I worked at a company that was "hybrid" prior to the pandemic - deliberately, not because they were forced to be. 2 days in the office (same days for everyone)

I worked at a company that was "hybrid" prior to the pandemic - deliberately, not because they were forced to be. 2 days in the office (same days for everyone) and 3 days remote. All meetings had a zoom link to support distributed work if you had to work from home for any reason. Some people worked in the office 5 days a week but they worked on hardware and shipping logistics, making presence a requirement. It worked wonderfully. The two days in the office were full of ad hoc conversations, lunches, whiteboarding, pair programming .. all the stuff that's good about office work. The other 3 days a week, we stayed home and focused on building all the cool stuff we'd hashed out together with almost no interruptions. It was very much the best of both world, allowing both introverts and extroverts to thrive. So hybrid working can turn out great IF it's a deliberate part of the culture. But in the general case of corporate America calling their workers back to the office, it does feel like a ruse.