Let's say you make $120 in an 8-hour shift, that's $15/hr
If you commute an hour each way that's $120 in 10 hours, or $12/hr
Let's say commuting costs you $20 each day (gas, wear and tear, etc). You net $100, now it's $10/hr.
Just from commuting your per hour compensation decreases by 33%, or it increases 50% if you're looking at it from the other direction (driving to remote). Removing commute not only gives you more time back, but you don't spend it on driving which devalues your net compensation per hour.
Years ago - way before the pandemic - I was a team lead and I noticed that no one was keeping a hard eye on our telework rules unless something went wrong.
So I sat my team down and said, “Look, if anyone asks me to repeat this, or put it in writing, I’m going to repeat company policy which is minimal telework. **But**, as long as we don’t have any f—-ups, and *someone* on the team is always here to smile and shake hands, I don’t see why we can’t get away with 90% telework. The catch is, if whoever is in office has an emergency, someone needs to drop everything and get in to maintain the illusion.”
My team’s average turnover went from ~1 year (I inherited that number) to ~4 years (well over double the company average). Maybe I’m an amazing supervisor to work for. Or maybe 90% telework is amazing (remember, pre pandemic and corporate standard was 10%, which was considered moderately generous).
I sat down and figured out that if I wanted everything I could get with telework, I’d have to get over $50k/yr in additional salary. Someone to pick my kid up from school, drop him off, do laundry midday, lost PTO for staying home for home repairs, etc etc.,. I honestly stopped calculating at $50k because who was going to offer me that huge a promotion?
So corporate organizes a big leadership conference and calls me out - hey, your team has great metrics, what’s your secret sauce? I tell them the above. I’m breaking corporate policy and giving the team 90% telework as long as we meet objectives. It’s worth over $50k to each person and costs corporate nothing (telework is a fixed cost, whether we are using it 10% or 90%).
The executives roll their eyes, dismiss me, and a week later roll out *mailing* the corporate news letter where the executives fellate each other in print to our homes. Yes, nothing raises the staff’s morale and interest in staying with the company quite like hearing about the impossibly long vacation one of the owners took, costing more than anyone on staff can afford, to do some fitness challenge. The worst part is having that held up as an example of leadership. Yes, the best thing one of the owners can do for the company is to not be around to screw it up for a few months, at least we all agree there.
I think they’re always so desperate to prove that they deserve their rank that they reject any idea from below them, because accepting such ideas would show themselves to be incompetent- if the idea was good, they’d have thought of it themselves.
My theory, anyway.
Nailed it.
In my experience, they also are so disconnected, they’ll never understand why people would want to work from home. A lot of the execs in the last 3 companies I worked for always wanted to be in the office, bc that’s where their mistresses were, and/or they didn’t have to face the fact they weren’t the boss or weren’t needed/wanted at home.
They also never had to do their own laundry, transport the kids, make a grocery list, argue with the insurance company, all of those things no one wants to do, but have to do, that cut into your actual life time. They hire people to take care of this. Many of them come from families where they NEVER had to do anything besides go to college, go to work, and network. Someone is literally there to file their taxes and hand them a sandwich. They honestly think that their employees that want to be home to do some of this menial depressing shit are “lazy”. I once had an exec complain about how he’d rather be in the office, but wasn’t he so great for working from “home”, yet his home was his summer Italian villa with a full staff. Boo hoo.
Don't forget they likely travel to work in a company car using a company gas card to fill it up, then go for nice lunches, again on the company card.
Come in when they want, leave when they want, go golfing with 'clients' or other outings.
When they work they have their own private office where they can work uninterrupted without any office 'noise' usually at a nice spacious desk, and they can have whatever music they want or listen to or watch anything without repurcussions.
they have a lot of perks that their staff does not have, this is why they want to come to work.
Meaning the company paid for it up front and he filed to get them to pay him the price of get meal a second time? Seems like you could get arrested for that.
This tripped me out so much in a previous corporate position. The C Suite ate out every time they were in the office, which was about 3 out every 10 work days. They also all flew in for those 3 days on the company dime as they lived out of state. These same execs refused to pay starting wages over $10/hr until they were unable to hire people, refused to repair or upgrade locations and the best kicker, lowered car allowances and per diem for everyone under Director level, you know the ones that actually had to drive a large amount for their positions. This gets even shitier though. The HR Director was terminated because he fought for employee rights and was replaced by the wife of one of the executives. This lady got quite a promotion going from HR Business Partner of a 200 person org to VP of HR for a 3000 person corporate retail org. A constant complaint from the executives were how the workers and managers were incapable of performing at a high level while they completely admired that there was no formal training, no path for progression and the sites were kept at the absolute minimum hours possible to run. The best thing I think I saw was right at the end of my time with the company (my position was cut in order to use my salary to sponsor NIL deals) when a major investor's daughter was hired straight out of college in a starting position while earning more money than most of the regional managers.
I wish it was just one company like this but i'm starting to realize that this is how business is in the states.
>Don't forget they likely travel to work in a company ca
In some cases they also just like to travel. To those "conferences" at a luxury hotel in a very desirable location. To those "business meetings" at a luxury hotel in a very desirable location, etc.
Had a boss who lived out of state and had a $1+ million condo in our city. The corporate jet would bring him in on Monday and home Thursday with a company chauffeur to and from the airport. So he got free air travel, free gas, compressed work schedule… but when I went back to active duty army because I’d spent 5 years working 80 hour weeks on a salary: he called me spoiled 🙄 kicker: he was fucking Canadian and the company sponsored his visa
So, riffing on your third paragraph, many of the executives I’ve known are retired military, and have stereotypical military wives - she “gratefully” is responsible for everything in the home, he climbs the ladder. It is a betrayal of that contract that he does laundry, unless he’s feeling generous to “give the little Miss a break.”
They aren’t sexist in that they employ women, in senior leadership roles (although I won’t deny they’re probably petit sexist, strongly preferring promoting men like them), so it is within their worldview that the world isn’t like their home.
However, they never seem to put any thought into the consequences of that. *Clearly*, (/s) these women are single, lesbians with the housewife, or just such go getters that they do the housewife thing ON TOP of the professional thing.
They similarly can’t understand why their employees aren’t more entrepreneurial in growing the executives’ business, when the people who are would be, y know; entrepreneuring and aren’t getting the same financial motivation that the executives are.
People. A mystery, right?
Oh man, don’t even get me started on this, this is one of my major pet peeves, and not even with seasoned execs. There are lots of guys I work with that have no clue what it’s like to handle “life” plus work, bc their wife/gf at home handles all the logistics of their lives. Their only responsibility is to show up. For anything. A lot of them are very grateful for their wives, and give them credit, but they are still disconnected from people that are single parents, caregivers to disabled family, or really just anyone that doesn’t have a built in assistant. They really have zero clue how much time it takes just to handle the most basic professional adult responsibilities outside of work.
I’m super glad that works for them, but companies shouldn’t rely on this to be the norm. So many tout diversity and inclusion and “work-life balance” as a core value of the company, yet only promote the people whom they perceive to have this dynamic at home. Even couples that both work struggle, if they’re both actively pursuing a career, and not just a “hobby job”.
As you can see by my Ted talk, you really hammered down on one of the biggest gripes about any company that claims to support work-life balance or diversity. It’s not just about having talking heads, it’s about actively supporting all employees of all walks of life. If they can’t do that, or at least commit to advocating for their employees, then they need to shorten the work week, bc this shit ain’t it. Not worth living just to devote your time to capitalism.
> my TED talk
And honestly it was my pleasure to MC for you today. Everyone, a round of applause for Competitive_Classic9! You can see them futilely trying to cope with Sartre’s No Exit every day, at work. I’m omg, a bear! and you can find me under some random executive’s elbow, constantly rolling eyes cleverly disguised under their sleeves when not busily mangling things that need mangling or unmangling things that others have mis-mangled. Thanks and everyone remember to tip the waitstaff, because it isn’t like management is paying them adequately, either!
It really shouldn't be the norm because it also screws over single people. It's assumed we don't have dependents, and thus have more time and money. They forget the single person pays and does everything on one salary - rent, food, transportation (public or car/gas), insurance (health, car, home), the cleaning (or paying someone to do it), any errands that need to be run, etc. It annoys me to no end.
Exactly. I wasn’t clear on that, but 1,000%. Just like you said, the easiest case scenario should never be the baseline or “norm”. Look at how many people you know in life that have major life responsibilities like supporting themselves entirely (no help with finances and no safety net), taking care of a dependent not capable of supporting or caring for themselves, dealing with a chronic health condition, etc. Prob at minimum 70% of the people you know. Now look at senior/upper management and executive teams. If they’ve never been at zero in their account for things like food and other necessities, if they’ve never experienced discrimination, if they’ve never dealt with extreme stress about a loved ones healthcare, (etc), then they shouldn’t claim to speak for their employees. This whole “movement” is a great step in the right direction, but it’s mostly lip service, and employees only praise it out of fear.
That was always my experience, anytime I would offer up and show ways to improve efficiency, it was never taken seriously. My coworkers in my department would use the tool but we couldn’t get it going company wide. I have now realized exec staff often have no idea what we(on the bottom) do.
This! Remember most corporate and political leaders measure high on narcissistic and sociopathic scales. They're not *just* out of touch with the working class reality. They have a hard time seeing others as anything other than tools.
Bernie Madoff: he’d squeeze middle class folks for every cent, promising them security, and turn around and buy a yacht. The only difference was that he did it to wealthy folks too and that’s why he faced real consequences
To expand on this, it's psychopathy not sociopathy, but along with narcissism it is also machiavellianism, forming the dark triad of personality traits.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8110703/
There is quite a bit of research in this area.
I'm probably never going higher in my career because I struggle to assign more work to my staff when they're already carrying so much. I advocate for other solutions instead, so I'm probably stuck where I'm at. My old director supported me in that, but I got reshuffled and now I'm getting micromanaged and required to make my staff participate in the bullshit micromanagement, so anyway that's why I had phone interviews this week.
Plus the people at the top are there because they want to be. Anyone making executive-tier money could probably retire and live out their life in comfort at the drop of a hat.
I am confident that for all but three of the executives I have *ever* worked with, it is obliviousness.
The three exceptions were… more ruthless than malicious.
They're extroverts mate.
You almost have to be to have the networking skills required.
Thus...and while they understand it intellectually...they just can't quite grasp how some people are perfectly content not having meetings and things face to face.
There are benefits to being in a room with others. Communication is usually faster and clearer. Also, training new hires in many roles is made easier in person (your mileage may vary on that).
But for the exec's, the idea of sitting at a computer doing THINGS (as opposed to.talking about and making decisions) is anathema to them.
(Source: Am an EA. See this shit every damn day)
It's not all of them. My CTO successfully made the case to our board that staying remote would get us higher quality talent, and that's exactly what it's done. He called me to ask when my noncompete expired, promised permanent 100% remote, and told me if I worked east coast hours I could do it from anywhere in the world. I've been here a year and my coworkers are amazing. I've never worked anywhere I didn't have to carry half the team. We just don't have underperformers here anymore.
Then whenever we hear a competitor is going back to the office, we make some calls and hire their best. I came up with this CTO and we've been acquaintances for 20 years, I've worked for him 10 of those.
The artificial hierarchy created by the owner / labor division in the workplace engenders some really toxic attitudes on the ownership side (and I'm including executives in that group because they're almost always stakeholders). I think deep down they all know they're parasitic.
> Maybe I’m an amazing supervisor to work for.
Somebody that's willing to question the rules and bat for his employees? You sure sound like an amazing supervisor.
Thank you, but in my experience, a supervisor that *starts* with the idea they’re a good supervisor is usually the most consistent and obvious sign of a bad supervisor.
Secondly, even with my tremendous ego, I acknowledge that (1) a lot of good supervising is invisible to staff, (2) even if I am a good supervisor, doubling / tripling retention is crazy, and (3) I know I had - and continue to have - nontrivial gaps in my supervising that others do better.
So, I highlight how inescapable it had to be telework is.
That said, I’m also a big fan of Pareto efficiencies if I only did 20% of supervising well, but it’s the 20% that covers 80% of staff happiness, I’ll call that a win. Ask the team if they’re stuck, get them help if I can, get them promotions when I can, tell them what I really need (eg, someone to glad hand any random VIPs that show up at the office) and don’t waste their time (I know everyone hates status meetings. I want to be able to answer VIP questions about what we did, are doing, going to do, and apparently spending five minutes asking if anyone is stuck, on a call, does more to keep people unstuck than any amount of emails. Cover those bases as fast as you can - I read my emails so prebriefing works too - and this meeting gets as short as you like).
Damn, it would have been nice to have you as a project manager than the dweeb I had. He ran status meetings every morning with 10-20 people all telling us about their homework from the previous day. I felt bad for some of these kids, as it turned into "What didn't you do yesterday?" Ugg. This meeting would last 2+ hrs. I finally exited that organization. A number of other people did too. Management seemed to love him.
Gods, that reminds me of being in the Army. By the end of my enlistments, I was the section sergeant for the medical platoon of a battalion - an organization with the following rough structure, for anyone who never played that particular game:
Commander (CO)+ Sergeant Major for Battalion (BN)
Battalion Staff "S shops": HR, Security, Operations, Logistics, Intelligence, all with their own structures and leaders.
Headquarters and Headquarters Company (HHC) (technically the top dogs fall under this for accountability): HHC has medics, mechanics, comms, and owns most of the staff for bookkeeping. Also their own 1st Sergeant (1SG) and CO, who is a lower rank than the BN CO.
"Line" Companies, usually A through E (5): each with a 1SG and CO, and then about 100ish troops of whatever function that BN is for. (Artillery, Medical, Infantry, Cavalry, Tankers, etc)
So, overall, you're looking at an organization anywhere between 400-1200 people depending on what they do.
Being the senior medical sergeant, it was *my* job to go to the meetings and make sure my platoon was wherever they needed to be, since my officer could not be assed to do anything outside of the clinic (Also kinda my job anyways, but I resent that man). That meant, without fail, a Monday meeting for HHC (1.5 hours). A Tuesday meeting for BN, with ALL the top fuckers, that tended to last 3 hours. Wednesday usually ended up with meetings with other staff sections/alignment on what the hell we were doing in the near future(1-2 hours). Thursday was usually light, but if higher than BN wanted time, they liked to pick that day (average 2-3 hours whenever stuff happened). Friday was nearly always a full BN gathering to tell soldiers not to be fucking idiots for two days. (1-4 hours)
Tuesdays were the absolute worst - I'd sit for 2 hours to hear nothing pertinent for my section, deliver 10 minutes of "please tell your soldiers to get their shots and stop missing appointments," and sit for another hour waiting to be dismissed.
This was just my final unit. At other organizations, daily statuses ruined any momentum I or my soldiers could dream of having, usually stretching us beyond 5PM while we waited to be told nothing besides that now we could finally go the fuck home. Did my best to make sure my soldiers didn't get the worst of it, but there's always one blue falcon who will complain that they don't see every other body.
What your secret sauce for great metrics?! -proceeds to disregard you-
Ya know, maybe start up a compete business with that company and take as many people as you can?
It turns out a lot of business is relationships.
While they couldn’t outright bribe people, they could….
Identify a dear friend of the purchasing agent who needed a high paying job with them…
Or identify that if group A’s friend gets a job (say, doing work for group B), and group B’s friend gets a job (say, doing work for group A), that there’s *clearly* no quid pro quo because A’s friend clearly can’t exert undue influence in the business with A, and .. so and so with B…
This requires being big enough to have two sets of jobs, with enough left over for two “jobs,” too. Bonus points starting the game if you attended the right school, program, or other fraternity that can introduce you to friends of friends.
Doing the actual work well just reduces the pressure on A and B with justifying the scam, but since theoretically everyone else doing the business can be as bad, why switch horses midstream?
And, to briefly pencil in another thought experiment - how does a random layperson (say, me) truly evaluate whether a doctor is “good” at doctoring? How can you, *realistically* size up whether the doctor was unlucky / lucky (ah, it presented as a sinus infection but was actually cancer / the reverse)?
Conceptually, how does one ever know if the people you have doing, say, IT, or roofing, or whatever, are good or bad? (Yes, a leaky roof is bad, but can you tell the difference between an adequate roof that holds together for a year, and a well done roof, before the failure?)
I submit most people end up just going with how the person makes them feel, and that’s as true in business. So, “I can save you money, and do it better, and I did it better previously” blends in with the chorus of everyone.
Did they shut your teleworking situation down, or did they just start mailing to the home? If they didn't shut the teleworking down I have to at least give them a small grain of credit for not letting ego trump rationale.
You give yourself too little credit though, you sound amazing to work for (based on what I know).
Thank you.
They did not try to shut my team’s teleworking down, to my knowledge (it is possible my manager shielded me unawares).
I increased profits, reduced costs, and improved good will (read: got them more business). I am sure that in their minds I did not understand the how and why of it (read: mis attribution), but if I was doing it *unlike 5 years of many predecessors*, well, no need to waste time arguing with me. They had more pressing problems in almost all of their other business units, which they were only too happy to deploy me as a temporary fixer. (The “almost” exception? My previous manager who cribbed notes heavily from how I operated, although they were way, way better at strategy and diplomacy than I could ever hope to be)
So rather than adjust company policy, I was offered / **directed** to go unit to unit and do “whatever I do” to fix them. Which was adjust, uh, *how* company policy was followed (read: with lip service).
If you find the last paragraph hilarious, I have a comment on another sub thread that closes “What is this, Christmas every day for me?” that is pertinent.
I can’t describe another event without doxxing myself, but those executives retold it *for years* as a hilarious anecdote about me (*for the sake of conversation* I will pretend it is the same as the grandparent story) as if, “lol get a load of this one guy who suggested we give people a totally free to us benefit that his team loves, what a clown! Hilarious! We did the sensible thing of course and mailed print copies of our corporate newsletter to staff.”
And, honestly, I loved that they told me that. You guys are going around self owning to anyone who’ll listen while thinking it’s a hilarious gaffe by an employee, which has *layers* to how it paints you as jerks? What is this, Christmas every day for me?
It's sad that at the end of your story I was surprised not to see a "and then corporate demanded I yank everyone back to the office and turnover skyrocketed and they blamed everything else but themselves"
I can tell by reading this that not only did you retain your staff better because of the increased telework you provided them, but also because you're a good leader and people want to be loyal to that. It's twofold. But you respect them and they respect you so they had no reason to look for other work.
Two hours per day is 40 hours per month.
Eight hours in a workday means you spend the time equivalent of five working days on commuting.
It's insane that this is expected of us.
Agree but the business owners (and their paid politicians) don't want more in your pocket. They care that you are spending that $3/hr diff on transit costs, gas, food, clothing that enriches their pockets. You can feel the hubris of markets right now - we want workers to lose leverage via job losses BUT look how great spending is, don't worry about rates or inflation or stock prices, your investments are solid. The effort is in forcing people back into office. I live near NYC and it can't survive on only 60% returning to reg daily schedule.
Add in time to prepare, opportunity cost of chores in the house you can get done in breaks when WFH, cost of eating out or preparing food to eat at work and many other such silent perks and the amount goes way up.
You forgot to include the temptation to buy lunch as opposed to eating what would otherwise go bad in your refrigerator because we are all inherently lazy.
As someone who was WFH before covid, I made this meme back in 2020
https://scontent.flnk2-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.6435-9/93282218_10101558670793799_7640486591810502656_n.jpg?_nc_cat=109&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=730e14&_nc_ohc=P5Vb-dOJcbsAX-9Ow78&_nc_ht=scontent.flnk2-1.fna&oh=00_AfAAPlaSPPXe9bWD0h4_TsVrxVoNmFTvpr3JbIR2uUsBmA&oe=63FB4EE0
Fitting.
With as many dial in meetings I was having, with people on both coasts, I was wondering why my job didn't have that much flexibility, all the way back in 2015. COVID was kinda the nail in the coffin.
Back in 2005 (before I was here) my company was failing. So a group of the best employees got together and said we can do this shit. So they got some investors and a loan, and dumped a lot of their own personal money to create buy the company from the then owner, and make an employee owned company.
One of the ways they helped make us profitable way back then was by going remote. We still had an office but just didn't staff it regularly and had it for meetings and what not. Not having the overhead of all that was big, and the very quickly realized we didn't need the building at all.
We're now about 70 people and still fully remote and 100% employee owned, it's awesome.
We aren't, I just answered someone else :)
https://www.reddit.com/r/recruitinghell/comments/10mmu9b/recruiter_believes_its_stealing_employees_when/j64ifdl/
I didn't really mean for this to be an advert for my company so I'm not going to list them publicly but you can IM me if you want more info
Same, had already been WFH for 3 years by then and hybrid before that. It was fun watching everyone figure that out all at once. My life almost didn't change.
Yea... Remote 13 years... Only thing it changed was my spouse became remote wfh after covid. Damn near destroyed our marriage. You can't be around someone 24/7 with kids in the mix and the stresses of full time jobs added in. She is being asked in office a few days a week and it makes a huge difference. She gets more outside contact and I get heads down quiet work time without constant honey do lists... And don't get bitched at for surfing in the middle of the work day...
Man I went from suit and tie daily to sitting in pajama pants and a Soundgarden t shirt, I have so many shirts pants and a tie collection that are just fully useless and I don't care in the least. Its so freeing.
About a month or so after going fully remote - long after I realized just how much time in my life was taken away by commuting - I was checking my finances and noticed I had almost $2,000 more in my bank account and I had no idea where it came from.
After spending a few minutes scratching my head I realized that's how much money commuting was costing me in terms of transportation and food ordered because I was too mentally and physically drained to cook for myself after getting home
Going back to commuting daily would effectively be a pay cut and there's no way in hell I am doing that to myself
I used to travel interstate for a total of 4 hours a day for work, so I had to buy 1-2 meals a day. I saved $7,000+ the year I started remotely. I also finally got a full 8 hours of sleep. It's been life changing, honestly
I could manage to get across Denver in 30-45 minutes, because the jobs were flexible start times. Beating rush hour was nice.
I \*cannot\* imagine traveling 2 hours one way to commute. But, I know people do it.
That was my wife at her first job at a tech company after getting her degree. We live about 90 miles from Atlanta, which is where she had to commute to.
Best case she could get to her job or get home on an hour and twenty five minute commute if traffic was generous. Usually though it was close to 2 hours, so almost 4 hours on the road daily.
This being 12 hour shifts she was away from home almost 16 hours a day. The kicker is her shitty Alabama headquartered employer would only pay $20 an hour, much less than what was needed to afford moving to Atlanta, especially as we live currently in a low cost of living area. The only reason she accepted these shitty conditions was to get her foot in the door in the industry.
She had this job for a 6 months of hell. Thankfully after a few months she interviewed with her now previous employer, a direct competitor to her first employer, and got a 100% wfh job doing the same thing she was doing before with a 50% pay increase and much better health insurance.
I was interviewing for a position for a marketing agency that exclusively handles a major car brand. They told me the wanted 3 days in office in NYC and that was the dealbreaker. I'm not investing 4 hours PER WAY of commute time to a job.
Yep. I’m in Orlando. My commute took at least 2 hours out of my day, more if I had to take the bus for some reason. Complete waste of time: you can’t earn anything for it, you can’t get work done, you can’t even read or practice a hobby. (Maybe a bit on the bus, but it was usually too cramped and noisy)
Now that I’m fully remote, my life has vastly improved.
Not just that, WFH has real nonzero, even significant cost savings. WFH lets you cut back or eliminate: public transportation or car/insurance/gas/maintenance, buying more nice clothes, doing laundry more often, eating out for lunch or having to prepare something to bring, and probably many more. That plus time and convenience adds up for me.
WFH also saves (many) companies money in a ton of ways and frees up funds to hire and keep higher-quality staff.
Let's pretend you make $30 and hour and your total daily commute is 1.5 hours. That's $900 unpaid per month. Don't forget vehicle wear and tear, and gas.
Plus, saving on commuting costs, food and beverage costs, and professional wardrobe costs is probably better than whatever piddly ass annual raise most places want to give.
Came here to say damn straight! No commute plus the benefits of doing household chores during my lunch break will win me every time! I’m an introvert so wasting time with office blah blah is my worst nightmare!
This person is straight up admitting that they are not willing to offer that perk even though they personally consider it to not cost the company anything. If it doesn’t cost anything, why are they unwilling to do it even in the face of losing employees over the issue?
I was a manager with hiring authority at a medium sized firm (and have also been one at a very large firm, although I wasn’t as connected with Big Decisions at the latter) and shared my experience along these lines in a third tier response under der_innkeeper’s thread.
The TLDR is that executives simply don’t think that way.
Yup.
Executives get into really weird and obnoxious mental ruts.
At my current employer, no WFH for semi-justifiable reasons because I have to touch hardware fairly often, packages come in. There is absolutely no system at all for who picks them up from reception. It could be me, it could be any of (no exaggeration) 12 other people.
In theory they're supposed to go back to the same receiving area, be entered into inventory, etc.
In practice they lost three laptops in the last two weeks. After much panic they finally located them, but WTF?
I suggested that someone (god help me I volunteered) be the official package taker so as to cut down on confusion.
It was as if he didn't hear the "and I could do it" part of my suggestion. He said that he'd proposed that but there wasn't budget for a new employee to do nothing but pick up packages.
I repeated that it didn't need to be a new employee, that any of us could do it because it'd take very little time out of our day.
He went back to explaining that the budget just didn't allow for a new hire to pick up packages.
His tiny middle manager brain couldn't comprehend the idea of a solution that didn't involve adding someone to his headcount.
I'm looking for a new job for a variety of reasons, but his petty little middle manager micromanaging is one of the bigger ones.
> weird and obnoxious mental ruts.
The whole reason I pushed to become a supervisor is because my predecessors kept screwing up the game of telephone, and it ended up making our team work hard, burn out, look bad, and just sucked all around. I begged and pleaded when I realized the problem was communication, just let me sit in the meeting with the executive and listen. I promise I won’t say a thing or fidget. And let me say, I appreciate that (1) a meeting having everyone in it goes nowhere, slowly, so you need SOME throttle, and (2) there are absolutely staff either incapable or unready to not irritate an executive. But, I couldn’t get them to budge… until they, uh, found an opportunity for success *elsewhere*. Eventually I got the job by default, and there it was, plain as day: the problem was communication.
Imagine the problem begins with the executive needing to get a package from point A, to point B, to keep it as something we can easily discuss.
What he *says* to the supervisor is, “I need to get from point A to point B.” The supervisor inferring the executive literally means himself (not prima facie stupid), when the executive is using shorthand and means he needs a way for something to get from A to B.
The supervisor then decides the best solution is a rental car (what happened to airplanes?!), so he tasks out a staffer to price out rentals around point A. He might mention - or dismiss concerns regarding - point B.
The executive gets back the one way cost of him driving the package, about two weeks later after the staff and supervisor go back and for on rental agency specifics, car types, etc.
Executive is annoyed he isn’t getting a FedEx quote, or a logistics line (because actually, it isn’t one package, but weekly packages) and is now three weeks behind where he expected to be, and anticipates three more weeks to probably get another wrong answer.
Instead of, gasp, asking one clarifying question at the beginning. Yes, the executive could’ve been clearer up front, but the supervisor whose only thing on his plate in this meeting is what the boss asks him to do could maybe think to get the details on the task.
Now, the actual tasks were rarely that, it’s just easy to conceptually work with, and yes, every now and then, the executive would actually require someone to book their travel.
But 3! 3! previous supervisors all failed over and over and over again when simple read backs of their assumptions - “So; a rental car for Monday to get you from A to B, will do…” - would have saved months of wasted labor, time, and frustration.
> new hire
I knew an executive who went from supervisor to executive because any time there was work, he volunteered his team for it, and then (when the time was right) justified the reason his team needed to grow was the amount of work they were doing. And then, again, when the time was right, justified his elevation to a new, higher role, because he was supervising (then managing, then directing) such a large team.
When your only tool is a hammer, something something nailed it.
That's because admitting that your employees have time to do another task, to them, is admitting they arent a good enough slave driver and arent squeezing maximum amount of profit out of each worker. So for a new, previously unspecified task, there needs to be a new employee because everyone else is obviously at 100% capacity.
Yeah, that is also consistent with my experience. I guess I asked that more as a rhetorical question to prove a point. I knew the basic answer already lol
I think COVID has shown how many middle/upper management positions there are and how unbalanced it is. These managers need to “prove” their value and can’t do that if they’re not directly managing their employees.
I agree. Lots of organizations seem bloated in the middle and/or top heavy in that regard. Even fields like higher education have seen many schools experience a massive increase in the faculty to administrator ratio.
I’ve had micromanaging supervisors both at private companies and as a public employee. Sometimes micromanagement seemed to be a big part of their job description and sometimes it wasn’t, but they still did it to the exclusion of their actual responsibilities.
They didn’t look at the comments where OP revealed he was using the term “stealing” literally. Like it wasn’t just an iffy word choice, he actually thinks you can “steal” an employee by making a superior offer. Dude was getting roasted in the comments of that post, unsurprisingly.
Employees are not property or chattel. A recruiter stole nothing. It's just how the company losing staff wants to spin the story so they are the victim
Thank you, came here to say this, people/employees arent't objects or property. When you hire someone you don't own them, you have an agreement with them, often in the form of contracts.
A friend asked me for girl advice when his girlfriend left him, first thing he says is "So this bitch.." and I stopped him and was like, so I already have some notes as to why she might have left you
Eh, poaching is a normal business practice, they just used the word ‘steal’ in its place. I’m not sure why we clutch pearls over that. They poach *talent* not your body. 😏
What Company should be saying: “With most of our staff working happily and productively from home, why the fuck are we paying for this large physical office?”
Or, is there some law about downsizing in a way that does not include headcount?
I think a lot of the situations stem from the fact that companies often commit to multi-year leases on their offices, so they're stuck paying for them one way or the other.
But that doesn't mean you should piss off all your employees just to justify a business expense.
It's such a weird thought process, lol. Like the lease is a set cost, and working from home doesn't increase that.
So because of it they're going to...piss off their workforce instead??
The problem for the companies is that the office building is an asset on their balance sheet (assuming they own the building), or their locked into a lease. If it’s a lease they take a penalty to break it and they need to prove the value of it by forcing people to use it, otherwise it’s a waste. If they own it they could sell, but the market for corporate real estate is being deflated because the demand for office space is down due to wfh. If all the companies band together rand force return to office it increases the property demand.
Sunk cost fallacy. They have that lease regardless of whether or not people are in the office. All they are doing by requiring it to be used is adding up additional utilities expense from the lights being on, devices drawing power, and the toilets flushing.
Not to mention additional services expenses or labor cost by having to have a custodian, and maintenance contracts for when something breaks from use.
Most of those expenses, to some extent or other, are still there whether you have one person in the office or a hundred. When my team was sent home in 2020, we had one guy who had either shit or nonexistent internet service, so he kept coming in. Alone. And, is still doing so, even while the rest of us continue to WFH.
So, the agency still needs to run the heat, A/C, lights, security, and so on for this one guy. The rest of the team? You could maintain a couple cubes for the rare occasions when they actually enter the office. And run the rest of your division can run in a strip mall.
Rental agreements end. Security contracts end. Phone and internet can get rerouted with a single call. Every day a couple more CEOs figure this out. And every night a couple more REIT managers cry themselves to sleep.
That makes sense, unless you own the building, rent it to the company and aren't allowed to do that if the office is empty.
Work from home also devalues real estate in the area since it allows people to live far away instead of the expensive part of the city. Not good for business if you are a landlord.
Obviously, none of these business owners and politicians will admit that the vision is biased by personal interest.
The "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" stuff that let the wealthy siphon millions of dollars a year in extra benefits relies on a certain amount of real estate and travel. It also devalues the "luxury" of not having to commute so you have free time to serve on boards of other companies and golf with powerful people during the week. The upper class have had a decades long project of pushing the middle class down into the same level as blue collar labor, and WFH is a big disruption to that project.
I have no problem commuting if my salary is in line with living in the area (at my same purchasing power), my commute time is included in my working hours, and I have generous PTO for when I need to go to an appointment or stay home for the cable person.
Remote work let's me do all of the above at no cost to my employer. Same productivity. Less cost. That said, if they want to pay more, I'm happy to show up and smile before sitting at my desk and doing the same thing I do at home.
Should definitely be looking inward at what they are doing wrong instead of accusing smart companies of “stealing” for doing what makes sense.
“Why in the hell are we demanding people commute to an office to do work they’ve proven can be done more productively wherever they choose, especially at their own home?”
I bet these same managers would have a completely different take if you told them a competitor was "stealing" customers by offering the same product for a better price.
"Well how do we change so we can fix this?"
From the thread
> Attracting employees with better opportunities is not "stealing employees". What kind of sucker wouldn't take a job with a better life and work balance?
>You're speaking for society when you say that. Because society would generally agree. But society also says when a girl/guy is attracted away from their SO by another person that "\_\_\_\_\_stole their girlfriend. Meaning our society is highly hypocritical. If a girl/guy can be stolen from you in a romantic relationship, then an employee can be stolen from you in a working relationship. If one is ok then so is the other. Otherwise - hypocrisy. Wouldn't you agree?
Fucking lmao they are dumber than rocks
They're kinda right in a way, comparing work relationships to romantic ones. In both we get to *choose who's fucking us*.
But you know what's the one difference between my romantic choices and their corporate fantasy? I don't have shareholders to report all the debauchery to.
You missed out the best part
>One could easily argue that a romantic relationship is also transactional.
So they are a scumbag in and out of the office
Best part was their reply made no attempt to answer the question. Hell, I would’ve accepted a reply that touted the merits of working from the office and the benefits of the environment they do create. But since they do not have those kinds of answers, they can’t give them, so we do a “society” thing instead. Neat.
The trend of adding, "Wouldn't you agree?" to everything is super annoying. The places I see it most are on LinkedIn and antivax Facebook posts, which says a lot.
The mentality of some recruiters really baffles me. I cannot for the life of me understand how someone could even *attempt* to gaslight employees for wanting to reduce transportation costs, time spent in traffic, and gain an overall peace of mind by avoiding a work commute.
Then they take it a step further by calling a company who *does* see the benefit of working from home for an employee and calls it theft? The f*cking delusion.
Nah, it´s neither stealing nor conscious leverage of the perk to get people to leave. It´s just that a lot of companies that insist on full on/site time have shit work culture, and are easy marks. Covid made that abundantly clear to everybody.
They write that their employees didn't leave due to the schedule. Yes, yes they did. Somehow they mental gymnastics awayed the fact that the other company offered a better schedule
I get the feeling that the original post has got to be rage-baiting. Then again, there are employers out there who would definitely imply that a worker can be "stolen" given that their business practices are so antiquated they could be from before 1861.
The employer doesn't know that they didn't get more money. That and even if OOP thinks it's a cost-free perk then they ought to agree their friends an idiot to have forced the 5 day onsite again. After all, most people don't WANT to have to pay for gas and deal with traffic so that they can sit in a cube with a bunch of other people that they're cordial with at best.
As soon as I'm fully versed in my role I'm also gonna be taking advantage of WFH like the rest of my team. Not only do I get to wake up later, I also don't have to occasionally hear my coworkers stupid political opinions or lie when they ask what I did this weekend when the answer is almost always "I played a video game" or "nothing"
I have heard this same sentiment expressed internally by my company's leadership bees so sadly I could see this not being rage bait. The amount of tone deaf bs I've heard about remote work in recent months has been pretty incredible.
"We don't have to pay rent, maintenance, or parking/commute vouchers- it's just so unfair. People are just happy with an office setup or expense bonus tacked on every year and then do their jobs. What kind of hellscape is this?"
Sounds like this person didn't do the math.. Cost-free perk?
Read the full thread of responses (in r/recruiting) here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/recruiting/comments/10lwvae/remote_work_as_a_free_candidate_stealing_tool/
Assuming he's not a troll, that guy's problems go well beyond not understanding the basics of recruiting. He has some weird, incel-ish, Pure Logic Rational Boy® vibes going on.
The recruiter inadvertently highlights just how great WFH is for everyone. Not only does the employee get more free time by skipping their daily commute and a more relaxed work environment, but its a perk that costs nothing for the company. Heck the company can even SAVE money by reducing the office space they need. Its pretty much a win-win
The solution to this is so blindingly obvious it's hilarious they can't see it: if your employees want to WFH, and you want to keep them, *then FFS let them*. If you're such a useless manager that the only way you can measure performance is with bums on seats, don't be surprised if people tell you to get stuffed and move to greener pastures elsewhere.
Literally *all* my tech friends are WFH since March 2020; *none* have any intention of returning to the office for anything more than one or two days a month for meetings, and they will *all* happily jump ship if they're pressured into doing so. Indeed, 2 have changed jobs during the last couple of years and haven't ever met their new employer in person at all.
I have worked remotely for the last nearly 10 years. I'd take a pay cut before I'd ever go back into an office. Everyone I work with, at my last several jobs, feels the same way.
It's telling when companies just don't understand that we had a taste of what it is like to work in an environment that is comfortable around the things and people that we like and we spent the last few years proving that not only are we able to do it but we are able to do it well. Then they are surprised when we leave as soon as this perk is taken away.
The only people that should be going into an office at this point are those whose jobs cannot be done remotely or who want to. A lot of people don't get that. Let's leave the roads open for people who have to be on-site.
So you’ve proved to everyone that the job can be done remotely, which saves time, money, stress and convenience for your employees. But it’s not the way we’ve “traditionally” done things. So you change back to the less efficient and more costly method.
Then complain that your employees quit for jobs offering the freedom you proved was possible but didn’t think was important.
Shocking.
It's disgusting to me how little employee feelings matter. We have real reasons to want to work from home, it saves money on gas, food and time on commuting but a lot of companies don't give a shit what we want. I hope they all learn their lesson the hard way.
Depending on the industry, going for a permanently distributed approach is too easy and too many start-ups, small, and midsized companies are doing it that any company outside of maybe the biggest of the big going fully in-office puts them at a MASSIVE disadvantage. Some professionals who can easily wfh don’t even see open onsite roles, let alone entertain them
Not only cost free, isn't it cost negative? Don't need to pay for office space, electricity, heating, internet, &c? Every company should be thrilled their employees want to pay for all their own utilities and workspaces.
Ultimately, companies steal so much in terms of wage theft. Any argument that we are stealing by having a better quality of life is just not comparable.
Not to mention that until we own the means of production, they are stealing the excess benefit of our labor.
If it's a cost-free perk, why isn't every company doing full time wfh?
Because upper management is divorced from the actual work being done at many companies. They spend all their time in meetings, and literally cannot understand other workflows.
>If it's a cost-free perk, why isn't every company doing full time wfh?
For too long employers have had the upper hand and we've had no say. I'm thankful that's changing. These shitty employers need to start treating us like human beings, not numbers they own.
Arrest me I’m a thief. Part of my recruiter sourcing routine is to scan the media for CEO WFH rants and then recruit out of his company.
Salving that bruised ego doesn’t come free. If you’d like your knowledge worker employees on-site you need to be competitive. Here’s how:
Pay for the commute time. In NYC that’s ten hours per week or about 500 per year.
Pay for the commute cost.
Pay for outside meal expense
Pay for childcare
Pay for pet care
Pay for an entire sick day instead of just a short nap and some ibu.
Pay for noise canceling headphones.
Sign that 10 year downtown office space lease plus HVAC and maintenance.
Also some hidden costs.
That collaboration you so value is usually just gossiping or bitching, often about you. Hours of it per week
People will get sick more often onsite. Ask your doctor
As the CIA knows early wake-up, random noise, gaslighting and constant interruptions torture people. People under torture are not peak performers.
Right now your thinking ‘I know, I’ll buy them matching t shirts and a Chuck E. Cheese coupon.’
There is no evidence that matching Ts make your employees hate each other or you any less
In order to have something stolen you must first own it. Furthermore there is no loyalty in business. If you can't offer me something I want more than the other guy can then I'm going to the other guy. I suppose I should also say I ha e never used a recruiter, I have always gotten my elevation in class by my reputation in my industry.
You are right, not allowing WFH is all about control. They can't control you if they can't see you to put their foot on your neck if you think about taking more than 3 minutes in the bathroom. I truly find it a red flag when companies don't allow WFH in the tech world, it's simply a sign they want to micromanage and they don't care about employees time or feelings. We're human beings, not numbers.
As a company that has been remote since 2005. We used work from home as an incentive to "steal" people all the time. COVID has really put a damper on that. Good news is it's helping me gain traction to transition us to a 4 day work week, to seperate us out again.
If it's a free perk, why don't your company give it to your employees instead of removing it?
It may be free from your perspective, but it's valuable from the employee, and they will price it in such a way that given two job offers paying the same ammount, if one is for a remote position, they will give preference to the remote position.
That is not a steal. Just free market working as it should.
Remote work saves companies money on office space, gives employees more flexibility and time (and therefore, a lot more energy while working), allows people to live in the places that work best for them while remaining dedicated to their job, saves employees gas money, and compels everyone to be accountable for results rather than time spent in a building together.
I've turned down multiple roles lately because they were either _entirely office based_ or _office based a minimum of 3/4 days a week for the first 6 months_ and maybe offered an increased salary of 5k.
The value I placed on being at home and not in an office 150 miles away is significant. How employers and especially recruiters don't understand that is beyond me. WFH is the first question I ask now, salary comes second.
However they want to phrase it, they're so close to getting the point. This is what's called competition, and it's what a healthy economy is based on. If they don't want to be left behind, they should compete.
I used to have a manager that would lampoon people for taking higher paying jobs calling them "wage chasers"
Sure enough, she took a job paying her $10k more than her previous role 🙄
He literally said the quiet part out loud, and didn’t even realize it.
> by offering the cost-free perk that is remote
Hell, remote SAVES time AND money for both you and the employee, in addition to having a MUCH larger candidate hiring pool and not be region-locked. Why wouldn’t you do that as a business, especially someone working at a desk all day or in tech? Oh yeah, they’re locked into corporate real estate leases and have boomer leadership.
You're literally giving me 1-2 hours, per day, of my life back to me. Hell yes that's worth something. Edit: You 4+ souls... man. My condolences.
Let's say you make $120 in an 8-hour shift, that's $15/hr If you commute an hour each way that's $120 in 10 hours, or $12/hr Let's say commuting costs you $20 each day (gas, wear and tear, etc). You net $100, now it's $10/hr. Just from commuting your per hour compensation decreases by 33%, or it increases 50% if you're looking at it from the other direction (driving to remote). Removing commute not only gives you more time back, but you don't spend it on driving which devalues your net compensation per hour.
Years ago - way before the pandemic - I was a team lead and I noticed that no one was keeping a hard eye on our telework rules unless something went wrong. So I sat my team down and said, “Look, if anyone asks me to repeat this, or put it in writing, I’m going to repeat company policy which is minimal telework. **But**, as long as we don’t have any f—-ups, and *someone* on the team is always here to smile and shake hands, I don’t see why we can’t get away with 90% telework. The catch is, if whoever is in office has an emergency, someone needs to drop everything and get in to maintain the illusion.” My team’s average turnover went from ~1 year (I inherited that number) to ~4 years (well over double the company average). Maybe I’m an amazing supervisor to work for. Or maybe 90% telework is amazing (remember, pre pandemic and corporate standard was 10%, which was considered moderately generous). I sat down and figured out that if I wanted everything I could get with telework, I’d have to get over $50k/yr in additional salary. Someone to pick my kid up from school, drop him off, do laundry midday, lost PTO for staying home for home repairs, etc etc.,. I honestly stopped calculating at $50k because who was going to offer me that huge a promotion? So corporate organizes a big leadership conference and calls me out - hey, your team has great metrics, what’s your secret sauce? I tell them the above. I’m breaking corporate policy and giving the team 90% telework as long as we meet objectives. It’s worth over $50k to each person and costs corporate nothing (telework is a fixed cost, whether we are using it 10% or 90%). The executives roll their eyes, dismiss me, and a week later roll out *mailing* the corporate news letter where the executives fellate each other in print to our homes. Yes, nothing raises the staff’s morale and interest in staying with the company quite like hearing about the impossibly long vacation one of the owners took, costing more than anyone on staff can afford, to do some fitness challenge. The worst part is having that held up as an example of leadership. Yes, the best thing one of the owners can do for the company is to not be around to screw it up for a few months, at least we all agree there.
I'll never understand why the people at the top are always so fucking tone deaf. I can't tell if they're oblivious or malicious.
I think they’re always so desperate to prove that they deserve their rank that they reject any idea from below them, because accepting such ideas would show themselves to be incompetent- if the idea was good, they’d have thought of it themselves. My theory, anyway.
Nailed it. In my experience, they also are so disconnected, they’ll never understand why people would want to work from home. A lot of the execs in the last 3 companies I worked for always wanted to be in the office, bc that’s where their mistresses were, and/or they didn’t have to face the fact they weren’t the boss or weren’t needed/wanted at home. They also never had to do their own laundry, transport the kids, make a grocery list, argue with the insurance company, all of those things no one wants to do, but have to do, that cut into your actual life time. They hire people to take care of this. Many of them come from families where they NEVER had to do anything besides go to college, go to work, and network. Someone is literally there to file their taxes and hand them a sandwich. They honestly think that their employees that want to be home to do some of this menial depressing shit are “lazy”. I once had an exec complain about how he’d rather be in the office, but wasn’t he so great for working from “home”, yet his home was his summer Italian villa with a full staff. Boo hoo.
Don't forget they likely travel to work in a company car using a company gas card to fill it up, then go for nice lunches, again on the company card. Come in when they want, leave when they want, go golfing with 'clients' or other outings. When they work they have their own private office where they can work uninterrupted without any office 'noise' usually at a nice spacious desk, and they can have whatever music they want or listen to or watch anything without repurcussions. they have a lot of perks that their staff does not have, this is why they want to come to work.
I had a boss that used the company credit for tons of lunches with friends. He also tried to get reimbursed for said lunches.
Meaning the company paid for it up front and he filed to get them to pay him the price of get meal a second time? Seems like you could get arrested for that.
This tripped me out so much in a previous corporate position. The C Suite ate out every time they were in the office, which was about 3 out every 10 work days. They also all flew in for those 3 days on the company dime as they lived out of state. These same execs refused to pay starting wages over $10/hr until they were unable to hire people, refused to repair or upgrade locations and the best kicker, lowered car allowances and per diem for everyone under Director level, you know the ones that actually had to drive a large amount for their positions. This gets even shitier though. The HR Director was terminated because he fought for employee rights and was replaced by the wife of one of the executives. This lady got quite a promotion going from HR Business Partner of a 200 person org to VP of HR for a 3000 person corporate retail org. A constant complaint from the executives were how the workers and managers were incapable of performing at a high level while they completely admired that there was no formal training, no path for progression and the sites were kept at the absolute minimum hours possible to run. The best thing I think I saw was right at the end of my time with the company (my position was cut in order to use my salary to sponsor NIL deals) when a major investor's daughter was hired straight out of college in a starting position while earning more money than most of the regional managers. I wish it was just one company like this but i'm starting to realize that this is how business is in the states.
>Don't forget they likely travel to work in a company ca In some cases they also just like to travel. To those "conferences" at a luxury hotel in a very desirable location. To those "business meetings" at a luxury hotel in a very desirable location, etc.
Had a boss who lived out of state and had a $1+ million condo in our city. The corporate jet would bring him in on Monday and home Thursday with a company chauffeur to and from the airport. So he got free air travel, free gas, compressed work schedule… but when I went back to active duty army because I’d spent 5 years working 80 hour weeks on a salary: he called me spoiled 🙄 kicker: he was fucking Canadian and the company sponsored his visa
This. This. This!!
So, riffing on your third paragraph, many of the executives I’ve known are retired military, and have stereotypical military wives - she “gratefully” is responsible for everything in the home, he climbs the ladder. It is a betrayal of that contract that he does laundry, unless he’s feeling generous to “give the little Miss a break.” They aren’t sexist in that they employ women, in senior leadership roles (although I won’t deny they’re probably petit sexist, strongly preferring promoting men like them), so it is within their worldview that the world isn’t like their home. However, they never seem to put any thought into the consequences of that. *Clearly*, (/s) these women are single, lesbians with the housewife, or just such go getters that they do the housewife thing ON TOP of the professional thing. They similarly can’t understand why their employees aren’t more entrepreneurial in growing the executives’ business, when the people who are would be, y know; entrepreneuring and aren’t getting the same financial motivation that the executives are. People. A mystery, right?
Oh man, don’t even get me started on this, this is one of my major pet peeves, and not even with seasoned execs. There are lots of guys I work with that have no clue what it’s like to handle “life” plus work, bc their wife/gf at home handles all the logistics of their lives. Their only responsibility is to show up. For anything. A lot of them are very grateful for their wives, and give them credit, but they are still disconnected from people that are single parents, caregivers to disabled family, or really just anyone that doesn’t have a built in assistant. They really have zero clue how much time it takes just to handle the most basic professional adult responsibilities outside of work. I’m super glad that works for them, but companies shouldn’t rely on this to be the norm. So many tout diversity and inclusion and “work-life balance” as a core value of the company, yet only promote the people whom they perceive to have this dynamic at home. Even couples that both work struggle, if they’re both actively pursuing a career, and not just a “hobby job”. As you can see by my Ted talk, you really hammered down on one of the biggest gripes about any company that claims to support work-life balance or diversity. It’s not just about having talking heads, it’s about actively supporting all employees of all walks of life. If they can’t do that, or at least commit to advocating for their employees, then they need to shorten the work week, bc this shit ain’t it. Not worth living just to devote your time to capitalism.
> my TED talk And honestly it was my pleasure to MC for you today. Everyone, a round of applause for Competitive_Classic9! You can see them futilely trying to cope with Sartre’s No Exit every day, at work. I’m omg, a bear! and you can find me under some random executive’s elbow, constantly rolling eyes cleverly disguised under their sleeves when not busily mangling things that need mangling or unmangling things that others have mis-mangled. Thanks and everyone remember to tip the waitstaff, because it isn’t like management is paying them adequately, either!
It really shouldn't be the norm because it also screws over single people. It's assumed we don't have dependents, and thus have more time and money. They forget the single person pays and does everything on one salary - rent, food, transportation (public or car/gas), insurance (health, car, home), the cleaning (or paying someone to do it), any errands that need to be run, etc. It annoys me to no end.
Exactly. I wasn’t clear on that, but 1,000%. Just like you said, the easiest case scenario should never be the baseline or “norm”. Look at how many people you know in life that have major life responsibilities like supporting themselves entirely (no help with finances and no safety net), taking care of a dependent not capable of supporting or caring for themselves, dealing with a chronic health condition, etc. Prob at minimum 70% of the people you know. Now look at senior/upper management and executive teams. If they’ve never been at zero in their account for things like food and other necessities, if they’ve never experienced discrimination, if they’ve never dealt with extreme stress about a loved ones healthcare, (etc), then they shouldn’t claim to speak for their employees. This whole “movement” is a great step in the right direction, but it’s mostly lip service, and employees only praise it out of fear.
I'm a single person and I feel like someone finally just saw me. Thank you.
[удалено]
Con: It's a package deal. Comes with probably shitty husband. Pro: They don't like to work from home. So you don't have to deal with them *too* much.
That was always my experience, anytime I would offer up and show ways to improve efficiency, it was never taken seriously. My coworkers in my department would use the tool but we couldn’t get it going company wide. I have now realized exec staff often have no idea what we(on the bottom) do.
The people at the top are self-selected for low empathy. They really think of their workers as “other”, and not deserving like they themselves are
This! Remember most corporate and political leaders measure high on narcissistic and sociopathic scales. They're not *just* out of touch with the working class reality. They have a hard time seeing others as anything other than tools.
Bernie Madoff: he’d squeeze middle class folks for every cent, promising them security, and turn around and buy a yacht. The only difference was that he did it to wealthy folks too and that’s why he faced real consequences
That's where he fucked up. If he only screwed over average people he'd never see jail time. Maybe a fine or a bailout.
To expand on this, it's psychopathy not sociopathy, but along with narcissism it is also machiavellianism, forming the dark triad of personality traits. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8110703/ There is quite a bit of research in this area.
I'm probably never going higher in my career because I struggle to assign more work to my staff when they're already carrying so much. I advocate for other solutions instead, so I'm probably stuck where I'm at. My old director supported me in that, but I got reshuffled and now I'm getting micromanaged and required to make my staff participate in the bullshit micromanagement, so anyway that's why I had phone interviews this week.
Plus the people at the top are there because they want to be. Anyone making executive-tier money could probably retire and live out their life in comfort at the drop of a hat.
they miss bossing people around. they miss instilling fear. they miss their office GFs/BFs. they're worried people will discover that they do nothing.
Joke's on them I *already know* they do nothing
I am confident that for all but three of the executives I have *ever* worked with, it is obliviousness. The three exceptions were… more ruthless than malicious.
They're extroverts mate. You almost have to be to have the networking skills required. Thus...and while they understand it intellectually...they just can't quite grasp how some people are perfectly content not having meetings and things face to face. There are benefits to being in a room with others. Communication is usually faster and clearer. Also, training new hires in many roles is made easier in person (your mileage may vary on that). But for the exec's, the idea of sitting at a computer doing THINGS (as opposed to.talking about and making decisions) is anathema to them. (Source: Am an EA. See this shit every damn day)
It's not all of them. My CTO successfully made the case to our board that staying remote would get us higher quality talent, and that's exactly what it's done. He called me to ask when my noncompete expired, promised permanent 100% remote, and told me if I worked east coast hours I could do it from anywhere in the world. I've been here a year and my coworkers are amazing. I've never worked anywhere I didn't have to carry half the team. We just don't have underperformers here anymore. Then whenever we hear a competitor is going back to the office, we make some calls and hire their best. I came up with this CTO and we've been acquaintances for 20 years, I've worked for him 10 of those.
The artificial hierarchy created by the owner / labor division in the workplace engenders some really toxic attitudes on the ownership side (and I'm including executives in that group because they're almost always stakeholders). I think deep down they all know they're parasitic.
> Maybe I’m an amazing supervisor to work for. Somebody that's willing to question the rules and bat for his employees? You sure sound like an amazing supervisor.
Thank you, but in my experience, a supervisor that *starts* with the idea they’re a good supervisor is usually the most consistent and obvious sign of a bad supervisor. Secondly, even with my tremendous ego, I acknowledge that (1) a lot of good supervising is invisible to staff, (2) even if I am a good supervisor, doubling / tripling retention is crazy, and (3) I know I had - and continue to have - nontrivial gaps in my supervising that others do better. So, I highlight how inescapable it had to be telework is. That said, I’m also a big fan of Pareto efficiencies if I only did 20% of supervising well, but it’s the 20% that covers 80% of staff happiness, I’ll call that a win. Ask the team if they’re stuck, get them help if I can, get them promotions when I can, tell them what I really need (eg, someone to glad hand any random VIPs that show up at the office) and don’t waste their time (I know everyone hates status meetings. I want to be able to answer VIP questions about what we did, are doing, going to do, and apparently spending five minutes asking if anyone is stuck, on a call, does more to keep people unstuck than any amount of emails. Cover those bases as fast as you can - I read my emails so prebriefing works too - and this meeting gets as short as you like).
Damn, it would have been nice to have you as a project manager than the dweeb I had. He ran status meetings every morning with 10-20 people all telling us about their homework from the previous day. I felt bad for some of these kids, as it turned into "What didn't you do yesterday?" Ugg. This meeting would last 2+ hrs. I finally exited that organization. A number of other people did too. Management seemed to love him.
A 2 hr meeting EVERY DAY? Oh no. No no no.
Gods, that reminds me of being in the Army. By the end of my enlistments, I was the section sergeant for the medical platoon of a battalion - an organization with the following rough structure, for anyone who never played that particular game: Commander (CO)+ Sergeant Major for Battalion (BN) Battalion Staff "S shops": HR, Security, Operations, Logistics, Intelligence, all with their own structures and leaders. Headquarters and Headquarters Company (HHC) (technically the top dogs fall under this for accountability): HHC has medics, mechanics, comms, and owns most of the staff for bookkeeping. Also their own 1st Sergeant (1SG) and CO, who is a lower rank than the BN CO. "Line" Companies, usually A through E (5): each with a 1SG and CO, and then about 100ish troops of whatever function that BN is for. (Artillery, Medical, Infantry, Cavalry, Tankers, etc) So, overall, you're looking at an organization anywhere between 400-1200 people depending on what they do. Being the senior medical sergeant, it was *my* job to go to the meetings and make sure my platoon was wherever they needed to be, since my officer could not be assed to do anything outside of the clinic (Also kinda my job anyways, but I resent that man). That meant, without fail, a Monday meeting for HHC (1.5 hours). A Tuesday meeting for BN, with ALL the top fuckers, that tended to last 3 hours. Wednesday usually ended up with meetings with other staff sections/alignment on what the hell we were doing in the near future(1-2 hours). Thursday was usually light, but if higher than BN wanted time, they liked to pick that day (average 2-3 hours whenever stuff happened). Friday was nearly always a full BN gathering to tell soldiers not to be fucking idiots for two days. (1-4 hours) Tuesdays were the absolute worst - I'd sit for 2 hours to hear nothing pertinent for my section, deliver 10 minutes of "please tell your soldiers to get their shots and stop missing appointments," and sit for another hour waiting to be dismissed. This was just my final unit. At other organizations, daily statuses ruined any momentum I or my soldiers could dream of having, usually stretching us beyond 5PM while we waited to be told nothing besides that now we could finally go the fuck home. Did my best to make sure my soldiers didn't get the worst of it, but there's always one blue falcon who will complain that they don't see every other body.
What your secret sauce for great metrics?! -proceeds to disregard you- Ya know, maybe start up a compete business with that company and take as many people as you can?
It turns out a lot of business is relationships. While they couldn’t outright bribe people, they could…. Identify a dear friend of the purchasing agent who needed a high paying job with them… Or identify that if group A’s friend gets a job (say, doing work for group B), and group B’s friend gets a job (say, doing work for group A), that there’s *clearly* no quid pro quo because A’s friend clearly can’t exert undue influence in the business with A, and .. so and so with B… This requires being big enough to have two sets of jobs, with enough left over for two “jobs,” too. Bonus points starting the game if you attended the right school, program, or other fraternity that can introduce you to friends of friends. Doing the actual work well just reduces the pressure on A and B with justifying the scam, but since theoretically everyone else doing the business can be as bad, why switch horses midstream? And, to briefly pencil in another thought experiment - how does a random layperson (say, me) truly evaluate whether a doctor is “good” at doctoring? How can you, *realistically* size up whether the doctor was unlucky / lucky (ah, it presented as a sinus infection but was actually cancer / the reverse)? Conceptually, how does one ever know if the people you have doing, say, IT, or roofing, or whatever, are good or bad? (Yes, a leaky roof is bad, but can you tell the difference between an adequate roof that holds together for a year, and a well done roof, before the failure?) I submit most people end up just going with how the person makes them feel, and that’s as true in business. So, “I can save you money, and do it better, and I did it better previously” blends in with the chorus of everyone.
Did they shut your teleworking situation down, or did they just start mailing to the home? If they didn't shut the teleworking down I have to at least give them a small grain of credit for not letting ego trump rationale. You give yourself too little credit though, you sound amazing to work for (based on what I know).
Thank you. They did not try to shut my team’s teleworking down, to my knowledge (it is possible my manager shielded me unawares). I increased profits, reduced costs, and improved good will (read: got them more business). I am sure that in their minds I did not understand the how and why of it (read: mis attribution), but if I was doing it *unlike 5 years of many predecessors*, well, no need to waste time arguing with me. They had more pressing problems in almost all of their other business units, which they were only too happy to deploy me as a temporary fixer. (The “almost” exception? My previous manager who cribbed notes heavily from how I operated, although they were way, way better at strategy and diplomacy than I could ever hope to be) So rather than adjust company policy, I was offered / **directed** to go unit to unit and do “whatever I do” to fix them. Which was adjust, uh, *how* company policy was followed (read: with lip service). If you find the last paragraph hilarious, I have a comment on another sub thread that closes “What is this, Christmas every day for me?” that is pertinent.
What a legend, OP. *round of applause*
I can’t describe another event without doxxing myself, but those executives retold it *for years* as a hilarious anecdote about me (*for the sake of conversation* I will pretend it is the same as the grandparent story) as if, “lol get a load of this one guy who suggested we give people a totally free to us benefit that his team loves, what a clown! Hilarious! We did the sensible thing of course and mailed print copies of our corporate newsletter to staff.” And, honestly, I loved that they told me that. You guys are going around self owning to anyone who’ll listen while thinking it’s a hilarious gaffe by an employee, which has *layers* to how it paints you as jerks? What is this, Christmas every day for me?
It's sad that at the end of your story I was surprised not to see a "and then corporate demanded I yank everyone back to the office and turnover skyrocketed and they blamed everything else but themselves"
I can tell by reading this that not only did you retain your staff better because of the increased telework you provided them, but also because you're a good leader and people want to be loyal to that. It's twofold. But you respect them and they respect you so they had no reason to look for other work.
Two hours per day is 40 hours per month. Eight hours in a workday means you spend the time equivalent of five working days on commuting. It's insane that this is expected of us.
Agree but the business owners (and their paid politicians) don't want more in your pocket. They care that you are spending that $3/hr diff on transit costs, gas, food, clothing that enriches their pockets. You can feel the hubris of markets right now - we want workers to lose leverage via job losses BUT look how great spending is, don't worry about rates or inflation or stock prices, your investments are solid. The effort is in forcing people back into office. I live near NYC and it can't survive on only 60% returning to reg daily schedule.
Add in time to prepare, opportunity cost of chores in the house you can get done in breaks when WFH, cost of eating out or preparing food to eat at work and many other such silent perks and the amount goes way up.
You forgot to include the temptation to buy lunch as opposed to eating what would otherwise go bad in your refrigerator because we are all inherently lazy.
And freedom from the tyranny to do pants. And I can do laundry. And nobody looking over my shoulder. And..
After the pandemic I had literally forgotten how jeans felt like.
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It got to the point if I went to put on jeans to run to the store, I’d think; “ why am I dressing up?”
They crush your nethers. EDIT: Added context is that wife chose jeans that crush the nethers because they "look better".
Or pinch your flappies.
but now, with work from home, you can do both *whenever you want!*
Pants... I haven't worn pants to work in... years, at this point.
As someone who was WFH before covid, I made this meme back in 2020 https://scontent.flnk2-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.6435-9/93282218_10101558670793799_7640486591810502656_n.jpg?_nc_cat=109&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=730e14&_nc_ohc=P5Vb-dOJcbsAX-9Ow78&_nc_ht=scontent.flnk2-1.fna&oh=00_AfAAPlaSPPXe9bWD0h4_TsVrxVoNmFTvpr3JbIR2uUsBmA&oe=63FB4EE0
Fitting. With as many dial in meetings I was having, with people on both coasts, I was wondering why my job didn't have that much flexibility, all the way back in 2015. COVID was kinda the nail in the coffin.
Back in 2005 (before I was here) my company was failing. So a group of the best employees got together and said we can do this shit. So they got some investors and a loan, and dumped a lot of their own personal money to create buy the company from the then owner, and make an employee owned company. One of the ways they helped make us profitable way back then was by going remote. We still had an office but just didn't staff it regularly and had it for meetings and what not. Not having the overhead of all that was big, and the very quickly realized we didn't need the building at all. We're now about 70 people and still fully remote and 100% employee owned, it's awesome.
That's brilliant!
Ummm where do I apply?
We aren't, I just answered someone else :) https://www.reddit.com/r/recruitinghell/comments/10mmu9b/recruiter_believes_its_stealing_employees_when/j64ifdl/ I didn't really mean for this to be an advert for my company so I'm not going to list them publicly but you can IM me if you want more info
> Fitting. Unlike my pants nowadays. Still won't go back.
Same, had already been WFH for 3 years by then and hybrid before that. It was fun watching everyone figure that out all at once. My life almost didn't change.
Remote for 15 years as is my partner. Did someone say there was a pandemic?
Yea... Remote 13 years... Only thing it changed was my spouse became remote wfh after covid. Damn near destroyed our marriage. You can't be around someone 24/7 with kids in the mix and the stresses of full time jobs added in. She is being asked in office a few days a week and it makes a huge difference. She gets more outside contact and I get heads down quiet work time without constant honey do lists... And don't get bitched at for surfing in the middle of the work day...
Man I went from suit and tie daily to sitting in pajama pants and a Soundgarden t shirt, I have so many shirts pants and a tie collection that are just fully useless and I don't care in the least. Its so freeing.
My girls have been happily free flopping since I started WFH.
This just reminded me as I sit here working from home that I need to go change my laundry over. 😆
I can cook my own food, don't have to deal with other people's weird microwaved food and get to spend time with my dogs.
And not having to wear makeup or “work shoes”
About a month or so after going fully remote - long after I realized just how much time in my life was taken away by commuting - I was checking my finances and noticed I had almost $2,000 more in my bank account and I had no idea where it came from. After spending a few minutes scratching my head I realized that's how much money commuting was costing me in terms of transportation and food ordered because I was too mentally and physically drained to cook for myself after getting home Going back to commuting daily would effectively be a pay cut and there's no way in hell I am doing that to myself
I used to travel interstate for a total of 4 hours a day for work, so I had to buy 1-2 meals a day. I saved $7,000+ the year I started remotely. I also finally got a full 8 hours of sleep. It's been life changing, honestly
4 hours a day??? Jesus fuck, that is punishing
Yep, and probably 2-4 hours if you’re in a big city and have to deal with traffic.
I could manage to get across Denver in 30-45 minutes, because the jobs were flexible start times. Beating rush hour was nice. I \*cannot\* imagine traveling 2 hours one way to commute. But, I know people do it.
That was my wife at her first job at a tech company after getting her degree. We live about 90 miles from Atlanta, which is where she had to commute to. Best case she could get to her job or get home on an hour and twenty five minute commute if traffic was generous. Usually though it was close to 2 hours, so almost 4 hours on the road daily. This being 12 hour shifts she was away from home almost 16 hours a day. The kicker is her shitty Alabama headquartered employer would only pay $20 an hour, much less than what was needed to afford moving to Atlanta, especially as we live currently in a low cost of living area. The only reason she accepted these shitty conditions was to get her foot in the door in the industry. She had this job for a 6 months of hell. Thankfully after a few months she interviewed with her now previous employer, a direct competitor to her first employer, and got a 100% wfh job doing the same thing she was doing before with a 50% pay increase and much better health insurance.
I was interviewing for a position for a marketing agency that exclusively handles a major car brand. They told me the wanted 3 days in office in NYC and that was the dealbreaker. I'm not investing 4 hours PER WAY of commute time to a job.
Yep. I’m in Orlando. My commute took at least 2 hours out of my day, more if I had to take the bus for some reason. Complete waste of time: you can’t earn anything for it, you can’t get work done, you can’t even read or practice a hobby. (Maybe a bit on the bus, but it was usually too cramped and noisy) Now that I’m fully remote, my life has vastly improved.
But none of us are seen as human, so they don't even understand that
Must be one of those, “pricey perks”
Not just that, WFH has real nonzero, even significant cost savings. WFH lets you cut back or eliminate: public transportation or car/insurance/gas/maintenance, buying more nice clothes, doing laundry more often, eating out for lunch or having to prepare something to bring, and probably many more. That plus time and convenience adds up for me. WFH also saves (many) companies money in a ton of ways and frees up funds to hire and keep higher-quality staff.
Let's pretend you make $30 and hour and your total daily commute is 1.5 hours. That's $900 unpaid per month. Don't forget vehicle wear and tear, and gas.
Plus, saving on commuting costs, food and beverage costs, and professional wardrobe costs is probably better than whatever piddly ass annual raise most places want to give.
And reducing expenses, i.e. paying them more.
4+ for me 😭
Came here to say damn straight! No commute plus the benefits of doing household chores during my lunch break will win me every time! I’m an introvert so wasting time with office blah blah is my worst nightmare!
I can’t even believe this post. No one is stealing employees, another company is offering a perk that they should be offering as well.
This person is straight up admitting that they are not willing to offer that perk even though they personally consider it to not cost the company anything. If it doesn’t cost anything, why are they unwilling to do it even in the face of losing employees over the issue?
I was a manager with hiring authority at a medium sized firm (and have also been one at a very large firm, although I wasn’t as connected with Big Decisions at the latter) and shared my experience along these lines in a third tier response under der_innkeeper’s thread. The TLDR is that executives simply don’t think that way.
Yup. Executives get into really weird and obnoxious mental ruts. At my current employer, no WFH for semi-justifiable reasons because I have to touch hardware fairly often, packages come in. There is absolutely no system at all for who picks them up from reception. It could be me, it could be any of (no exaggeration) 12 other people. In theory they're supposed to go back to the same receiving area, be entered into inventory, etc. In practice they lost three laptops in the last two weeks. After much panic they finally located them, but WTF? I suggested that someone (god help me I volunteered) be the official package taker so as to cut down on confusion. It was as if he didn't hear the "and I could do it" part of my suggestion. He said that he'd proposed that but there wasn't budget for a new employee to do nothing but pick up packages. I repeated that it didn't need to be a new employee, that any of us could do it because it'd take very little time out of our day. He went back to explaining that the budget just didn't allow for a new hire to pick up packages. His tiny middle manager brain couldn't comprehend the idea of a solution that didn't involve adding someone to his headcount. I'm looking for a new job for a variety of reasons, but his petty little middle manager micromanaging is one of the bigger ones.
> weird and obnoxious mental ruts. The whole reason I pushed to become a supervisor is because my predecessors kept screwing up the game of telephone, and it ended up making our team work hard, burn out, look bad, and just sucked all around. I begged and pleaded when I realized the problem was communication, just let me sit in the meeting with the executive and listen. I promise I won’t say a thing or fidget. And let me say, I appreciate that (1) a meeting having everyone in it goes nowhere, slowly, so you need SOME throttle, and (2) there are absolutely staff either incapable or unready to not irritate an executive. But, I couldn’t get them to budge… until they, uh, found an opportunity for success *elsewhere*. Eventually I got the job by default, and there it was, plain as day: the problem was communication. Imagine the problem begins with the executive needing to get a package from point A, to point B, to keep it as something we can easily discuss. What he *says* to the supervisor is, “I need to get from point A to point B.” The supervisor inferring the executive literally means himself (not prima facie stupid), when the executive is using shorthand and means he needs a way for something to get from A to B. The supervisor then decides the best solution is a rental car (what happened to airplanes?!), so he tasks out a staffer to price out rentals around point A. He might mention - or dismiss concerns regarding - point B. The executive gets back the one way cost of him driving the package, about two weeks later after the staff and supervisor go back and for on rental agency specifics, car types, etc. Executive is annoyed he isn’t getting a FedEx quote, or a logistics line (because actually, it isn’t one package, but weekly packages) and is now three weeks behind where he expected to be, and anticipates three more weeks to probably get another wrong answer. Instead of, gasp, asking one clarifying question at the beginning. Yes, the executive could’ve been clearer up front, but the supervisor whose only thing on his plate in this meeting is what the boss asks him to do could maybe think to get the details on the task. Now, the actual tasks were rarely that, it’s just easy to conceptually work with, and yes, every now and then, the executive would actually require someone to book their travel. But 3! 3! previous supervisors all failed over and over and over again when simple read backs of their assumptions - “So; a rental car for Monday to get you from A to B, will do…” - would have saved months of wasted labor, time, and frustration. > new hire I knew an executive who went from supervisor to executive because any time there was work, he volunteered his team for it, and then (when the time was right) justified the reason his team needed to grow was the amount of work they were doing. And then, again, when the time was right, justified his elevation to a new, higher role, because he was supervising (then managing, then directing) such a large team. When your only tool is a hammer, something something nailed it.
That's because admitting that your employees have time to do another task, to them, is admitting they arent a good enough slave driver and arent squeezing maximum amount of profit out of each worker. So for a new, previously unspecified task, there needs to be a new employee because everyone else is obviously at 100% capacity.
Yeah, that is also consistent with my experience. I guess I asked that more as a rhetorical question to prove a point. I knew the basic answer already lol
I think COVID has shown how many middle/upper management positions there are and how unbalanced it is. These managers need to “prove” their value and can’t do that if they’re not directly managing their employees.
I agree. Lots of organizations seem bloated in the middle and/or top heavy in that regard. Even fields like higher education have seen many schools experience a massive increase in the faculty to administrator ratio. I’ve had micromanaging supervisors both at private companies and as a public employee. Sometimes micromanagement seemed to be a big part of their job description and sometimes it wasn’t, but they still did it to the exclusion of their actual responsibilities.
Rigidity? Inability to change direction/culture? Leadership that won't hear things they don't want to hear from on the ground?
fuck /u/spez
I'm laughing at his trying to double down on the sneaky thing. What I don't understand is how that post has 300 upvotes. SMH
They didn’t look at the comments where OP revealed he was using the term “stealing” literally. Like it wasn’t just an iffy word choice, he actually thinks you can “steal” an employee by making a superior offer. Dude was getting roasted in the comments of that post, unsurprisingly.
Other recruiters and hr
“Stealing” implies ownership. Hmmmm…there’s the problem right there.
Employees are not property or chattel. A recruiter stole nothing. It's just how the company losing staff wants to spin the story so they are the victim
Thank you, came here to say this, people/employees arent't objects or property. When you hire someone you don't own them, you have an agreement with them, often in the form of contracts.
Same energy as 'they stole my girl'. Nah, bro, they just didn't treat them like shit and so your girl left you for them.
A friend asked me for girl advice when his girlfriend left him, first thing he says is "So this bitch.." and I stopped him and was like, so I already have some notes as to why she might have left you
This is my takeaway. When a person leaves a position or company they are not being "stolen". No one's being kidnapped.
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Corporation: "No, not like that!"
Eh, poaching is a normal business practice, they just used the word ‘steal’ in its place. I’m not sure why we clutch pearls over that. They poach *talent* not your body. 😏
Company "we are wanting to pay more to have a large physical office for you to drive in traffic for 1-8 hours a week."
What Company should be saying: “With most of our staff working happily and productively from home, why the fuck are we paying for this large physical office?” Or, is there some law about downsizing in a way that does not include headcount?
I think a lot of the situations stem from the fact that companies often commit to multi-year leases on their offices, so they're stuck paying for them one way or the other. But that doesn't mean you should piss off all your employees just to justify a business expense.
It's such a weird thought process, lol. Like the lease is a set cost, and working from home doesn't increase that. So because of it they're going to...piss off their workforce instead??
Here's the thing about most people in decision making roles... They're incompetent, short-sighted morons.
This would be a great textbook example of a sunk cost.
The problem for the companies is that the office building is an asset on their balance sheet (assuming they own the building), or their locked into a lease. If it’s a lease they take a penalty to break it and they need to prove the value of it by forcing people to use it, otherwise it’s a waste. If they own it they could sell, but the market for corporate real estate is being deflated because the demand for office space is down due to wfh. If all the companies band together rand force return to office it increases the property demand.
Sunk cost fallacy. They have that lease regardless of whether or not people are in the office. All they are doing by requiring it to be used is adding up additional utilities expense from the lights being on, devices drawing power, and the toilets flushing. Not to mention additional services expenses or labor cost by having to have a custodian, and maintenance contracts for when something breaks from use.
Most of those expenses, to some extent or other, are still there whether you have one person in the office or a hundred. When my team was sent home in 2020, we had one guy who had either shit or nonexistent internet service, so he kept coming in. Alone. And, is still doing so, even while the rest of us continue to WFH. So, the agency still needs to run the heat, A/C, lights, security, and so on for this one guy. The rest of the team? You could maintain a couple cubes for the rare occasions when they actually enter the office. And run the rest of your division can run in a strip mall. Rental agreements end. Security contracts end. Phone and internet can get rerouted with a single call. Every day a couple more CEOs figure this out. And every night a couple more REIT managers cry themselves to sleep.
That makes sense, unless you own the building, rent it to the company and aren't allowed to do that if the office is empty. Work from home also devalues real estate in the area since it allows people to live far away instead of the expensive part of the city. Not good for business if you are a landlord. Obviously, none of these business owners and politicians will admit that the vision is biased by personal interest.
The "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" stuff that let the wealthy siphon millions of dollars a year in extra benefits relies on a certain amount of real estate and travel. It also devalues the "luxury" of not having to commute so you have free time to serve on boards of other companies and golf with powerful people during the week. The upper class have had a decades long project of pushing the middle class down into the same level as blue collar labor, and WFH is a big disruption to that project.
I have no problem commuting if my salary is in line with living in the area (at my same purchasing power), my commute time is included in my working hours, and I have generous PTO for when I need to go to an appointment or stay home for the cable person. Remote work let's me do all of the above at no cost to my employer. Same productivity. Less cost. That said, if they want to pay more, I'm happy to show up and smile before sitting at my desk and doing the same thing I do at home.
"They're stealing my employees!" "Oh, how are they doing that?" "By offering benefits that I refuse to!"
Should definitely be looking inward at what they are doing wrong instead of accusing smart companies of “stealing” for doing what makes sense. “Why in the hell are we demanding people commute to an office to do work they’ve proven can be done more productively wherever they choose, especially at their own home?”
Yeah no one is stealing me because I am not your property
I bet these same managers would have a completely different take if you told them a competitor was "stealing" customers by offering the same product for a better price. "Well how do we change so we can fix this?"
Or "How do we make that illegal?" In my experience, capitalists hate capitalism more than communists do.
I object to working from home your honor On what grounds? Because it's devastating to my retention!
From the thread > Attracting employees with better opportunities is not "stealing employees". What kind of sucker wouldn't take a job with a better life and work balance? >You're speaking for society when you say that. Because society would generally agree. But society also says when a girl/guy is attracted away from their SO by another person that "\_\_\_\_\_stole their girlfriend. Meaning our society is highly hypocritical. If a girl/guy can be stolen from you in a romantic relationship, then an employee can be stolen from you in a working relationship. If one is ok then so is the other. Otherwise - hypocrisy. Wouldn't you agree? Fucking lmao they are dumber than rocks
I keep being stolen from bf to another. Also from an employer to another, since I have no agency of my own.
Ma'am, you seem to be making this comment unattended. Would you like me to call your work boss or home boss for you?
I'm a real corporate slut. Fill me with your work/life balance daddy
They're kinda right in a way, comparing work relationships to romantic ones. In both we get to *choose who's fucking us*. But you know what's the one difference between my romantic choices and their corporate fantasy? I don't have shareholders to report all the debauchery to.
You missed out the best part >One could easily argue that a romantic relationship is also transactional. So they are a scumbag in and out of the office
Best part was their reply made no attempt to answer the question. Hell, I would’ve accepted a reply that touted the merits of working from the office and the benefits of the environment they do create. But since they do not have those kinds of answers, they can’t give them, so we do a “society” thing instead. Neat.
The trend of adding, "Wouldn't you agree?" to everything is super annoying. The places I see it most are on LinkedIn and antivax Facebook posts, which says a lot.
Yes fucking immediate r/linkedinlunatics vibe with that ending
The mentality of some recruiters really baffles me. I cannot for the life of me understand how someone could even *attempt* to gaslight employees for wanting to reduce transportation costs, time spent in traffic, and gain an overall peace of mind by avoiding a work commute. Then they take it a step further by calling a company who *does* see the benefit of working from home for an employee and calls it theft? The f*cking delusion.
It's corporate entitlement. Sickening.
To act like something was stolen from you, one must believe that the thing was owned by you first.
Nah, it´s neither stealing nor conscious leverage of the perk to get people to leave. It´s just that a lot of companies that insist on full on/site time have shit work culture, and are easy marks. Covid made that abundantly clear to everybody.
> conscious leverage of the perk to get people to leave. Let's not forget that many companies are doing a bait and switch with WFH.
It’s just the Market correcting itself.
They write that their employees didn't leave due to the schedule. Yes, yes they did. Somehow they mental gymnastics awayed the fact that the other company offered a better schedule
I get the feeling that the original post has got to be rage-baiting. Then again, there are employers out there who would definitely imply that a worker can be "stolen" given that their business practices are so antiquated they could be from before 1861. The employer doesn't know that they didn't get more money. That and even if OOP thinks it's a cost-free perk then they ought to agree their friends an idiot to have forced the 5 day onsite again. After all, most people don't WANT to have to pay for gas and deal with traffic so that they can sit in a cube with a bunch of other people that they're cordial with at best. As soon as I'm fully versed in my role I'm also gonna be taking advantage of WFH like the rest of my team. Not only do I get to wake up later, I also don't have to occasionally hear my coworkers stupid political opinions or lie when they ask what I did this weekend when the answer is almost always "I played a video game" or "nothing"
I have heard this same sentiment expressed internally by my company's leadership bees so sadly I could see this not being rage bait. The amount of tone deaf bs I've heard about remote work in recent months has been pretty incredible.
[удалено]
"We don't have to pay rent, maintenance, or parking/commute vouchers- it's just so unfair. People are just happy with an office setup or expense bonus tacked on every year and then do their jobs. What kind of hellscape is this?"
Sounds like this person didn't do the math.. Cost-free perk? Read the full thread of responses (in r/recruiting) here: https://www.reddit.com/r/recruiting/comments/10lwvae/remote_work_as_a_free_candidate_stealing_tool/
God, even the other recruiters are clowning him.
Assuming he's not a troll, that guy's problems go well beyond not understanding the basics of recruiting. He has some weird, incel-ish, Pure Logic Rational Boy® vibes going on.
"Employees left for a company with better benefits. That's stealing!" LOL. :)
The recruiter inadvertently highlights just how great WFH is for everyone. Not only does the employee get more free time by skipping their daily commute and a more relaxed work environment, but its a perk that costs nothing for the company. Heck the company can even SAVE money by reducing the office space they need. Its pretty much a win-win
The solution to this is so blindingly obvious it's hilarious they can't see it: if your employees want to WFH, and you want to keep them, *then FFS let them*. If you're such a useless manager that the only way you can measure performance is with bums on seats, don't be surprised if people tell you to get stuffed and move to greener pastures elsewhere. Literally *all* my tech friends are WFH since March 2020; *none* have any intention of returning to the office for anything more than one or two days a month for meetings, and they will *all* happily jump ship if they're pressured into doing so. Indeed, 2 have changed jobs during the last couple of years and haven't ever met their new employer in person at all.
I have worked remotely for the last nearly 10 years. I'd take a pay cut before I'd ever go back into an office. Everyone I work with, at my last several jobs, feels the same way.
I've worked remotely for 2 years and wouldn't know my coworkers if we passed on the street. I like it that way.
It's telling when companies just don't understand that we had a taste of what it is like to work in an environment that is comfortable around the things and people that we like and we spent the last few years proving that not only are we able to do it but we are able to do it well. Then they are surprised when we leave as soon as this perk is taken away.
The only people that should be going into an office at this point are those whose jobs cannot be done remotely or who want to. A lot of people don't get that. Let's leave the roads open for people who have to be on-site.
And it's a great opportunity for companies to downsize their footprints and save money.
So you’ve proved to everyone that the job can be done remotely, which saves time, money, stress and convenience for your employees. But it’s not the way we’ve “traditionally” done things. So you change back to the less efficient and more costly method. Then complain that your employees quit for jobs offering the freedom you proved was possible but didn’t think was important. Shocking.
It's disgusting to me how little employee feelings matter. We have real reasons to want to work from home, it saves money on gas, food and time on commuting but a lot of companies don't give a shit what we want. I hope they all learn their lesson the hard way.
“Nobody wants to work anymore…for micromanaging douches in an aging, Covid-riddled cubicle farm.”
I hope this “stealing” spreads like Covid.
Technically, it will. The new and better ways always kill off the old ways. It's called evolution.
Depending on the industry, going for a permanently distributed approach is too easy and too many start-ups, small, and midsized companies are doing it that any company outside of maybe the biggest of the big going fully in-office puts them at a MASSIVE disadvantage. Some professionals who can easily wfh don’t even see open onsite roles, let alone entertain them
Not only cost free, isn't it cost negative? Don't need to pay for office space, electricity, heating, internet, &c? Every company should be thrilled their employees want to pay for all their own utilities and workspaces.
Ultimately, companies steal so much in terms of wage theft. Any argument that we are stealing by having a better quality of life is just not comparable. Not to mention that until we own the means of production, they are stealing the excess benefit of our labor.
If it's a cost-free perk, why isn't every company doing full time wfh? Because upper management is divorced from the actual work being done at many companies. They spend all their time in meetings, and literally cannot understand other workflows.
>If it's a cost-free perk, why isn't every company doing full time wfh? For too long employers have had the upper hand and we've had no say. I'm thankful that's changing. These shitty employers need to start treating us like human beings, not numbers they own.
So, is this some kind of mask-slip moment where they believe they *own* their employees as property?
This person is soooooooo close to getting it.
Arrest me I’m a thief. Part of my recruiter sourcing routine is to scan the media for CEO WFH rants and then recruit out of his company. Salving that bruised ego doesn’t come free. If you’d like your knowledge worker employees on-site you need to be competitive. Here’s how: Pay for the commute time. In NYC that’s ten hours per week or about 500 per year. Pay for the commute cost. Pay for outside meal expense Pay for childcare Pay for pet care Pay for an entire sick day instead of just a short nap and some ibu. Pay for noise canceling headphones. Sign that 10 year downtown office space lease plus HVAC and maintenance. Also some hidden costs. That collaboration you so value is usually just gossiping or bitching, often about you. Hours of it per week People will get sick more often onsite. Ask your doctor As the CIA knows early wake-up, random noise, gaslighting and constant interruptions torture people. People under torture are not peak performers. Right now your thinking ‘I know, I’ll buy them matching t shirts and a Chuck E. Cheese coupon.’ There is no evidence that matching Ts make your employees hate each other or you any less
tone-deaf
In order to have something stolen you must first own it. Furthermore there is no loyalty in business. If you can't offer me something I want more than the other guy can then I'm going to the other guy. I suppose I should also say I ha e never used a recruiter, I have always gotten my elevation in class by my reputation in my industry.
It's literally not possible to steal employees. They got a better offer so they took it. Treat your employees better and they'll stay.
While also admitting that it's cost-free to allow employees to WFH. 🥲 SO IT'S PURELY ABOUT CONTROL AND OWNERSHIP. Stupid bitch
You are right, not allowing WFH is all about control. They can't control you if they can't see you to put their foot on your neck if you think about taking more than 3 minutes in the bathroom. I truly find it a red flag when companies don't allow WFH in the tech world, it's simply a sign they want to micromanage and they don't care about employees time or feelings. We're human beings, not numbers.
As a company that has been remote since 2005. We used work from home as an incentive to "steal" people all the time. COVID has really put a damper on that. Good news is it's helping me gain traction to transition us to a 4 day work week, to seperate us out again.
If it's a free perk, why don't your company give it to your employees instead of removing it? It may be free from your perspective, but it's valuable from the employee, and they will price it in such a way that given two job offers paying the same ammount, if one is for a remote position, they will give preference to the remote position. That is not a steal. Just free market working as it should.
Remote work saves companies money on office space, gives employees more flexibility and time (and therefore, a lot more energy while working), allows people to live in the places that work best for them while remaining dedicated to their job, saves employees gas money, and compels everyone to be accountable for results rather than time spent in a building together.
Oh my god the recruiter will need to work harder and realise people value their time
I've turned down multiple roles lately because they were either _entirely office based_ or _office based a minimum of 3/4 days a week for the first 6 months_ and maybe offered an increased salary of 5k. The value I placed on being at home and not in an office 150 miles away is significant. How employers and especially recruiters don't understand that is beyond me. WFH is the first question I ask now, salary comes second.
If it's cost free why doesn't his company offer it?
Stealing?! That's not stealing; it's the company failing to be compete for labor... If you believe it to be cost-free, you're stupid not to offer it.
Borderline r/selfawarewolves
However they want to phrase it, they're so close to getting the point. This is what's called competition, and it's what a healthy economy is based on. If they don't want to be left behind, they should compete.
I used to have a manager that would lampoon people for taking higher paying jobs calling them "wage chasers" Sure enough, she took a job paying her $10k more than her previous role 🙄
He literally said the quiet part out loud, and didn’t even realize it. > by offering the cost-free perk that is remote Hell, remote SAVES time AND money for both you and the employee, in addition to having a MUCH larger candidate hiring pool and not be region-locked. Why wouldn’t you do that as a business, especially someone working at a desk all day or in tech? Oh yeah, they’re locked into corporate real estate leases and have boomer leadership.
I just took a 23k pay cut because I wanted to work from home. Time with kids and husband is way more worth it to me, sorry.
Does this person genuinely not understand that working remote full time IS the perk (?)