Thread by @Jauwnio

Two months ago, my fully remote job of 3 years began a campaign to bring all employees back to office.

This confused me, as I was originally hired to be fully remote.

I lost that status because we recently moved into a temporary apartment while we shop for our first home.

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My entire team is fully remote, and the nearest office to me is an hour and a half drive.

This didn't make sense to me.

Apparently, the company determined which employees were to come back to office based on a circle drawn around each of our 10 offices. My new apartment is right on the edge of one circle, meaning I must now go into the office.

Confused, I sent a message to HR.

"Everyone else on my team is located hundreds of miles away from an office, with half of them being located in India. It makes no sense for us to come in, in fact, it would only make me work less as I'd now be commuting during the only overlap I have with my offshore team"

The response?

Essentially, kick rocks.

"This is the new rule. No exceptions."

Of course, followed by the typical spread of corporate buzzwords.

"We can collaborate and innovate better in office!"

Important to note; I love my job.

I've been working with a small team that I've enjoyed leading through some very interesting situations in my time here.

We're the underfunded, underpaid, middle children of the corporate conglomerate, but we get our jobs done and our clients are happy.

The entire company has been working remote for years now. We even won an award for "sustainability" thanks to our efforts to take thousands of commuters off the road, and we sold our high rise offices in expensive cities. We're a tech company, why not?

This sudden change is a patchwork fix to an overarching problem with the company. Bad decisions, clueless leadership, and acquisition after acquisition has left us reporting losses quarterly. In turn, the stock price has plummeted.

Of course, this is all the fault of the employees. They aren't working hard enough, they need to be generating us more revenue... somehow?

And apparently, being in the office is the solution.

"This is the new policy, as dictated by the CEO...

... and failure to comply will result in termination."

Fine. I'm not going to drive an hour and a half each way, sit in mind-numbing traffic, contribute to pollution, and pay more in taxes.

So like the smart-ass I am, I responded with a succinct message.

"Please let me know when my last day will be so I can inform my team"

That wasn't what they wanted to hear. Within an hour, the message had been passed up the chain. Leadership was not happy.

"What an asshole. This guy really thinks he's that special?"

HR actually never responded to my original message, and I had only heard about the fallout of my snarky reply through the grapevine.

As I would soon learn, I was far from the only person refusing to return (or in my case, begin).

Important note: this requirement only applies to remote workers within the circles.

If you currently live outside one of the circles, you are grandfathered in; but you can not move without company approval.

Unless, you live in India.

Those team members are required to either relocate to one of the two major cities where they have offices, or get fired.

Oh, and there will be no pay adjustment.

Enjoy!

Under these new rules, all employees must sit at a desk in an open floor plan office, surrounded by noise from 9-5.

Performing our job which involves staring at a computer screen and talking to clients all day.

Except now, these clients will be complaining they can't hear you 'cause Chatty Kathy one desk over is on the phone getting a quote for a new roof.

This is obviously much better than the current state, where we can work comfortably from our own desk in our own home.

And who doesn't want the added pollution and traffic from adding 15,000 cars back onto the road?

I wake up at 7AM so I can talk to my colleagues in India without forcing them to stay even later than they already do.

I don't feel bad taking client calls after 5pm since I have no commute, I'm already home.

Besides, wouldn't you rather be on a meeting with a guy who has an HD webcam and studio microphone?

And selfishly, if I had to lose 3 hours a day to commuting, I would have to quit all of my hobbies.

I'd have no time; get home, make dinner, work out, then go to sleep.

No more YouTube, no more side hustles, nothing. Your life is about working for a company who will eliminate your role the second you start making too much money.

Fuck that, I've only got one life, and this is NOT how I want to spend it.

In my story, there is a happy ending, but not for everyone.

Millions of remote workers are being forced to return to office for a litany of reasons.

None of those reasons are for your benefit, although they may try and convince you otherwise.

Your employer is getting a tax benefit for bringing employees back into the city, and they likely have a vested interest in keeping the building they spent millions of $ on occupied.

My "angry email" to HR made its way all the way up the chain. Others followed suit, independent of my efforts.

Entire offices refused to come back to work.

EU-based staff who were contractually obligated to permanently work from home are threatening to sue for breach of contract.

Eight weeks have passed since the return to office mandate was made.

No one has been fired.

The company silently walked back the return to office policy, and business continued as usual.

"Let's pretend this didn't happen."

There is no moral of this story; I simply wanted to share a recent experience and offer a word of encouragement to any other remote workers who are going through a similar situation.

Not everyone has the safety cushion I have to be able to push back against these rules.

But for those of us who can push back, I recommend doing so.

Employers have been taking advantage of workers forever, but remote work is truly the great equalizer.

Employee satisfaction increases, company spending goes down, and clients are happier.

As a final note, obviously this does not apply to everyone.

Not every job can be done fully remote, or even partially remote.

I get that.

I am only talking about the jobs that truly can be done fully remote.

Roles such as Tech support, QA analysts, software devs, HR, accountants, finance, and their respective managers.

And besides, if we take all of those people off the road, it makes a safer and more enjoyable commute for those who can't be remote.

Moves money to small towns where otherwise nobody would live.

Lots of stuff.

It's 2024, this was the future at one point.

Let's use all this cool tech we have to make people's lives easier, more fulfilling, and safer.

This thread absolutely blew up and I have loved reading all of the thoughtful discussion in the replies. It's stuff like this that keeps me coming back to this site.

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@YugoEnjoyer I’ve worked at places before where we had a free gym, lunches were made by professional chefs in-house (and were amazing) and most employees had semi-private offices shared between 1-6 people.

Then, it felt like it made sense to go in. Even though I didn’t need to to do my job

@YugoEnjoyer It’s a tough line to walk as the employer; you kind of have to go all or nothing. Either everyone has to come in and we offer a truly amazing in office experience, or nobody should come in. Don’t half ass it and use “innovation” as an excuse

@Snilloc94 @cgtboiler @RanaAurora @keithguinan @JohnCBaer @YugoEnjoyer And if there is nothing to talk about, we gladly cancel the meeting and give people time back. You can't really force those conversations, they have to happen naturally. They can happen naturally remote; but it's harder when you force it