It got so bad that I had to record the screen, showing my manager the absurd CPU usage, and input lag using VS-Code (type a letter see it appear 3 seconds later).

After a week of that, I basically had to send an email saying "either the security stuff you installed works, or I can work, but both will not work at the same time"

I get it we need to protect the network, but you don't do that by making sure that everybody is out looking for a way to do an end run around your virus scan and audit software.

I would love to know how much power is used just to run so called security software.