resigned last friday. 9 years. the longest tenure i've had at any company.
the rto mandate was the trigger. wrote about it when it happened. 3 days a week. 14% effective pay cut. the math was clear from day one. but the math alone wouldn't have pushed me out. i would have adapted. i've adapted to worse.
what pushed me out was everything that happened after the mandate.
the first thing: they promoted me right before the announcement. wrote about this too. the promotion was the bait. once i realised that, trust broke.
the second thing: they measured collaboration minutes. started ranking us by how much time we spent in meetings. my focused work became invisible on a dashboard that valued noise.
the third thing: they hired a chief culture officer to manage our resentment. she works from home. the irony was never addressed.
the fourth thing, the one that finally tipped it: in a team meeting last month my manager said, in front of 8 people, that "the people who show up in the office are the ones who are invested in the company's future." i have been showing up. i have been commuting. i have been absorbing the costs. but the framing was clear: presence in the building is now the primary signal of commitment.
9 years of work. strong reviews. consistent output. a promotion 4 months ago. none of it mattered as much as whether my badge scanned before 9am.
i am joining a company that was founded remote in 2021. no office. no mandate. no collaboration minutes. they evaluated me on a paid trial project, not on whether i would commute.
the salary is 4% lower. the total compensation, after removing $1,100/month in rto costs, is 11% higher. the hours are the same. the commute is zero.
i am not angry. i was angry for months. now i'm just done. the company i joined 9 years ago doesn't exist anymore. the company that exists now values proximity over output and i cannot work inside a value system that explicitly deprioritises what i do best.
for anyone still inside an rto mandate and debating whether to stay: the mandate itself is survivable. what isn't survivable is the culture that forms around it. the surveillance metrics. the attendance-as-commitment framing. the slow degradation of trust between people who used to respect each other's work regardless of where it happened.
the office didn't break us. the mandate broke the culture that made the office unnecessary.
starting the new role next month. will update on whether remote-first companies deliver on the promise. i hope they do.