Comment by paulcole
> These aren't make believe - you actually have to spend time and money to get to an office.
Is a restaurant charging you money for a meal a downside? A cost isn't a downside for everyone. For me it's an investment in going to where I'd rather work.
> RTO is inherently anti-freedom, and people don't like that
A decree to work remotely is also inherently anti-freedom it's just that you happen to like that anti-freedom outcome. The people who prefer to work in an office with other people are having their freedom taken away here. And the “just choose what works for you” approach doesn’t solve the issue of working with people who not also in the office.
Whether a company opts for hybrid/remote/office/some combination there are going to be people who dislike that decision. And again, that decision is under no circumstances objectively bad to everyone. There are drawbacks and benefits to each and the company makes their choice. You can definitely say, “I hate that choice!” but “That choice is bad!” is just not true in every case.
> A decree to work remotely is also inherently anti-freedom it's just that you happen to like that anti-freedom outcome
Incorrect, and I'll explain why. Remote work DOES NOT imply anything about how, or where, you have to work.
You can commute to an office and work at an office with remote work. 100%, that is an option.
What remote work says is you can't FORCE people to come to an office for your own personal pleasure. This isn't anti-freedom, it's literally the opposite.
RTO has the opposite implication. You returning to office doesn't actually matter. You, personally, don't actually care about yourself in the office. You care about other people being in the office. Because the office itself has no value, it only has value if the other people are there.
This is why RTO is hard to swallow. Because a select few, like yourself, believe you have the right and privilege to dictate where everyone else should work, purely for your own benefit. Because you personally enjoy working in an office, you believe everyone should be forced to as well at your whim.
Your preference of collaboration relies on other people physically being where you want them to be. The same is not true for WFH. If you disagree, I encourage you to go to the office by yourself. You'll quickly realize you don't care for the office, you care for forcing people to be in the office with you.