I have no idea if the reality is more that, or more the banal "nobody is organising anything like this and suggestions to the contrary are just conspiracy theories, the bosses genuinely believe what they're saying".
I currently have a boss who appears to sincerely want people back in the office; he doesn't want to be the CEO of a 100% remote company.
More than "in principle", I would be very shocked if many someones were not at least trying very hard to make it happen.
If PR firms can push "suits are cool again" or "maybe chocolate is kinda healthy for you", then they can easily push stuff like "in-office work is better", or "executives like you don't like remote-work".
As someone who likes being in an office, I personally feel that everyone becoming permanent WFH basement gremlins is a bad thing overall. Human contact is a good thing, and my observations of people who are 100% WFH is that they almost never interact with anyone outside of their household.
Good thing that there are these things called friends, which usually aren’t forced on people like work colleagues are.
Maybe workplaces would be more meritocratic if people didn't base promotions on who they like to go out for a beer with.
Communication got incredibly toxic from his end; every sentence infused with inexplicable resentment. It was a very confusing result, and now I'm even less likely to bother meeting anyone in the future. I'm happy I avoided burnout by simply ignoring the toxicity, as petulant behaviour probably resulting from stresses in his own life, but still.
I'm not saying forced daily association is the way to make them friends, but you can see the logic behind trying to encourage it.
Granted, I've seen how our developers rarely make friends with each other, so it may be more of a sales/HR/product thing than engineering.
It’s a firms way to gain productivity. Especially after preventing you from socializing near your home.
Wow, uh, maybe we should be against team building in principle.
Professionalism and trust result in more productivity - not necessarily friendship
I don't think that kind of human contact is better than spending more time with my wife and kids.
My personal feeling about people eager to go back to the office is that they have empty jobs, but walking around from meeting to meeting, from the water fountain to the coffee machine, and bikeshedding other people's work makes them feel worthy. Of course, they need other people around to have meetings and "work".
Office life and commutes have so completely destroyed our ability to have outside social lives that the solution to not being able to socialize is to go back to the office. Brilliant.
Besides which, WFH means more time with the family (also human contact) and skipping the commute means more time around people whose presence one actually enjoys.
All that said, I tend to agree with your point that people pushing RTO more due to their personal ideology (which clearly I do not share) rather than some grand conspiracy around real-estate.
It’s allowed me time to volunteer at both the local library and my son’s school.
I’ve grown to become friends with two of my neighbors after living beside them for 8+ years. None of that would be possible if I were still commuting.
But I suppose we all have our anecdotes. You just seem to think yours are applicable to everyone.
That's not really representative of what it could be.
The basement gremlin comment is unnecessarily judgemental, especially considering that some people have movie theaters, gyms or marble floored, spa-like basements (yes, even the remote, non-elite ones may have that).
But I respect that other people's way of work is not for me. I just don't mind if someone else goes to the office, and I would just expect the same courtesy.