The Office Was Never About Work

Hello!

It’s Thursday, 18^th December 2025. Welcome back to Bold Efforts. Every week, I try to write about the thing people feel at work but rarely say out loud. I am trying a different writing style today. This week, it’s this: The office was never really about work.

That sounds wrong at first. Work happened there. Careers were built there. Money was made there. But the office itself was solving a different problem. And until we admit that, every argument about return to office, hybrid, or remote will stay shallow and noisy.

Because we keep debating output when the real loss was psychological. The office gave people four things that modern work quietly depends on. Status. Identity. Routine. Social proof.

Take those away without replacing them, and people feel unanchored. Even if productivity stays the same. That is what many leaders are reacting to, whether they realize it or not.

The office made status obvious. You didn’t have to ask where you stood. You could see it. Bigger rooms. Better views. Who spoke first. Who people listened to. Who got pulled into conversations after meetings.

None of this was written down. That was the point. Status was ambient. You absorbed it just by being there. Remote work didn’t remove status. It made it harder to read. Now status hides in response times, meeting invites, Slack visibility, and who gets a quick call instead of a long message.

When people can’t tell where they stand, they start performing. More messages. More updates. More signs of activity. Not because the work needs it, but because the human does.

The office also gave people an identity. You didn’t just do a job. You went somewhere. You put on different clothes. You entered a different world. You became a slightly different version of yourself.

Even the commute mattered. It separated home from work. It created a before and after. Remote work collapsed that boundary. For some people, that felt freeing. For others, it felt disorienting.

That is why people recreate office rituals at home. Dedicated desks. Morning routines that feel forced. Coworking spaces they don’t love but keep paying for. They are not chasing productivity. They are trying to stabilize who they are during the day.

The office also gave routine. Not freedom. Rhythm. Most people don’t actually want infinite flexibility. They want a structure they don’t have to invent every morning. The office decided when you started, when you broke, when you stopped. It was rigid, sometimes painful, but predictable.

Remote work hands you that responsibility instead. You now choose your own start and end. Your own breaks. Your own pace. Some people thrive with that. Others slowly burn energy just deciding. And none of them are wrong. Flexibility feels good in theory. In practice, it requires self-management skills many jobs never had to demand before.

The office also created social proof. You could see what good looked like. You learned by watching. You noticed who got rewarded. You picked up norms without a handbook. You also felt belonging in small, almost silly ways. Shared jokes. Shared complaints. Eye contact during awkward moments.

Remote teams can build this too. But it doesn’t happen by accident. Most companies replaced offices with tools and assumed culture would follow. Tools move information well. They don’t automatically create meaning. This is why many return to office mandates feel wrong.

They treat the office like a missing object instead of a missing system. Bringing people back without restoring trust, clarity, and belonging just recreates the shell. People commute to sit on video calls. They give up time without gaining meaning. And the message they hear is not “we value you”. It is “we don’t trust you”.

Trust is not soft. It is practical. When trust drops, everything slows down. More meetings. More approvals. More politics. You can feel it in the air. A better question for leaders is not where people should work. It is what the office used to quietly provide, and how to provide those things now.

If the office gave status, make contribution visible without rewarding noise. If it gave identity, create clear roles, growth paths, and rituals that don’t rely on a building. If it gave routine, offer shared rhythms without turning them into surveillance. If it gave social proof, help people see good work without endless meetings.

This is harder than signing a lease. But it is also more honest. The future of work is not about choosing a location. It is about designing a system where people feel seen, grounded, and trusted. The office used to do that by default. Now it has to be done on purpose.

Because the office was never about work. It was about people. And people haven’t changed. Thank you for reading!

Best,
Kartik

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Who am I?
I’m Kartik, founder of Polynomial Studio, a holding company and product studio building AI-driven businesses for the future of work. The way we work and live is being rewritten. AI, remote work, and shifting economic forces are reshaping careers, businesses, and entire industries. The big question is where it’s all heading.

For the past eight years, I’ve been at the forefront of these shifts, working across real estate, technology, startups, and corporate strategy. I’ve helped businesses navigate change and stay ahead of what’s next, always focused on understanding the forces shaping our future and how we can use them to build something better. Click here to know more about me.

Why Bold Efforts?
I started Bold Efforts because I believe work should fit into life, not the other way around. Too many people are stuck in outdated systems that don’t serve them. This newsletter is about challenging the status quo and making the effort to design work around life. It brings together bold ideas and actionable insights to help you build a healthier, more balanced relationship with work, leading to greater purpose and fulfillment. If you’re looking for fresh perspectives on how to work and live better, you’re in the right place.

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