Don’t get me wrong, either – I’m not at all in favor of mandatory RTO policies, and that team that I loved at my old employer is now scattered to the winds as a result of layoffs and related attrition. The corporate arm of that company had nothing to do with how well my team meshed and worked together (though I will give lots of credit to my immediate boss there – I went to work at that company to work with her specifically, and she was one of the best managers one could ever ask for), and I suspect we’d have all agreed to be in-office together one or two days a week even without the RTO mandate. But it’s been hard to get integrated at this new place of work, and I was looking forward to this trip as a way to start connecting with coworkers, only to find out none of them actually turned up to the office anyway. Without the company making a specific effort to bridge the gap, I think that remote work can become really isolating and reinforce existing cliques and teams to the detriment of those who join up later on.