Your Commute is a Prison: The Return-to-Office Mandate is About Power, Not Productivity

Your Boss Lied: The Return-to-Office Mandate Is a Corporate Power Trip Designed to Crush Your Soul

Listen to the corporate memo. Read the HR email. They’re filled with saccharine buzzwords like "collaboration," "synergy," "innovation," and "company culture." They’ll tell you that forcing you back into a soulless downtown office cubicle is for your own good, for the good of the team. It is a lie. The great return-to-office mandate sweeping across corporate Canada has nothing to do with productivity and everything to do with power, control, and justifying billions in commercial real estate.

During the pandemic, the great remote work experiment proved that for millions of office workers, productivity actually went up. People were happier, healthier, and had more time and money without the soul-crushing, two-hour daily commute. But this terrified the executive class. Why? Because a workforce that is productive and happy without constant supervision is a workforce that is difficult to control. They can’t micromanage you over Zoom. They can’t use the threat of their physical presence to intimidate you. Most importantly, an empty office building is a massive, embarrassing liability on their balance sheet.

This isn't about what's best for the company or its employees; it's about reasserting a broken hierarchy. It's about forcing you to perform "busyness" under the watchful eye of a manager whose main skill is looking over your shoulder. It’s about power. They want you back in their gilded cages, spending your own money on gas and overpriced lunches, wasting hours of your life in traffic, all so they can feel important again. Don't fall for the propaganda. Your commute is a leash, and they are pulling on it hard.