> I know that "the office" is a bad place for a lot of people. There may be product managers that ignore the noise-cancelling headphone stop-sign and make you lose your stack of thoughts just to ask if the dev app URL is still the same it was yesterday. There can be bad managers and unpleasant situations all around. But shouldn't we rather work on fixing those things instead of making them bearable by just turning off a camera in a Zoom meeting?

Being in an office makes me borderline suicidal. I've been remote since before the pandemic and it seriously improved my life. I can turn off my zoom camera so I can sit back in my chair and listen/respond without the appearance of laziness. I can turn my camera on when I want someone to see my face, for example in an important meeting or a one-on-one. I can choose when and how I work and configure my environment exactly how I want it. I don't have people constantly at my desk, or work-issued hardware that is unacceptable, etc. Most importantly, I don't have to wake up early and commute to my personal version of hell where I am trapped with golden handcuffs. With remote work I can demonstrate my actual value without having to maintain appearances. I can go to the doctor, handle a quick errand, whatever, and as long as my work gets done that's all people can judge me on. It's beautiful. The meritocracy is beautiful. We spend way to many brain-cycles on the concept of appearances when work should be only measured by work.

If it wasn't for remote work I wouldn't be able to make a wage more than what my state offers. If it wasn't for remote work I wouldn't be able to take as many vacations, I wouldn't be able to go to school to pursue my passions, etc. It has actually empowered me to take care of myself first, as I should, in so many ways it really drives home the point that office work is slavery.

> I used to love going to the office. Discussing our team's latest Python problems over a coffee. Looking over at their screen and then asking them why they look like they want to beat someone over the head with their keyboard repeatedly. Guessing people's emotions in a heated Retro from their body language. Grabbing dinner with a few colleagues after a long workshop meeting in the evening and then realizing that, aside from all the differences we might have about static typing in programming languages, we all like the same exotic progressive metal bands.

You are probably generally a person who is energized by being around people. I am not, never have been, and never will be. People, in my opinion, are an unfortunately side effect of having to work in public. That's not to say I am anti-social, but rather introverted, and I prefer to control when and how I engage with people. Moreover, office politics in the "cancel era" made it so I didn't really want to talk to anyone anyway. At the height of this craze I wasn't even sure what non-obvious word would send me to HR. The office sucks, period.

> Many of these things that made my job much more than slaving at a digital conveyor belt seem to be gone these days

You were still a slave.

> I am just wondering if that is really the case for the majority or what it is that I'm missing.

Remote work benefiting people who take care of loved ones is a benefit to those in the relatively rare case of doing that. For most of us, remote work was removing the shackles of management and allowing true merit to shine through. If you can work effectively surrounded by your toys you can work effectively anywhere. Rather than playing politics and dealing with micromanagers I can just work. You can tell that a lot of people believe this because the amount of anti-remote propaganda coming out of major think tank companies is extremely high. If it didn't put the ball into the worker's court the propaganda simply wouldn't be necessary.

> . As soon as a company's IT department is practically fully remote, why should they page a German wage for someone who is a face on a screen, when they can pay a fraction for that same face broadcasted from a few hundred kilometers further east or south? German is hardly used in business context here anyway and lower-wage countries within ±3 hours timezones abound.

Remote work didn't change this. This is a misunderstanding of the market. Since before remote work so-called "import labor" formed the backbone of most major companies. It's been 30 years since country-first labor in tech was a thing. Infosys and cognizant have been around for a very long time.

> All in all, there is a gnawing feeling in me that Covid made a significant dent on the once fun (Berlin Startup) tech working culture for good.

There are plenty of ways to meet like-minded people that don't involve having to follow office politics and rules. You aren't looking hard enough if you can't find them.