I think the reason people get angry about it is that it feels like an asymmetric ask. It feels a bit like saying "everyone needs to come I to the office because I like there to be people in the office, regardless of whether that's what they want." (not saying that's what you're saying here, just trying to shine some light on how it may be perceived)

On top of that, it seems the WFO crowd simply can't help exploiting it to their advantage once they are there. They get less work done, but they hoard higher level decisions about what work should be done. They will say "oh we had this corridor conversation and decided X and Y", and then they will even present the fact that happened as compelling evidence that everyone should work in the office. Whereas I see it as evidence of dysfunction - you want to make a decision you get all the stakeholders in the room and you ensure it's transcribed / recorded. Basically an online meeting is the ideal form of it.

To us, those hall conversations are normal parts of humanity that cut through organizational bullshit and build personal trust.

Oh I get it, I was an early adopter and advocate for working from home. Hell, it was my job to write code to help tens of thousands of people work from home when the pandemic started. I gladly did it, assuming they would all enjoy it as much as I did at the time. But I was only 6 years into it at that point, it was barely a walk in the park.

"I got on pickpocketed on my last vacation, so now I travel with an old backup phone instead"

i am familiar with a number of the security team personnel, so i can give you the inside perspective.

the reaction you provoke at a border crossing, or an LEO encounter is almost entirely based on what profile you fit.

the vehicle, the state/contents of the vehicle, what you say, even how you move, are being evaluated for consistency with a profile.

This reads so vague it does not add anything beyond what 2 minutes of common sense thinking can produce.

I think it would work. It's plausible enough. It doesn't have to be the most common answer to be accepted.

Well but the point goes beyond “do they let you through.” All of this goes past the here and now. It’s about getting flagged in some system that causes you to get picked out 3 stops down the line when these odd occurrences add up to you not being trustworthy based on your profile history.

That kind of history is already being collected about people. That’s what you should be worried about when it comes to engineering some scheme that sounds clever.