Working means sacrifice. It's a sacrifice of your time and energy, in exchange for money at its most basic level. When you start at a new job, there are lots of sacrifices you have to make in order to remain in good standing. Should your money be one of them? Working a job is never "free" per se. You have to buy clothes to wear to work, you have to buy lunch, and you have to pay for your commute. These are the little costs that we accept as part and parcel of the working experience. But if there were huge add-on costs to that, then you might start to think twice. You don't want to end up in a situation where you're paying more than you're comfortable with just to keep a job. They already ask so much of you; they shouldn't be asking you to open up your wallet as well. That's what this company was asking its employees to do, though.
Returning to the office after previously being remote-first is a big topic of debate. Companies see it as a way to connect and unify their employees, and employees see it as an unnecessary return to something that might not have been working before. The company in this story was facing that return to office, and it came with a few strings attached. A good rule about incentivizing people to do something they might not want to do: don't make it difficult. If you're asking people to return to the office, it should be as easy as possible to do so. You should think about the perks you can offer to sweeten the deal a little bit. You don't want to give people a reason to feel like they're not being cared for. That's what was happening here, though, in this workplace that was making the big return to the office. Keep reading to see what happened and what you think.