James Zhan in real life.

10 Jan, 2026

I just finished my first week going into office for three days due to my employer’s RTO (return-to-office) mandate, and it was as pointless and absurd as I had expected. You can read my opinion piece on why RTO is terrible for diversity and inclusion.

For context, my employer (a university) cited “in-person experience” and “vibrant campus life” as justifications for the RTO mandate that applies to all administrative staff.

Ah, the hilarity of this is off-the-charts for staff members like me whose jobs aren’t front-facing: I’m a videographer and video editor, so most of my job is just me editing videos at the computer.

First day—I was the only one in the office. I’m not exaggerating—I was literally the only one from my department in the office building. I worked the whole day by myself.

Second day—A couple of colleagues were in, but they worked out of different rooms, so besides some quick (and pleasant) chats, I was just doing my job at my desk alone.

Third day—My colleague who shares the room with me came in for her in-office day. She was pleasant company but we did not collaborate on anything for work. Our physical presence together was irrelevant simply because our work doesn’t require us to physically meet.

What makes the whole situation even worse is that, despite the fact that we are a media production team, our office is extremely ill-equipped for media post-production work:

• I don’t have a professional monitor that’s designed for video work
• We don’t have a space with proper acoustic treatment for audio post-production
• We don’t have a space or setup for colour grading work
• We don’t have a proper storage setup for archiving digital media files

And guess what? My home studio has all of that, and somehow my employer thinks it’s beneficial for people like me to come in to work in a generic office space. It feels incredibly silly and a waste of my time and energy.

Speaking of time and energy, here are some calculations of how much time and money I lose on a weekly basis from going into the office three days a week:

• Commuting: 7 hours 30 minutes
• Public transit fares: $20

Let’s put that into perspective:

• 7 hours 30 minutes per week = 360 hours per year—that’s 16 fucking days per year spent just commuting and those hours are certainly not compensated
• $20 per week = $1040 per year—that’s a month and a half of groceries for me and my wife

Remember, I can do most of my job at home and do it better at home—I’d been working out of my home studio for two years before the RTO mandate. So yeah, can you blame me for being incredibly bitter and pissed about this?

Some consolation

Since RTO is here to stay and there’s nothing I can do to change it, I try to see the good things in this situation. Thankfully, I lucked out in many ways:

• My boss and colleagues are wonderful people who are all trying to make the best of this RTO and support each other. I enjoy seeing and chatting with them in the office.
• I managed to snag an old, unused Aeron chair that’s still in good condition in my office building for myself. It’s not my ideal ergonomic chair (I prefer the Anthros chair), but it’s certainly better than any generic, cheap office chair.
• I got an office with a huge window. Yay, daylight! In my last job, I worked in an office without any window and I was so miserable.
• I can adjust the heat level of the radiator in my office room
• My office building is just a few minutes’ walk from the subway station.
• My office room has hot water, a fridge, a microwave and a toaster.
• My office building is tucked away in an inconspicuous corner of the campus that rarely sees any students and faculty members.
• I have extra units of desk accessories and electronics that I use in my home studio for me to bring to the office: my favourite keyboard, the Keychron Q12 Max, a thumb-operated trackball mouse, a laptop stand and a desk mat. I ended up quite liking how the desk turned out!

Related: Stuff I Use

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