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I started at my present job in Portland last December. The commute from where I live in Hillsboro is about an hour by public transit, and when I started the job I was going to work in a nearly empty office building. The upper management had also decreed a full remodeling of our office space, so the four of us in the IT shop found ourselves transplanted a couple of times in the ensuing weeks.
Now, with the game of musical chairs ended and the remodeling nearly finished, the bosses have ordered a return-to-office for the workforce. (Future lexicographers will no doubt document that the initialism "RTO" entered the mainstream vocabulary around the early-to-mid 2020s.) In practice, I think most of the staff are going to be allowed to work from home 1 or 2 days a week, but the leadership have been very clear that the expectation is for in-office work to be the norm once again.
The IT crew supervisor (i.e. my immediate boss) is an extroverted, talkative dude about 10 years younger than me, with longish hair and (seasonally) either a short beard or a mustache; I believe he moonlights as a jazz guitarist, and he certainly looks the part. He has a family that he's very devoted to. He's very knowledgeable about the IT field, obviously, but he is the antithesis of the stereotypical introverted IT geek. So with the rush of people back into the office, he divides his time between IT troubleshooting and supervisory duties, and chatting with buddies in the office that he hasn't seen for 3 to 5 years.
I'm not quite as outgoing as this guy is, but I am definitely welcoming the return of living, breathing humanity to the workplace. I've always been a bit of a loner by habit and temperament, but the past five years have brought home to me how much I value being around other people.
Now, with the game of musical chairs ended and the remodeling nearly finished, the bosses have ordered a return-to-office for the workforce. (Future lexicographers will no doubt document that the initialism "RTO" entered the mainstream vocabulary around the early-to-mid 2020s.) In practice, I think most of the staff are going to be allowed to work from home 1 or 2 days a week, but the leadership have been very clear that the expectation is for in-office work to be the norm once again.
The IT crew supervisor (i.e. my immediate boss) is an extroverted, talkative dude about 10 years younger than me, with longish hair and (seasonally) either a short beard or a mustache; I believe he moonlights as a jazz guitarist, and he certainly looks the part. He has a family that he's very devoted to. He's very knowledgeable about the IT field, obviously, but he is the antithesis of the stereotypical introverted IT geek. So with the rush of people back into the office, he divides his time between IT troubleshooting and supervisory duties, and chatting with buddies in the office that he hasn't seen for 3 to 5 years.
I'm not quite as outgoing as this guy is, but I am definitely welcoming the return of living, breathing humanity to the workplace. I've always been a bit of a loner by habit and temperament, but the past five years have brought home to me how much I value being around other people.
