Yep. And as another commenter pointed out, the “leaders” pushing these return to office mandates usually have substantial commercial real estate investments.

No conflict of interest there…

Oh yeah, I totally forgot the real estate side of things.

I work for a midsize company that divides up their office space rental costs between divisions/departments. Our CEO also owns the commercial property management company, and he also owns the holding company that owns the building.

He’s been fighting me for a while now on my division’s “flex work” policy. Finally he gave up, but my division still pays our “fair share” of rent despite several of my team members moving out of state. Oh well.

Let’s not forget that all “return to office” mandates are really just a way for the C-suite to reduce headcount while appearing strong/decisive, avoiding negative press (and therefore spooking investors), and not having to pay severance.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a big fan of Teams. The fact that the software is named after a common organizational unit, and also a feature within the software is named after that same thing, is insane. Also, I haven’t seen such an unnecessary resource hog since the original Microsoft Edge.

It took me a minute to realize that “MVP” means “most valuable player” to most people.

Apparently I’ve been in tech far too long, and care about sports far too little.