My company just announced 3 days in office starting next month. I've been fully remote for 4 years and I genuinely don't know how people did this every day.
I did a trial run this week because my manager asked me to come in for a planning session. One day. I figured it would be fine.
Left home at 7:40 to make it by 9. Sat in traffic for 55 minutes to cover 18 miles. Got there, found the office is now open plan, my old desk is gone, I'm supposed to use a "hot desk" which means dragging myself to a different spot each time and hoping the monitors work. The ones I got had one with a slightly flickering screen I was staring at for six hours. My neck still hurts.
Lunch was either the sad office kitchen or a $17 sandwich from the place downstairs, I went with the sandwich because I needed to get out of the building for twenty minutes just to feel like a person. Got back, sat through two more hours of meetings that absolutely could have been a call, then drove home in 70 minutes because apparently 5:30pm traffic is worse than 7:40am traffic.
Total time spent commuting and getting ready: about 3 hours. Total time doing actual work: roughly the same as any remote day, maybe slightly less because open plan offices are loud and I spent the first hour unable to focus because someone nearby was on a call with no headphones.
The 3 day mandate kicks in next month. I've already started looking at what a job change would involve. Not making any moves yet, just doing the math. But that one day reminded me exactly what I traded away when I went remote and I'm not sure I'm willing to trade it back for a flickering monitor and a $17 sandwitch.