‘Hard to put the toothpaste back in the tube’: Young workers resisting returning to office We’re sorry, this service is currently unavailable. Please try again later. Dismiss By Nelson D. Schwartz and Coral Murphy Marcos July 27, 2021 — 11.07am Normal text size Advertisement David Gross, an executive at a New York-based advertising agency, convened the troops over Zoom this month to deliver a message he and his fellow partners were eager to share: It was time to think about coming back to the office. Gross, 40, wasn’t sure how employees, many in their 20s and early 30s, would take it. The initial response — dead silence — wasn’t encouraging. Then one young man signalled he had a question. “Is the policy mandatory?” he wanted to know.