>Before COVID there were a ton of people who wanted to work remotely but couldn't

And then there's all the people that didn't know they wanted to work remotely, until they were forced to experience it.

It goes much deeper than that though. It isn't just "they wanted it and couldn't have it, then they got it and now they want to keep it:" A lot of people, myself included, did not understand even if we wanted work from home, how life changing it would be. How it's better for us as people, better for us as workers, better for our pocketbooks, better for our planet, better for our lives, just... better. It's ALL better.

Literally the only people losing in this arrangement are the same parasites who win at literally every other juncture in our society and just, I'm sick to DEATH of it. I will DIE on this hill. I hope the commercial real estate market fucking craters. I hope every company doing this RTO shit dies on the vine. I hope it sucks for every single person in the parasite class who loses more than 2 dollars on everything. I hope it crashes the price of real estate in big cities and makes them affordable again. I hope it makes my home worth less because homes shouldn't be a fucking investment vehicle in the first place.

To borrow the bugs bunny meme, I wish every landlord a very happy get a real job.

There are a lot of us normal workers who dislike WFH and we're not parasites. It's perfectly valid to prefer WFH but it's also valid to prefer the office.

Nobody is talking about workers who prefer work from home.

I have a nice office at work, where I have less distractions than at home. I find that face-to-face meetings allow for better discussions and whiteboarding than video conferencing. I can commute by bike on a lovely route, thus getting regular exercise and fresh air. I can better compartmentalize work from leisure. I don’t have to spend my whole day within the same walls. I get to see other people and have random encounters with interesting technical and non-technical discussions at work.

So it depends on circumstances and preferences. Both modes should be possible.

I'm ready to believe that remote work can be more productive overall, and definitely more cost effective, but I always have a really hard time with the "I'm just as productive, if not more productive remotely" data and argument. It's really easy to believe that folks with an existing network of colleagues and relationship, as well as a decent amount of company of industry know how can be more productive remotely. Fewer distractions, more flexibility, etc. It all makes sense.

But that doesn't solve for the folks behind us on the ladder; how effective are we being at mentoring and growing those people, how easily are they learning the small nuances that we picked up in hallway conversations, serendipitous meetings, and so on. For the company, this is a real concern, but it's harder to measure. To better advocate for remote work, I think we really need to pour more time and energy into this and call out techniques that can be more effective here. For example: having leaders write a weekly newsletter, or getting into the "Why's" much more intentionally when people are remote.

> how easily are they learning the small nuances that we picked up in hallway conversations, serendipitous meetings, and so on.

You adapt. The hallway conversations are not some natural world order either. Do you want juniors to pick up skills? When you're starting work on something interesting, post "I'm doing X in (conference link), feel free to join." in a channel. Invite people for a lunch call.

As a leader I did weekly department emails, weekly "office hours", fun video interviews with new hires to introduce them to the team and more. It worked pretty well, especially since the majority of the team had been working together for years. The piece I wasn't able to implement was getting the entire team in the same physical place every 3-6 months. However, I think even with all that, if I was a new hire, especially a junior, I'd still have a easier time learning the ropes in person. However, is that worth the massive constraint on hiring and impact on everyone else? I don't know. It's not a clear tradeoff.

Nobody is stopping you from having those interactions remotely. Encourage a culture whereby those people call you about these things, one where calls are not formal. Set up scenarios where they literally just sit on remote video call with you sharing your screen for half the day. Calls don't need to be formal, leave the camera on and leave the desk for a break.

Analogy - this is like continuing to teach new drivers how to drive a stick-shift ( manual transmission) car when their city has adopted only automatic transmission or single gear EV cars for the future.

Humans are great at adapting to their surroundings. Mentoring/growing juniors will continue but in a different way that works better for modern work arrangements.

Yep! This is the crux of the problem. WFH has been battle tested and proven to be just as effective if not more than working at an office. But when execs try to throw all logic out the window and strong arm the employee for their gain they're shocked on the push-back (which never was before). COVID changed EVERYTHING. People saw firsthand how short life can be and reset their priorities.