The boomers who run my company keep waxing poetic about the benefits of in-office collaboration, but no one is actually able to give me a specific, concrete example on what I, as a software engineer, gain from working in the office that I can't replicate at home with some combination of Slack, Zoom, and VisualStudio live share.

Not to mention that COVID, even mild COVID, literally shrinks peoples' brains and inflames cardiac tissue.

I'm pretty sure that upper management just hates their wives and families, so they use the office as an escape. And they know that the office would be empty if lower level employees were given a choice to not come in, so they use their power to mandate that everyone comes in and keeps them company.