---
title: "On Office work"
description: "I find it strange that companies still require office presence. Can't we learn? I would get it If you had an exciting office life, somewhat of a special workplace ambiance, a culture to speak of. But these companies…"
author: "Ghaith Ayadi"
site: "Verbatim"
collection: "Hokum"
url: "https://verbatim.ayadighaith.com/hokum/on-office-work"
date: 2023-02-02
updated: 2026-09-16
---
# On Office work

I find it strange that companies still require office presence. Can't we learn? I would get it If you had an exciting office life, somewhat of a special workplace ambiance, a culture to speak of. But these companies don't and they know it.

If I had a job offer from Google in 2008, I would go out of my way to be present at the office. You wouldn't need to make it a requirement. I would show up every day to soak in all that talent, be inspired, and maybe meet Vince Vaugh.

Let's dot the i's: They want you in the office so they can make sure you're working because they have no other means to measure it. Their KPIs, OKR, and KFCs don't work so they want a physical monitoring solution. That's like installing Mcafee antivirus: It's worse than not having it.

To the unsuspecting civilian, office work sounds like a great idea in principle, kinda like communism. But it's not, exactly like communism. We tried it for a century, it didn't work, and it's time to move on to the next thing that might not work.

Companies clinging to office work are simply exercising some remnants of leverage that they have on workers. It's unbecoming. I want to work with a company that has limits on office presence, where people there are so interesting to be around that you'd actually want to go spend time around them, kinda like my friends at **airfocus** once upon a time.