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The latest get your ass back in the office story: AT&T


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14 minutes ago, Js1 said:

But you have no problem having an opinion about everyone else. 

Everybody has an opinion man.  That's sort of the point of being on a place like this where we, you know, share them.  If you are self employed working on whatever your business generates you owe nobody anything. Since you are not you owe your employer something, though it isn't my place to judge.  Just because someone isn't the ultimate arbitrar of whether your contribution justifies employment doesn't mean they can't have an opinion.  I truly have no idea what your value is to your employer, if you are a model employee or just skating by, how would I?  I was just saying for me- I don't have to do that self examination.  My reflection is all centered around- did I plant enough seeds and do enough stuff to earn a living that I've taken care of my responsibility as a provider to my wife and 3 kids... 

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In seriousness…my boss is in Boston, his boss in Ireland.  One Director in Chicago, a peer in Idaho, bunch of folks in India/Ireland/etc.  

My office has been turned into a hotel-cube farm, with zero personal space.  There’s no real dining facility.  It’s a 30 minute drive for me to get there.  Last few times I’ve been in for strategy sessions, half are wearing pajamas with the other half in suits.  

You can argue I’m a seasoned employee who has met, in person, a lot of the folks I lean on thus no real need to network…but I’ve actually never met my leadership chain in person and just got a stellar performance review.  My work speaks for me.  Company had a monster couple years in 2021/2022, and WFH was a boon as we recruited talent all over.

This all reeks of (for my employer at least) of an attempt to attrit the workforce voluntarily, prop up the value of the commercial RE, and of states taxation pressure.  

Perhaps, as usual, the answer is companies short sited profit seeking and trying to squeeze blood from a stone.  If you don’t deliver quality work and won’t respond to warnings, then you deserve discipline/firing…otherwise, fuck off.  

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2 hours ago, Wulaw Horn said:

Serious question- why aren't they just working in the middle of the night to fit into our time schedule.  If you are going to move the job to India b/c it pays $1.50 per hour go all the way and pay $2.00 an hour but require them to work 9-5 East coast time or whatever.  

We tried to get our indian offshore team to do this years ago. Every fucking day was some new excuse why they were hours late or couldn't come in at all. Evidently, the area where they all live is like The Purge every single day and so dangerous at night that no one leaves their house.

So after about a month of that shit, we just put them back on their normal schedule.

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What difference does a difference make?

They drove this into our heads years ago with regard to DE&I.

i apply it to the now culture, as well.  WGAF as long as you get results?  I sure fucking dont.

I admittedly never worked remote, but don't have an issue with others who do.

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1 hour ago, rage-a-holic said:

We tried to get our indian offshore team to do this years ago. Every fucking day was some new excuse why they were hours late or couldn't come in at all. Evidently, the area where they all live is like The Purge every single day and so dangerous at night that no one leaves their house.

So after about a month of that shit, we just put them back on their normal schedule.

Yea we have this issue with most of our dev team in India as well. I don’t mind it usually but god damn emergency API issues at 730am suck ass

Just now, gmr548 said:

Mad Max Reaction GIF

Yep very dumb

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3 minutes ago, Zepol87 said:

Yep very dumb

Some of the DE&I initiatives?  Absolfuckinglutely.

Results driven business?  Of course not.

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4 hours ago, rage-a-holic said:

I don't have to, I've been working remotely 100% for 10 years and that is unlikely to change.

Like everywhere else, during Covid most of our office worked from home. My department was exclusively working in federal courts around the country, and as they were not shut down, I went in every day.  Our good employees worked hard from home. Our non-exceptional employees did not get as much work done as they did in the office, as there was nobody to watch them fucking off.  In a perfect world every employee would be an exceptional employee. But this is not a perfect world, and the reality is our firm of necessity had to hire adequate-when-supervised, but not disciplined WFH employees.  

Long story short, none of our employees work from home anymore. While some do not appreciate it, the people who own our building - and the breakfast and lunch and dry cleaning places around us - are ecstatic we are back.   The economic ripple across the pond is not as profound when you stay at home in your boxers, looking at a computer.  When you go out to lunch at work and on the way stop by and get your watch serviced - or buy a new shirt or some other encounter you might not do at home - many people are benefited.  

My department decided to buy lunch every day from one place during the shutdown, and he later told us he could not have survived without us.  

Just one experience. If it were my choice good employees who wanted to could work from home.  If they slacked off they would have to return. Some people just do not have discipline - or some have a home environment that is less than optimal for WFH.    For those folks working at the office is the only viable option.  Too many factors to make definitive statements on what is “right” for everyone.  

OnlyFans is the exception. 

 

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I've been trying to train a guy for 4 months who has never worked remote before. I have to be on his ass constantly or he won't do a damn thing.

Unable to contact him for hours at a time and it's always some excuse about a child this or that

This is his last week. Would have happened sooner but it takes a ton of documentation.

The other 3 I trained remotely have no issues. 

It's not for everyone.

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4 hours ago, Laxtonto said:

What the biggest issue I see right now is if you can work from home to do your job, then why am I even employing you and instead just outsourcing your position elsewhere globally? If the IT infrastructure costs have to be there to continue to facilitate massive remote employment, there is no difference between Durham NC and Delhi. As we see a continued need to reduce overhead costs why not outsource these remote jobs that are noncritical to the company? As US labor, raw goods, and manufacturing costs continue to rise, why not outsource the jobs that can rely on a purely virtual or digital transmission environment as we now have to account for increased costs as we try to reduce the scope of the supply chain to a more local or regional footprint?

You sound like the type of guy to load a company down with shortsighted technical debt to meet a nearterm financial goal at the cost of long-term product viability and sustainable growth. Have you ever tried working with or integrating work product from overshoes teams? Do you really think there's no inherent differentiator between the American education and professional system vs overseas educated and trained folks? 

Is your business actually creating anything of value, or are you just blindly trying to make a line on a chart go up? Because if you're trying to make something that actually works and is useful long-term, I can tell you from experience that business partners lacking ownership in the way you describe is a surefire recipie for a messy and over budget and embarrassing failure. But it'll look nice this quarter at least!

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5 minutes ago, Captainant said:

You sound like the type of guy to load a company down with shortsighted technical debt to meet a nearterm financial goal at the cost of long-term product viability and sustainable growth. Have you ever tried working with or integrating work product from overshoes teams? Do you really think there's no inherent differentiator between the American education and professional system vs overseas educated and trained folks? 

Is your business actually creating anything of value, or are you just blindly trying to make a line on a chart go up? Because if you're trying to make something that actually works and is useful long-term, I can tell you from experience that business partners lacking ownership in the way you describe is a surefire recipie for a messy and over budget and embarrassing failure. But it'll look nice this quarter at least!

The dude has fart breath. Blows fucking hot air out his mouth with no substance.

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5 hours ago, Laxtonto said:

Funny enough, Meta and Amazon both discussed how work from home had a significant impact on the overall productivity of new hires and current employees. One of my doc students is finishing his dissertation on the impacts of social media "addiction" in the workplace, and it follows along the same concerns. People as a whole are idiots and need more supervision than what remote work really can provide. Some people are great at remote work, but many are not. Pre-pandemic, WFH made sense in a case by case basis. This one size fits all concept is a foolish oversimplification that is just the standard gross overreaction to the pandemic and now we are seeing a major course correction back to a more functional idea of how to approach it.

What the biggest issue I see right now is if you can work from home to do your job, then why am I even employing you and instead just outsourcing your position elsewhere globally? If the IT infrastructure costs have to be there to continue to facilitate massive remote employment, there is no difference between Durham NC and Delhi. As we see a continued need to reduce overhead costs why not outsource these remote jobs that are noncritical to the company? As US labor, raw goods, and manufacturing costs continue to rise, why not outsource the jobs that can rely on a purely virtual or digital transmission environment as we now have to account for increased costs as we try to reduce the scope of the supply chain to a more local or regional footprint?

The problem with the "world is flat" phenomenon now is that if that is the case, we are now dealing with how much productivity can I get globally at what costs, and many can hire a vast number of lesser efficient employees elsewhere in bulk and still come up significantly ahead. If we are going to make the work virtual, then now I am no longer limited to a talent base and salary structure in the US or my region but instead globally. In that space, the everyday US worker will not be able to compete in a $$ per output scenario vs many other locales.

While I agree that quality of life is important for everyone, that cant come at the cost of productivity because all it does is incentivize the business to just outsource the position that is currently WFH globally.

Laughing my absolute motherfucking ass off at the idea that “there is no difference between Durham, NC and New Delhi”.  Holy shit.

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24 minutes ago, Patricio Swayze said:

I bet the overlap on a Venn diagram of people who think everyone should work onsite because of productivity basically eclipses the circle for the kind of people incessantly brag/complain about how much work they have. How much overtime they are doing. How they worked the weekend.

There's a 3rd circle that overlaps as well... Executive leadership stuck in the past.

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23 minutes ago, Patricio Swayze said:

I bet the overlap on a Venn diagram of people who think everyone should work onsite because of productivity basically eclipses the circle for the kind of people incessantly brag/complain about how much work they have. How much overtime they are doing. How they worked the weekend.

Yep. For many their job is their identity. 

Especially in the public sector where the staff are generally older.

There were some people at the office who I swear their only job was "social organizer".  If you wanted to advance you had to show up at every bullshit pot luck, birthday, or retirement party.

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5 hours ago, immamac said:

I have been Remote (not WFH, those are different) for a while now, like way before it was "cool".

I think the problem is people are using those terms interchangeably and it needs to stop. WFH should never be a thing, and if it is a thing it needs to be under circumstances that warrant it (aka limited productivity acceptable in lieu of a full sick day/absence day if your kid is home from school or something like that or you know a global fucking pandemic where you can't go to professional working spaces).

Remote employees are expected to work their shift just like anyone else, they have equipment they use just like everyone else, they work in professional environments with their cameras and microphones always able to be on and can be attentive as if they were in the office, but they just aren't, they even have collaborative time or tools with everyone else. Remote employees are also entitled to "log off" outside of their shift and/or pre-defined hours as a part of the professional contract with the organization. There is no "I'm just gonna fuck off early" just like there's no "You are required to stay late". 

WFH employees are often distracted, constantly doing things in or around the home unrelated to work, do not have tools or professional setups, do not have always on access and/or camera's off/are on mute constantly, they take calls from noisy and unprofessional locations (not as in messy, as in not in a professional setting with other people working like a coworking space) They think WFH means "I can work whenever I want as long as I get my shit done" and that's not what it means. 

The WFH experience is over, the Remote work experience is not. I work for a Fortune 500 company and had to sign a Remote Worker Agreement - none of the people bitching about RTO signed that shit and none of them have even close to as professional of a setup as I have at home. They take calls from their bedrooms, their kitchens, their patios, etc.

Fuck off with your entitled bullshit about being able to WFH. I spent 5 figures on making a true professional workspace that is outside of my home, but still on my property to minimize the amount of distractions and maximize my level of productivity and professionalism. I am actually officially entitled to that, just like my company is officially entitled to my dedicated attention and investment in making my workspace that level of professional. 

Get your asses back into the office or sign a RWA + Set your shit up somewhere that isn't your "guest bedroom" and is a legitimate office that the IRS would not balk at as a home office.

I didn't realize only fans is a fortune 500 company.

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2 hours ago, txduck87 said:

I retired 2 years ago and haven’t missed work at all. If I EVER have an inkling to go back to work, which I won’t, I’m going to read this thread. Jesus what a grind. Hang in there all.

Motherfuck.  I am there but I don’t know how to close the deal.  I feel guilty as shit that I’m leaving all the people I’ve hired out there.  I’m down to under a year until it’s official.  And yes I’m full time remote.  I can’t believe the people who made it work through the past 3 years are now being told it doesn’t work.  

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2 hours ago, Patricio Swayze said:

I bet the overlap on a Venn diagram of people who think everyone should work onsite because of productivity basically eclipses the circle for the kind of people incessantly brag/complain about how much work they have. How much overtime they are doing. How they worked the weekend.

Yep. My Sr director is this type. It’s the only way those types prove their worth. It’s sad and I had change my thinking up last year because I was falling for this shit 

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8 hours ago, Wulaw Horn said:

Yeah, all of this.  If everyone works from home then everyone is bidding to be part of the same labor pool and now you are competing against 3B people in the fee and connected world rather than whatever schlub lives in the same town as you for every job. That's not a competition that the American worker is going to win very often as our expectation of pay and french benefits are way higher than almost everywhere else in the world.  WFH would have killed the middle class white collar type in America.  I still think it does die eventually.

French Hello GIF by WWE

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10 hours ago, FartingMonk said:

You don't know how many people I'm trying to get a simple answer from and they leave this little cutsie ass message.  I'm working from home today so I may be napping or taking my puppy to the park.  I'll respond when I get the chance.  I'm a lowly peon and it pisses me off.  Imagine what a c level executive is feeling 

^This is exactly why WFH is gonna be fucked for some Americans soon. Corps will realize they can just hire Sandeep instead who will take half the pay to do 5 times the work “remotely” from India.

Sucks for people who actually are able to be productive working at home. I’m not one of them, but I envy those that can.

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9 hours ago, txduck87 said:

I retired 2 years ago and haven’t missed work at all. If I EVER have an inkling to go back to work, which I won’t, I’m going to read this thread. Jesus what a grind. Hang in there all.

Vibe:

IMG_1131.jpeg

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6 hours ago, Wilcox Cummingtonite said:

This is exactly why WFH is gonna be fucked for some Americans soon. Corps will realize they can just hire Sandeep instead who will take half the pay to do 5 times the work “remotely” from India.

It's particularly interesting and instructive that corporations (and I'm assuming you as well based on this post) have shifted to now view employees as NOT "part of the team" and just another fungible resource. Like some sort of idiot project or middle manager with a brand new MBA that thinks they could assign three women to work on a baby and get one in three months. 

I'll repeat what others have said here, again, to you. Timezones exist. True skill and education gaps exists. Language barriers exist. 

Your post reeks of a businessperson just blindly and uncritically chasing "unga bunga line go up", and not understanding HOW your firm actually builds new and extensible business functionality. I've seen firsthand how your proposed operating model leads to technical paralysis where doing anything is cost prohibitive and you are no longer in control of what options and tradeoffs your business will pick.

It ends up being a shitton more expensive in the long run than the difference in pay between a staff engineer and a temp contractor. 

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The one thing I miss about regular in person is the ability to walk down the hall, talkout something, and move forward quickly with a solution.  I’ve got a client bad idea I need to snuff out and it’s going to take me several zooms to coordinate what should have been a 20 minute hallway convo.

Tangiently related, the bad idea client is heavily monitored on workplace activity, which means they are constantly filling my inbox with shit that I have to sort.

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Luckily my company has been actively reducing office space once they saw WFH didn’t make a difference in productivity. Most technically have a hybrid schedule of 1-2 days in the office but that’s even flexible. I’m scheduled to go in TUE/THU but I’ve gone in zero times since we rolled that out. Our HQ is currently piloting hoteling cubicles in our HR department so they can reduce our footprint even further.

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2 minutes ago, CooterBrown said:

Luckily my company has been actively reducing office space once they saw WFH didn’t make a difference in productivity. Most technically have a hybrid schedule of 1-2 days in the office but that’s even flexible. I’m scheduled to go in TUE/THU but I’ve gone in zero times since we rolled that out. Our HQ is currently piloting hoteling cubicles in our HR department so they can reduce our footprint even further.

My previous employer owns its footprint and the former ceo was obsessed about in person post Covid. He tried to get people back in the office before the vaccine was wide spread.  It led to a lot of disgruntled employees, mass retirement, and a bad hire situation.  
 

The first thing the new CEO did was loosen up RTO and give more managerial flexibility, and employee moral and hiring uptake jumped almost immediately.

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I've sold enterprise software for over 22 years.  In all that time I've worked from an office for about 4 of them.  I've met my quotas in 18 of those 22 years.   But, yeah, I'll fuck around if all my shit is tied out and my sales/pipeline are strong; my sales management knows this.  They don't give a rat's ass, as long as my sales are strong.  I could never go back to a daily commute/office gig.  I'll retire before I do that. 

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