I'm not sure if it differs by industry, but my job as a secretary for a prison is seriously a huge waste of gas to travel to and a waste of office space. My institution has a warden who has a control issue and will not entertain the idea of working from home for administrative staff (obv not talking about correctional officers). Everything at my job is heavily paper-based and a waste of so much paper when we could 100% use Teams, Zoom, digital signatures, electronic files, etc.
All I do is answer the phones, send emails, and take paperwork from my department and literally walk it down the hall to another department, and schedule meetings for my bosses. All day. Things that can all be done remotely. I drive 40 minutes to and from and I feel every day how unnecessary it is to drive to work and sit at a desk doing absolutely nothing for 90% of the day.
Here's the kicker. I've tried bringing books to read, coloring books to draw, I even enrolled in a few online courses to learn new things. Got told each time from my boss I'm not allowed to do any of that while at my desk. So they literally want me to stare at my computer reading the same emails for 6-7 hours a day.
What gives??