# Return To Office, not working as controlling bosses wanted it **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 14, 2025, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/return-to-office-not-working-as-controlling-bosses-wanted-it/1020858 "2025-07-14T22:06:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2025, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/return-to-office-not-working-as-controlling-bosses-wanted-it/1020858/41 "2025-07-16T14:38:38Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > It seems wrong to me that you are providing the WFH hardware. That should be provided by the employer. And that’s what my employer does; we give people monitors, docking stations, keyboards, mice, etc. And yes, when you work from home, you’re paying for the office space. That is a sneaky way for the employers to offload the cost onto the employees. I sort of agree. But I have more workstation and monitor at home than I had at the ‘office’ I just log into my work VM over the internet, and take over my work VM from home. Yeah, I upgraded a bit. More monitor now (43") and I needed a new desktop computer anyway. And, well I had to go to Starlink (had to anyway, [hughes.net](http://hughes.net) was pretty bad). In any case, I did not want anyone to have any excuse for me to have to drive to the office _ever again_. I save a ton of money and time by working from home. Also a large part is that I’m hard of hearing, meetings on Teams are much better for me than a room full of background noise where I can’t hear a thing. While I do provide the hardware, well I would have it anyway. It’s now just multi-purpose. ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2025, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/return-to-office-not-working-as-controlling-bosses-wanted-it/1020858/42 "2025-07-16T14:41:57Z")
> [@OldOlds](#): > > And when the entry level manufacturing guy has to come in, while a whole bunch of higher level managers and accountant and marketing don’t, the manufacturing guy has a tendency to see that as unfair. Sure, but that was always true. The people on the factory floor always resented the office staff who not only made more money, but also got to sit in chairs with air conditioning and only very rarely lost limbs at work. ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2025, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/return-to-office-not-working-as-controlling-bosses-wanted-it/1020858/43 "2025-07-16T14:47:06Z")
> [@Horatius](#): > > only very rarely lost limbs at work. Yeah, I saw that _Mad Men_ episode too… ---
**Author:** ![asterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4da419/32.png) [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2025, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/return-to-office-not-working-as-controlling-bosses-wanted-it/1020858/44 "2025-07-16T15:14:32Z")
> [@Horatius](#): > > Sure, but that was always true. The people on the factory floor always resented the office staff who not only made more money, but also got to sit in chairs with air conditioning and only very rarely lost limbs at work. True, but even then at least the management and office staff were on the site. As someone with a mid-career cushy job that also can’t be done from home in any meaningful manner it does get tiring to hear people with email jobs complain about having to go to the office. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2025, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/return-to-office-not-working-as-controlling-bosses-wanted-it/1020858/45 "2025-07-16T17:21:42Z")
> [@enipla](#): > > I sort of agree. But I have more workstation and monitor at home than I had at the ‘office’ I just log into my work VM over the internet, and take over my work VM from home. I did lots of WFH even before Covid, and my employer didn’t want me to be able to load the VM software on my personal laptop. They gave me one, which had more security, I did use my own monitor mostly because I didn’t want to shlep my office one home. I was working on sensitive information, though. Not all jobs would require that. > [@LSLGuy](#): > > For a company to permit potentially worldwide WFH legally is expensive & intricate. To simply look the other way & pretend the employees are working locally is easy but possibly risky. My company had a lot of international workers, but they had branches in those countries and the workers officially worked for that branch. (It was a Fortune 100 company.) I know the employment rules in Europe, for instance, are very different from the US. Our Netherlands branch allowed for part time work, the US central office did not. All layoff notices came with something saying that the layoffs had to follow the rules of the country the employee was in. ---
**Author:** ![OldOlds](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/a3d4f5/32.png) [@OldOlds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldOlds)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2025, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/return-to-office-not-working-as-controlling-bosses-wanted-it/1020858/46 "2025-07-16T17:25:39Z")
Of course it’s always been true that the office workers and managers had perks that others didn’t. But this is a new perk, only for those people. And I thought I was clear that it doesn’t matter whether it is or isn’t fair, it matters if some people feel that (and thus, behave as if) it’s unfair. ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2025, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/return-to-office-not-working-as-controlling-bosses-wanted-it/1020858/47 "2025-07-16T18:11:02Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > I did lots of WFH even before Covid, and my employer didn’t want me to be able to load the VM software on my personal laptop. Eh… I don’t have VM software at home. I remote into it. The password is quite intense. Though I at least get to change it. IS, nobody knows my password. I have a system to make them up that allows me to remember it. Perhaps I don’t understand what you mean by VM software. All of my software is on my work VM. ---
**Author:** ![asterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4da419/32.png) [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2025, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/return-to-office-not-working-as-controlling-bosses-wanted-it/1020858/48 "2025-07-16T18:43:33Z")
VM is not VPN. If I were to work from home one day, I need to use the VPN to see anything that isn’t in Microsoft 365. So email yes, server access no, including stuff like SAP. Now I think we may have a Cisco based something or other that may work as a VM for some software when remote but I literally have never used it. But we’re also old school enough that everyone still has a personal physical laptop. Anyway, my complaint about people complaining about going into the office is probably tied in with my dislike of people who bragged that they didn’t even go outside for two years during COVID. Virtue signaling about how good they were while making others take risks for them. They tend to be the same people. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2025, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/return-to-office-not-working-as-controlling-bosses-wanted-it/1020858/49 "2025-07-16T23:16:31Z")
> [@enipla](#): > > Perhaps I don’t understand what you mean by VM software. All of my software is on my work VM. What I used was an emulator for the SunRay machine which I ran Solaris on. It was a thin client, and I could log into it from anywhere in the world and get my desktop just like I was in my office. The emulator ran on my work-issued laptop. I know what a VM. VM, in the computer architecture sense, was part of the title of my dissertation. ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2025, 10:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/return-to-office-not-working-as-controlling-bosses-wanted-it/1020858/50 "2025-07-17T10:20:35Z")
Yes, all my software is on my work VM. From that machine I either map or remote into other machines and servers. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2025, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/return-to-office-not-working-as-controlling-bosses-wanted-it/1020858/51 "2025-07-27T15:52:48Z")
> [@Typo\_Knig](#): > > I was at Census when Commerce decided to shoehorn another DoC agency into Census HQ. This was 2016-ish. I can’t be the only person who remembers what a cluster mess that was! Ended up with 3 mandatory remote days a week for the govvies, and 2 for us contractors, because even after packing people into conference rooms, there weren’t enough seats. Yeah, the Bureau of Economic Analysis. But they only took part of three floors of one building. Maybe it was because I was in the other building (I was in the Demographic directorate), it didn’t seem to have that much effect. But my wife was in the Econ directorate, and it didn’t seem to affect her much if at all. (‘Was’ because we’ve both been retired since before the election.) Now, moving the Bureau of Labor Statistics in, that’s another story. BLS is quite a bit bigger than BEA. There _really_ isn’t enough room for everyone, even after DOGE’s cuts. The weird thing is, they dictated RTO a year ago, back under the old Administration. You didn’t have to be there every day, but you had to reserve a cubicle each day if you weren’t. So the notion of building up workplace rapport didn’t even make sense: each day, you’d start off not knowing where the people in your branch were. Wonder if we knew each other! Odds are against it, of course, given the number of HQ employees. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2025, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/return-to-office-not-working-as-controlling-bosses-wanted-it/1020858/52 "2025-07-27T15:58:25Z")
> [@snowthx](#): > > The business owners (restaurants, bars, coffee shops, etc.) lean on civic leaders, who lean on politicians to “do something” to get more traffic going to where office workers _used_ to be. Many older office buildings can be converted to residential, which is a good solution where feasible because in most largish cities, more people want to live downtown than there is housing for them. A key factor is, do their dimensions allow for all the apartments to have windows? A lot of more modern office buildings are so big that they’ve got a huge amount of interior space well away from exterior walls, and they don’t really convert well. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2025, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/return-to-office-not-working-as-controlling-bosses-wanted-it/1020858/53 "2025-07-27T16:47:23Z")
I’ve linked to [this paywalled New York Times article](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/03/11/upshot/office-conversions.html) before. It describes some of the issues in office-to-residential conversion. Older buildings, with interior spaces at most thirty feet or so from windows that were designed to be openable, are easier to convert than modern buildings with huge floors and sealed windows. Some modern office buildings might require an interior courtyard be added to provide windows for some apartments. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2025, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/return-to-office-not-working-as-controlling-bosses-wanted-it/1020858/54 "2025-07-28T21:16:31Z")
Here is a non-paywalled link to the same article: > **[Here’s How to Solve a 25-Story Rubik’s Cube (Published 2023)](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/03/11/upshot/office-conversions.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Z08.t0u3.X3urJOM7Q4Em&smid=url-share)** > > Cities are eager to turn office buildings into housing amid rising remote work. But that's harder than you might think. ---
**Author:** ![snowthx](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowthx/32/10660_2.png) [@snowthx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snowthx)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2025, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/return-to-office-not-working-as-controlling-bosses-wanted-it/1020858/55 "2025-07-28T22:31:40Z")
A very good read - thank you for that! ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2025, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/return-to-office-not-working-as-controlling-bosses-wanted-it/1020858/56 "2025-07-29T00:25:27Z")
Seconded. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2025, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/return-to-office-not-working-as-controlling-bosses-wanted-it/1020858/57 "2025-07-29T14:55:17Z")
I enjoyed it as well. I would have thought that the major problem would be installing so many new bathrooms and sinks, but I’m not sure if that part was even mentioned. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2025, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/return-to-office-not-working-as-controlling-bosses-wanted-it/1020858/58 "2025-07-29T19:47:26Z")
That’s easy. You run all the new the plumbing along the underside of the floorplate, punch holes upwards as needed, and install a false ceiling on the floor below to hide it all. That ceiling will be higher than the HVAC plenum ceiling used in typical office buildings anyhow. ---
**Author:** ![snowthx](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowthx/32/10660_2.png) [@snowthx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snowthx)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2025, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/return-to-office-not-working-as-controlling-bosses-wanted-it/1020858/59 "2025-07-29T19:57:02Z")
That makes sense and how I would suspect most utilities are hidden in buildings built specifically as residences anyway. I would love to see these conversions happen in suburban office parks as well. Those are typically 2-3 floors and may have the whole “30 feet from a window” thing baked-in, and most already have plenty of parking and likely close to public transit/arterial streets that are built already. Economically it may not pencil-out as well, but what are we going to do with all these vacant office buildings no one will ever likely inhabit again? ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2025, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/return-to-office-not-working-as-controlling-bosses-wanted-it/1020858/60 "2025-07-29T20:11:51Z")
Bulldozer meet building! All else is mistaken short term economy for long term cost. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/return-to-office-not-working-as-controlling-bosses-wanted-it/1020858.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/return-to-office-not-working-as-controlling-bosses-wanted-it/1020858.md?page=4)