Wife was hired in 2014 for a position that was designed to be remote. They changed things in 2017 and tried to make her come into an office 2.5 hours away, 5 days a week. She’s legally blind and doesn’t drive, a fact they were fully aware of and had no issues with when they hired her. She tried to argue multiple times, and it just ended up going in circles with several managers getting pretty insulting to her. So, she quit, and eventually decided to contact a disability lawyer to inform the ex-employer she would be suing for discrimination, and ADA violations. Because they said some pretty stupid things in emails and voicemails. They ended up offering a nice sized settlement. She found another WFH job that paid 3x what she was making at the old place, with a higher level position and more closely fits her education. She’s much happier with how things turned out for her. The position has been on various job sites for over 3 years and doesn’t look like it’s been filled since she quit, though I can’t say that for sure.
They think we’re cattle, but cattle won’t eat the rich.
I have always told folks that I managed, that I’m nothing without them. Yea, I have a MBA as well, but man, are alot of those business folks short sighted to a fault. Like lack of empathy and foresight.
If your KPI’s are based around having a knowledge worker in a chair in a room, your business should die.
Plain and simple.
It’s sad that this is considered malicious at all. Seriously, either working from home is a risk for your company or it isn’t, there’s nothing in between.
I work night shifts. My manager one time called me around 2pm to ask me something menial and waking me up (as I was still sleeping for my next shift at 7pm).
So naturally, I called him at 2AM when I was at work… because I had an “urgent” question about a work policy lol. He got the picture, and that shit never happened again
My SO was told to travel to office every day of the week, only to sit in zoom meetings because all of their team is elsewhere.
Reaaaal good use of everyone’s time and our non-renewable resources.
I refuse to install any work related software on my phone. Not only because I don’t want to be contacted after hours, but companies often “require” full read/write access on your device, so they can remotely wipe their data if you quit or get fired.
Fuck that.
My guess is that some businesses get tax breaks from municipalities in exchange for filling office spaces with warm bodies. The idea is that people in office buildings support local businesses by buying lunch, and sometimes grabbing a pint after work.
I’m not trying to excuse this trend, in fact as an IT person myself I 100% agree with the sentiment, I’m just trying to share what I’ve been told.
Commercial realestste makes up a significant amount of rich people’s investment portfolios. And if people stopped needing office space the property would devalue and those rich people would lose easy money.
So they have all collectively agreed to force their workers back to the office I order to keep the real estate values up and keep their investments positive.