Big organisations are lead by people that hang out with other people in big corporations. Some of these other corporations are friends with people in big organi

Big organisations are lead by people that hang out with other people in big corporations. Some of these other corporations are friends with people in big organisations that own office properties or do office cleaning or whatever. These corporate leaders have common interests in office workers being at the office and justifying paying friends of friends and keeping them happy. If you're a bigwig and cut down on office spending other bigwigs will be less likely to help you out when you need a new position, among other things. To explain the 'hallway talk is great' myth: it's from the masters of process, owners of product, and other similar people, that work relatively closely to the people actually building and maintaining the systems that make dah mahney. These people learn a lot and get a lot of things explained that they otherwise wouldn't and that makes them feel less nervous about not having any actual control at all over the output and functioning of the 'team'. They could of course ask over asyncronous chats or email but they don't know what to ask and they're scared they'll irritate someone, so they prefer sucking it out of smalltalk by the coffee machine. And then there's the 'but how will I ever manage to take a walk or bike if my boss doesn't tell me to'. If this is you, get help. You have some executive dysfunction that will eventually be unhealthy somehow, probably when you're unemployed or have a lot of spare time for some other reason. Fix it before you realise you've spent amazing free time that you yourself got to own on doing none of the things you know makes you feel good and strong. How to do it varies, it could be therapy, it could be to move to a less polluted place, could be something else. Remote is here to stay. Fire your boss if they insist on you spending more than two days a month at some office for no good reason.