Late2ThePartyEnd of an era: Zoom tells employees to return to office for work
P34C0CKis now asking all employees within 50 miles of a company office to go in at least two days a week on a hybrid schedule.
I briefly worked for a company that took this approach. The oversight they made was they had 2 offices (different teams in each), but as long as you lived within 50 miles of one of the offices, you had to come in.
Even if your team was exclusively in office 1, and you lived outside the radius of office 1 BUT were in the radius of office 2…you had to come in to office 2…and teleconference with your team in office 1 🤦
jeffwI’d just move further away lol
ares35see that little shack about 40 miles away, out town road 37, past the old faded barn and the tree that looks like homer simpson?....
no. the other barn. the one on the edge of that huge dairy farm.
yea. that's the one. well, that shack is outhouse at your new office. the office itself is the smaller shack behind it.
wifi? sure! at the adjacent on-site outdoor gym, there's an old exercise bike hooked up to a generator to power it.
Or I could move 100 miles to a city? Not living in the middle of nowhere lol
ren (a they/them)most have contingencies that if you are in the 50, then move out of the 50, that’s on you. You still gotta come in.
snooggumsEven stupider!
You mean my incredibly day-to-predict life hack was countered before i could even try? I’m shocked… shocked I tell you.
ikiddEddie Murphy head tapping: Can’t come in if I don’t fucking work there anymore!
Stay where you are and work for a different company. Problem solved.
I know a lawyer in the Boston suburbs who went full WFH during the pandemic. He loved his job but was upset when his boss pushed for him to come back to the office. Boss said he lived too close to the office in Boston to justify it.
Lawyer moved to Vermont with his girlfriend and still works fully remote for the same law office.
Wow that’s next level dumb. My job did something similar. Someone whose team was based out of Texas yet they still made the 2 people from MI go to the MI office. And on separate days “so someone was always available”
Then the same company closed 75% of their massive building and said the hybrid employees have to share cubes with other people. I’m so glad HR made me permanent remote.
Was it 50 miles in a straight line or 50 on your odometer?
50 mile radius of the office address.
So if your home was 40 miles away but your commute was 55 miles…you still had to go 🙄
50 miles during a commute is way too far. My employer has pushed for people whose commute would be 1 hour maximum during rush hour to try to come into an office once a week. Where I live it can take an hour to go 10-15 miles during rush hour…
There’s a guy at my company that lives in Sacramento, and commutes twice a week to go in the office in mountain view. That’s a 4 hour commute with no traffic.
His entire team is in the San diego office. There’s literally zero point, but I guess his manager isn’t willing or capable of fighting for an exception to the hybrid mandate.
I’d love to understand the logic and benefit of come two days a week. But the real reason, not the bullshit they say
EnglishMobsterThey've invested a lot of money in office real estate and hate that it's going to waste.
Also, CEOs tend to be extroverts who want to be around people. They're also sociopaths who think everyone is like them (or they don't care what others think).
Combine the two and you get this.
Also no one actually knows how long tasks take.
If you work from home and only work for 4 hours, lots of managers do not know how to tell if that work you did took 8 hours or 4. In the office they have plausible deniability that they saw you there doing something.
MoegleNo idea whether it’s their reason, but anecdotally I’ve found it has a few benefits. If coordinated properly it’s significantly easier to train new(er) staff, it improves cross-organisational understanding to overhear other departments’ conversations either at desks or in break rooms, and it stops people becoming isolated pockets of knowledge and culture because they only ever see or interact with the same one or two people.
I can’t think of a worse marketing strategy for a company that relies on remote work to remain relevant. This would be like if General Motors forced every employee within 50 miles of an assembly plant to ride a bike to work.
That is hilarious
We make remote work viable.
NOT FOR US THO LMAO
talI don't think that Zoom specifically advocates for companies to end work in the office.
Like, say you work for Coca-Cola. Their company health plan probably does not encourage people to drink nothing but Coca-Cola, even if they do make it available in the office.
These are fun. For any other CEOs reading along, here’s your new policy/advertisement:
- Furniture Row could convert every employee workstation to standing only.
- Starbucks could require every staff member to go caffeine free.
- Underarmor could set a black tie dress code for all employees.
- Master lock could shut down their staff gym citing uncontrolled theft from lockers.
- Grayhound could ban employees from traveling together to events.
- General Mills could establish a rewards program for employees who participate in a daily morning fast until lunchtime.
- Atlassian and Salseforce could shift their internal help desks to in-person only with 100% paper records.
- Peterbilt could start an incentive program that reimburses staff for buying local.
I like the way you think.
Flying Squid-
Microsoft could require Macs for all employees.
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Xfinity could only offer dialup at their offices.
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Dairy Queen could only hire diabetics.
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The cafeteria at Purdue Farms headquarters could be all-vegan.
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Barnes and Noble staff must have a library card and check out books regularly.
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Amazon delivery drivers must have their license suspended.
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Bed, Bath and Beyond could require their floor staff to only come in if they haven’t showered.
Seems like a way of culling staff without having to pay severance… make it so shit that people leave, but make allowances for the key people you need
AltoThat (along with feeding managers' need to micromanage) is the largest reason so many corporations are forcing a return to office
RespectMyAuthoriteh“Oscar Meyer tells employees to eat less meat”
“Pfizer tells employees to use homeopathic remedies.”
kescusay“Microsoft tells employees to use Linux.”
Currently looking for another job and EVERY job I have seen that's hybrid has multiple offices across the country. So basically they make you come into the office to talk to the rest of your team on zoom. Somehow that is more efficient than talking to them on zoom from your house.
JBloodthornThat's pants-on-head level stupidity.
Two days is reasonable imo. WFH has its advantages but some things are still better face-to-face, like onboarding.
Maybe it depends on what kind of employees you are onboarding, but in tech it’s vastly simpler to onboard employees remotely, you want to be sharing screens so even if you were in an office you’d want to be at your own computers.
mriormroDoes everyone at your office onboard 2 days out of the week, every week?
I had my work stuff shipped across the country to me. No in-person onboarding required
My team onboards people remotely no problem. I'd argue it's better than trying to see what someone is doing over their shoulder.
"THE REAL ESTATE! PLEASE THINK OF HOW MUCH WE PAY FOR THE PRETTY BUILDING!"
If you attend send building it will somehow make our poor investment worthwhile.
Worst argument though. The building has already been paid for or has a lease. Using or not using it won’t bring that money back. The only thing that can bring the money back is subleasing it. Even not using it saves some money (energy bills).
Zoom, which remains a leader in the post-pandemic remote work trend, is now asking all employees within 50 miles of a company office to go in at least two days a week on a hybrid schedule.
lol. That’s like an hour each way.
I live 11 miles from work and it takes me 30-40 min to drive in. 50 miles could be 90-120 min easy.
Don't get high on your own supply
Commuting is a total loss, and I find being in the office makes it much harder to actually get work done. Fuck all this shit.
I’ve been getting a lot of messages on LinkedIn from recruiters, a lot of these are asking me to be in the office 2 to 3 times a week. If I was to commute, I’d leave before my son is awake and arrive after he has gone to bed, working from home, I see him whenever I want.
I’ve been able to be there for almost all of my second daughters first year milestones thanks to WFH. You can’t put a pricetag on that.
just slack off those 2/5 days where they force you in the office
I guess they don’t trust their product.
I mean, it is crap.
It is a gift from the heavens compared to the dumpster fire that is Microsoft Teams Meetings
SpaceCowboyI think you meant Microsoft Teams in general.
They have to come back to the office, but no getting out of their cubicle to talk. They have to use Zoom for that.
Return to office to sit at computer on zoom.
igorlogius
MisterFrogAs someone starting out their career in a technical field, I would LOVE to be in the office more if more people from the projects I’m working on were regularly there, but it’s just not feasible to require it.
Capitalism leaves us with barely any time to live, and so much time has been clawed back from WFH.
No way I’m advocating it to be mandatory to come into the office more than a single day a week.