Five Years Later | The Bait and Switch of Remote Work

Today (March 11th, 2025) marks five years since WHO declared COVID a pandemic. It still took another 5 days for this to reach my corner of the world, but I remember exactly where I was when the world shut down. It was March 2020, the day after my birthday. I had just thrown a huge party that Sunday to celebrate a milestone birthday - it was one of my best parties filled with fun and light hearted jokes about my forcing everyone to habitually use hand sanitizer (just as a precaution, not because I actually thought anything would happen). We were all blissfully unaware that it would be the last time we’d gather like that for a long, long time. The next day, everything changed. Offices closed. Streets emptied. Life as we knew it came to a screeching halt. Because of my severe and chronic lung issues, I wouldn’t hug my family for 410 days (although we did get…creative).

I would push my couch up to our sliding glass door, plug in an Alexa on both sides so I could still play video games with my nephew.

The messages from companies were eerily unified: We’re in this together. We value flexibility. We trust our employees. These are unprecedented times. 

Unprecedented times? Bestie, that phrase was the ‘live, laugh, love’ of corporate crisis comms.

And for a moment, it felt like they meant it. Suddenly, work wasn’t confined to an office. Employers saw (shockingly!) that people could be productive from their own homes, that they didn’t need a 90-minute commute and fluorescent lights to get things done.

And so, employees adapted. They took meetings from their kitchen tables, learned to blur their messy bedrooms on Zoom, and powered through the uncertainty with nothing but Slack messages and sheer willpower. They gave companies their flexibility, their cooperation, their resilience. They asked, and employees delivered.

And how did they thank them?

By yanking it all away.

Five years later, remote work (once the savior of productivity) is now villainized. CEOs who once praised employees’ adaptability are now wagging their fingers, claiming that they’re less engaged, less innovative, less productive if they’re not physically tethered to an office. The same companies that begged for their employees’ trust in 2020 are now micromanaging their every move, tracking badge swipes, monitoring mouse activity, and issuing ultimatums: Come back or else.

Jamie Dimon at JPMorgan Chase, who once acknowledged the benefits of remote work, now rants about how it’s “damaging” to young employees. Amazon, Salesforce, and even Zoom (yes, Zoom) have all reversed course, pushing for a return to the office despite data showing that remote work improves productivity and work-life balance. Employees who spent years proving they could work effectively from home are being told that, actually, it was all an illusion.

Why the Push to Return?

Let’s not pretend this is about collaboration. Or innovation. Or culture.

The return-to-office push isn’t about what’s best for employees - it’s about what’s best for them.

First, there’s money - big money. The commercial real estate market is in freefall. Skyscrapers in major cities sit half-empty, corporate landlords are panicking, and banks holding billions in office real estate loans are sweating. The longer remote work thrives, the clearer it becomes that companies don’t need all this expensive office space. And when powerful investors and real estate executives start ringing alarm bells, CEOs start making office attendance mandatory again - because no one wants to be the leader who admits they wasted millions on an office no one needs.

But it’s not just about real estate. It’s about control.

For decades, companies have operated on the belief that visibility equals productivity. The old-school leaders - the ones who cut their teeth in the “butts-in-seats” era - see remote work as a loss of power. They can’t wander the office, micromanaging employees, if those employees are working from home. They can’t measure effort by how long someone sits at their desk if that desk isn’t in a cubicle under their watchful gaze.

And let’s be honest: some companies are just punishing employees for daring to want better.

The pandemic forced a shift in priorities. People saw that life without a two-hour commute, without a rigid 9-to-5, without the performative grind of “looking busy,” was better. COVID shined a light on the sanctity of life and pushed employees to realize their job should fit around their life - not the other way around.

That terrified employers.

Because when people know their worth, when they know there are other ways to work and live, they stop accepting exploitation disguised as "hustle." They start demanding flexibility, fair pay, work-life balance. And some companies would rather drag everyone back to the office than admit that the pandemic exposed just how much unnecessary suffering was baked into the way we used to work.

That’s what this really comes down to: power, money, and control.

If they can get workers back in the office, they can pretend the last five years never happened.

But we remember.

Where In-Person Work Matters

Not every role can be done remotely, and I acknowledge that. Some jobs require physical presence - healthcare, manufacturing, service work. Even in traditional office settings, there are times when being in person makes sense. Some teams thrive in the energy of shared spaces, and mentorship is often stronger when newer employees can learn by watching seasoned colleagues in action (although with the right tools, those latter reasons are less impactful).

But that’s not what we’re talking about here.

We’re talking about knowledge workers who were hired for roles that were remote, who proved that remote work didn’t just function - it excelled. We’re talking about people who reorganized their lives around the flexibility they were promised, only to have it revoked under the guise of “culture” and “team spirit.”

We’re talking about power and control, not productivity and collaboration.

The Personal Cost of the Corporate Bait-and-Switch

I know what it feels like to be caught in this web of corporate hypocrisy - because I lived it.

For the last two years, I have been the primary caretaker for both of my parents, who live in two separate states - neither of which is my state of residence. Remote work allowed me to show up for them in ways I never could have otherwise. It meant I could be there when my father had a stroke. It meant I could be with my family as my mother was intubated - twice. It meant I could manage my life in a way that shouldn’t have required a pandemic to justify.

But here’s the gut punch: I was hired for a remote role, one that explicitly advertised flexibility as a core benefit. And yet, I was forced to return to the office - a week after my dad finished physical therapy for his stroke. I had bronchitis, but I still drove 20 hours straight just to make it back by the “agreed” upon return date.

And do you know what happened on my first day back in office?

My role was eliminated.

That’s the cost of this war against remote work. It’s not just about commutes or cubicles. It’s about real people who built their lives around the promises their employers made - promises that were convenient to keep when companies needed us but disposable the moment they didn’t.

We Remember, Even If They Hope We Forget

Five years later, COVID feels both like a distant memory and something that just happened. It’s been eclipsed by new crises - unprecedented political upheaval (there’s that word again - bestie, make it stop), economic instability, and layoffs that seem to hit the news cycle daily. If the last few years have taught us anything, it’s that stability is a corporate illusion, and job security is often just a polite way of saying “not today, but maybe tomorrow.”

And honestly? I get why people are exhausted. Why pushing back feels impossible. It’s hard to fight for flexibility when you’re just trying to hold onto a paycheck. It’s hard to demand change when every industry seems to be tightening its grip, reminding employees how replaceable they are. The appetite for resistance isn’t what it was in 2020 - not because people don’t care, but because they’re burnt out, disillusioned, and just trying to survive.

But that’s exactly why we can’t let this moment slip away.

Because COVID didn’t just expose flaws in how we work - it exposed choices. Choices companies made when they had to, but are now pretending were never possible. They told us remote work was unsustainable - while reporting record profits. They told us flexibility was a gift, not a business strategy - while quietly benefiting from increased productivity. They told us we mattered - until the moment they didn’t need us anymore.

So what do we do with that?

For employers, the answer should be clear: Adapt, or watch your best people leave. If you say you value innovation, then stop clinging to outdated models of work. If you say you trust your employees, prove it. If you say retention matters, then understand that forcing employees back into rigid, unnecessary structures isn’t just inconvenient - it’s alienating.

And for employees? Listen, I won’t hit you with a rise up! speech because I know that’s not where most people are right now. People are scared. People are tired. But what I will say is this: Remember. Because the second we forget, the second we stop questioning, is the second they get to rewrite history and pretend none of this ever happened.

So no, we won’t let them gaslight us into thinking flexibility was a fluke. We won’t let them pretend remote work was just a pandemic phase instead of proof that a better way exists.

Because five years later, in these unprecedented times (I swear that’s the last one), we still remember.

And that means, whether companies like it or not, the conversation isn’t over.