PSA: If your employer is forcing a return to the office and you’d rather quit, DO NOT QUIT. They are trying to save money by not doing layoffs. Make them fire you instead and make their pockets hurt.

In general, if you don't have another job lined up, don't quit, make them fire you instead

Lots of places will give you unemployment benfits for being fired, but not if you quit

If they require you to go back to the office, and you don't, they'd be able to fire you and not have to pay unemployment.
- Yeah, you need to get fired for underperforming, not refusing to comply with "reasonable" requests. If they have a metric, fail it. When they ask why you're failing it, tell them you're doing your best and dodge the question or lie. Then agree to do whatever it is they request you to do to fix it, then fail the metric in a new way. Be generally unpleasant to deal with but not confrontational or openly provocative. Be polite, be compliant, be a pain in the ass.
  If there are inconvenient rules they prefer you use discretion to enforce, show a lack of proper discretion in a way tht makes more work for your boss, but nevet let them know for sure that you're doing it out of spite.
  Also, never sign anything on the way out. They can't make you sign anything. Just keep a copy of the document.
  The exception might be severance pay, but only if that severance is better than your full unemployment and doesn't fuck you over in some other way (historically, this was a great way to tack on a non-compete you didn't sign when you took the job)
Bump

Firing people is also an awkward and deeply uncomfortable experience that all but the most depraved of psycopaths would rather avoid at all costs. At least in corporate settings you can probably coast on shit performance for at least a year or two before getting the boot. Most big HR departments also have performance improvement plans they put people on when they're teed up to get fired, as a CYA against wrongful termination lawsuits (see, your honor, we tried!). So there's a couple of latches there that have to be opened before the trap door swings out

Love a good PIP

But wouldn't that be considered insubordination or misconduct, and thus, make you not eligible for unemployment?

It depends on where you are, contracts, etc. But if you can do the bare minimum to not get fired, that’s what you should be doing anyway, and they might even fire you for that.
They might make something else up, but you can fairly easily fight something like that and get what you are owed (eventually)
To my knowledge, not having transportation to work is a valid reason to collect unemployment. If the office you're suppose to report to is an unreasonable distance from your house, I think that should work
Sometimes making large changes to your working conditions and role are considered a soft form of firing. It either is, or is in the neighborhood of, constructive dismissal. It really depends on how friendly your state is to labor, though.

Antiwork losers really did a solid for the bosses.

You can also look into your local laws for constructive dismissal.

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