What's a middle manager to do if s/he can't Lumbergh around the office?
It's all senior leadership trying valiantly to recapture the "Day 1" mentality that process and procedures have beaten out of the company.
But I'm more talking about wealth funds that own commercial real estate that are also shareholders in Amazon, quietly having a word with execs about how to get the workers back in the offices.
You know, the old "you should come for a weekend to the country and meet a few people", the people turn out to be incredibly rich and connected, and all they want from you is this little favour where you get all your people back in the office. Just for a while so they have the chance to unload their commercial real estate portfolio without taking a huge loss.
The RTO mandates were fully delivered from US HQ and from the very top, while middle management tried very hard to preserve remote work, especially as many people were hired from quite far away from office... and no, the salaries were nowhere close to justify people moving.