One of the first things we knew back in early 2020 was that we wouldn’t be going to work for a while. We thought that we would take a quick break – a week, maybe – and then reassess. So we cleaned out our cubicles and desks, and grabbed a few snacks from the kitchen (and toilet paper from the bathroom). One week became two, which became a month, which became a series of question marks spanning endlessly into the future, as the Zooms and FaceTimes and home office conversions gradually made the very idea of spending our workdays with other people seem like a quaint memory. Like childhood birthday parties, or answering machines, or properly functioning democracy.
Some of us might never go back. Every so often we will hear about companies reassessing their relationship to the office, which has been proved unnecessary or at least outdated.
