Or middle management forces this on everyone so they can keep pretending they're useful, while most of middle management is absolutely useless. Most managers are there to ask something one person and forward the answer to another person, or gather multiple ones to sum them up in a single sentence. That's literally the job. People who have actual business influence sit at 'the top', people who have technical influence sit near 'the bottom', most people in between are just... there. I know, I worked with middle management heavily in my last corporate gig, those people usually barely even know what we do, they are incapable of making any decision without 'running it through upper management', most of them are not even trained properly to resolve interpersonal issues or work with people in general. Going to the office just so you can sit in your cubicle or on a random desk in the open space and spend whole day on calls with other people is just... pointless.
> It's not what we want or wish for but, if we are lucky, it's what we can get.
This sentence reads like corporate management is your overlord and you're happy if they let you do something. Working in IT you're privileged enough to be able to actually choose who you work for, thinking you're 'lucky' because you can work 2 days from home, is kind of... sad really.
I have yet to hear any company even robustly define productivity for tech workers.
I kid you not.
Maybe your managers are lazy or incompetent?
Yes, some of us tried hard to make it work but like always there was a minority that probably did not and now we all have to pay for it.
At this point, the best we can hope for is a hybrid work schedule. It's not what we want or wish for but, if we are lucky, it's what we can get.