Which is how many arrive at “fuck you, pay me.” The beatings will continue until failure.

Those are the managers (and some execs) pushing for return-to-office. They need to be seen as looking busy and important by many others to justify their position/salary.

Very true. And if you were raised in a family that believed in hard, honest work (with the implication that there would be a reward someday), it can take many, many years to discover that one's own personal satisfaction is the only real reward from dedication and toil on behalf of a company.

It usually translates into some more reward, but it's a bad math problem.

If you crunch 60 hour weeks for two months to get a release out and you get rewarded with a pizza party and a starbucks gift card, you are being exploited. Your salary is being devalued by the extra time you are putting in and your reward is insultingly cheap. That's also the norm.

Anecdote time: My wife was once talking with an old boss, who was trying to find out what kinds of things people wanted as rewards for good work. He was thinking about things like "you won employee of the month so you get a trophy and your photo on the wall"

Now, I wasn't in the room, but she insists that he was stunned when she just said she wanted more money or more time off. Like he couldn't understand why someone would prefer $50 in cash over a $50 desk trophy or plaque or something.

Keep in mind he's probably making $250k a year and she was making $60k. It's entirely possible he had never once in his whole career made "as little" as 60k per year (adjusted for inflation)