I think I get enough cold sales DMs from b2b AI hypeguys that I don’t also want randos flooding my inbox telling me GPT said I’m their twin flame or whatever.
If you’re willing to move to a flyover state you could probably reach out to recruiters in the morning and have an offer in hand by lunch. Even the hybrid openings in the midwest/south are bait-and-switch and will be fully onsite soon.
Alternatively there are a lot of positions open at national labs which are onsite, and many work on interesting problems.
Company signals egregious changes in pricing/product strategy. Community backlash happens. Company claws back to a slightly more "reasonable" point that still has a level of negative consumer impact that is higher than the historic model.
Is there a reason this leap forward/tip-toe backward tactic has become more prevalent in recent years? It's so painfully transparent that you can almost time the "we're sorry, please join our fireside chat" announcement to the minute.
What I think in-office advocates miss -- You can still do all of these things with _actual_ friends and family who will be around after you get shitcanned, laid off, whatever.
The unfortunate reality is that the discourse around the remote vs. ass-in-seat style of work must be all or nothing. Some workplaces take a hybrid approach, but they often don't have a mix of 100% in-person and 100% remote employees. You're usually in the office 80% of the time with the allowance of a day at home. So complaints like yours get heard by middle management types and they use them to justify the "welcome back to the office" bullshit. It is worlds easier to live my life when I don't have a two hour commute and when I have the ability to get mundane responsibilities fulfilled on my breaks, and when I don't have to rely on others to take care of my pets and family. When your need to pursue an ephemeral relationship with your coworkers becomes an imposition on my need to nurture the people I love, that's a serious problem and I'm not going to politely respect your "preferences".