Others said their local offices had closed since the pandemic

This part is wild. So they closed down the office and then punish the employees for not coming into the office. Tell me this is illegal.

Just pick hybrid and fake the system that tracks you. Probably not super hard to trick it.

What happens if you refuse both options?

There's a pretty good chance that every employee facing this offer is in a position where Dell sees them as replaceable. They want people who follow orders and not much more, so if you want to look at it through that filter Dell got what they wanted.

Unless somebody over there at the top is crazy, Dell would have had individual deals with the true innovators, decision makers, movers and shakers internally who are viewed as top tier and irreplaceable.