The survey my employer did ended up at 25% considering leaving, in a non-anonymous survey. So that 40% feels very true. I expect it to rip at the end of the year, when we’ve had a few months of normal life and people realize they don’t like the old normal anymore or simply have seen greener pastures. I’ve already noticed a few coworkers intentionally moving away from the office, buying homes and creating 90+ minute commutes. Doable, but definitely not 5-day-office-doable.

That third point on high productivity masking exhaustion is also something I’m seeing firsthand. What used to be 15% commute wasted time is now 15% extra projects and meetings. The people who started with us straight outta college are the most fucked, as they entered the workplace in a time where work-life boundaries were at its loosest, so they never taught themselves to let go of work in the evenings. I’m actively preventing exhaustion by setting the expectation of working a day less each week, and I know I’m not the only one because half of all 2021 team year-plans had some form “taking a step back to take care of ourselves” in it.