries right now (that could work from home).

It is making me consider shifting to going freelance again. Can't force myself to go to the office that way.

Or try to start my own business I guess, but I don't really have enough saved up that I'd feel comfortable making my family go through a prolonged period of no income.

That's an excellent question, and I don't have an answer yet. Programming is the only marketable skill I have.

Learning a trade such as plumbing or being an electrician is something that I've been thinking about.

I have started several businesses of my own over the decades, and doing it again is a real possibility. At least, it's a reasonable fallback position.

yeah, i only hire plumbers and electricians that are remote.

I don't hire plumbers or electricians that need to commute 2 hours each way.

Plumber and electricians don't work in cube farms or horrible corporate campuses.

You don't need to leave software dev on that basis. Just change to somewhere which was mostly remote before covid.

I suppose some remote first firms went through covid, watched their competitors stumble as they adapted, and afterwards concluded they'd like to cripple themselves to match. It's hard to imagine any of them would still be trading at this point.