It is not for everyone.

Why does every argument against working in an office end in a (at best thinly veiled) insult that these people must have no social life?

Is it that hard to believe that a person who enjoys working in an office also has a social life outside of work?

> Your scenario can only work with no family

Obviously false. People with families have successfully (and unsuccessfully) worked in offices for decades.

GP said they get three meals a day at the office, and live 30 mins away.

I assert that this is incompatible with family, and with a social life centered around people who are not coworkers.

I've lived that life! No judgement. Single, new city, growing company. It was great.

But it was then, for me. It could not be now. My point is that, as a perq of RTO, those things could be compelling for a subset of employees only.

> I assert that this is incompatible with family

If you're saying that you can't have a family and live 30 minutes away from the office then I understood you. And it's just not true lol.

I assert that you cannot eat three meals a day at the office which is 30 mins away from home, and still be a part of your family, yes lol.

How are you eating breakfast and dinner with your kids if you eat three meals a day at the office?

No parent misses breakfast with their kids most days. Nobody’s ever sat with their kids and not eaten. Nobody’s ever had a little snack while somebody else ate a full meal.

Yes, if you’re taking this as a challenge to avoid your kids and eat literally every meal at work, yes having what most would consider a “normal” family life will be challenging.

But the idea that it can’t be done is nuts.

I didn’t say it was easy. But the idea that a 30-minute commute to a cushy tech job office that provides 3 meals a day is somehow incompatible with family life is a bananas take IMO.

These families are dysfunctional ime

No, you can't, if you are not present at meal times. Kids don't eat when Dad gets home. Kids eat at normal times, and if Dad is eating three meals at the office, Kids eat without Dad. For several early years, they then go to bed shortly after eating, and so they do not see Dad at all that day. s/Dad/Mom/g or whatever, of course.

> Plenty of parents leave for work before breakfast and get home after dinner.

Absent parents are not parenting. Providing maybe, and that's important, but not parenting.

If the other parent is doing all the parenting work, it is almost certainly not happily so. And if the parenting work is done by hired help because both "parents" are working during all weekday hours of child wakefulness, then these people have made compromises that are not compatible with parenting.

Some families have no other choices and that is unfortunate. But for those of us who do, if we choose to become parents at all, we should try to do a good job of it.

> But the idea that a 30-minute commute to a cushy tech job office that provides 3 meals a day is somehow incompatible with family life is a bananas take IMO

The job providing meals is fine. The employee eating three meals a day at work for extended periods, is incompatible with maintaining active participation in a family life. Being present is a big part of it, and you can't phone it in.

Anecdotally, I've only ever seen three types of people who tried to consistently mix 12+ hour office work days and parenthood: people in bad marriages who were hiding from their family, selfishly-deluded wantrepreneur overachievers, and addicts. All hetero men obviously. Sometimes more than one trait in a single person, and leading to divorce in most cases, which I'll argue is not necessarily a bad thing since at least one partner didn't want to be present in the family anyway.