[0xRusty]

What I don't get in all this is the at the beginning of the pandemic, HR, management etc made it very very clear that this was all a temporary situation and remote work would be allowed (enforced) for the short duration of the pandemic and then everybody would be expected to return to the office. I'm sure everyone was given a letter to that effect by HR. What is now going on with this "surprised Pikachu face" where everybody thinks that they can just stay remote for all time? It's ridiculous.

If you decided to sell your house or give up your rental in a good (perhaps expensive) location in the city near your place of work for a "better life" outside the city in new accommodation, well under the knowledge that after the pandemic offices might very well return to work and are now complaining about things like commute and quality of life is frankly laughable. You took a hell of a risk doing that and it's now not paying off.

The thing about being in an office is it's not about you, it's not about what you want and how your life is better being away from the office. It's about what you bring to everybody else, what you bring to a team of people more junior than yourself and what you can do to help other people. It's extremely hard to find new talent in a junior team working remotely - in fact I'd say it's almost impossible.

Pulling up the ladder behind you now that you've got yours and a comfortable life outside the office is frankly selfish. I can see that managers often get the blame here with comments like "they just need people to manage in the same building" I think that's very unfair because actually what they are trying to do is to manage a team of all skill levels and seniorities and by having a remote, or even semi remote, workforce that job is made much more difficult. Covid started about 3 years ago so anyone with less than 3 years of professional experience has probably never ever seen a real working office, just remember that.

[maeln]

It's worker fighting for more right. I don't see the problem there. I does not mean that it is "right", or good for the company, for the team or "morally good".

In an ideal world we should all work for "the greater good", but this is just a job. Trying to get more out of your labor is fine. Company always try to squeeze as much as possible out of their worker, why should it be wrong to do the same ? It is a business relationship.