India, May 12 -- A middle manager is facing a unique corporate standoff after a senior employee flatly refused to follow a new Return-To-Office (RTO) mandate. Despite the manager successfully negotiating the requirement down from three days to two, one staffer is holding out, claiming that the commute, even though it's only five minutes, takes away precious time from her mounting workload. The situation has left the manager in a bind: while he secretly agrees that the work can be done from home, he is now tasked with enforcing a policy from upper management that his team member is simply ignoring until things get "less busy."

"Company is mandating RTO, but one employee is refusing and says 'I'll come in once things are less busy.' What d...