yes this is absolutely an excuse to discard dead weight. this is having your cake and eating it too, as far as a VERP is concerned, and I would do it too. do you think your managers weren't paying attention to your skype and teams status messages when we all went to wfh?? when teams took over, it became very obvious who was not working because you can't change the time that it puts you as "away" vs "active."
not only did you idiots ruin the possibility of more consistent wfh for everyone else with your "but muh children now at home!!" excuses that were bullshit (eg you were taking naps or jerking it in your office while lying about familly obligations).
we had something good, and the "old-timers" here fucked it up by not getting vaccinated and by fucking around when we were predominantly wfh. no wonder the company is looking for a chance to verp dumbasses without officially terming it as a verp. we potentially had a great thing with wfh, but management saw that nobody took it seriously, and now we are facing the reprocussions.