--- title: the ‘return to office’ lies | daily.dev description: Many employees are frustrated with the push to return to the office, which is often justified by false claims about improved collaboration and social... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/the-return-to-office-lies-a5xxuajt0 twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: the ‘return to office’ lies | daily.dev og:description: Many employees are frustrated with the push to return to the office, which is often justified by false claims about improved collaboration and social... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/the-return-to-office-lies-a5xxuajt0 og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/a5XxuAJt0.png og:image:alt: the ‘return to office’ lies og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # the ‘return to office’ lies **[Hacker News](https://daily.dev/sources/hn)** · 6 min read · 83 upvotes · 17 comments ## Summary Many employees are frustrated with the push to return to the office, which is often justified by false claims about improved collaboration and social interaction. This is especially harmful to those with disabilities or chronic illnesses who benefit significantly from remote work. Office presence is often unnecessary for data-centric roles where most tasks are already digitized. The insistence on in-person work appears to be more about justifying office spaces and micromanagement rather than actual productivity gains. Remote work can reduce stress, prevent burnout, and allow better accommodation for personal and family needs. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Community discussion Top comments from developers on daily.dev. **@ralph123** · 16 upvotes > I'm the most productive I ever been working full remote. Mandate RTO if you want, I'll just change jobs. **@minhnh** · 5 upvotes > good luck getting higher ups to listen to this remote working rhetorics **@andradei** · 4 upvotes > The possibility of working remotely should always exist. Managers would need tools to make sure the remote team is actually doing their job. > > There are only trade-offs here. > > In a previous job, the company gave us laptops that ran a tool that tracked input device activity, took screenshots, and recorded our screens at random times as one of the ways to ensure everyone was working. That sucked. But we caught people getting paid an not working much... or using their work hours to work on personal projects or freelance. > > I'd love to get back to working remotely though... even if for half the... **@maxx9** · 3 upvotes > name 5 successful fully-remote companies with 1000+ employees **@cloudshock** · 2 upvotes > 100% spot on, it's about control. If a company were results oriented (as many claim) they could measure the results of remote, distributed work and realize the outcomes are nearly the same for non-collaborative work. > > Do it for innovation or collaboration? Meh... chronically online folks know this is B.S. Plenty of open source or community projects can be successful when folks are in the same physical place. > > Does it work at large companies? No. But large companies are rarely innovators and that's why things like Y Combinator exist. The hard pill to swallow is that big corps are struggling... --- Tags: [#career](https://daily.dev/tags/career), [#remote-work](https://daily.dev/tags/remote-work) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/the-return-to-office-lies-a5xxuajt0) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"the ‘return to office’ lies","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/the-return-to-office-lies-a5xxuajt0","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/the-return-to-office-lies-a5xxuajt0"},"datePublished":"2024-11-23T17:28:39.841Z","dateModified":"2024-12-08T20:54:42.168Z","description":"Many employees are frustrated with the push to return to the office, which is often justified by false claims about improved collaboration and social...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/d87727e163f9e1c783b7ec72fa90f464?_a=AQAEuj9","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/d87727e163f9e1c783b7ec72fa90f464?_a=AQAEuj9","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"Hacker News","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Hacker News","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/t_logo,f_auto/v1/logos/hn","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/hn"},"commentCount":17,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/the-return-to-office-lies-a5xxuajt0","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":83},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":17}],"keywords":"career,remote-work","timeRequired":"PT6M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Hacker News","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/hn"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"the ‘return to office’ lies"}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/the-return-to-office-lies-a5xxuajt0","comment":[{"@type":"Comment","text":"I’m the most productive I ever been working full remote. Mandate RTO if you want, I’ll just change jobs.","datePublished":"2024-12-17T20:04:23.810Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/a5XxuAJt0#c-YR4FwxyIU","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Ralph123","url":"https://daily.dev/ralph123","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--O0TOmw4y--/f_auto/v1715772965/public/noProfile"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":16}},{"@type":"Comment","text":"good luck getting higher ups to listen to this remote working rhetorics","datePublished":"2024-12-05T06:45:33.606Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/a5XxuAJt0#c-s8qeWk9uW","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Minh Nguyen","url":"https://daily.dev/minhnh","image":"https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/6817741?v=4"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":5}},{"@type":"Comment","text":"The possibility of working remotely should always exist. Managers would need tools to make sure the remote team is actually doing their job.\nThere are only trade-offs here.\nIn a previous job, the company gave us laptops that ran a tool that tracked input device activity, took screenshots, and recorded our screens at random times as one of the ways to ensure everyone was working. That sucked. But we caught people getting paid an not working much… or using their work hours to work on personal projects or freelance.\nI’d love to get back to working remotely though… even if for half the time as the other half requires my presence at the office these days.\nFor employees that are self-driven and independent, remote work is so much cheaper, simpler, and better for everybody.","datePublished":"2024-12-18T15:49:25.574Z","dateModified":"2024-12-18T16:34:16.021Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/a5XxuAJt0#c-EeDdBIzWt","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Isaac de Andrade","url":"https://daily.dev/andradei","image":"https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/2653546?v=4"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":4}},{"@type":"Comment","text":"name 5 successful fully-remote companies with 1000+ employees","datePublished":"2024-12-16T17:29:28.332Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/a5XxuAJt0#c-rvN7LrgUx","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Max","url":"https://daily.dev/maxx9","image":"https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/179007441?v=4"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":3}},{"@type":"Comment","text":"100% spot on, it’s about control. If a company were results oriented (as many claim) they could measure the results of remote, distributed work and realize the outcomes are nearly the same for non-collaborative work.\nDo it for innovation or collaboration? Meh… chronically online folks know this is B.S. Plenty of open source or community projects can be successful when folks are in the same physical place.\nDoes it work at large companies? No. But large companies are rarely innovators and that’s why things like Y Combinator exist. The hard pill to swallow is that big corps are struggling to innovate, and they’ll hemorrhage talent they desperately need by doubling down on in-office work.","datePublished":"2024-12-20T20:21:59.351Z","dateModified":"2024-12-20T20:22:35.160Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/a5XxuAJt0#c-y3fBcSh25","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"cloudshock.dev","url":"https://daily.dev/cloudshock","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--WQFzRiGA--/f_auto/v1753297233/avatars/avatar_IkggSoPl7cfNHlTZhnuZD?_a=BAMClqZW0"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":2}}]} ```