Recently, many companies have disregarded the proven benefits of working from home and reverted to the rigid, in-person structures of the prepandemic workplace. We asked members of the BuzzFeed Community to share what it’s been like to transition back to the office, and added additional responses from this related Reddit thread. From increasing personal expenses to uncovering corporate power plays, their insights raise important questions about who these return-to-office (RTO) policies are actually meant to serve.
1. “It’s been completely draining to commute to the office again to do the same work I have been doing at home for the last five years without incident. My productivity has actually decreased because I socialize more and am not at my computer as long as I was when I worked remotely.”
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“On the plus side, I move around more and get more steps in. But that’s the only pro for me.”—Anonymous, 46, Chicago
2. “I have a two-hour commute to the office each day, where I’m less productive than I was when I worked from home. And on top of that I have way less time to spend with family.”
—Anonymous, 40 San Francisco
3. “Once COVID died down, we went to the office three days a week and worked from home the other two. That was fantastic. About a year later, they gave a completely bullshit reason for needing to go in four days a week, and it sucks. More traffic, more money in gas, less flexibility to schedule necessary things you can only really do during the week — like doctor’s appointments or car servicing. And the company puts a big emphasis on reducing carbon footprint, but makes everyone drive an extra day. Make it make sense.”
—Anonymous, 56, Raleigh, NC
4. “My company made it mandatory to be in the office Tuesday through Thursday. When they announced the new RTO policy, they said something like, ‘If you have a reason this won’t work for you, talk to your manager and we will work with you.’ Spoiler: Not true.”
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“My manager requested that I be approved to work fully remote, but HR denied my manager’s request. Even my manager had no power.”—Anonymous, 43, Wisconsin
5. “My workplace issued an RTO mandate, and the biggest surprise has been how subjective the enforcement of it is. When it was first announced, everyone had to be in the office, full days, three days a week. We were threatened with big, scary corporate messages. I hated it, especially being hired remotely and having a long commute, but with the job market as it was, I decided to be grateful and bide my time until the market got better to find something else.”
“Now, though, I go in once or twice a week for half the day or so to avoid traffic. My boss couldn’t care less. So many people fought and complained and just didn’t show up that those of us who make even a minimal effort to show up at the office get treated pretty leniently. It’s fine.”
—Anonymous
6. “I quit my job when the RTO order came out. There was no reason for it — everyone was happier and just as productive at home as they were in the office. But we followed the rules set forth, and to my knowledge, no one was ever reprimanded for not following them. I refused to go back to the cramped offices where you couldn’t even think due to all the noise and ‘visits’ from other coworkers coming into my space all day to complain about being there. And all the office politics and cattiness were ramping up, so it was my time to leave. No thanks. No regrets.”
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—Anonymous
7. “I was hired as a fully virtual employee in November 2018 at my company. When the pandemic hit, my work life wasn’t impacted much, while tens of thousands of colleagues across the globe scrambled to get set up to work from home in March 2020. Then, in 2023, they said that everyone in the USA and some other countries needed to return to the office at least two to three days a week. And to really push the request, they stated that no new job listings posted would be offered with a virtual option, though they had a footnote that ‘some exceptions’ would be allowed. For the last 2 years, even those of us who were always fully virtual have seen little to no exceptions granted, unless it’s for a higher management role. ‘Rules for thee, but not for me,’ much?”
“We’ve even been told that they’ll only consider expanding the hiring requirements to include virtual candidates if they don’t find enough candidates that are ‘hybrid’ (mainly only people who live within 30 miles of our 4-5 offices across the country). It’s demeaning to have no opportunity to advance or explore other options because your geographic location is considered more important than your actual qualifications and merit, even though you’ve proven yourself to be a top employee year after year, working virtually.”—Anonymous, 45, Milwaukee, WI
8. “I quit a job because of RTO. When I got hired there, the policy was any two days at the office per week. The work was tough — as a critical position with many stakeholders, I had huge responsibilities and meetings from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. every day. Then, right around the time we had our first child, the company announced RTO four days a week, without compensation and without support like a baby daycare. I literally had to quit to support our new little family.”
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“My new job is fully remote. I have almost no meetings and a very relaxed work schedule. My team is happy, I am happy, and there are no bullshit distrusting people.”—u/Mac-Gyver-1234
9. “I have hated returning to the office. The long hours and long commute equate to no work-life balance. I am also paying for SO much more in gas because I need to fill up my car twice a week! My mental stability is gone. I work for a global company, and half of the time we are on Microsoft Teams video calls. We have been told that returning to the office is necessary for collaboration, but there is hardly any collaboration because we are all on separate Teams calls all day anyway.”
—Anonymous, 33, Ireland
10. “I work in the office now, and I miss being able to maximize my down time when I worked from home. While working remotely I could watch a show or learn to bake something while monitoring my email. I could take a walk with my dog if I had some spare time. In the cubicle farm, there’s zero percent of that — when I have no work to do and it doesn’t make sense to start a new project, I feel like my only option is to sit there watching time pass instead. It’s mind-numbing.”
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—Anonymous
Related: Here Are 17 Top-Secret IRL “Cheat Codes” That Employees Shared From Their Industries
11. “Making us return to the office was such a dumb decision. My company made us all come in, but didn’t account for the excess bodies. So there’s no parking and no desk space available for everyone. On top of that, there is only one highway that goes through all the main cities in the area, so traffic is AWFUL. It’s hell.”
—Anonymous
12. “I used to be a Senior HR Manager for one of the biggest firms in the world. They RTO’d instead of laying people off. They knew thousands would quit and they wouldn’t be on the hook for unemployment. They told us to tell employees that they would only need to go into the office three days a week, only to move to five days in-office within a year.”
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—u/PapaPapi33“My company is increasing from two days in the office to three days per week. I am sure that they will increase it by another day a year from now, if they don’t get enough people to leave. I asked my boss, ‘So if I am sick with a contagious cold, should I still come to the office?’ She did not answer. However, we’re told that if we don’t meet expectations, it will be reflected in our performance reviews.”—u/Green_Conflict_812
13. “After 10+ years working remotely, the switch back to an office environment has been extremely chaotic. I hate having to deal with strong perfumes/colognes, loud noises from co-workers, and construction noises as they renovate the building. I miss being able to have a quiet lunch break at home, and it’s time-consuming needing to plan what I’ll bring for lunch ahead of time in addition to accounting for traffic and weather changes on my daily commute.”
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“Even though we’re now in person, my job still has video meetings on Microsoft Teams instead of meeting in person. Why are they making us come into an office and then using Teams for meetings when we can meet in person? I’d much rather take a Teams call from home, where it is much quieter. A work cubicle is not designed for video calls.”
—Anonymous, 49, Pennsylvania
14. “I was hired as a remote employee for a large bank just as shutdowns began in 2020 due to COVID. Then, in early 2022, that company issued an RTO mandate — if I stayed there, I would’ve had an hour-long commute to an office where no one on my direct team worked. I tried to get an exception to continue working remotely, but when that request was denied, I quit that job — my last day was the day everyone else returned to the office. Then, I was lucky to get hired at a ‘remote first’ company, but nine months after I started there, they mandated RTO three days per week.”
“I’m a single mom with a very inconsistent and unreliable co-parent, so I need to be close to my kids’ school. Because of that, this company thankfully granted an exception. But I fear every day that they’re going to take it away, so I work harder than any of my in-office coworkers, just to try to prove my worth and retain my position.”
—Anonymous, 49, Parker, Co
15. “My ex-company had us RTO 4 days a week. It was part of the reason I started looking for new work. It wasn’t the only reason, but it was exhausting being in the office and also being expected to be free in the evenings to work. How I see it, my work can occupy my evenings if I get to WFH, or I’ll work all day in the office, but not both.”
“My new job is much better and only has us work in the office twice a week. I’m much happier now! Plus, this new job treats us like humans with lives. My ex-company/ex-manager never listened when I pointed out how busy I was, and instead got angry that I couldn’t do seven things at once.”—boringcentipede677
16. “I work for a large company and we have been mandated RTO three days a week, which MUST include Monday and Friday. We also took over two other companies during COVID and more than doubled our staff, so it is normal for a Manager or Director to have direct reports in multiple locations. Microsoft Teams meetings often have 20 or more attendees, of which about half are in different offices, so the meetings are held virtually instead of in the company boardroom. Almost no one has an individual office, so the sound of the various meetings echoes around the office, which disturbs the staff in other departments. Since the beginning of COVID, the staff have become very adept at maintaining a high level of productivity working remotely.”
“The RTO mandate is widely disliked, and the company morale is suffering. Quite a few good people at all levels have left, and now productivity is at an all-time low, but management seems oblivious.”
17. “I’m a manager, and my team was ordered to RTO for just two days a week (Tuesday and Thursday). Not too bad, right? Well, I thought so, until it came time to hire a new employee. We keep finding that the top candidates usually end up accepting an offer from another company that still offers fully remote work, and we end up having to accept a less qualified candidate.”
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“And of course, like everyone else, on office days we all end up spending all day in our cubes taking Teams calls just like we would be doing at home, because we’re a global company. RTO is a dumb idea thought up by extrovert executives who don’t do real work anymore.”
—axj66“At my company, where we’re required to be in the office, we’ve had a director role open since April and had three different candidates turn down offers because of the RTO policy.”—originalcan965
18. And finally, “I don’t think people really factor in how much uncompensated time return-to-office actually adds up to. I used to drive an hour just to get downtown, and once I got there, I’d spend another ten minutes circling for a garage spot, then tack on another 15-minute walk just to get to the office. That’s almost an extra hour and a half of my day gone for zero pay, then the return home doubles that. On top of that, I’ve racked up dings and dents on my car from garages, so there’s a hidden financial hit too. Then I have to pay for dry cleaning for acceptable office clothing.”
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“When you add up the commute time, the wear and tear on your car, the rising cost of living, and the fact that gas prices are projected to climb, it’s not just ‘coming back to the office’ — it’s a massive increase in expenses and uncompensated lost personal time. If companies really want employees to RTO, then they should be prepared to compensate us for everything that entails. Otherwise, it’s just shifting more cost onto us while pretending nothing has changed post-COVID.”—u/travisjd2012
It’s super disheartening to watch society default back to outdated norms that we thought we’d left behind — and that no longer serve us. If you’ve been mandated to return to the office, do you resonate with these sentiments? Let us know about your experience in the comments below.
Note: Some responses have been edited for length and/or clarity.
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