Boss forces fully remote company to return to the office 5 days a week, while he works from home on Fridays without letting the rest of his team do the same: 'Leadership roles have different requirements.'

Author image for Emmy Pratt
Emmy Pratt • Writer and Editor
Feb 21, 2026 8:00 AM EST

He should hold himself to the same standards he holds everyone else to. 

It can be really hard to convince employees that they "need" to go into the office when they've spent years working from home. If the company is doing well and work is mostly conducted independently or via Zoom, why should employees have to return to the office? It's not like they're leaving profit on the table from not being in the same room as their coworkers five days a week. After all, it's probably cheaper for all employees to work from home than to rent expensive office space. 

Depending on the place you're at in your career, you might desire to go into the office to build stronger connections with your coworkers. If your tasks involve a lot of collaboration with others, it's going to be much more difficult to do so over video chat. If you're young and you really want to build relationships with your colleagues, working in-office might be the best option for you. But if you're comfortable with staying in your current position and don't care about climbing the corporate ladder, you probably wouldn't be motivated to spend the money to commute to the office every day. If you're later in your career, gathering around the water cooler might not feel like it's worth it, and you'd probably be right about that. The unfortunate truth is that unless you have an undeniable talent that makes you highly sought after as an employee, you probably won't have a choice about whether to work in the office or from home. 

Add as a preferred
source on Google
Advertisement
  • Boss wearing black sweater attends a Zoom meeting with a female colleague on a Friday while the rest of his team works in the office
    via LinkedIn Sales Solutions

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • The employee in this story is rightfully annoyed that he has to come into the office after years of working remotely. It's not like he had three days in office and two days at home; they went from zero to full-time in-office work. If that wasn't bad enough, his boss doesn't even follow his own rules!

  • My boss made everyone come back to the office to "rebuild culture." It's been 3 weeks, and he works from home every Friday.

    I can't make this up. We were fully remote for 2 years. Everything worked fine. Our team hit every target, clients were happy, turnover was low.
    via u/techiee_
  • Then in January our director sends this long email about how "in- person collaboration is essential for innovation" and "we need to rebuild our team culture" and we all need to be in office 5 days a week starting February.
    via u/techiee_
  • Successful company with happy employees in modern office
    via Getty Images (Unsplash+)
  • Fine. I mean not fine, but ok. I moved 40 minutes further from the office during co id because I thought remote was permanent (my mistake I guess).
    via u/techiee_
  • So now I have an 80 minute round trip commute. I spend like $60 a week on gas that I didn't used to spend.
    via u/techiee_
  • I had to put my dog in daycare 3 days a week which is another $120.
    via u/techiee_
  • A man playing frisbee with three dogs in a yard
    via Ahmed (Unsplash+)

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • So we're all back in. And you know what the office "collaboration" looks like? Everyone sitting at their desks on Zoom calls.
    via u/techiee_
  • With headphones. Because half the people we work with are at the other location. We are literally doing the exact same thing we did at home except now we're doing it in an office with bad coffee and a bathroom that's always occupied.
    via u/techiee_
  • But here's the best part. Our director? Works from home every Friday. Every single one. He says it's because he has "strategic planning" to do and needs fewer distractions.
    via u/techiee_
  • I brought this up in a team meeting (politely, I'm not an idiot) and he said "leadership roles have different requirements." That's an actual quote.
    via u/techiee_
  • Three people have already started job hunting. I know because we talk about it in the parking lot like we're planning a prison break.
    via u/techiee_
  • beaverusiv I started looking for a new job end of last year and being fully remote was one of my dealbreakers. Multiple recruiters kept saying every time they talked to me "oh the market is going more towards hybrid or in-office now" cool, I don't care, I'm only gonna apply for remote work
    via u/beaverusiv
  • Grind3Gd I was remote for 5 years. Got laid off. Took a massive pay raise and work in office. This past Monday I worked from home and did far more work. Now in the office I notice how many people are just talking or taking 2 hour lunches or something. I saw one guy today with cheat note on his screen for the game he was playing on his phone. We have a lot of meetings on computer, sometimes with people in the same building.
    via u/Grind3Gd
  • wombat74 >Three people have already started job hunting. I know because we talk about it in the parking lot like we're planning a prison break. This is the whole point. He's engineering you all to do layoffs without having to pay anyone for a layoff.
    via u/wombat74
  • Vegetable_Yard_2948 I have one for you. At a recent all- hands, an employee asked why the push to work from the office when most of his team members worked different time zones and locations. The leadership response was "culture" while doing the call from..................their home. Yup, can't make this up.
    via u/Vegetable_Yard_2948
  • Optometrist_Prime At this point you either start quietly looking or sit back and see if they walk this back once enough people leave. Sometimes it really feels like companies are dragging everyone in just so the office lease doesn't look like a sunk cost. If they're paying rent, they want bodies in chairs, even if the "collaboration" is just Zoom with worse coffee. There was a post from a developer who directly reached out to recruitment firms and even shared a list. You could slowly start sendi
    via u/Optometrist_Prime
  • ifyoudontknowlearn You are not the only one. My group was running with three days in two WFH. It was a nice compromise and it worked really well. VP gets a bee in his bonnet and after two years we have to be in the office 5 days a week. But who's never in their office? Exactly that VP. Now I don't know where he is but he's the one that said we need to be available to collaborate in person and there have been days he's not there at all. I would put up a sign "days since Guy has been seen in the o
    via u/ifyoudontknowlearn
  • michaeldnorman I wonder what would happen if everyone stopped using headphones on their zoom calls. Just take them all out loud. Then change your commute time to be "office time". Meaning, you didn't have a commute before so just show up 40 minutes later and leave 40 minutes earlier. Show that's it's not as good for the company as it was before. The anti work movement is about people taking a stand. The problem is that most folks don't have the luxury of doing these things because they're concer
    via u/michaeldnorman
  • Equivalent_Pace4301 Good managers and owners who care about their employees are more rare than a good Star Wars sequel.
    via u/Equivalent_Pace4301
  • mrsocal12 It's never been about in office collaboration. It's about jealousy & control. How dare employee's have a better work / home life. I'm the boss & I should be the one to be working from home
    via u/mrsocal12

Want More? Follow Us and Add Us as a Preferred Source on Google.

Tags

boss work from home commute return to office meetings zoom FRIDAY Office expensive company
Scroll Down For The Next Article