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Took a fully remote job, day 2 the hiring manager casually mentioned he will see me at the office on Monday. Did I overreact by drafting my resignation that night?
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A remote worker gestures while on a video conference call
Image is representative, not actual subjects.
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Amid various driving forces, economic and otherwise, Return to Office or “RTO” as it has been dubbed globally, took the world by storm. Gone were the optimistic days of a fully-remote work force. Basically, as soon as businesses were relatively sure that they wouldn't be forced to backtrack (again) almost immediately, RTO began to gain momentum.
It started with flexible arrangements, encouraging voluntary returns or gradual 2-day-a-week hybrid models. Then, once in the water, the toes were dipped, the litmus was tested, and the entire workforce didn't just quit all at once; 3-4 days a week in the office became the norm. Like a frog boiling in water, workers who had once enjoyed flexibility in their schedules soon found, more recently, a sharp shift to strict 5-day-in-the-office policies.
For the tech giants that kickstarted the entire affair, it was less about returning to the office 5 days a week than about constructive dismissal. Shedding staffing levels that had ballooned since 2020, as tech had boomed. From there, business downstream, whether or not they had seen increasing staffing numbers in the last 4 years, followed suit with RTO mandates. Whether or not an RTO policy would benefit these businesses didn't really matter; it was trendy, it sounded nice, and it ticked all the boxes for their organizational executive management plan for 2024, with 3-4 days in the office, and then 5 days in the office for 2025, removing all need for a creative plan for the year.
The lack of creative investment needed was doubled down on by the lack of convincing and negotiation needed in the boardroom. Owners and boards expected RTO; they craved it even though they knew very well they weren't going to be going to that office when it didn't suit them. They'd heard about how so-and-so and the country club had instated an RTO mandate at their company, and wanting to seem the serious business person they imagined themselves to be and not wanting to be embarrassed at tee-time on Saturday, they, too, wanted to be able to tell anyone they happened to rub elbows with that they, too, had an RTO plan in the works.
But for the rest of the executive level and for a lot of managers, as I have said before, many simply wanted to get away from their families and found a way to make it happen. Remember how I said some things remained the same? Well, as it was before 2026, the facts don't really matter when the decisions aren't based on them anyway.
But, there's something to be said about honoring a deal once it has been struck. In life, but especially in business and employment relationships where the “deal” is the entire point of the relationship. For those who had been hired on as remote workers, there was never any impression given that they would be working from an office.
Thus, back on an agreement (the agreement) for the sake of it is foundational-shaking to the core of the entire arrangement. But in a job market like the one we have partway through 2026, the ball is in the employers' proverbial courts, and that leaves employees, scared of facing a lengthy period of unemployment, willing to play ball.
Making a big life decision only to find out that you weren't shown all the cards, or, worse, someone intentionally withheld them, is a big blow. This employee found themself on the short end of that stick when they took a new remote position, only to find the company in the midst of a Return to Office policy the second day they walked through the door.
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A worker listens on a conference call
Image is representative, not actual subjects.
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