Its partly tradition, power displays, and disbelief. People who've been managers for decades somehow believe that being in the office is the only true way to do work because that's how it's always been done. Then you have some managers who will always get off on the fact that they can hold people's ability to feed themselves hostage to make them do what they want. Lastly, some managers just don't believe you can be productive at home. After all, all the not work things are there.
When was the last time you saw someone with Polio? Or someone die of sepsis?
Update: My point about sepsis isn't that it is gone, But that we've gone from hearing about it still being a thing from knowing someone who it was a thing for. As far as polio is concerned I'm 39 years old currently. While polio wasn't around while I was a child my aunt's uncle's parents knew someone who had polio while they were growing up. Friends of the family who were adults knew someone who had polio while they were growing up. That's mostly what I mean, We went from knowing someone first or second hand who suffered from all kinds of ailments to only hearing about it because there's a small amount of it.
