Our leaders loved AI. We were ordered to incorporate it into everything — Part 2 covers what that mandate did to a team simultaneously ordered back into hallway conversations no AI could hear. But the mandate had a second life inside our team, and it sounded like this: “We have a leadership meeting today where we need to show how we’re using AI. How can we shoehorn it into the process?”
Shoehorn. Nobody was asking how AI could improve the process. They were inserting it wherever it would be visible from upstairs and leaving the details for later. That is not leadership. That is throwing things at a wall to see what sticks.
Fine. I did what they asked. I incorporated it into everything. Including them.
The claim here is narrow, and it is not “the AI proves I was right.” It is this: leadership demanded that everyone trust this tool, and the tool, asked plain questions in good faith, returned answers that contradicted their entire operating strategy. The answers were sitting there the whole time, ten seconds away, inside software the company was already paying for. What follows are the questions and what came back.
Question 1: The Evidence for RTO
I asked for studies showing positive results from return-to-office mandates. The response, trimmed only for length:
The search results show predominantly negative findings… the empirical literature on RTO mandates shows remarkably limited evidence of positive outcomes, and most peer-reviewed studies document neutral or negative effects.
It kept going. Stanford’s research on hybrid arrangements — Nicholas Bloom’s work — found roughly a one-third reduction in turnover among hybrid workers compared to fully in-office teams. And where research does find benefits to being in person, the AI flagged the caveat itself: the University of Pittsburgh finding that face-to-face teams produce more breakthrough innovation compares teams that choose to work together, not teams under mandate. Its summary deserves quoting whole:
The scholarly consensus suggests that companies claiming positive RTO outcomes are typically not citing rigorous evidence. Where genuine benefits appear in research — innovation from in-person work, relationship-building, onboarding — they emerge in discretionary, flexible contexts, not under mandate.
Part 2 describes the theory our return was sold on. That is what the mandated tool says about the theory. I am keeping the caveats in because the caveats are the point: the tool was more careful with the evidence than the people who ordered us to trust it.
Question 2: The Commute Bill
I did not need the AI for this one. I needed a calculator.
We were required in the office four days a week, with one optional work-from-home day. My shortest commute in eleven years — Team Disney — was about twenty minutes each way. Forty minutes a day, four days a week, is 160 minutes: nearly three hours of my week, unpaid. At my rate of $70 an hour, that is roughly $200 a week. Call it ten thousand dollars a year. And that was the best case — the KP buildings could take an hour each way in rush-hour traffic, which multiplies the number. This counts time only. Gas, miles, and parking are extra; AAA prices the full cost of operating a car every year, and it is not small.
Return to office was a five-figure pay cut that never appeared on any pay stub. Leadership knew commutes cost something — everyone who has ever driven to work knows. They chose not to count it, and we were expected to absorb it without asking questions about the purpose, the effectiveness, or the readiness of the office it paid for.
Here is the killer: the ten thousand dollars bought nothing. If the office had at least made the job easier, you could squint and call it a trade. It made the job harder — Part 2 has the noise, the interruptions, the meetings that stayed on screens. So the bill was paid twice: once in commute time, and again in the productivity gap the office created, which the developers were expected to close on their own hours. We paid for the privilege of being made worse at our jobs, then donated the difference.
Question 3: The Checklist
I asked for the signs of incompetent technology leadership. It returned a long checklist, organized into categories. I will not quote all of it. Here are the items I did not have to imagine, because this series has already documented them:
Consistently sets unrealistic timelines without consulting engineering teams.
The rules engine dates, set by a promise instead of the work (Part 3).
Dismisses or argues with experienced engineers’ concerns rather than investigating them seriously.
Every one-on-one where I raised the requirements problem.
Blames external factors, tight timelines from above, or team incompetence when things fail — rarely takes ownership.
The money speech, delivered by the man who signed the bills.
Doesn’t create psychological safety for raising problems or disagreeing respectfully.
The happy hour. The write-up (Part 1).
High turnover among senior engineers and technical managers… team morale is visibly low; engineers seem cautious or disengaged in meetings.
The panic attacks. My own exit, after eleven years, without a thank-you.
The checklist ended with a scoring rule, and I will quote it exactly:
A few checkmarks might be normal variance; a pattern across multiple categories usually signals a real problem.
Question 4: The Ten-Second Answer
The last question was the one that mattered: how do you support a neurodivergent employee?
The answer came back organized and calm, as if it were the easiest question of the four. Be explicit — “written communication helps those who process better in text.” Predictability aids focus — “consistent meeting times, advance agendas, and warning about changes reduce cognitive load.” Minimize sensory overload — “offer flexibility on open offices, lighting, noise, or remote work options.” Frequent interruptions are especially draining, so protect deep work time. And formalize accommodations in writing, through HR, “so they’re consistent and not contingent on manager mood.”
Written communication. Advance agendas. Flexibility on the open office and remote work. Protection from interruptions. Read Part 1 and count the matches — that list is, nearly item for item, what I asked for and was denied. My director told me I was great at verbal communication. The write-up meeting came with no agenda and the wrong date. The open-office answer was a storage closet with no roof.
The answer was free. It took ten seconds. The company was already paying for the tool, and the tool was already in the building, being shoehorned into slide decks for the meeting upstairs.
The prompt box is still there, in the software they mandated. The cursor is blinking in the empty field. The question was never typed.
Further Reading
- Nicholas Bloom, Ruobing Han, and James Liang, Hybrid working from home improves retention without damaging performance (Nature, 2024) — the roughly one-third reduction in quit rates among hybrid workers
- Yiling Lin, Carl Benedikt Frey, and Lingfei Wu, Remote collaboration fuses fewer breakthrough ideas (Nature, 2023) — the in-person innovation finding, which compares chosen arrangements, not mandates
- AAA: New Vehicle Costs Drop to $11,577 (AAA Your Driving Costs, 2025) — what operating the car itself costs, before any of it is spent commuting
