I rearranged my life to get a remote job, which started in January 2020, a couple months before everyone in my industry was remote anyway. I'd always wanted to be fully remote, and for me it was absolutely the right choice. I'm so much happier now, not having to commute, not sitting next to the guy who bounces his leg all day, being able to run errands in the middle of the day, not feeling like I need to do busy work because someone is looking over my shoulder, or could be.
What is great is that, whereas before covid, it was a little harder to find a fully remote position, it's now really easy. But, at the same time, there are plenty of non-remote places too, so people who want that experience can find it, and they won't be competing with me for that job either.
There are even hybrid offices, where you can work on-site part of the time, and work from home part of the time.
Pretty much any setup you want is available to you with a readiness that wasn't there 3 years ago. It's just a better situation for workers over all.
So, if you don't like working remote, you don't have to!
Unfortunately, covid case numbers in my area just do not support going back to the office, even if I wanted to. And regardless, my company got rid of their physical office entirely—so there would be nowhere to go back to even if I could return. I think most smaller companies are in a similar boat: why pay for an office if you can get away without?
And even if there was an office available, would there even be a benefit to going into the office to work with the 2 other people who are local if I still have to spend all of my time on video calls with the 8 other people who are remote? And the labor conditions have changed such that even if I could find a company and team that was fully local (and cared about it enough to give up my current team, whom I love working with otherwise), I probably wouldn't want to work with any team that was only hiring locally and made it a requirement. Just look at how many people associate working from an office with pointy haired management overreach! Who would even take that kind of job? Nobody who had any other options, that's for sure.
When the industry is moving to remote first, everybody gets swept up in the same tide.
What is great is that, whereas before covid, it was a little harder to find a fully remote position, it's now really easy. But, at the same time, there are plenty of non-remote places too, so people who want that experience can find it, and they won't be competing with me for that job either.
There are even hybrid offices, where you can work on-site part of the time, and work from home part of the time.
Pretty much any setup you want is available to you with a readiness that wasn't there 3 years ago. It's just a better situation for workers over all.
So, if you don't like working remote, you don't have to!