But how will you make sure their every waking moment is devoted to work? Gotta invest in some ridiculous office space and middle managers to crack the whip.

There is a guy in our group who had a special arrangement because his wife was sick so they allowed him to WFH regularly as long as he came in for certain things.

After Covid, they decided everyone needed to be back in the office NOW and didn’t want to have to deal with people whining because some people got a special pass that was in place before Covid, so they took it away from him.

Instead of answering the hard (obvious) questions and being irritated for a finite amount of time, they made this guy upend his whole life (he lives many hours away) and that of his family - to return to work on a regular basis.

Failure of fucking leadership right there.

That's a really small bubble. My employer has a 125km range before we can request an exemption to the 2-day-a-week policy.

Hopefully things don't change for your wife!

if that happens, she’s gone, and they lose someone with almost 19 years of experience who literally writes their training manuals on how to do what she does, lol.

She openly told her boss that if they tell her to come into the office she will willingly quit the job and forfeit unemployment so they can downsize that headcount and spread around the work to other employees?

Gotta play 3D chess, don't show them your hand. They now have an easy way to fire her on demand without cause and without having a mark on their employment numbers.

Have to go with the angle of: if you make me move you need to pay my relocation costs because you have asked me to move. After all, this isn't new and they have known your home address for 10 years. Make them cover the increased cost or they get to pay unemployment for laying you off. That's the only real angle you probably have anyway that gives them a cost.

*sheer fyi

Shear is a verb

The housing market needs to crash. Prices nationwide are insane. Bubble needs to pop

I'm OK with that, the housing market is in a giant bubble and it needs to crash. I say that as someone who bought a house at the lowest price point right at the start of the pandemic, combined with an incredibly low interest rate. Theoretically my home is worth almost 50% more now, 4 years later.

Thaaaaat's a bubble.

tbf, this is probably suburban / rural areas to move back into urban areas that are already having crises. Won't fix any of the housing markets in high population centers.

Six months is plenty of time to find a new job these days.

In a lot of these WFH communities, the rental market softened with the rest of the housing market, so you might not have renters or have to take a hit on the rent. Also, being a landlord more than a commute-able distance away from your property sounds like asking for trouble, unless you hire a property manager, but that's another hit to your income.

Rent to own is also an option.

That assumes you can get a back to ground be you two mortgages though.

This is an excellent opportunity for corporations to buy up homes.

The rich will only get richer until we stand up.

Yeah, that's nuts. Also, as a couple you both probably shouldn't be working for the same company from a risk reduction POV.

A lot of companies (Amazon) don't have a radius. It's RTO or nothing.

Either the organizations didn’t message properly, or a lot of people moved despite being told that the wfh wasn’t a permanent remote work accommodation.

A lot of employers straight up lied. In some situations, management said employees would be permanent WFH but they didn't have that authority. In other situations, employers changed their mind and the employees have no recourse other than trying to call the employers bluff.

Yours is a sane and reasonable approach. Sometimes you need to drive down to the datacenter and push a button, or there's special equipment you need that is cheaper to have in one place. These jobs should be in person when necessary.

Pushing people to commute outside of this framework puts unnecessary strain on transportation networks and useless emissions in the environment.

They definitely moved with the intent to be fired if called on-site permanently again. There were tons of comments to that degree during that time (and now).

Essentially, there's more than enough demand for tech skills. They can easily find another job that allows WFH.

It's fair. Shitty to honest managers trying to accommodate where plausible, but honestly, tiny violin vibes there.

That wasn't poor decision making. That was knowing their worth. They knew if the company demanded a return to office they could simply continue working remote for a different company, likely with an increase in pay. Only a fool would alter their life plans for some company that might require RTO. Now they're enjoying improved quality of life while living where they prefer.

Dude, just don't go. If you're doing your job from home, why are they asking you to burn fuel and your time on earth sitting in fucking traffic???