For context, I'm a PhD researcher in physics. I can't imagine ever going back to working from home, and I'm dreading the inevitable day the next pandemic hits.

For context, I'm a PhD researcher in physics. I can't imagine ever going back to working from home, and I'm dreading the inevitable day the next pandemic hits. The experience of being able to casually to someone's office and sit around a blackboard, having a discussion, is something I just never managed to replicate with teleconferencing. Curiously I am not the only one here with this experience, and almost everyone here in the institute I work at has returned to the office full-time. This is even despite working from home being mandatory by law in Belgium, and I'm unclear how the administration deals with it, as I doubt they can argue in-office presence is necessary for theoretical physics (i.e. we don't even have the excuse of having to run experiments). Though another issue is that my home office is also my bedroom, and after a while of working from home I get an intense feeling of being cooped up that doesn't go away even after going outside. On the other hand, my office at work is very quiet and isolated. I realize for people with a decent home office but who have to work in some kind of open office at work, these experiences might be the other way around entirely. Apart from that, I was already allowed a lot of flexibility in choosing the hours I come and go, so I never had an issue with commuting or taking breaks for things like appointments with doctor/dentist/hairdresser/... etc... Either way I'm genuinely happy for people who prefer WFH having that choice more and more, and occasionally I enjoy the flexibility of WFH for a day or so.