David Heinemeier Hansson

The honeymoon for this reversal plot is known as hybrid work, and combines the worst of in-office and remote work worlds. In the US, that often means either dealing with a soul-crushingly long rush-hour journey by car or a life in the center of cities that are struggling with both high rents and high dysfunction.

Hybrid combines the worst of office and remote work

Why are people always spouting these general statements? Every few days there is someone, usually some influencer or millionaire/billionarie type, writing a blog post or crapping out a tweet on how people should behave and live their lives. Like they have all the answers. Like there is even 1 cookie-cutter solution that is perfect for everyone and every situation? There are jobs and people that need 100% attendance at the office, or at least benefit by that. There are jobs and companies where it is logical to work 100% at home. And then there is a gajillion different combinations in between. I know people who like working hybrid and it really works for them, and for the business they are in. Like I also know people who like working 100% in the office or 100% remote. And then there are all those who would like to change their work-situation. Those who hate it, those who dislike it a lot or a just litte bit or those who don’t really mind but think it could be better for them if they could just change that one little thing. Because, you know, everybody is different.
Every person, every company, every job, even every day of the week poses differentr challenges. And those can change and evolve over time. Because you know, if you like it or not, work is part of life, that messy, chaotic state of being we are taking part in.

Good luck with the reversal plan it will back fire so fast. Do you want to spend two hours in traffic to get to work. Or you can spend it at home having that same meeting. Return to work helps create useless middle management positions that create redundant meetings. Look at Shopify they cut down all of their useless redundant meetings. Give it up remote work is her to stay. If there is a team project that requires collaboration. The team involved in the project should work 4 times a month in the office.

Agreed! Always insightful.
I’ve been a remote-only employee with the same company for almost 7 years now. COVID had nothing to do with it starting, thankfully, so a lack of COVID won’t change the arrangement.

Remote, hybrid or in-office let’s all remember the answer to almost every question in life is it depends on the context. What makes sense for one person, one team or one company at one point in time might not be the same for another.
The same applies to what technology we use to develop software, what operating system we use on our computers/servers/systems or practically anything else where there are multiple options we can choose from.
As much as an option may make sense to us and seem universal in its application, let’s not forget that is perspective-bias and we are still being opinionated in positing these subjective positions, they are not absolute facts and even for the sake of argument asserting them as such implies we are not appropriately considering the full range of contexts outside of our own.

As a manager, I wholeheartedly support working remotely, and when a colleague disagrees, I encourage them to develop their skills to collaborate with distributed teams.