[alkonaut]

It's the same time. An employee effectively pays me for what I feel is the "cost" of working there, which is measured in hours lost of my day.

They don't pay me to work 24/7, they pay me to work 8h per day. But of course the cost measured by the employee isn't the time lost working, it's the time lost working or commuting. So someone who used to sell 10 hours of their day to their employer and now sells 8 hours of their day to their employer for the same pay, isn't going to be happy about going back to selling 10 hours.

The fact that we got those 2 hours as an hourly "raise" at the start of the pandemic doesn't change anything. Being forced to go to back to the office is effectively a cut in your hourly rate.