1 reason being ordered back to the office is secretly a gift

May 09, 2023

A close friend who has been working remotely for almost three years now just found out this week that he’s being ordered back to the office.

He’s understandably annoyed.

His employer was perfectly happy to have him kill himself trying to keep the company afloat while also being a full-time caregiver and educator to two young kids when the COVID lockdowns heaped absolutely crushing pressure on working parents.

The company certainly had no problem with his work hours bleeding into his home life as he tried to juggle everything, including his own mental health.

Making matters worse, there’s no sensible reason to bring him back.

Despite being extremely productive and having a job in which he works solo, his simple, unimaginative bosses want to meet some arbitrary quotas.

So it’s back to commuter life for him.

I get why he’s mad.

But what I want to tell him is: this is actually a gift.

The commuter life: definitely not for me. (Credit: James Julian/Dall-E 2)

My return-to-office moment

Not that I would have seen it that way even a year ago.

If I were ordered to return to the office back then, I think I would have had a complete and total meltdown.

It’s not only that I hate office life and commuting more than anything in the world (I do).

Being a “traffic fighter”, as one of my favorite self-improvement books describes that lifestyle, was always anathema to me.

I’m an introvert who can’t stand authority, so you can probably understand why.

No, the bigger problem than commuter life itself was that I hadn’t created an escape hatch.

I didn’t even have a prayer of creating an escape hatch at that point.

The shackles of addiction

This was a bad time for me mentally and physically.

I was deep in the depths of alcohol addiction, which was very effective at draining all my energy and hope for a bigger, better life.

I had always wanted to work for myself, to escape that depressing, overbearing corporate life, but I was too busy drinking myself into a catatonic state every night.

I wanted things to change, but I was doing nothing to change them.

It was only when I quit drinking that I finally found that one priceless thing that had been missing in my life: optimism.

The only way I was going to escape the commuter life I hated for good would be to build my own business.

Now I believed I could actually do it.

I could have the best job and the best boss in the world, but at the end of the day, I wouldn’t feel truly happy, truly FREE, until I worked for myself.

At the time when my sobriety journey was just getting underway, I was still working remotely full-time.

But with countless stories in the news about people being forced back to the office, I knew my precious home time was probably limited.

The call

And I was proven correct. Before long, the rumblings about a return to office became reality.

The difference now was that I’d already begun constructing my escape hatch.

I’d started fast, but my efforts were beginning to wane.

Being ordered back to the office lit a fire.

Was I annoyed? A little, for sure.

But it was just the kick in the pants I needed to go into Business Beastmode.

You see, it was actually a gift.

I could have whined and cried about having to do something I didn’t want to do.

But instead, I increased the hours and effort I put into activities that would actually allow me to avoid doing something I didn’t want to do at some point in the future.

If you’re mad, use that anger as fuel.

Take control

Honestly though, if you ask me, you shouldn’t be mad at all.

You see, as long as you leave your fate in the hands of your employer, you don’t really have control over your life in any way.

Employers don’t care about you.

They don’t care about what works for you and your family. If they did, there would be no such thing as mandatory return to office for those who have no sensible reason to be there.

You can sit around crying about that and lament about how you’re being treated “unfairly”.

Or you can start taking control.

The endgame

Eight months ago, I quit drinking and started focusing.

Today, with my work and side hustle income combined, I’m now on pace to make more than my boss this year.

Actually, I’m on pace to make more than my boss’s boss.

That, in and of itself, has power.

It builds confidence. It inspires me to keep pushing and see what’s possible, to find out if my dream of leaving commuter life for good is actually possible.

If you ask me, the best way to find meaning in your work is to focus on the work you do for yourself.

A career is an economic transaction, nothing more.

Creating a business doing something you love brings true fulfillment.

So start building something on the side. Today.

That way, at some point down the road, when your boss tells you to come in when you don’t want to, you can just smile and say, “Nah.”

And then walk right out the door.

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