[coldpie]

I also hate WFH and go in every day even though my company allows full WFH, but RTO mandates suck. The WFH option means the only people who come in, are the people who want to be there. It makes the experience much more pleasant (and less crowded!). I think it'd be nice if more people chose to come in, and I support making changes so more people choose to do that (travel compensation, free child care, more private offices & cubes). But a mandate only makes it worse for everyone.

[apple4ever]

I actually enjoy going into the office too, but not in a cubicle farm. Every employee should have their own office. I love the hybrid model, but only if that is true.

[Aeolun]

Being in the office is only nice if it’s not crowded. Having 40-50% occupancy is the sweet spot for me. Any higher and I’ll autocorrect to working from home.

[kkfx]

Allow me a small observation: people is not in office or WFH for pleasure, well, at least in most case, but because they need to work, even most talented who in general like they jobs have to accept many not so pleasant aspects of them.

This to say a thing: it's not viable stating "allow those who want the office or WFH individually decide", it's simply too costly for a company, that's why office spaces are often crowded, because being larger cost much more.

So, if a company decide to go remote it MUST go remote PERIOD, if a company decide to have offices it must use them, there is no point in Zoom-in from the office because some coworkers are at home or abroad.

Long story short it's about time to admit that the need of the office is essentially ended, and for certain activities where it's still a thing there is no hybrid option. Companies mandating RTOs prove only to pursue external interests maybe of some inside the company against the interest of the company itself.

[Aeolun]

> it's simply too costly for a company, that's why office spaces are often crowded

That’s nonsense. My company pays 25x more for my salary than the office space that houses me. Increasing the cost, or decreasing the utilization there is not going to move the needle.

At least, not considering how much extra salary would be needed for me to accept working in an overcrowded office.

[kkfx]

your salary it's 25 times the overall office cost? Maybe you are an top manager, an apical figure anyway, but how much it cost the office for all workers (grand total) vs their salary? Compute all office costs, cleaning, air conditioning/heating, surveillance and so on included.

[Aeolun]

The cost of the office is 1/25 the cost of salaries (this is central Tokyo btw, it doesn’t really get more expensive). The cost of cleaning, air conditioning, surveilance etc is a fraction of that (just as true for your own house/apartment).

You don’t have to be pedantic about it to see that it’s fairly irrelevant in terms of cost.

[kkfx]

All summed:

- office (rent or property)

- furniture, including all safety equipment

- energy

- surveillance

It's just 1/25 of the salaries? It's very hard to believe... No balance sheet I have ever read is near that dimension.

Beside the fact of why the office anyway, because even if it's free why keeping up something useless in the modern world sound very strange to me. Why making absurdly big costs to keep up the city now that with globalisation (since '80s) and remote work the city have exhausted all it remaining reasons to exists it's really a mastery for me. The sole explanation I have is to support the large slice of population who refuse to evolve.