One more quick comment (I'm the original poster). Yesterday during a meeting, my manager openly made a comment that we needed to have all of our documentation updated by Thursday (tomorrow) because next week "Management is meeting to look through the metrics and time tracking, and will see who is busy and who is not."
I think everyone on the call just about messed their pants when he said it. Couple that with my comments in the original post, and I think the rumors of the first week of December are starting to fall in line.
Of course the joke is that all of the data in the time tracking tools is garbage - entered by the very employees that you are pushing to look busy.
This is in the US, Data Platform Team for those that keep asking.