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"We need everyone to come back into the office."

Posted on Tuesday July 6, 2021

And other blatant lies your employer tells you.

I worked from home for a year and a half, and during that time:

I didn't have to deal with the daily anxiety of awkward social interactions and transactional relationships
I was able to fully focus on my work in a comfortable, distraction-free environment
I was able to take care of my own personal and mental health when and how I needed to without fear of retaliation
In spite of (read: because of) all of this, I added just as much value to our products and development processes as I ever had

Now it's "imperative" that we all return to the office so that our entitled boomer company owner can get off on feeling in control of other peoples' lives again.

Try as I might to agitate among my coworkers, the long-timers (and from my boss' perspective, the only employees who matter) are content with mediocrity and mistreatment.

I feel so angry and hopeless. Not looking forward to job hunting again but it's looking inevitable.

- panda-roux -

next: "Laptop Cooling Pads?"

[2021-07-06 19:18:13] splatt9990 (67025):

I'd imagine a bigger reason for the "we all have to back to the office" policy companies are adopting now is simply to justify continuing to have an office. A lot of companies are stuck in lease agreements for several years. If they actually own the building, then they either have to pay to maintain a building that they aren't using, or sell it which could be difficult or impossible right now. Doesn't mean it doesn't suck for all the employees though.

[2021-07-07 17:33:58] ~defunct (44d4d):

it's not only a boomer scheme. there's people who literally don't know how to communicate well and satisfactory (for them and/or others) online. that require the social interaction themselves. and many more reasons. before covid it was the ones like you who had to take a hit for the team and now the others don't want to take the hit. that's the biggest tragedy about it

[2021-07-17 19:06:47] Supernova (0da44):

People have different levels of comfort about working from home versus working in the office. It is likely those longer term employees your boss may give preference to are older and are the ones that want to get back to the office. I am in a similar situation- at home over a year but now going back to the office 3 days/week for now. However we have been hiring 100% remote employees now. There are companies out there that will learn that remote work can be more productive for some people, or expand their potential employee pool furhter than they can find locally. I encourage you to seek out those companies that are now changing their work at home policies.

[2021-07-17 22:47:55] panda-roux (d8842):

re: Supernova, yes, from what I can tell what you said about differing comfort levels certainly applies here as well. There are some older folks who had been working mainly in the office even before we were required to go back. Everyone's got their preferred mode for sure. I am certainly going to be sending out feelers for jobs that are more amenable to my preferences.

[2021-07-17 22:50:32] panda-roux (d8842):

re: splatt9990, good point, I hadn't thought about this. There could very well be a sunk-cost motivation at play as well. I was pretty pissed off when I wrote this (obviously) but I've mellowed and come to terms with the fact that it's probably not 100% crummy attitudes on the part of the boss, but that there are likely a lot of factors contributing. It's a difficult time for most everyone right now.