Why does work now reminds me of psychiatric institutions, jail, residential schools and slavery all at once?

This is functionally true IMO. There are exceptions to this, like if you need to interact with the public (not over the phone) or equipment, as part of your job. Machine operators, desk service people, etc....

For anyone primarily working with data, it's not a requirement to be in one place or any place specifically.

For me, I work IT support as a service to other companies. My clients are usually not consistent in terms of where they are and even if they're geographically similar in location, they're usually not the busiest clients nor do I ever have a full day of work for any of them to justify me going to their site. The past few jobs I've had use remote tools to access client systems, and more than 90% of the time, I don't need to leave my chair to do my job. I feel like that's the line. If the vast majority of your job can be done without leaving your chair, then working remotely is not only valid, but should be the default.

There's nothing special about going to a common place and sitting with your co-workers to do your jobs entirely from your chairs. Their chair isn't special, and nothing at the office is better or more beneficial to my work when I'm doing it. Sitting at the office doesn't make me work harder or better than I do at home.

I left my last job at the right time. I have friends still working there and they've reported that the hybrid work that was in place for years after COVID, was being retired and management expects that everyone is in office 100% of the time so we can sit in their crappy chairs (and they were crappy), and use their crappy computers (and they were crappy), to do the same work.

My new position doesn't even have an office. It's a relatively new company, I think they were founded around the time COVID started, maybe a bit before, I'm not sure, and as far as I know, they've never had an office. Everyone is 100% remote 100% of the time (except when doing site visits, which is fairly rare). I like it a lot more than the old job. There's a long story why I no longer work there which isn't relevant, but the hybrid policy, and the management's obvious preference to have people in office, was keeping me one-foot-out-the-door. Other circumstances give me reason to suggest that my friends who still work there should vacate, but again, that's not related to the hybrid/WFH situation.

IMO, any job where you can do basically all of your work "from a chair" and isn't regarding some machinery or device that cannot be moved for some reason, should be remote... At least, as an option. I don't begrudge anyone for wanting to work from an office. I'm not that kind of person and that makes me different from them. We're different, and that's ok. Any employer who forces one or the other on people who could work either way, is doing themselves and their employees, a disservice. Good people will go walking if you don't let them choose. My company doesn't provide a choice because we don't have an office to work from; I get it. People who like in office environments need not apply. They're up front about it. Meanwhile other employers shield themselves behind "hybrid" as a buzzword, and bluntly, do not provide any context on job searches for what that looks like at that company. Is it one day a week in office? Is it one day a week WFH? Is it something in between? Do you get to choose your own adventure with WFH, or is it dictated to you by your employer? What does hybrid even mean anymore? It's a useless buzzword. So when I saw the listing for my current job which said it was a "fully remote position" I jumped. I'm way better for it.

Other people will want different things. Taking the choice away from them only breeds resentment. That leads to turnover, and the cycle continues. It's why I wanted to leave my last job, it's why I am happier in my new job.

I started a new job at this manufacturing plant. New supervisor is threatening everyone at the morning meeting that if you look at your phone for ANY reason he will write you up. See him walk by on his phone smiling not 10 minutes later. 🙄 The little shit walks around like a damn prison guard trying to catch people like they're in highschool cheating on a test. Then if you're idle for more than a minute he'll try to find some bullshit for you to do. He also micromanages things to the point that it hurts production because he has no idea what he's talking about he just wants people to look like they're busy.

The engineers that designed the production line are a bunch of dickheads too. They didn't put enough of a buffer zone between areas and the later part of the line runs slower than the first half. Their solution is to make the workers take widgets off the line by hand and then put them on again if the backend goes down.

Honestly why else keep wages low and people occupied with busy work? It's a social control structure. We're not improving anything substantial.

I recently switched jobs from a company with a "soft" hybrid work requirement to a fully-remote position with a company that doesn't enforce any office attendance policy. As a neurodivergent introvert, remote work is a comfortable thing for me, and I've got a good setup for it.

I took a trip across the state to be in-office for a couple days of meetings recently, and I was honestly kinda surprised to find that the lack of an office attendance policy had kinda killed the company culture. Even on peak attendance days, the office is maybe 1/4 full, silent as a tomb, and basically without value for collaborative work because the people you need to talk to probably aren't there. I went home from my trip feeling quite a bit worse about my new job, which was kinda the opposite of what was intended.

I didn't like being in-office at my old job, exactly, but I did really like my team, and enjoyed the conversations and banter we had. I'm fortunate to be working for a good employer that doesn't see the need to enforce an in-person work policy, but it's a little sad to realize that not having that policy means that the office as a place to work together with people is functionally dead.

Bentham pilled.

Haha jk that’s just life in general, not the office - we all live in the digital panopticon