This is not my story. It happened to my cousin. So when she was hired in this new company – a billion dollar multinational company, she was told that she would get 1 year WFH in the beginning. Great. She accepted the offer. But 3 months in, her manager started to force her to come to office saying it was some miscommunication from HR side and all other team members have already started to come to office and so should she. He told her variety of reasons why WFH is not good for the company bla bla knowledge gaps bla bla. So she decides to quit bcz she can't move to another city. It was never her plan. She thought she will just work there for 1 year and then quit. But now she has to quit in 3 months
Now the day she calls her manager and told him she is quitting, it seemed like someone pulled the rug from under him. He begged her to stay, offered her to WFH as long as she likes. Suddenly there was no dire need to return to office. He assured her that there were no knowledge gaps and she should not feel guilty just because she cant come to office. But my cousin didn't agree bcz she has had enough of this. Apparently the work culture was toxic af. He gave her 3 day leave to think it through. Then after 3 days, she gets a text message from the highest official in her department. He said something along the lines of how short staffed they are and if one more person quits, they wont be able to manage the workload anymore. He begged her to reconsider and to not make excuses to quit. They are ready to accommodate any request from her. He gave her so many non monetary perks like working fewer hours, permanent WFH, gave her an assistant etc etc. He also promised her that she would get a hefty bonus next quarter.
Moral of the story – You dont know how much power you hold as an employee. One day, your employer is telling you to come to office asap and next morning he is telling you to stay home as long as you want. All of their whining about how WFH is destroying office culture is bullshit.
As for her, she decided to stay for another 3 months while actively job hunting and as soon as she finds another job, she will quit.