I started a remote job last September but it hasn’t been as good as Covid work at my previous company. The difference is the company structure. The new company is organized regionally with silos and duplicates roles by city/region. This means there’s less natural remote-like communication outside of a given office.

Further, my new boss is an extrovert and has found that she can’t stand working from home and prefers the office. I was hired fully remote, but there’s more and more in-office meetings held, where I might be the only person on a giant 96” conference room screen. This really makes remote feel like being an outsider and I feel less involved with the team. My role was supposed to be managing and strategy but it’s more of a taskmaster at this point. I can have one-on-one discussions with leaders, but the decisions are not made in a video call, they’re being made in an office face-to-face.

I think if I were a remote contractor this would be fine and I wouldn’t care so much about the dynamic. However, trying to be a genuine employee in a non-remote first and locally focused company is proving difficult.