Back to Office at IBM

[Anonymous]

I feel SO BAD for all these people who are like so bitter and angry about people working from home.

It's so so so apparent that a. they're just jealous and b. that they themselves are unhappy and want others to be unhappy also.

Work on making your own life better - people! And stop actively working to make other people less happy. Life is short. We're all gonna die. Take a long hard look in the mirror and ask yourself what you want, then make it happen. Who cares where alan from sioux falls takes calls about weathertech sales? focus on your own sh*t.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Short IBM big time. This is a death knell for talent. IBM has had remote workers for decades, way before COVID. These people would be on the road with clients + on the phone or computer all day at home.

Now? They have to report to an office if not at a client site People who may have been working remotely for the last 15-20 years suddenly have to report to Armonk if they live in South NJ. It’s crazy and a sure fire way to lose a sh#t-ton of institutional knowledge + create an extremely toxic work place + guarantee that younger people steer clear of the company.

They are trying to juke the stock price for another few quarters, but this will have horrible long term consequences for IBM.

This.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you want to go back to old days. When I was a supervisor in the 1980s I had a bathroom break log for exceptions.

Employees were required to pee or poop on own time before shift, after shift or during break or lunch. If you had to go we could make a five minute exception men and women and a 15 minute exception of a women has her period. Yes we tracked periods.

We allowed zero personal items in desk. We had lockers to lock up pocketbooks, coats or briefcases out side work area.

Zero personal phone calls allowed. Late more than three times in a year greater than 7 minutes fired. Call in sick greater than 3 instances fired.

Desks had no drawers. We had all employees facing forward and no personal talking allowed. I sat in back with a key stroke monitor and I could access all the screens.

We also had strict productivity goals. Don’t meet them fired.

We also did bed checks. Call in sick and we randomly do bed checks. Not in bed or at doctor when sick fired.

JInfinity that wasn’t the norm in the US in the 80s and your fantasy posts are getting old.

We actually had that. We also had “feet mouses” we did not want people taking hand off key board and waste time using hand, we also took away computer screens as people wasted time looking at screen to check what they typed, we also removed letters on numbers on keyboards as folks need to memorize that as looking down slows productivity, we even removed all items and pictures on walls and had color paint in wall and certain room temp to promote efficiency. We even prohibited clocks as people would look at them.

The 1980s we are in to that. We had some folks typing 120 words a minute the whole day. The call center, collections dept, brokers cold calling, suspense accounts recon like a factory.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you want to go back to old days. When I was a supervisor in the 1980s I had a bathroom break log for exceptions.

Employees were required to pee or poop on own time before shift, after shift or during break or lunch. If you had to go we could make a five minute exception men and women and a 15 minute exception of a women has her period. Yes we tracked periods.

We allowed zero personal items in desk. We had lockers to lock up pocketbooks, coats or briefcases out side work area.

Zero personal phone calls allowed. Late more than three times in a year greater than 7 minutes fired. Call in sick greater than 3 instances fired.

Desks had no drawers. We had all employees facing forward and no personal talking allowed. I sat in back with a key stroke monitor and I could access all the screens.

We also had strict productivity goals. Don’t meet them fired.

We also did bed checks. Call in sick and we randomly do bed checks. Not in bed or at doctor when sick fired.

JInfinity that wasn’t the norm in the US in the 80s and your fantasy posts are getting old.

We actually had that. We also had “feet mouses” we did not want people taking hand off key board and waste time using hand, we also took away computer screens as people wasted time looking at screen to check what they typed, we also removed letters on numbers on keyboards as folks need to memorize that as looking down slows productivity, we even removed all items and pictures on walls and had color paint in wall and certain room temp to promote efficiency. We even prohibited clocks as people would look at them.

The 1980s we are in to that. We had some folks typing 120 words a minute the whole day. The call center, collections dept, brokers cold calling, suspense accounts recon like a factory.

Didn’t happen.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:*Boomers have entered the chat.*

Slackers have entered the chat.

Assuming that anyone who works from home is a slacker is, indeed, about the most boomer mentality one could have.

Oh, shut up. Boomers called it “telecommuting.” I did it in 2000.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Short IBM stock. Well they do have a solid AI business.

But requiring people to work in office B instead of office A? A stealth layoff that is only based on location? Seems a terrible way to run a business and bad for morale. IBM should know that the days of office work are coming to an end. Requiring workers to go into an office to be on video calls is highly inefficient and archaic.

If IBM doesn’t want remote workers then it should not allow workers to use Teams and should require use of desk telephones like it’s 2005.

When I am in office I do all my meetings in person. If someone asks for link I respond there is none your staff or manager can catch you up. I personally don’t want to drive, get dressed go to office to talk to you via zoom whine you are in your pajamas playing video games with your camera off.

No problem. Those of us who use the computer to do actual work will figure it out without you. You just sit there and hold court. Be sure to share the pictures from your latest vacation and make sure everyone notices your designer purse. Then head out for a coffee break - you deserve it after all that talking. We'll have it done by the time you're back from your afternoon power walk.

People who love to hold court are just chomping at the but to be back in the office. Seems to be the only way they can appear to be working.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you want to go back to old days. When I was a supervisor in the 1980s I had a bathroom break log for exceptions.

Employees were required to pee or poop on own time before shift, after shift or during break or lunch. If you had to go we could make a five minute exception men and women and a 15 minute exception of a women has her period. Yes we tracked periods.

We allowed zero personal items in desk. We had lockers to lock up pocketbooks, coats or briefcases out side work area.

Zero personal phone calls allowed. Late more than three times in a year greater than 7 minutes fired. Call in sick greater than 3 instances fired.

Desks had no drawers. We had all employees facing forward and no personal talking allowed. I sat in back with a key stroke monitor and I could access all the screens.

We also had strict productivity goals. Don’t meet them fired.

We also did bed checks. Call in sick and we randomly do bed checks. Not in bed or at doctor when sick fired.

JInfinity that wasn’t the norm in the US in the 80s and your fantasy posts are getting old.

We actually had that. We also had “feet mouses” we did not want people taking hand off key board and waste time using hand, we also took away computer screens as people wasted time looking at screen to check what they typed, we also removed letters on numbers on keyboards as folks need to memorize that as looking down slows productivity, we even removed all items and pictures on walls and had color paint in wall and certain room temp to promote efficiency. We even prohibited clocks as people would look at them.

The 1980s we are in to that. We had some folks typing 120 words a minute the whole day. The call center, collections dept, brokers cold calling, suspense accounts recon like a factory.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Short IBM big time. This is a death knell for talent. IBM has had remote workers for decades, way before COVID. These people would be on the road with clients + on the phone or computer all day at home.

Now? They have to report to an office if not at a client site People who may have been working remotely for the last 15-20 years suddenly have to report to Armonk if they live in South NJ. It’s crazy and a sure fire way to lose a sh#t-ton of institutional knowledge + create an extremely toxic work place + guarantee that younger people steer clear of the company.

They are trying to juke the stock price for another few quarters, but this will have horrible long term consequences for IBM.

This.

It's probably why they are doing this, to get rid of experienced people who have been there 15-20 years. If I remember correctly, IBM invented excuses to lay off a whole bunch of staff about 20 years ago. Really tanked the real estate market where I lived at the time.

Assume this is a way to get people to quit rather than have to pay them unemployment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Short IBM stock. Well they do have a solid AI business.

But requiring people to work in office B instead of office A? A stealth layoff that is only based on location? Seems a terrible way to run a business and bad for morale. IBM should know that the days of office work are coming to an end. Requiring workers to go into an office to be on video calls is highly inefficient and archaic.

If IBM doesn’t want remote workers then it should not allow workers to use Teams and should require use of desk telephones like it’s 2005.

When I am in office I do all my meetings in person. If someone asks for link I respond there is none your staff or manager can catch you up. I personally don’t want to drive, get dressed go to office to talk to you via zoom whine you are in your pajamas playing video games with your camera off.

I do this too. If I'm in the office - you should be too. Otherwise borrow notes from someone.

So all your coworkers are in your same office? A lot of us dealing with RTO work for global companies where employees are across the US and even globe. Yesterday, I spent 3 hours commuting to talk on Teams with someone in Zurich. No, I could not refuse to provide him with a Teams link.

Me too, commuting in winter slush to talk to people in Brazil.

[Anonymous]

I was in Florida in 2021 visiting a relative around 60 from NY working “remote”

He was at his vacation home in a large golf course HOA complex. He had a crew of 20-25 year old guys all aged 50-65 he played golf with and went drinking with all working remote all from NY

Around 2022 he was being forced back to work in New York he asked for a package sold his house and retired.

IBM is so big they might literally have 20,000 to 40,000 of people like him there.