Geez sure sounds like this real estate market should be like. Heavily controlled and limited by the government. So that objectively good things, like less daily commuting and therefore less greenhouse emissions, can happen without toppling society.

I will never work in an office again. I literally couldn't afford my rent and my food costs if I also had to afford a daily gas expense. I am very much not alone in this.

Why would companies that generally avoid owning real estate act against its own self interest for the profits of real estate companies?? I don’t see the connection.

Corporations are pushing RTO because their senior leadership doesn't know how to lead in a modern system.

I won't argue some amount of "responding to waste" isn't there, but this "problem" only exists when the culture isn't healthy enough to be properly managed remotely, which frankly is not that hard.

"Oh no, how terrible"

• C suite looking at all the salary they're saving

This has always been the method. I've worked in startups for years, and there's always a game-changing pivot that causes a staff exodus. They replace the with contractors until the company succeeds in the pivot or crashes and burns.

Return to office is just a pivot. If the talent leaves and gets replaced, hopefully their leadership can right the ship. Otherwise it's those who departed who made the right call.

People keep bringing up real estate because everyone thinks the rich are evil and this move must be money related somehow.

Now, I too think they're pretty rotten for the most part.

But returning to office is not about real estate.

Companies are ruthless and if they can increase profits at all, they will do pretty much anything to do so. Firing long-time workers, destroying the planet, etc. So if they had to destroy the real estate market to make more money, they would.

My point here is that if it was just about money, everyone would remain WFH. They could downsize the office, or even lease out the space to the companies that are returning to the office.

So then why are they doing it? It's their preference. They prefer having their underlings in the building and enjoy seeing everyone from their corner office. They like feeling powerful which is harder to do when everyone who works for them is at home.

They might also have the kind of personality where they get more work done with others around, and they can't imagine it being different for other people. Many high-up executives only got that far because they have very extroverted personalities.

Not everything a rich person does is strictly about money. Otherwise they wouldn't buy mansions, supercars, private planes, etc. Apple wouldn't have built the billion dollar donut office. They do these things because they're powerful and want others to know.

and pushed the staff turnover rate in my department to 95%. They ended up having to outsource the function to an overseas firm.

Sounds like their reason behind implementing the RTO plan was successful then.