Return to the Office? These Workers Quit Instead (yahoo.com) 159
"As more companies enforce their office mandates, some workers are choosing to quit instead of complying and returning to the office," reports the Washington Post.
Workers say their reasons for quitting include everything from family to commuting expenses to being required to relocate. And many workers worry that people like those with disabilities or who are primary caregivers may be left behind due to their inability to successfully work from the office... Workers are pushing back, penning letters to executives, staging walkouts and quitting despite the tight labor market. "I'm not surprised at all," Prithwiraj Choudhury, a Harvard Business School professor who studies the future of work, said about workers quitting. "By mandating these rigid policies, you're risking your top performers and diversity. It just doesn't make economic sense."
Choudhury said companies should provide overall guidance that allows each to determine how they best work after analysis and feedback from workers. That's especially important for women, whom Choudhury said are resigning in large numbers — a notion multiple surveys support... For some workers who moved or were hired remotely during the pandemic, commuting is a nearly impossible task, they say.
In a related note, Grindr tells the Post they're still requiring two-days-per-week in the office starting in October. Grindr they're looking forward to "further improving productivity and collaboration."
Choudhury said companies should provide overall guidance that allows each to determine how they best work after analysis and feedback from workers. That's especially important for women, whom Choudhury said are resigning in large numbers — a notion multiple surveys support... For some workers who moved or were hired remotely during the pandemic, commuting is a nearly impossible task, they say.
In a related note, Grindr tells the Post they're still requiring two-days-per-week in the office starting in October. Grindr they're looking forward to "further improving productivity and collaboration."
Voluntary Layoffs (Score:4, Insightful)
Companies are hot for layoffs this past year. Forced "return to office" policies with voluntary resignation is a way to avoid layoffs, avoid huge compensation payouts for such, while still reducing the cost of the workforce, making the company's books look better on paper to investors for higher stock values.
You're welcome. You now know the game being played.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Your compensation package is dwarfed by the signing package you'll get from desperate companies wanting you to work for them. I don't know what it's like in other branches, but in security, we'd need about 10 times the number of seasoned security professionals that we have.
If you or someone you know would want to work as a security consultant and pentester in the heart of Europe, i.e. beautiful Vienna (getting work permit is no problem, no matter where you're from, we're taking care of everything) and you h
Re:Voluntary Layoffs (Score:4, Funny)
Reading this comment right after your other one complaining about headhunter pitches at conferences feels weird, man.
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Hey, I never claimed I was no hypocrite!
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Have you read my username?
Then why the hell are you surprised?
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Your compensation package is dwarfed by the signing package you'll get from desperate companies wanting you to work for them. I don't know what it's like in other branches, but in security, we'd need about 10 times the number of seasoned security professionals that we have.
Yep, I just had another headhunter begging me to talk to him. They are currently unable to even only fill the really critical roles.
If you or someone you know would want to work as a security consultant and pentester in the heart of Europe, i.e. beautiful Vienna (getting work permit is no problem, no matter where you're from, we're taking care of everything) and you have a few years of security experience, don't hesitate to write. I'll split the headhunting bonus with you, that money alone should cover your moving expenses easily!
Sorry, not interested at this time.
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Companies are hot for layoffs this past year. Forced "return to office" policies with voluntary resignation is a way to avoid layoffs, avoid huge compensation payouts for such, while still reducing the cost of the workforce, making the company's books look better on paper to investors for higher stock values.
You're welcome. You now know the game being played.
Nice conspiracy. But indiscriminate layoffs based on the concept of travelling to an office does not look good for investors, nor is it a sane strategy for reducing headcount.
A few quit who previosly were in office full time (Score:5, Interesting)
COVID is still here (Score:3, Insightful)
We're in another giant COVID wave and our employers want to force us into poorly ventilated boxes cheek by jowl with 30 other people, few of whom wear masks.
I work better from the office. I would commute by bike, and that's better for my health. I benefit from the automatic body doubling and having a focused zone for doing work.
But I won't benefit from getting COVID twice a year, so I refuse to go to the office.
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It's not just COVID. Any virus like flu. I always got sick from schools, offices, homes, etc. because of infected people. :(
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The "economic sense" is corporate real estate (Score:5, Insightful)
All these companies bought or built swanky towers for hundreds of millions - if not billions - in expensive trendy places like SF, NYC, Chicago, etc right before COVID, then had to send everybody home while they paid the electric and property taxes on empty buildings. Now they can bring everybody back, and the bean counters want to because it's the only way to justify their expenses. You can't just sell the things either, because who's spending that much money to buy an office right now that none of their workers will want to commute to? I'm sure the suits are also under enormous pressure from Wall Street too, since so many banks and investment firms have corporate real estate bound up in their portfolios.
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All these companies bought or built swanky towers for hundreds of millions - if not billions - in expensive trendy places like SF, NYC, Chicago, etc right before COVID, then had to send everybody home while they paid the electric and property taxes on empty buildings. Now they can bring everybody back, and the bean counters want to because it's the only way to justify their expenses. You can't just sell the things either, because who's spending that much money to buy an office right now that none of their workers will want to commute to? I'm sure the suits are also under enormous pressure from Wall Street too, since so many banks and investment firms have corporate real estate bound up in their portfolios.
So your answer is a conspiracy theory.
Remember that most companies, even the big ones, rent office space. The biggest ones will actually own their own headquarters, but even then the other offices are rented. With the speed that these companies grow (and sometimes shrink) trying to buy office space to match your workforce is madness.
Oh, and I know a recent AI startup and almost the first thing they did was rent an office so they could stop working out of one of the other guys houses.
They're not wasting mone
Until the lease expires (Score:2)
Remember that most companies, even the big ones, rent office space.
Which means the company's management have to keep justifying the rent that the company pays until the lease expires.
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Remember that most companies, even the big ones, rent office space.
Which means the company's management have to keep justifying the rent that the company pays until the lease expires.
The average lease is 3-10 years.
Given that the pandemic is more than 3 years old your theory suggests that we should be seeing droves of companies downsizing offices as their leases expire and they continue or expand WFH. It doesn't explain them suddenly starting to reverse WFH.
Right to Quit (Score:2)
Plenty of people got a taste of WFH and decided that they like it enough to change jobs or careers chasing it. Plenty of companies bitterly regret the drop in overall productivity that can come from a poorly structured WFH program, and they hate it enough to fire people who refuse to come to the office.
I suppose after a while that we'll reach an equilibrium of sorts.
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The equilibrium will be the bad old days.
At the end of the day, people need money to live so employers hold all the cards.
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These are all policy choices though but we can't move forward when a good number of people don't even acknowledge that such a power even imbalance exists. That's my primary issue with the concept of "right to work" laws. It purports this scenario where employee / employer are on equal footing or have equal risk profiles in regards to their employment, especially as companies grow larger and larger.
The risk of losing a job remains a pretty shallow slope for the vast majority of people whether you work for a
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If merely sitting in a set is all that matters, there's lots of local people that can sit still all day and not contribute much.
The office: made by extroverts, for extroverts (Score:5, Insightful)
Get your introversion diagnosed (Score:3)
For introverts, the office can be something akin to torture
Ask your doctor if your form of introversion has a name in DSM or ICD. If so, you may be entitled to reasonable accommodation under the applicable employment equality act. For me, it was "autism spectrum disorder, Asperger type."
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tight labor market! (Score:2)
I believe the unemployment rate in the US is currently very low(https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/unemployment-rate).
"quitting despite the tight labor market" seems to assume the opposite situation.
Something like
Companies are still trying to force employees back to the office "despite the tight labor market" would make more sense to me.
Am I missing something?
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Labor shortage or surplus? (Score:2)
It'd help if more people used the standard terminology of economics. Say "labor shortage" for more jobs than employees and "labor surplus" for more employees than jobs.
The reason why... (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem is all the morons that are walking their dogs etc during work time and thinking that's OK, that are ruining the credibility of WFH for all of us that are actually more productive working from home.
I mean WTF do you think the company are paying you for?
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I mean WTF do you think the company are paying you for?
To deliver what is asked. What is work time anyway? Are you still stuck with this strange concept of a job that works on specific fixed hours in a day? That's not just pre-covid thinking, that's outright 90s thinking.
Yes I walk the dog in the middle of the work day. No that's not work time despite you thinking you have some god given right to see me green on Teams and interrupt me at your whim.
If you're judging people based on them walking their dog rather than the work they are delivering then you are the
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I mean WTF do you think the company are paying you for?
To deliver what is asked. What is work time anyway? Are you still stuck with this strange concept of a job that works on specific fixed hours in a day? That's not just pre-covid thinking, that's outright 90s thinking.
Yes I walk the dog in the middle of the work day. No that's not work time despite you thinking you have some god given right to see me green on Teams and interrupt me at your whim.
If you're judging people based on them walking their dog rather than the work they are delivering then you are the problem.
And how does the company know if what is being delivered is reasonable?
I remember all the discussions about how hard programmer productivity was to measure before WFH. Now all the managers are suddenly supposed to understand every single ticket in such depth that they can tell if an employee is being productive. And they're supposed to do so without actually meeting with you since you feel no obligation for normal working hours?
Sure, you can WFH and do so at irregular hours. But you better let them know the
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And how does the company know if what is being delivered is reasonable?
That's what management is for. If the manager cannot determine that, throw him away and hire a competent one.
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And how does the company know if what is being delivered is reasonable?
That's what management is for. If the manager cannot determine that, throw him away and hire a competent one.
I noticed how you ignored the part where I explained why you're giving the manager a borderline impossible job.
There's two possibilities, either all across the industry companies, particularly the most successful ones, routinely hire incompetent managers.
Or, the job is more complicated than you realize, particularly when it comes to supervising remote employees.
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The job certainly is much more difficult than most people think, unfortunately it's far too easy on the other hand to fake your way through it and blame someone else. Why do you think we have this slew of crappy managers?
And it's time to weed out the duds.
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Those are all easily quantifiable and measurable things. If thats their job and they aren't doing it then fire them, same as if they weren't doing those things in an office.
If they are walking their dogs and still getting it done then they are getting it done. What you are talking about is you don't like "the vibes". You expect work the be done "in a certain way" regardless of wether the work is done, you're putting the process over the outcome.
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Compare Walmart breaks (Score:2)
Did you know some employers actually support you taking some time for your own physical and mental health on the clock?
Even Walmart is among them, offering at least one 15-minute paid break during a shift and two during a full shift (in addition to the 1-hour unpaid lunch break). However, Walmart breaks are scheduled, and the team lead is responsible for finding another associate to cover the position during the break.
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They legally have to give you those breaks, and the government actually goes after big companies for wage theft occasionally because it makes it look like someone is doing something, so the bigger the employer the more likely they will make sure you are taking your legally mandated breaks.
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I have a cell phone. Call me.
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Yes, there are things that are more important than work.
My life.
Deal with it.
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The research shows the average person is more productive from home, and a big part of that seems to be better mental health and satisfaction. So what's your problem with walking the dog? I've got a couple of tricky design decisions to make so I'm about to head out for a run to think about it.
I guess if you're stamping out widgets or something that's not going to be helpful for your productivity, but you probably aren't doing that from home either.*
* Unless those widgets are license plates and your house is
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Well, we know which group your posts fall into!
Re:The reason why... (Score:4, Interesting)
Are you kidding?
At home, I have my office for myself. Alone. I can focus on whatever I need to do without any interference from anyone, if I so please. The only distractions that may exist, i.e. phone and Teams, are something I can easily disregard if the job at hand is more important than whoever tries to distract me.
Now let's compare that to the office. And you don't even have to get to the low hanging, ok, ground level, fruit of the open floor plan one where distraction is baked into the system itself. No, let's assume you're sitting in an office with just 4 other people.
Two of them have a telco right now because they couldn't get one of the conference rooms booked since they've been booked solid by very important people (at least according to their own estimate) until the heat death of the universe on the off-chance that they MIGHT actually have a need for a meeting room. Hint: Quite unlikely, because since these people are so terribly important, the chance of them actually being in the office is slim to nil.
The third one insists that the radio is playing, tuned into that station that plays the latest pop nightmare song at least once per hour because they get paid to do so. Which makes a clock redundant, by the time you suffered that blasted piece of pop garbage for 9 times you can go home because your worktime is over.
Every 10 minutes or so someone "very important" will come in and interrupt your work because he really needs to ask you something NOW that can't be handled via mail or Teams. Because there you could delay answering his stupid, irrelevant question until you're done with your current task instead of interrupting it and starting over.
Oh, did I mention the all-hands-on-deck meetings because some narcissist has the pressing urge to hear himself speak? That's another hour wasted. At home, you can go to the meeting, have the narcissist drone on in the background and continue working. But taking your laptop to the droning when in person is apparently bad form.
Care to point out again how I'm more distracted working from home?
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I mean WTF do you think the company are paying you for?
From all these "return to office" decrees, apparently either to warm seats in the office, or to satisfy some managers' need to have bootlickers around them, or both.
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I can only tell you what I told an ex-boss of mine: If you need someone to worship you, buy a dog. It's more likely to succeed and cheaper too.
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The company is paying me to show up and sit my ass in a chair and be well dressed
Tell me you're middle management without telling me you're middle management.
Check your own contracts, fully remotes (Score:2)
Just a piece of advice for those among us who perhaps felt safe reading this article because they are on fully remote contracts. Check your own contracts. Most fully remote contracts actually contain provisions which would allow your employer to summon you back into the office. An example would be "we can ask you to work from any location, including overseas, if we say so". Personally, I returned a number of contracts like that to potential employers (having passed interviews and all so at a late stage) wit
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Frankly? Don't care. You want me to work somewhere where I don't want to work? Well, it was nice working for you.
NEXT!
That's one way of bringing down inflation (Score:2)
If people quit they're not making money. No money means they will not spend as much. Less demand means either a company will produce fewer products or have to cut prices.
Not to mention wages are included in the inflation calculation and Powell has said he wants unemployment to rise [barrons.com] because that will bring down the rise in wages.
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That would only work out in an inflation situation that is driven by a surplus of demand, but that's not what we have now. The inflation right now is driven by increasing cost and the need to adjust prices accordingly to stay profitable.
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The inflation right now is driven by increasing cost and the need to adjust prices accordingly to stay profitable.
Nope, a large part of inflation right now is greed [marketwatch.com]. Companies are raising prices to increase profits [marketwatch.com], not remain profitable. They're making money despite higher costs. And how do you counter that? As I said, stop buying stuff [marketwatch.com].
I'm one of those that will quit. (Score:3)
I work fully remote.
For a lot of reasons.
1. My cost of living is a fraction of what it would need to be if I needed to live nearish an office. Rent is 1/3 of inner city costs here. And have you tired renting a place now in the city of any major world city? Forget that.
2. No commute. This is giving me back 2-3.5 hours a DAY.
3. My home office is better in every way than any open plan nightmare.
4. I'm in meetings constantly. If I was in the office I would be spending all my time in tiny call cubicles working off a tiny laptop screen with horrible audio.
5. My clients aren't even in my home city. And they haven't been for over 8 years.
6. I can count on 2 finger the number of times I've been ill with covid/flu/cold what ever in the past 3 years.
7. My quality of life is so much better than pre-covid.
The only down side is that I'm no longer mentoring the new hires as much as I used too. This is literally the only downside for the company.
To work in a inner city office again would set me back at least $40K a year. Yeah that much.
Now I would be inconvenienced by a job flip. As I would have to spend more time finding one that will enable full time remote. As I would be pretty choosy.
My employer knows I would quit if they tried to force me. My clients would make a huge stink over it. It would also likely cause many other to quit as well. They want us in the office but it's not going to happen.
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This right there. People who can will choose to work from home. The only ones you can force back to the office are the ones that know they are easily replaced.
This in turn will eventually lead to working from the office becoming seen as a stigma. Why does he work from the office? Obviously he's not good enough to demand WFH.
Eventually, even if you enjoy working from the office, you better work from home if you don't want to be seen as a slacker who has to jump through the corporate hoops because he can't ri
you're risking your top performers and diversity. (Score:2)
Re:you're risking your top performers and diversit (Score:4, Interesting)
Be honest, when did you ever get promoted? I usually got a leap in both position and salary only by switching employers.
Promotion from inside is anathema today because it's a litigation landmine. Why did you promote Bobby instead of John? Is it because John is black? Or worse, why did you promote Bobby and not Brittany?
Far more sensible to just hire an outsider. Promoting from within? You want to get sued?
Prove it (Score:3)
These companies often tout productivity and collaboration as a reason.
Show the numbers. How productive were you before the COVID shutdown? How productive are you now?
How productive are you w/ 3 days a week?
I bet none of those companies's managers know. If they don't, how do they know the productive employees vs the not? How would having them in office change that?
Terrible office design - work from home is better (Score:3)
again, where is the 'collaboration' when... (Score:4, Insightful)
...your team consists of members in two different parts of India, Toronto, the Bay Area, West London, and yourself by your lonesome in a suburb of DC?
My going to the office doesn't do anything except give me an excuse to go to restaurants near it that I don't normally go to. My entire collaboration was zoom-based even before the pandemic.
The smart never quit (Score:2)
Re: Maybe (Score:5, Insightful)
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And ain't that the truth...
I'm in security. A field where shanghaiing isn't as uncommon as we'd like to pretend it is. There's like 10% of the people available that are actually wanted by companies. Going to conferences just ain't no fun anymore, every other booth is some headhunters who are trying to woo you into at least listening to their offer.
I miss the times when going to BlackHat and strolling about the dealer's room wasn't heading from one recruitment sales pitch to the next
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Going to conferences just ain't no fun anymore, every other booth is some headhunters who are trying to woo you into at least listening to their offer.
What's wrong with this country? Can't a man walk down the street without being offered a job [youtube.com]?
Re: Maybe (Score:2)
Now if only someone had the balls to replace the hobos with mailboxes....
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Re: Maybe (Score:5, Insightful)
Nope, I meant just what I said. There is only about 10% of the people available that are needed. For every senior security expert, there are about 10 companies that would hire them. And this is hardly the only field where it is that way.
Yes, if you have zero skill at all, it may be different. But as soon as you actually bring something to the table, you can actually also demand quite a bit in return. In the good old days, that was money. The thing is that GenZ doesn't seem to give two fuck about money anymore because, hey, what should they buy with it anyway, it's not like they will ever earn enough to actually own anything, so why bother? They do the next best thing, get a decent work-life balance out of it.
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Nope, I meant just what I said. There is only about 10% of the people available that are needed. For every senior security expert, there are about 10 companies that would hire them. And this is hardly the only field where it is that way.
Yes, if you have zero skill at all, it may be different. But as soon as you actually bring something to the table, you can actually also demand quite a bit in return. In the good old days, that was money. The thing is that GenZ doesn't seem to give two fuck about money anymore because, hey, what should they buy with it anyway, it's not like they will ever earn enough to actually own anything, so why bother? They do the next best thing, get a decent work-life balance out of it.
It's probably based on one's perspective.
I work at a job that if you don't want to leave the house, you don't get the job. And the people I work with are among the most competent people in the world. And the pay is commensurate with that. I'm not kidding.
Yes, if you are really good, you'll get job offers. That's how I got my present position, But not every job is one that can be performed from home. And a lot of people seem to think that everyone is in IT. It's a niche position.
And it is one that
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Yes, not every job can be done from home. But I fail to see why I should do it somewhere else if it's possible to be done from home. That silly notion that the location of providing a service that is independent of the location it is provided in simply doesn't make sense to me. And I don't do thing that don't make sense to me. "Because I say so" didn't even work for my father, why do you think it would work for an employer?
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Yes, not every job can be done from home. But I fail to see why I should do it somewhere else if it's possible to be done from home. That silly notion that the location of providing a service that is independent of the location it is provided in simply doesn't make sense to me. And I don't do thing that don't make sense to me. "Because I say so" didn't even work for my father, why do you think it would work for an employer?
Right. There are things based on a spectrum of temperament. And that's pretty important. If a person can work under conditions they prefer, that's really good. That's how they flourish.
Maybe they are an introvert. Maybe a misanthrope. Maybe just blunt to the point that they realize they piss people off. Maybe shy, the painful cousin of introversion.
Maybe they realize that a lot of people are just plain annoying. I've read enough of your posts to think maybe you fit into that last category? Because yes,
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Maybe they are an introvert. Maybe a misanthrope.
Both.
Maybe they realize that a lot of people are just plain annoying.
Yes, and I hate people. Why do you think I'm consultant, nothing beats telling managers they're total morons and getting begged for more. I like my job as a high-tech dominatrix.
And I don't mind going to other places than my home office if there is a system that can't be brought to my garage or basement. It's kinda hard to convince a customer that they should transport their system that weighs a ton and costs multiple millions from their secure bunker to my much less secure home. But as long as no peop
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Simply put - because the guy who signs your check says so.
Then I find someone else to sign my checks.
And yes, I'm in a position to do just that. And I do. I have an agreement with my employer and we are both happy with it. He gets someone for what's probably half of what he'd have to pay for a replacement, I get the kind of job that I want.
You see, companies are pretty easy to analyze. They care about the bottom line, not about the sensibilities of their managers. Getting someone to work for 50% the replacement cost is an asset that they don't want to lose. If the
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It's not hard for someone who costs less than 150k a year and has 20 years of experience with security, financial auditing and law to find someone to employ him and cater to his needs.
It sure is hard to replace him, though. And this is why I can get what I want.
That's one of the problems I and my employer have.
I was "called" out of retirement by a need for my skillset. And I retired when I was 55, so I'm not elderly. But in trying to find a replacement or intern, we've had problems. It would be nice to get someone fairly young to eventually take over.
People with people skills tend to not have the technical skills. And people with technical skills tend towards having problems when dealing with a lot of people, some highly stressed.
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I'm gonna be 50 in a bit. I have enough money to retire for good and unless my investments all go tits up (bloody unlikely with the low-profit but high-stability road I took) I will also make enough money off that to live quite comfortably. So I'm not really in any situation where you can blackmail me with firing me. Not just because of a one-in-a-million skillset that is not wanted but hunted.
Part of that skill set is that I know z/OS pretty well, and I know how to audit it for security and compliance. And
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I'm gonna be 50 in a bit. I have enough money to retire for good and unless my investments all go tits up (bloody unlikely with the low-profit but high-stability road I took) I will also make enough money off that to live quite comfortably. So I'm not really in any situation where you can blackmail me with firing me. Not just because of a one-in-a-million skillset that is not wanted but hunted.
Part of that skill set is that I know z/OS pretty well, and I know how to audit it for security and compliance.
Semi related note: A group of Amateur Radio people I consult with want to resurrect "Packet Radio", the AX.25 protocol which yeah - actually works pretty well.
But just imagine taking a present day enthusiast, used to menu driven programs, and setting them down in front of a terminal emulator, and programming a Terminal Node Controller, and dealing with the strange and not always consistent 1980 era commands. There is modern software that emulates a TNC and Access, but it doesn't have the full command set.
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You need to be a consultant. No, really. That way you're SO expensive that anything you say is gospel.
In the early days of my career, I was working as an admin for a company. I knew the network, I knew the requirements, and I told them time and again why certain problems kept popping up. No use. Ten years later I was hired by exactly the same company that still had exactly the same problem. I told them exactly the same and it was the revelation of the century, they implemented it, it worked, I was thanked a
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[...] In the good old days, that was money. The thing is that GenZ doesn't seem to give two fuck about money anymore because, hey, what should they buy with it anyway, it's not like they will ever earn enough to actually own anything, so why bother? They do the next best thing, get a decent work-life balance out of it.
I gather that what determines choosing the getting of a better work life balance, versus choosing to aim for career and competition, is really about a person's own values. People's values have been shifting over the decades (although it is more like waves on an ocean and there's still many who hold the competition value even though the life balance value is more common).
The pandemic probably broke the ice and allowed many who already had the life-balance values to start to enact them more fully. Meanwhile,
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Having a sensible work/life balance and having a career are not mutually exclusive. The thing is, we're heading into a demographic problem. More people leave the workforce than join it, and this in turn shifts the power from employer to employee. You will have to cater to the wants and needs of good people if you want to have them.
Re: Maybe (Score:5, Informative)
I'm inclined to agree. People who want employees in offices are generally managers, who are generally not that productive (there's always exceptions), and want nothing more than to fill their calendar with rather useless meetings.
I am mid 40s, and have spent over 10 years of my life working from home. They know I write quality code, I am fast at it. We no longer have an office in my country, so I don't see working in an office being a possibility for quite some time.
Plus - my internet speed at home is much faster than any office I have ever worked in.
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I'm inclined to agree. People who want employees in offices are generally managers, who are generally not that productive (there's always exceptions), and want nothing more than to fill their calendar with rather useless meetings.
I've always noted that while a programmer can easily work at home - take orders, produce the output. Get the next assignment. Rinse and repeat.
But there are a lot of other jobs than programmers. And I get the impression that most of the people here don't realize that.
My work for instance doesn't have much to do with your unproductive manager. But it simply does not happen at all without us being present.
There are many jobs that require presence. If you are doing classified work - even programming, you
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I am mid 40s, and have spent over 10 years of my life working from home. They know I write quality code, I am fast at it. We no longer have an office in my country, so I don't see working in an office being a possibility for quite some time.
Plus - my internet speed at home is much faster than any office I have ever worked in.
I'm similar. I do have an office, but everyone I work with is in different time zones. We're an effective team, we collaborate and communicate well. Being together in one office would not improve that. PS My manager's time zone is > 8 hours away too
Re: Maybe (Score:4, Interesting)
I was going to say the opposite... It's likely slackers want to be in the office while people who actually quit to wfh are likely to be able to find another job.
I don't know that it's just slackers, per se... one thing covid taught me is there are some people for whom socializing at work is really, really important. Me, I like my coworkers but seeing them face to face 1-2 times a week is plenty.
On a related note... I get the impression that my workplace is trying to set the stage for an upcoming "we want you on campus full time again" move. The department keeps having all these in-person social events, bocci ball, badminton, crafts, etc. - it seems like they're trying to convince people we have a fun workplace. But (and perhaps I'm biased because I'm also covering another vacant position right now) all I can think about is "how can these coworkers have so much available time?" If I were to take part in these activities, I'd then have to work an extra couple of hours to make up for the lost productivity... and I know these people are not staying late, nor coming in early.
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Our company is closing off one floor because the space is so underused. So I suppose they are not going to call us home. It would make very little sense anyway, because over half of the project team is in other cities.
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I was going to say the opposite... It's likely slackers want to be in the office while people who actually quit to wfh are likely to be able to find another job. I know someone who did this recently... They were going to the office days a week in a toxic office environment just so managers could monitor the bodies in the seat. They quit and found a similar role for 3days in office and more pay....
This literally happened to me. I worked for a toxic company in the oil industry. After managing several large projects while working completely from home during the pandemic, they started making us come in to the office three days a week. On top of everything else (stagnate wages, no promotion despite 5/5 reviews, etc) this was the last straw.
I started quiet quitting to focus searching for a new job. Someone figured it out because I kept taking a couple hours off here and there for "medical" appointments
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Or else what?
The workforce shrinks by about 2% a year. Boomers are a notoriously strong cohort, and GenZ is incredibly small. Every day, only 80% of the people who retire join the workforce. Every year, 20% fewer people enter the rat race than retire. We do already feel that in many industries. And the industries struggling to get their positions filled increase.
I have headhunters writing me effin' poems in the hope that I would at least talk to them! And I'm by far not the only one. In my experience, it ai
Re:Maybe (Score:5, Interesting)
By the selection bias on these stories we are 90% talking about white collar workers who are not unionized and just about every state in the US is "right to work".
Companies don't need an excuse to fire slackers, they can fire them for slacking. If they don't know who's slacking without this policy, well, that's bad management in my opinion.
Re:Maybe (Score:5, Insightful)
What's worse, you don't get rid of the slackers that way. You get rid of the people who actually pull their weight AND that of the slackers.
What can a slacker do? He knows that he won't find another job because there's very little he has to show for. He's slacking. He has a job and as soon as he had it, he stopped trying harder. So he has to grin and bear it when the company wants him to jump through hoops because he can't just flip them off and move on. Nobody hires someone who is obviously a slacker.
Who can easily flip you off if you try to come with nonsensical demands is someone who has a Github full of projects and a portfolio to show off to a prospective employer.
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"Companies don't need an excuse to fire slackers, they can fire them for slacking"
In right to work states, anyone can be fired just for breathing, unless they have a contract with clauses that prevents that or requiring them to be paid out.
For example, Elon's backtracking of firing Haraldur Thorleifsson
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1) There *might* be some unknown legal gotcha so best to have a case.
Maybe? But that's a long shot especially if you have legitimate or even tangentially legitimate issues with the employee performance. The law is very much on the employers side here.
2) Managers who fire people have a higher heart attack rate for the next six months.
That's not the employees problem and if that is true and a legitimate concern then don't be manager? If you're scared of heights don't be a roofer? What am I supposed to take from that?
3) Unless upper management is cool with high turnover, firing workers is viewed as being a week manager.
True! Which makes it all the weirder when mandates come down for managers to cut staff. Maybe the managers managers are not very good at their
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1) There *might* be some unknown legal gotcha so best to have a case.
If you’re willing to eat the cost of paying out unemployment you can fire someone for just about any reason other than being a member of a protected class. Smart HR departments won’t even let you tell them why, at least, it’s something vague and nebulous. My old employer's go to was "Bad cultural fit"
If you want to evade paying unemployment, that takes a paper trail.
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Or perhaps this is a way to get rid of slackers.
I have another theory: it's a way to test how much workers are willing to obey their superiors, however pointless the orders.
The company thereby doesn't get rid of slackers: it reduces potential insubordination and potential unionization for those places that don't have a union yet. Best of all, because the employees quit themselves, it doesn't cost them a penny.
Most company value mediocre employees who obey and shut their traps much more than bright divas.
Re:Maybe (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, slackers are mostly found in the office. That way they can clock in hours and produce little or nothing themselves. WFH people need to _deliver_ stuff.
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Or perhaps this is a way to get rid of slackers. Get back to the office or else. The real top performers will be taken aside and offered individual WFH deals if they want one.
Dear Maybe, just to improve your knowledge, my wife had a severe stroke several years ago and I've been her primary care giver since then. As a consequence of effectively working two full-time jobs, I've had to work seven days a week ever since. Going to an office isn't a viable option. If I was required to, I would have to quit.
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I'm sorry for your situation.
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Has your employer issued a "back to the office" order? Have they offered you a flexible schedule to allow you to care for your wife? Yes? Then they probably figure that you are worth keeping. No? That doesn't mean you are a slacker. It may mean that they may not want to take a big hit to their health insurance premium.
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Don't get me wrong, but I'd prefer to do that from the privacy of my home.
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My former company was like that.
They announced the plan. For some reason they have biweekly Q&A where the manager spins lines of bullshit to the little people. People repeatedly asked how it was going to work what work there being fewer people than desks. Management kept trying to bullshit arithmetic. Not even arithmetic. Counting.
Day one people were sitting on the floor. Even the management couldn't fail to notice that probably because it's an OSHA violation for office workers and literally illegal I'd
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No: I want very clear.
It's a multinational. The NYC office was I'd guess an OSHA violation. The London office inhabitants simply ignored upper management because we didn't feel like sitting on the floor.
The point is upper management were so stubborn and stupid that couldn't do basic counting and refused to accept they had made a mistake even when presented with the numbers repeatedly. They actually believed in their hubris that they could bullshit reality into submission, not realizing that reality isn't on
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Yup, pretty much this for a company I know all too well because I made the mistake of working for them a long time ago.
Come Covid, they decided to not renew the lease for one of their office floors, reducing the space they had to 60%. And they kept those 60% most likely because they owned it and couldn't sell it without a huge loss the CEO didn't want to justify.
So in 2022, they wanted people to come back to the office. But, erh... well... we only have room for 60% of the people anymore. But their C-Levels
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Sure. And just eat the cost of high turnover, loss of institutional knowledge, and so on, while your competitors with more flexible policies thrive.