I sit in this for about an hour every day, to go into an office where I don’t interact with a single person.

This is most RTO. It has absolutely nothing to do with being more efficient or productive. It’s about five things:

1) Demonstration of power

2) MBA idiocy (see above)

3) Commercial Real Estate

4) Extrovert social bailout

5) Taking up more time of employee lives so they have less free time to explore other options

That’s all it is.