I'm not one to stan for mac because I'd rather just use Linux, but there's a little dot under the icon in the dock if the application is open (windows has a line which is definitely more visible), and you can change the size of the dock. I make it as small as possible and have it grow big when hovering. You can also put it on any side, doesn't have to be the bottom, or horizontal, and it can be hidden so it doesn't take any space unless you mouse over the edge. I think the top bar can work like that too. I hate having things pop up so I don't do that, I just try to minimize the resting screen space used. With my settings it takes up about as much space as the windows task bar.

You can also fullscreen apps and use multi desktop if you really need all your screen space. The laptop work gave me has a notch for the webcam so the os reserves space at at the top for fullscreen as well otherwise apps would be getting part of it cut off (i.e., search bar on slack), but it's 16:10 so whatever.

That being said... let it out bro, I get red in the face any time I have to use MS office products for work lmao