'I MUST be there in person for 9 hours': Boss compels employee to go into the office despite 95% of meetings being online

What is the point of coming into an empty office only to spend the vast majority of your work day attending virtual meetings?

It's a fair and just question that few employers have been able to answer compellingly. As far as the standard responses are concerned, they usually range from some bogus about inspiring a strong company culture or establishing a false sense of professionalism and accountability. The truth often has to do with justifying a lease or catering to the preferences of a few senior members within the company who still subscribe to outdated views on what it takes to succeed in a workplace

In this instance, an employee who had been working on a remote basis was suddenly told he needed to return to work in person, despite the fact that his cubicle is sectioned off from everyone else and his entire team is not based in that location. Naturally, this meant that he would be commuting to the office to then spend the entire day alone and attending virtual meetings with largely remote employees.

The reason for this change? Well, the author's boss argued that part of his work required him to be in person, but we all know it was likely about this mysterious fun workplace culture everyone keeps talking about. The amusing thing about establishing a robust workplace culture is that you actually have to do more than simply compel everyone to come into the office. Fostering an authentic sense of community requires a lot more than a simple mandate over email.

We have a lot of sympathy for this employee, but of course, he's not alone. So many folks had the experience of discovering that they can accomplish certain work responsibilities remotely and without difficulties in 2020. It's hard to stomach feelings that those discoveries are now meant to be ignored, as if the output of so much of that hard work was somehow not as strong as it would have been in person. Optics should not dictate productivity and efficiency, even if prior generations of workers felt that way for years.
The truth is that workplace culture inevitably evolves as culture itself evolves. We all have to embrace that productivity looks differently now than it once did and move forward with that understanding.
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