If you like socializing you can still do that, in fact you can do more of it since you're not spending an hour or two every day in a car, alone.
I venture that it's partially down to years of "NO, WFH would RUIN the business and CATASTROPHISE us into BANKRUPTCY!!!" from businesses when people requested it and ... it turned out to be bullshit, everything pretty much worked ok when everyone was WFH, and people are not minded to let business slip back into their previous bullshit without a fight.
Then the Thanos *snap happened and one day we all had to be WFH almost overnight. What changed? Literally nothing except better more humane working conditions. Everything got done business is still fine.
So are some of us bitter about it? Definitely.
Managers must understand this and simply work it out for both sides. It's not hard, really.
WFH in general, now? Overton window. It's probably our one and only opportunity to shift it to include WFH as a standard practice in companies. Before, remote opportunities were very scarce, and were mostly tied around contracting. The pandemic briefly normalized WFH, but there's plenty of interests - powerful interests - gearing to get back to office work as soon as legally allowed. WFH enthusiasts try to counter that pressure, in a desperate attempt to make WFH stick.
> you should also keep in mind that in many places of the world commuting is done within a metropolitan area, and usually with public transportation (trains, buses, subways etc) so while it still takes away time it's not that catastrophic on the environmental side
Yeah, but even for the most environmentally conscious, personal time is still the most scarce commodity. Commuting by bus or bicycle is better than by car, but no commute at all is better than any of this. Public transport lets you make partial use of commute time; lack of commute gives you that time back.
And then not having to commute opens up geographical flexibility - you can suddenly work for a company in a different city, or in a different country. This is a well-covered topic, but there's another flip side to it, which makes some WFH people "radical": if their company pulls the plug on WFH now, it'll severely mess up their lives.
Personal example: I've been contracting remotely for a foreign company (started pre-pandemic), and due to various reasons, that contract got turned into FTE in a local company... with offices 400km from where I live. One which didn't, until pandemic, practice remote work. So I'm keenly tracking any and all discussions about work policies, because if they were to return to pre-pandemic policies, I'd have to uproot my life or change jobs. And I don't want to change my job, I really like the team and the work. So you can imagine I'm sensitive about this.
Commuting causes back pain, exhaustion, pollution and lots of traffic. Oh, and traffic accidents. 100% of my 2 traffic accidents were during commuting.
