I really enjoy being in the office for so many reasons. The irony is that my job is remote in the sense that my team is in another city, and I only show up to the office because I want to be around people, get free lunch, etc. Previous to this I worked at a "remote-first" company, and despite being focused on remote work, I was never so unproductive because I spent most of my time waiting to connect with other people.

However, I understand why many people do like WFH. I don't understand why this isn't a conversation between the employee and her direct manager? If the direct manager can point to problems with being WFH then I can understand forcing RTO. But if the employee is verifiably productive with good performance ratings, why should she be forced to return to the office?

And this recursively applies all the way up the chain. If a director sees that a manager is falling behind in productivity, then she can drill down on the manager's performance and the performance of the team. But if performance reviews are good, why dictate that someone should be in the office? It's pretty stupid.