Where I work they are so fucking stupid they are making everyone go back to the office to 'foster collaboration' but all the seating is random - you sit somewhere new every day, first come first served. What useful tasks am I going to collaborate on with random people from all different parts of the company sitting around me each day? It shows that the executives are just fucking liars and aren't willing to tell the truth, which is that they need people spending money in the cities to help with their portfolios. Or they are just doing what everyone else is doing. Or they're just on a power trip. Or all of the above.

That really is one of the most ridiculous parts. Even if your team is local, a huuuge amount of interaction is spread across tbe globe.

A few months ago my director started discussions on return to office mandates. No one else really paid any attention.

I went in today and nobody is here, including my director. I don't think anyone thinks the commute is worth the value they're pitching.

I should have slept in an extra two hours.

Worst are the meetings of international work groups. Stressful travel, being away from the family for days, sitting in a shitty meeting room talking about the same shit you talk about online and then sitting with a bunch of people getting senseless drunk, cringing constantly. I hate those meetings.

Used to be so awesome during corona. Took 4-6 hours, comfortably sitting in my home office, now it takes 3 days costing maybe 50,000€, instead of 0€, without more results.

This is the right point to make... Instead of managing people by the work they do or the objectives they achieve, they are managing literally where their butts sit

So I've worked in business for 17ish years now, and the only consistent thing I can say about business leadership is they are there to have their egos stroked.

They do not care about money or other people until they look bad, and even then they don't do anything until someone threatens to take away the group of people forced to listen to them.

Working from home hurts their ego. This method (RTO) doesn't improve value and increases turnaround, which increases expenses if you are happy with the amount of people working for your company, as replacing people costs money.

So either Dell still needs to get rid of people, or a bunch of old fucks need someone to suck up to them in person.

They only care that it looks good to the out of touch, sociopathic management type

It's a way to cut headcount without doing layoffs. It's usually followed one or two quarters later by an actual layoff.

I will not work for a company that thinks it needs to babysit it's employees. The idea that you have to constantly micromanage someone is ridiculous, if they're that shit at their job, you let them go and get someone else for the role.

Many people chose a 'remote' role that requires no office visits but hamstrings your career growth. I know a bunch now enforcing 5PM as the end of their day. But there will always be happy worker bees.

Or making quality consumer products.

When I worked in the office I worked in a cubicle all on my own behind a support column and a potted plant that I put there specifically for the purpose of being unviewable by the idiot manager who wandered around and got in everyone's way.

Also now people don't randomly come and ask me questions about why the printer isn't working, or start sentences with "can you just", and "it will only take a moment".

I don't know if I'm more productive at home than when I was in the office, but I'm definitely not less productive. I would probably be more productive but there really isn't that much to do. My job is to basically sit around and be there, I'm ready to jump into action when everything breaks.

Dell more like Dull

Remote work is not right for ALL companies. Just ones that are completely or predominantly software-based.

Breakfast cereal manufacturing - hey. Someone's gotta be there to close up all the boxes.

I forget - does Dell make breakfast cereal?

Love it when the logical excuse is the Sunk Cost Fallacy.

Though I think there's some truth - companies still pay employees for their WFH rigs / utilities (or they should be, anyway), so it's not exactly free for them to have WFH (just a lot cheaper, if there's a choice).

The logical excuse I buy into is that commercial real estate is valued on it's income and if business aren't renewing leases because they don't need office space, then commercial real estate values tank. That and thinly veiled layoffs.

A large portion of most rich peoples investment portfolios is commercial real estate.

So if remote work takes off then offices devalue and their invest profiles diminish. That's why all the big business have colluded to force RTO, even if it would ostensibly cost their business more to do so. The execs personal savings are more important.

It's just pieces of flair. Brian, for example, has thirty seven pieces of flair, okay.

Folks, has corporate culture become a cancer on society?

Become?