The 16 pings a minute. The 6 hours of meetings a day because people aren't getting the information they need organically each day. The "hey, can I call?"'s during what I thought would be my free half hour in the afternoon. This is definitely not what it was like in the office.
Unfortunately, I recognize this doesn't change unless an org goes 100% back onsite.
Why wouldn't it work with 2 or 3 unified days onsite and 2 or 3 days wfh, with a no-meetings, minimal-interruptions directive on wfh days? I think this structure, if well managed, would work even better than the old 5-days-in-office.
I agree that this would work, and be ideal. I think it only scales to a certain size organization though. At my company, I'd guess we have over a thousand developers across hundreds of teams, and more supporting staff. There's no possibility of getting everyone in at once.
You can't easily tell a coworker to go away when they start talking to you at your desk. You can mute your notifications and schedule calls. Sounds like you have bad organisation skills.
Unfortunately, I recognize this doesn't change unless an org goes 100% back onsite.