All of these enforced back-to-office measures are to ensure middle-management has something to do and to try and prevent the crash of commercial real estate values, change my mind.
why would it make any difference for the workload of middle management if their reports are in the office or remote? are they responsible for restocking the coffee machine?
Not their actual work, the tangential stuff like sitting over your shoulder, making awkward small talk, making sure you're "really working" and all the other nonsense.
A ton of these people are powertripping goofs and they can't power trip nearly as effectively when their employees are remote. And, even to the degree they can, it isn't nearly as enjoyable for them outside of real exchanges when they get to enforce their presence and authority in person in uncomfortable ways.
I absolutely loathe this garbage. As a general rule I work odd hours, some days I work for barely an hour, other days I work from sunup to sundown. "Am I really working" changes drastically depending on the work day it happens to be, and my remote managers know this. I remain accessible for meetings during office hours but "am I working" at any given point in the day? Who fucking knows.
You know what they do know? My assignments are completed on time, usually early, my work is excellent, and I show up when needed. If you need to know more than that, you're a meddling manager and I wouldn't work for you if I could possibly avoid it.
I'd say it's the opposite, actually. If Amazon embraced WFH, the Seattle commercial real estate market (and the city itself) would suffer major damage. So the mayor and many CRE groups are lobbying the C suite to go back to the office.