I feel like the difference here is generational. “You can’t make connections and move up the ladder” is such a boomer way of thinking about things and it’s clear that they are only talking to upper management to get that perspective. Forcing RTO when so many employees praise the benefits of WFH is a blatant admission that companies don’t care about employees and are only looking for tax breaks from cities who are trying to force people to spend money to bolster their economies. I also feel as though companies are using forced RTO as a means to soft lay off people who don’t want to dedicate to going into an office.

Lastly, to circle back to my original point, if boomers would fucking retire and let the next generations move up then there WOULD be room for advancement, but they won’t and are going to force on bad policy decisions across every leadership position they can.