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But what companies learned over the past couple of years is that the "WFH" experiment, for most people, is an abject failure. Most people I know are back to work in person, and the last stragglers seem to be resigned to having to head back to the office as well.

The "WFH" experiment has been an enormous success for me. As soon as the stupid governor of my state declared my business "non-essential" and ordered my industry to shut down our offices, I immediately made plans to relocate elsewhere and move my entire operation into a walk-out basement office in my new home. Every employee was sent to work from home, and they've never been back. I even added a key staff member who lives 400 miles away.

I never stopped working during that COVID fiasco. I spent more time on the road visiting project sites and (for those who were willing) clients over the last three years than ever before.

The only loser in this mess was my former office landlord. Three years after the COVID fiasco started, the building was half vacant. I noticed last week that it is now on the market -- at a very steep discount from what it was worth in 2019.

I talk to peers in my STEM field all the time about this. Everyone seems to fall into three groups:

1. People who work from home and love it.

2. People who work in the office and hate it because (A) they are on a modified 2-3 day work schedule and they're sharing tiny cubicles with other employees; and (B) they hate pissing away 1-3 hours of their lives on those 2-3 days commuting to an urban dump.

3. People who work from home and feel like they're missing out on things in the office ... until they feel much better after talking to their peers in Group #2.

No question that there are many employees who prefer WFH, and in a few disciplines, that will work out for the company as well. To those I say “well done”!

But I’m thinking of my own company’s experience, and that of my customers and vendors. They’ve all been moving back to co-location for the same reasons:

1. It’s almost impossible to foster and transmit culture.
2. Young professionals need mentorship and development, and no one has really figured out a good way to do that remotely.
3. Contrary to what some WFH employees insist (at least to me, and others i’ve spoken to) quality and output of remote teams is lower than collated teams. It just takes longer to get the same results.

David Sacks had a good summary of other reasons he things WFH has an expiration date on Twitter. Worth checking out.

Even our San Francisco location is back to full time on site. We lost one person who just didn’t want to come back to the office, but tbh, we didn’t miss him. Surprisingly, the people most interested in full time on site are the new grads. They had two years of “remote learning”, which everyone hated, and which they think left them severely shortchanged vs in person labs and classes.

Just my experience.