Every company calling people back into the office says the same thing: 'We need you in for the culture, for the productivity.' And look, those might be real issues that need to be addressed, but they aren't a reason to march everyone backwards; you fix it with a better design and better systems.
GitLab runs fully remote with around 2,000 people across 65-plus countries and no offices at all, and it works. So when a company insists the only answer is everyone back at a desk, I think the real story is a bit more sinister.
What's Really Driving the Push Back to the Office
Every week another one announces it. The reasons are always the same: collaboration, culture, mentorship. Sometimes that's real, but a lot of the time it isn't, and you can feel it. A University of Pittsburgh analysis found companies tended to announce RTO mandates after their share price dropped, with no improvement in company value afterwards. Cornell researchers found office rent is part of what's driving it. So you're being asked to commute back to a building because someone signed a lease they now need to justify.
There's a worse version too. BambooHR data showed one reason for forcing people back was to get them to quit, with 25% of senior executives hoping for voluntary turnover during the return. They call it quiet firing. The logic is cold but simple: make you redundant, and they may owe you severance, notice, the lot, or you quit, and they owe almost none of it. A mandate that makes your life impossible is a cheap way to get you to walk.
Now, I'm not saying this to wind you up. I'm saying it because once you see it clearly, you stop feeling trapped. You've got more options than you think. Three of them, to be exact.
1. Ask for What You Want First
Have the conversation before you do anything drastic. Most people skip it and go straight to resentment. Ask to stay remote, lead with the work, propose a trial with check-ins. A lot of mandates are softer than they sound, and the good people quietly get exceptions all the time. The worst they say is no.
2. Go Hard on the Side Hustle
This is the one I believe in most; Pieter Levels has this idea that's stuck with me for years. Keep your day job and build the thing on the side. The day your side income covers the bare minimum you'd be happy to live on, you let the day job go. You don't need it to replace your whole salary just to clear the floor of what you actually need. In one survey, 36% of workers said they'd started a side hustle since their RTO mandate. The desks the company fought to fill are being used to plan the exit.
3. Take the No and Find a Better Yes
If they won't budge and the side hustle isn't there yet, look around. Plenty of companies are still fully remote and would rather keep you than watch you commute to a building you resent. And leaving an expensive city for a remote job, even on slightly less money, can leave you better off. Your money goes a lot further in most of the world.
And here's the part that should make all of this feel less daunting. There has never been a better time to bet on yourself. If you have to grind out a few more months at that desk to save up and then bounce, fine. Use the time. That idea you've had sitting in a box for years, the business you assumed you'd need a team and a pile of money to build, you can make it now with AI. On your own, at your kitchen table, for next to nothing.
“The months back in the office aren't a defeat. They're the runway.”
Remote Work Fixes the Commute, Not the Isolation
But say you get out sooner. The remote setup, the side hustle, the better job. Then what? For most people, the honest answer is the same flat, the same walls, the same quiet. Remote work promised freedom, but it actually delivered swapping the four walls of the office for the four walls of the home office. It fixes the commute. It doesn't fix the isolation. And that catches people about three months in, when they realise they haven't had a proper conversation in days.
That's why we built Noma. People show up as strangers and leave with friendships, business partners, and a clearer sense of what they want their working life to look like. So if you've got a remote job and you're after some community, come check us out. Message us, or message me directly on X.
If your company's pulling you back and something in you is resisting, listen to that. You don't need a new job. You need a new view, and some people to share it with.
