For real, if your position doesn’t require you to be in the office to function and if you don’t want to be in the office, then it should be remote.
I wish they’d let more people work remote. The traffic keeps getting worse with these RTO orders.
Theroughside on
Unionize Now!
wine_and_dying on
In late 2016 when I was exclusively on calls with people outside the office, and in most cases the country, I challenged why I needed to be there.
The culture, they said. If I didn’t come to the office I wouldn’t be part of the office culture.
I packed my shit and left. Nobody noticed for years until an unexpected visit from the CISO looking for me cause a huge fuss. I moved companies shortly after and am full remote since.
Ancalimei on
But how else will corporations validate their real estate investments?! And their tax breaks from the city!!!!
/s
OkPlum7852 on
We’re not going back
old_skul on
As if the reason for 5-day RTO is better efficiency.
No, the fact of the matter is, attrition has slowed in the labor market – meaning people are sticking around at their jobs. 5-day RTO is a way to jumpstart attrition. Attrition is part of a company’s payroll budget – and when it slows, companies are paying more for employees than they expected to. That looks bad on the balancer sheet.
Telling people to return to office 5 days a week is a simple, easy way to get more people to quit. A layoff not only looks bad to shareholders, but it also costs more – in the USA, employers have to pay unemployement benefit insurance premiums that go up when they lay people off. If someone quits, they do not run this risk.
It’s numbers, plain and simple.
Weeksy79 on
After two years doing two days at home, I tried doing five days in the office recently due to losing my home office space.
It’s PROPERLY difficult, I have been quite miserable.
My workplace is perfectly fine, air conditioned, modern, clean, etc. but my brain just knows there’s a better way.
AstronautGuy42 on
Remote is a win for everyone.
Companies save on office space and office infrastructure.
Employees get better flexibility and quality of life, lower commuting costs.
At scale, much lower carbon emissions from reduced commuting, and less traffic and public transit congestion.
LaughingOgreWargamin on
I just turned down a government job that really wanted me due to my particular work history but wanted me in the office 5 days a week..to do laptop and phone work. Didn’t help that when I went to interview they said 2/3 of the people were out of the office with covid 🙄
beehive3108 on
I see those $20 sandwiches are not getting sold during lunch in downtowns.
zavhwfnhschjikgasbvf on
Anyone else notice the pattern where the companies with the worst products are leading the way for RTO?
Their love for RTO is just another symptom of a shit company culture.
D0_stack on
The “number of people preferring to learn from youtube” is useless without some qualification as to the skill level being taught. Youtube is full of beginner tutorials, but not so much advanced technical knowledge.
must_kill_all_humans on
Forget five days a week at the office. Forget five days a week of work period
FIRSTFREED0CELL on
I am retired now, but 20 years ago I carved out a corner of the actual datacenter floor and set up there. Because of the nature of our environment, a LOT of hands on was required – every day. I still had a cubical with everyone else, but I was never there. I even got our telecom guy to have my phone number ring both places simultaneously. If someone wanted to see me in person, they had to go to the end of the building, card in if they were allowed to, and go around all the racks of equipment to find me. I had a separate PC not on the network where I connected a portable hard drive from home with Star Trek episodes, DS9, X-files, SG:SG1, etc and headphones.
StatusFortyFive on
The fact you can work 1 day remote just acknowledges that you can do your job remotely in the first place. Remote work isn’t a bargaining chip or a reward, stop letting them treat it that way and don’t bend over.
jlusedude on
I’m dealing with this as we speak. My company just changed to three days a week and my commute is now an hour and a half each way. It’s only 28 miles. I am looking for new work. 3 years remote and they pull this. I’ve done all my work and been very collaborative so the claim that this is further collaboration. Forget that.
InadequateAvacado on
Pshh, forget any days in the office. I will never work for another company that won’t let me be 100% remote. I’ve never been more productive or happy with my work even when it sucks.
InternetArtisan on
I agree with the sentiment of the article, but I feel like he’s just preaching to the choir. I think executives who encounter such an article are going to roll their eyes and simply take the belief that anyone that thinks like the author should just quit, claiming they are “not dedicated to their careers”.
If you ask me, the big way people need to fight is through capitalism and politics. Start pressing on your local politicians to stop giving out massive tax breaks to companies to come to the downtown. Press on them to give out tax breaks to landlords that convert office space into residential space, especially if it’s affordable.
Unless it’s some local mom and pop shop in your downtown, stop spending money downtown. Don’t go to Starbucks, don’t go out to get lunch, don’t go out for drinks or dinner, and basically take away this idea that a downtown full of workers is going to make the local economy thrive. Spend that money in your neighborhood.
And yeah, when the economy is good and there’s plenty of jobs, leave. Start denying these companies your skills, and also press on federal politicians not to give them H-1B visas. Basically put them in a spot where they either can hire and train Americans, and deal with the fact they might have to let them work remotely, or they can pack up and leave the country and face tariffs which will destroy the demand for their products.
Obviously it sounds like a pipe dream, because I’m sure there’s still too many out there that think everybody should be in the office and that making Wall Street happy is more important than making people happy. Still, that to me is the way you fight this RTO thing. Start making it cost them more money to have everyone in the office then to not.
ikonet on
I’ve worked from home since the 1990s. This new outrage is fantasy nonsense made up by micromanagers and salesmen with too much power.
KillBoxOne on
I think in-person collaboration is important and necessary. I agree with Jassy’s logic. I have personally seen it. But those benefits do NOT require in the office EVERYDAY. There are periods were in-person, face-to-face create value that could never be matched by remote. But, again, not everyday.
The idea of Amazon adopting a startup culture is just bullshit. There are too many explicit and implicit forces at work. Success is its own curse in many ways. There is a book called “The Innovator’s Dilemma” that talks of the phenomenon of a existing company being precluded from innovation by its existing customers. I remember asking the President of Microsoft Canada about innovation (this during MBA school) and he gave an interesting reply. He said that when you have a multi-billion dollar franchise like MS Office, You actually have to protect AGAINST innovate ideas because you never want to kill multi-million dollar revenue streams. The point is, Amazon is in “protect the golden eggs mode” the days of breaking eggs are over.
The_Human_Event on
I work from home 4 days a week. That one day in the office is hell. I sincerely think I’d lose my mind if I had to go back 5 days a week. The idea makes me cringe.
baccus83 on
I work for a global company and half my team lives in Bangalore, London and Belfast. All our meetings need to be Zoom anyway. We have to be in the office two days a week, which is fine. But it would make absolutely no sense to move back to five.
Millennial_Man on
I really hope new companies take this opportunity to offer more flexible work schedules and office requirements. It would be an easy way to attract new personnel, plus it would reduce overhead. It just makes sense.
44moore on
the level of softness in this thread is just off the chart, you want companies to pay you for 40+ hours a week, where you probably do 25 hours worth of work, while spending literally 0 time with any of these people that pay you this money, i truly don’t get how you have this mindset
24 Comments
For real, if your position doesn’t require you to be in the office to function and if you don’t want to be in the office, then it should be remote.
I wish they’d let more people work remote. The traffic keeps getting worse with these RTO orders.
Unionize Now!
In late 2016 when I was exclusively on calls with people outside the office, and in most cases the country, I challenged why I needed to be there.
The culture, they said. If I didn’t come to the office I wouldn’t be part of the office culture.
I packed my shit and left. Nobody noticed for years until an unexpected visit from the CISO looking for me cause a huge fuss. I moved companies shortly after and am full remote since.
But how else will corporations validate their real estate investments?! And their tax breaks from the city!!!!
/s
We’re not going back
As if the reason for 5-day RTO is better efficiency.
No, the fact of the matter is, attrition has slowed in the labor market – meaning people are sticking around at their jobs. 5-day RTO is a way to jumpstart attrition. Attrition is part of a company’s payroll budget – and when it slows, companies are paying more for employees than they expected to. That looks bad on the balancer sheet.
Telling people to return to office 5 days a week is a simple, easy way to get more people to quit. A layoff not only looks bad to shareholders, but it also costs more – in the USA, employers have to pay unemployement benefit insurance premiums that go up when they lay people off. If someone quits, they do not run this risk.
It’s numbers, plain and simple.
After two years doing two days at home, I tried doing five days in the office recently due to losing my home office space.
It’s PROPERLY difficult, I have been quite miserable.
My workplace is perfectly fine, air conditioned, modern, clean, etc. but my brain just knows there’s a better way.
Remote is a win for everyone.
Companies save on office space and office infrastructure.
Employees get better flexibility and quality of life, lower commuting costs.
At scale, much lower carbon emissions from reduced commuting, and less traffic and public transit congestion.
I just turned down a government job that really wanted me due to my particular work history but wanted me in the office 5 days a week..to do laptop and phone work. Didn’t help that when I went to interview they said 2/3 of the people were out of the office with covid 🙄
I see those $20 sandwiches are not getting sold during lunch in downtowns.
Anyone else notice the pattern where the companies with the worst products are leading the way for RTO?
Their love for RTO is just another symptom of a shit company culture.
The “number of people preferring to learn from youtube” is useless without some qualification as to the skill level being taught. Youtube is full of beginner tutorials, but not so much advanced technical knowledge.
Forget five days a week at the office. Forget five days a week of work period
I am retired now, but 20 years ago I carved out a corner of the actual datacenter floor and set up there. Because of the nature of our environment, a LOT of hands on was required – every day. I still had a cubical with everyone else, but I was never there. I even got our telecom guy to have my phone number ring both places simultaneously. If someone wanted to see me in person, they had to go to the end of the building, card in if they were allowed to, and go around all the racks of equipment to find me. I had a separate PC not on the network where I connected a portable hard drive from home with Star Trek episodes, DS9, X-files, SG:SG1, etc and headphones.
The fact you can work 1 day remote just acknowledges that you can do your job remotely in the first place. Remote work isn’t a bargaining chip or a reward, stop letting them treat it that way and don’t bend over.
I’m dealing with this as we speak. My company just changed to three days a week and my commute is now an hour and a half each way. It’s only 28 miles. I am looking for new work. 3 years remote and they pull this. I’ve done all my work and been very collaborative so the claim that this is further collaboration. Forget that.
Pshh, forget any days in the office. I will never work for another company that won’t let me be 100% remote. I’ve never been more productive or happy with my work even when it sucks.
I agree with the sentiment of the article, but I feel like he’s just preaching to the choir. I think executives who encounter such an article are going to roll their eyes and simply take the belief that anyone that thinks like the author should just quit, claiming they are “not dedicated to their careers”.
If you ask me, the big way people need to fight is through capitalism and politics. Start pressing on your local politicians to stop giving out massive tax breaks to companies to come to the downtown. Press on them to give out tax breaks to landlords that convert office space into residential space, especially if it’s affordable.
Unless it’s some local mom and pop shop in your downtown, stop spending money downtown. Don’t go to Starbucks, don’t go out to get lunch, don’t go out for drinks or dinner, and basically take away this idea that a downtown full of workers is going to make the local economy thrive. Spend that money in your neighborhood.
And yeah, when the economy is good and there’s plenty of jobs, leave. Start denying these companies your skills, and also press on federal politicians not to give them H-1B visas. Basically put them in a spot where they either can hire and train Americans, and deal with the fact they might have to let them work remotely, or they can pack up and leave the country and face tariffs which will destroy the demand for their products.
Obviously it sounds like a pipe dream, because I’m sure there’s still too many out there that think everybody should be in the office and that making Wall Street happy is more important than making people happy. Still, that to me is the way you fight this RTO thing. Start making it cost them more money to have everyone in the office then to not.
I’ve worked from home since the 1990s. This new outrage is fantasy nonsense made up by micromanagers and salesmen with too much power.
I think in-person collaboration is important and necessary. I agree with Jassy’s logic. I have personally seen it. But those benefits do NOT require in the office EVERYDAY. There are periods were in-person, face-to-face create value that could never be matched by remote. But, again, not everyday.
The idea of Amazon adopting a startup culture is just bullshit. There are too many explicit and implicit forces at work. Success is its own curse in many ways. There is a book called “The Innovator’s Dilemma” that talks of the phenomenon of a existing company being precluded from innovation by its existing customers. I remember asking the President of Microsoft Canada about innovation (this during MBA school) and he gave an interesting reply. He said that when you have a multi-billion dollar franchise like MS Office, You actually have to protect AGAINST innovate ideas because you never want to kill multi-million dollar revenue streams. The point is, Amazon is in “protect the golden eggs mode” the days of breaking eggs are over.
I work from home 4 days a week. That one day in the office is hell. I sincerely think I’d lose my mind if I had to go back 5 days a week. The idea makes me cringe.
I work for a global company and half my team lives in Bangalore, London and Belfast. All our meetings need to be Zoom anyway. We have to be in the office two days a week, which is fine. But it would make absolutely no sense to move back to five.
I really hope new companies take this opportunity to offer more flexible work schedules and office requirements. It would be an easy way to attract new personnel, plus it would reduce overhead. It just makes sense.
the level of softness in this thread is just off the chart, you want companies to pay you for 40+ hours a week, where you probably do 25 hours worth of work, while spending literally 0 time with any of these people that pay you this money, i truly don’t get how you have this mindset