Where the Fight Over a Return to the Office Is Over and the Office Won

Gabe Tucker, 26, is a lawyer with Fortif Regulation Companions in Birmingham, the place the share of job listings that let distant work is roughly half that of New York’s. Every morning, Mr. Tucker places on a button-down shirt, drives for quarter-hour and arrives on the workplace round 8 a.m. His routine, in different phrases, stays an identical to the one he had earlier than the pandemic started (except not having to put on a tie). Within the evenings, he and his colleagues generally make a toast to rejoice the closing of a deal. They’ve been again within the workplace since June 2020, with masks and different Covid precautions.

“It’s work like normal, pretty much,” Mr. Tucker mentioned. “We found it difficult to be working remotely. We all enjoy being around each other.”

San Francisco’s workplace occupancy is at 39 % of its prepandemic stage, and New York’s is at 41 %, based on knowledge from the constructing safety agency Kastle. Austin, Texas, in the meantime, is at practically 60 %. Then there’s the Huntington Middle, a 37-story workplace tower in downtown Columbus, which now has about 85 % of its prepandemic occupants on website sooner or later in the course of the week, based on Hines, the corporate that manages the constructing.

Traci Martinez, the workplace managing companion at Squire Patton Boggs, a legislation agency with workplaces on the twentieth flooring of the Huntington Middle, mentioned someone coming from San Francisco would possibly stroll into her workplace and marvel on the buzz.

“They would come into our building and be like, ‘Wow, this is just normal,’” mentioned Ms. Martinez, 45.

She has a front-row view of the disparities in workplace returns nationwide. She coordinates with managers within the agency’s quite a few workplaces, and has discovered that its Ohio places have stuffed up quicker than many others, notably its Washington, D.C., location.