Company forces hardworking remote employee to return to the office; employee does half as much work in the office as he did when working from home: 'I probably put 10-12 hours of work in per day, because I could squeeze it in anywhere.'

Author image for Emmy Pratt
Emmy Pratt • Writer and Editor
Feb 22, 2026 8:00 AM EST

He was the poster child for successful work-from-home employees, and they took it away from him. 

Spring 2021 was probably one of the most productive times in my entire life. I was a junior in college and had 18 credit hours, which is a lot more than I had in basically any other semester. I had an in-person part-time job as a library security guard, but otherwise I did all my work from home. I woke up early to finish assignments and stayed up late to read. I attended all my classes from the comfort of my couch and got a ton of work done every day. I had to! I was in six classes! Not having to transport myself to and from campus gave me so much more time to study. I wasn't really allowed to have a social life, so I didn't mind spending all my evenings on schoolwork instead of hanging out with my friends. 

I wonder if a work-from-home structure like that could work for me today. Maybe I was only able to work so hard because I had literally nothing else going on in my life, and I had to hyperfocus on school to maintain my sanity. I also think my giant workload had something to do with the intensity with which I grinded. It also has something to do with who I am as a person. Someone else might have faced the same circumstances and floundered, but I was able to rise to the occasion. 

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  • A man sitting on an exercise ball using a laptop
    via Andrej Lišakov (Unsplash+)

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

  • The employee in this story has thrived while working from home. He's a hard worker who works a little bit throughout the day, getting a lot more done than he would have if he were sitting at a desk for eight hours a day. Unfortunately, his company issued a mandatory return-to-office policy, which has hampered his productivity. 

  • Confession: Now that we have returned to the office, I work about half as much compared to working from home

    I WFH'd for 5 years and was the poster child for successful WFH. I got to make my own schedule and was repeatedly told, "as long as you are getting the work done, we don't care when or how long you work." I exceeded all my performance metrics and even got bonuses for my high marks.
    via u/No-Ad6500
  • 70% of my job is reading/open source research. I read from cafes. I read from parks.
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  • A man sitting in a hammock reading a book
    via Ahmed (Unsplash+)

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

  • I read from the town square. I read from breweries. I read from my home office desk.
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  • I read from my home office couch. I read from the dining room table and from my living room sofa.
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  • I read in the morning in bed. I read at night in bed. HI, I read in the middle of the day in bed sometimes, too.
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  • In all, I probably put 10-12 hours of work in per day, because I could squeeze it in anywhere.
    via u/No-Ad6500
  • Waiting in line at the grocery store, waiting for my table out to eat, waiting around at the airport.
    via u/No-Ad6500
  • A man sitting in a chair looking at his cell phone
    via Tahir osman (Unsplash+)

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

  • If I had a free moment, I was dedicating it to work. And I loved this pattern.
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  • I could turn my brain on and off multiple times a day, switching tasks and locations frequently.
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  • WFH worked for me and it worked well. My pattern was something like work for 2 hours then take a break for 15 minutes to an hour, all throughout the day.
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  • From the moment I opened my eyes I started working on my phone, and answering emails was the last thing I did at night.
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  • I loved it. But last year they recalled all of us to the office. And now I am miserable and astonishingly burnt out even though I do less work.
    via u/No-Ad6500
  • At first I was by the book, inside my office for 8 hours a day every day.
    via u/No-Ad6500
  • But then I started losing my mind. And the boss told us, "as long as you are on campus, you're working." So then I started taking 30 minute walks at the end of my day.
    via u/No-Ad6500
  • Then I started adding an hour long campus gym routine to that. And then they told us, the only checking they're doing to see if we are in office/on campus, is whether we touch the campus WiFi at least once that day.
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  • Then slowly, people started disappearing. Now, when I walk the halls, well more than half the people are gone at any given hour in the middle of the prime working hours of the day.
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  • I get to campus around 9am now, and leave by 3:30pm. And half the days, the last 90 minutes of that I am working out or walking.
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  • And when I get home, I am not doing work. My brain is somehow embarassingly so fried from the 5 and 6 hour reading stints I do in one go every day now.
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  • My brain is rejecting reading now. It is such a slog and every day it's like this.
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  • I am only putting in 4- 6 hours of good work now and it's because I am losing my mind sitting inside a single office, the same location, every day for several hours a day.
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  • I miss WFH. And I am so happy but also jealous that all of you are still enjoying the ride.
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  • I miss it so fr king much. I thrived on the variety of environments. And now I just feel like a guilty sack of sh for not being able to muster 8 hours.
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  • Prestigious_Cod_8053 Dude, go touch the wifi and then go work from home?
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  • No-Ad6500 Original Poster's Reply I am strongly considering it, but I feel guilty about it, even though I think that's what half my co- workers are doing.
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  • BobJutsu > I get to campus around 9am now, and leave by 3:30pm. And half the days, the last 90 minutes of that I am working out or walking. Holy sh. I'm at my desk by 7:45 at the latest and locked to it until at least 5pm, usually somewhere between 6 or 7. I'd k. I to work at 9- 5, let alone a 9-3:30. We have a 50 hour minimum (minus lunch) so 7-6 is the normal. I show up "late" most days, after office mates, but I've been there a long time and get some "wink wink" leeway.
    via u/BobJutsu
  • No-Ad6500 Original Poster's Reply You're totally right and this perspective helps me understand how comparatively good I still have it.
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  • Vast-Recognition2321 What do you do for your job? I naturally research everything so it sounds like a dream to me!
    via u/Vast-Recognition2321
  • No-Ad6500 Original Poster's Reply So do I, partly why I went into this line of work. And honestly why I am surprised and disappointed that I am burning out.
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  • HistoricalStatus5577 I'd love someone to point out the mental tax most women (who knows, maybe men?) face when confronted with the daily slog of harassment prevention in-office. It has been a sweet, sweet relief for the past several years. I heartily admit and embrace it and frankly if my employer asked me to quantify it I'd give the s ual harassment avoidance tax a significant % of pay. My current coworkers sometimes snore or bring unpalatable things into my workspace but since they are canines
    via u/HistoricalStatus5577
  • No-Ad6500 Original Poster's Reply I nearly had my career derailed by a higher up coworker when he tried to kiss me and I rejected him. And my office is in the same larger room as the office kitchen, so I get all the smells.
    via u/No-Ad6500
  • Reddituser72874 Exactly the same. Doing the minimum to not get fired. They lost a REALLY good employee
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  • inexplicably_dull Absolutely. When I worked from home for about 2 years I averaged 9-10 hour days easily. After forced full time RTO, I put in my 8 hours and go home.
    via u/inexplicably_dull
  • intheether323 To me, forced RTO must then also account for commute time, which in my city is 2+ hours each way (seriously). That's 4 extra hours (or more) that they need to understand also takes effort, focus, concentration (and s ks energy like a mother) - if I had to go back to office, 9-3 is about what they would get. It's what I was doing in 2019 before Co id.
    via u/intheether323
  • Aggravating_Duck_365 I worked from home for 9 years and 11 months and was forced to RTO 3 days a week last July. It was exhausting having to go to site and have to sit on Zoom calls on a headset and try to do actual work in between in a noisy disruptive environment. How on earth did I work in offices for so many years before? LOL Luckily, I was laid off mid-January and I truly felt relieved. No more waking up and sleeping crazy early, no more dealing with weather and terrible roads and coughing,
    via u/Aggravating_Duck_365

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