Basically the title.
Our office set up a welcome back breakfast (more like light snacks) for being back to the office. Our chief HR spoke and thanked us for the two years of hard work we did at home. She pointed our direction to the posters of news article snippets posted on the walls of our achievements during the past two years.
She went on and said how our department did astronomical work during the 2 years of pandemic and how we boosted our output despite the challenge of being home.
All the poster did was justify why we need to work from home. All those astronomical achievements we did happened at home and not in the office. We did it because it was necessary. I can't believe how blinded our organization is by our achievements working from home and rewarded us by coming back 9 (+1 hour lunch) hours a day, 5 days a week in the office. The breakfast was a 'motivator' for being back in the office, but I saw it more as a poor bribe to have us back in the office. They said they will try to have more office celebrations such as this so that we can have more time to have fun. Being in the office 8 hours a day will never be fun. Moral is low because no one wants to be here. Their effort to boost moral will never be effective if we aren't even offered hybrid options.
If they truly appreciated our hard work, we should be at home. I need a better place of employment who truly rewards it's employees by giving us freedom where we want to work.