> The supposed benefit of being in the office is because teams work better in person. If everybody else is at the office, it’s obvious who isn’t there.

We're talking about corporate America here. They say "RTO because teams work better in person" while they simultaneously contradict themselves requiring distributed teams. What really matters is the leader is tall, looks important in suit, and makes the number go up (with stock buybacks if necessary).

Several months ago my job required RTO for “local” employees (not all that local). I live a flight away from the office so I got to stay remote.

Recently, quite a few remote employees were given advanced notice of lay-offs. Myself impacted.

Fast forward a bit. Now I’m training a contractor in another country to do my job.

We are expected to monitor systems 24/7.

RTO is so clearly a scam.

Not to mention having to make real estate numbers go up, which WFH threatens by distributing demand across a much larger area.

This is a paper trail for "just cause" to fire someone.

Also shortens the leash on corp debt slaves.

Edit: this is the "enterprise solution", whereas I agree you're right at the margins.

> This is a paper trail for "just cause" to fire someone.

Just like surprise, low Speed Limit signs that provide probable cause to pull over whoever you like.

Exactly this. You can get pulled over for driving under the speed limit. Or over.

Well, obviously the managers won't be working from the office, they're perfectly capable of WFH. Really funny in a way, since their work output is way harder to measure.