I think this is a great comment.

> I care about commute - time and money, especially time.

I'm assuming you have done the whole draw a circle around where you live that represents your maximum willingness to commute and then apply for jobs in that circle thing? It was very popular in silicon valley during the dot com boom. When the commute circle comes up empty though, what do you do?

Not snark, 100% serious. Hired a consultant who was fairly specialized and she spent 6 months working for me and at the end quit but offered to come back in 6 months. Her solution was she would live in the Bay area for 6 months, renting an apartment, save her money and then fly back to Hawaii and live there for 6 months on the money she had saved. She had worked out what was, to me, an ingenious solution to the conundrum that there isn't anywhere near where you want to live that you would like to work.

There are a lot of reasons why people won't work in the office, and I get it, working from home is way better for the employee. One of the more interesting things COVID did was switch the "balance of power" from employers back to employees and so far it has been pretty awesome. In my lunch discussion my message was more "You are gonna have to make people be willing to work in your office if you want to compete for the best ones." The unemployment rate is low, but employees are a population, not a single type, their effectiveness falls along a standard distribution like most things. To compete for the talent you want is making management "cave" to things like offices. It has been relatively minor so far, but as work actions go the whole "I don't wanna go back" movement has certainly been felt in the Bay Area.

Organizational dynamics is a really well studied topic and co-located organizations are able to respond faster, and more effectively, to changing conditions. Consider firefighters who used to respond to a call from home, get to the station, and then head out. Versus ones that are living in the station and can start out immediately. It is a dramatic illustration of the principle but one worth considering if you are managing a large organization.

Reading the comments (which are great btw!) I have observed that a number of people haven't contextualized work yet. Specifically, an employer is an enterprise that employs people to achieve its goals. The employer has factors they can change and factors they cannot when creating an attractive place to work for people who can (in theory) choose to work anywhere. Some of those employers will say "work at the office or quit, your choice." with the expectation that some will quit but presumably most will stay (change is really hard after all and it's scary to jump into the abyss). They want you to stay of course, it is better for them, and this is a rare opportunity to suggest/demand they revert some of the things that made working in the office so awful. Yes, making such demands forces them to decide, and their decision might be one you don't like, but if you are true to your goals and needs you will be happier with either decision. It is just harder to recognize that future happiness in the moment when you're crushed by them saying, "Okay then, we will call Friday your last day then."