That would indeed be a "forever change" in how they work. But I can't quite see musical chairs doing the trick.

From what i have read about Microsoft software and company behaviour, whether they work at the office or at home, they still do stupid things.

Nothing is going to change apart from some disgruntled employees.

Compared to twenty or even ten years ago, that's definitely true with Zoom/Teams calls, cloud computing, AI etc. But where we work is being changed back to what it was before the pandemic. If you don't like it, feel free to leave.

It's really important that all employees commute daily to the office to make Teams calls to talk to the rest of their team members in other offices, countries, or even continents.

It's very important to those holding the corporate real estate contracts, equally important to micromanagers whose only productivity measure is how furiously you're typing on your keyboard when they hover by your desk, and to businesses who only exist to profit from commuters.

Your personal time on this earth, well-being and sanity are the offerings on the altar upon which the gods of capital and commerce will feast on their sacrifice.

equally important to micromanagers whose only productivity measure is how furiously you're typing on your keyboard

Or to lean in a little too close, sniff your perfume, and crack some awkward dad-joke that forces you to fake a laugh. Then they’ll call a pointless cubicle ‘meeting,’ not to discuss work, but so they can watch you walk from behind.

Job market conditions are a bit dry. Fierce competition with folks laid off just a couple of months ago. MSFT is just seizing the moment as there are fewer places to run to. Senior leadership are trying to shift the focus away from AI adoption failures and blame the remote staff. This adds to reduced compensation (lower rewards) and increased competition among colleagues due to low attrition, and increased workloads as though MS is a startup.

It’s about working together in a way that enables us to meet our customers’ needs.

Absolute nonsense. This isn’t about customers. It’s about executives with withdrawal symptoms because their private little kink - watching employees perform forced warmth - dried up when everyone went remote and the faltering commercial estate market finally giving them cover to indulge it. Offices are half-empty, landlords are panicking, and suddenly executives can cloak their private little thrill - dragging people back into their line of sight - as “customer need.”

These people don’t miss “collaboration,” they miss the power dynamic. The smirk when someone trapped in the office has no choice but to look up and smile back. The fake banter from workers who’d be fired if they said what they actually think. The sleazy thrill of playing patriarch in a space where every nod and laugh is coerced.

Middle-aged managers treating the office like Tinder with a captive audience, living out sad fantasies while pretending it’s “team culture.” At home, they’re irrelevant. In the office, they get to cosplay as important, admired, desired.

That’s the perverse psychology of RTO. It’s not just shareholder theatre - it’s the sick satisfaction of ownership, of turning knowledge workers back into livestock on display.

If Amy Coleman thinks this circus is about “customer needs,” she’s either delusional or deliberately insulting our intelligence.

And the last thing customers need is Microsoft serfs pointlessly cramming public transport to fuel management’s ego trip.

I am in the office more or less 3 days a week already, but the rest of my team is spread out across other countries. If this is really about teams working in the same physical space, I hardly think we're going to be forced to move countries. I certainly won't anyway. But what then follows? I'm close to an office, but half of my team are not. Will they be forced to move city even though we still won't see each other?

Oh well, at least we're not Amazon. They are just next door to me, and they're forced to go in every day.

This is all about culture war, work from home is seen as woke as it can enable those with caring responsibilities and those who don't live in a big city (often women, minorities and people from less wealthy backgrounds) to be just as performant as those who don't have caring responsibilities and do live in or near big cities. The main problem with this actual step closer to meritocracy is it nullifies allot of the rich white male advantage those in the ascendancy for now in uncle Sam's house depend on. At the same time it makes allot of middle aged and older middle managers either no longer needed in that role or changes how they need to work. Like the cancelling of DEI even in areas wher it has helped outcomes this is pandering and it just so happens to reduce headcount at a time when AI is promising to replace some people or is abubble about to deflate and some Tariffs or something is putting a drag on tech stocks so investors would quite like a reduced headcount so if you are a spinless greedy white man who won't be here in 20 years it's win win.

The “culture war” framing misses the forest for the trees. This isn’t really about white males vs. DEI vs. woke remote workers. That’s just the bait. What’s happening is far more cynical: a compromised US administration running a divide-and-conquer strategy that pits groups against each other while the country rots from within.

Yes, commercial real estate and investors pocket their short-term payday. But that’s eating the seed corn - cashing in today at the cost of tomorrow’s survival. The real beneficiaries aren’t landlords or shareholders, they’re hostile powers who don’t need to outspend or outfight America if the US is already sabotaging itself. Hollow out institutions, fracture society, force pointless conflicts, and the country becomes weaker, distracted, and ripe for manipulation.

The population segment most likely to benefit from RTO - if they existed - would be the newbie hires just out of college.

The really interesting part of that announcement: "As part of these updates, we’re also enhancing our workplace safety and security measures so we can continue to provide a workplace where every employee can do their best work.”

Sure going to be interesting to see what that means.

Sure going to be interesting to see what that means.

Cavity search.

"Importantly, this update is not about reducing headcount," she wrote. "It’s about working together in a way that enables us to meet our customers’ needs."