Anonymous wrote:I think the people who are most rabid about how much they loath the idea of RTO are:
1) slackers who know they typically really work 20 hours of a 40 hour week, and
2) parents of young kids who understandably would rather spent time with their children than commute. But these folks also don't work what they're supposed to because now they can just "pop out" for every kid related errand.

I would add:

3) people who live 45 minutes or more from the office.

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Anonymous wrote:I’m like the only person excited to go back to the office.

For all the hate on GenZ, they love to go to the office.

I’m a 48 year old Gen X woman and I love going into the office. It’s mostly us Gen Xers with some Zers, I’m starting to like the younger folk.

Ie people without young children and a whole lot more personal time they don’t mind burning commuting

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Anonymous wrote:I’m like the only person excited to go back to the office.

For all the hate on GenZ, they love to go to the office.

Don't generalize. The Gen z in our office are our strongest wfh supporters.

Completely. Most Gen Zs on my team can't get it together for a 9 am meeting at the desk in their bedroom. I kid you not. One of them asked my boss if the company would pay to Uber her to and from the office so she didn't have to take public transportation in for a week of in person meetings starting at 10 am. By enabling Gen X boss said yes, of course. So many millennials got scr*wed by the financial crisis and had to hustle for years and now we want some flexibility because we have families and that's a crime even though I always worked at companies where there were double standards for parents but on top of that we have to deal with newly child free Gen Xers giving us a hard time and Gen Zers who are incredibly entitled and think it's normal to get on 9 am zoom meetings unshowered and in PJs.

Millennials created the "Catch 22". I say that as in Boomer times once you hit management companies very rigid, in office every day in suit working 10-12 hours a day and productivity was king like a sweat shop. Did not care you had a kid, sick mom, kid in school play, snowstorm, Mom died etc. You just pumped out work. To do this Men need a SAHM wife to keep things running. And people had 3-4 kids back in the 1970s and 1980s.

They had to pay enough on a single salary a person could support a stay at home spouse and a mortgage and pay for everything. And my job the women if dual income either had a stay at home husband or with two high incomes could live near office, have nannies and maids run everything easy. Dual income couples were fabulously wealthy in 1994. My SVP Boss made 350K in 1994 and his SVP wife made 350K a year in 1994. They had two nannies, maid, lawn service, vacation home, pied a tier NYC. Today you need two incomes to equal one income.

How did millennials “create” this situation?

My Boomer and Silent Generation bosses were very strict. In office every day in a suit and work 10-12 hours do your time and by 40 your will have that big corner office and a big house. Millennials entered workforce around 2002 and over last 22 years were successful in changing the workplace to what it is today. Ironically, if made life easier for Boomers and Gen X but harder from Millennials as they older bosses are hanging on forever so hard to move up.

It's Boomers. The Boomera didn't leave my company until I turned 50. They have 50% pensions and still wouldn't leave. I have only a 401K and can't be considered a young, high-potential employee anymore. I'd much rather be 35 than 55 right now.

How do you live off a 50 percent pension. I had several uncles who work for govt and at the time you got 50 percent after 20 years, 75% after 30 years and 100 percent after 40 years. Most worked the full 40. How do you stop working after 20 years at 45 with a mortgage, kids at home and bills. They stayed till 65.

PP. The people I know with 50% pensions had children out of school, had been in homes for 20+ years, and had stock market money to buy dips and profit off of all of the upside. Plus retiree health until 65, sometimes beyond. Sometimes with spouses with same benefits. These are people in flyover country with DCUM size savings but low cost of living.

Many of them had 35+ years of service before age 60 due to engineering co-op jobs.

I hope some prominent employers will try out various ideas, so we can level are. such as saying everyone is remote if they so choose but that employees who RTO will receive a nice end of year bonus. People who WFH will forego the bonus. Or offer stipends or other perks. Or make RTO mandatory to pursue internal promotions. It would be interesting to see the results.

I think the people who are most rabid about how much they loath the idea of RTO are:
1) slackers who know they typically really work 20 hours of a 40 hour week, and
2) parents of young kids who understandably would rather spent time with their children than commute. But these folks also don't work what they're supposed to because now they can just "pop out" for every kid related errand.

For most industries, getting staff together is a good thing. And the newest generation of young adult workers really need the in-office time to learn and acclimate. RTO is inevitable. Gen Xers like me love WFH because we're getting older and already paid out in-office dues and know how to be professional. There is no modeling for the newest workers when everyone kid WFH.

We all have our own opinions. Mine is that RTO is the way to go in most cases. I hope most employers will recognize that allowing qualified employees the opportunity to WFH 1-2 days a week would be a good compromise. BTW my office is 10 is 100% remote and staying that way. I typically go into the office anyone because I prefer it. Having the whole place to myself is awesome.

Here is issue in a nutshell.

I worked a job in a high cost area where (pre-Covid) really wanted people in the office everyday and wanted people living near the office as we worked some late nights, last minute meeting etc. Given such a high cost of living area paid very well.

Post Covid went 100 percent remote.

Around 80 percent of senior management since 2020 who lived in the high cost area were laid off in last four years at the now fully remote company.

Based on the 5-10 people I stay in touch all took a large pay cut to find a new job.

Everyone wants remote when it is apples to apples. But not always the case.

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Anonymous wrote:I’m like the only person excited to go back to the office.

For all the hate on GenZ, they love to go to the office.

Don't generalize. The Gen z in our office are our strongest wfh supporters.

Completely. Most Gen Zs on my team can't get it together for a 9 am meeting at the desk in their bedroom. I kid you not. One of them asked my boss if the company would pay to Uber her to and from the office so she didn't have to take public transportation in for a week of in person meetings starting at 10 am. By enabling Gen X boss said yes, of course. So many millennials got scr*wed by the financial crisis and had to hustle for years and now we want some flexibility because we have families and that's a crime even though I always worked at companies where there were double standards for parents but on top of that we have to deal with newly child free Gen Xers giving us a hard time and Gen Zers who are incredibly entitled and think it's normal to get on 9 am zoom meetings unshowered and in PJs.

Millennials created the "Catch 22". I say that as in Boomer times once you hit management companies very rigid, in office every day in suit working 10-12 hours a day and productivity was king like a sweat shop. Did not care you had a kid, sick mom, kid in school play, snowstorm, Mom died etc. You just pumped out work. To do this Men need a SAHM wife to keep things running. And people had 3-4 kids back in the 1970s and 1980s.

They had to pay enough on a single salary a person could support a stay at home spouse and a mortgage and pay for everything. And my job the women if dual income either had a stay at home husband or with two high incomes could live near office, have nannies and maids run everything easy. Dual income couples were fabulously wealthy in 1994. My SVP Boss made 350K in 1994 and his SVP wife made 350K a year in 1994. They had two nannies, maid, lawn service, vacation home, pied a tier NYC. Today you need two incomes to equal one income.

How did millennials “create” this situation?

My Boomer and Silent Generation bosses were very strict. In office every day in a suit and work 10-12 hours do your time and by 40 your will have that big corner office and a big house. Millennials entered workforce around 2002 and over last 22 years were successful in changing the workplace to what it is today. Ironically, if made life easier for Boomers and Gen X but harder from Millennials as they older bosses are hanging on forever so hard to move up.

It's Boomers. The Boomera didn't leave my company until I turned 50. They have 50% pensions and still wouldn't leave. I have only a 401K and can't be considered a young, high-potential employee anymore. I'd much rather be 35 than 55 right now.

How do you live off a 50 percent pension. I had several uncles who work for govt and at the time you got 50 percent after 20 years, 75% after 30 years and 100 percent after 40 years. Most worked the full 40. How do you stop working after 20 years at 45 with a mortgage, kids at home and bills. They stayed till 65.

uh, you "retire", get your pension and then take a consulting gig if you don't want to see the wife and kids

But they also wanted the 100 percent penson in retirement. Garbage Men, Cops, Firemen, Transit Workers dont consult. Most Govt employees in the United States are not Lawyers who work in DC.

the whole rto argument is stupid for this reason; rto runs counter to the reality of life and creates a cognitive dissonance based on the tension between 'do this unnecessarily performative thing' and 'we are all going to die - who knows when'.

Ie:
- people know it's not necessary
- people know it's not desirable/ makes their life worse
- people know they are going to die.

So anyone with a relatively high IQ is going to struggle and have that cognitive dissonance (unless they love seeing coworkers).
Those high iq people will be the ones who search for greater flexibility or fully remote AND they're also more likely to (though not certain to) find the type of jobs they seek.

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Anonymous wrote:I’m like the only person excited to go back to the office.

For all the hate on GenZ, they love to go to the office.

Don't generalize. The Gen z in our office are our strongest wfh supporters.

Completely. Most Gen Zs on my team can't get it together for a 9 am meeting at the desk in their bedroom. I kid you not. One of them asked my boss if the company would pay to Uber her to and from the office so she didn't have to take public transportation in for a week of in person meetings starting at 10 am. By enabling Gen X boss said yes, of course. So many millennials got scr*wed by the financial crisis and had to hustle for years and now we want some flexibility because we have families and that's a crime even though I always worked at companies where there were double standards for parents but on top of that we have to deal with newly child free Gen Xers giving us a hard time and Gen Zers who are incredibly entitled and think it's normal to get on 9 am zoom meetings unshowered and in PJs.

Millennials created the "Catch 22". I say that as in Boomer times once you hit management companies very rigid, in office every day in suit working 10-12 hours a day and productivity was king like a sweat shop. Did not care you had a kid, sick mom, kid in school play, snowstorm, Mom died etc. You just pumped out work. To do this Men need a SAHM wife to keep things running. And people had 3-4 kids back in the 1970s and 1980s.

They had to pay enough on a single salary a person could support a stay at home spouse and a mortgage and pay for everything. And my job the women if dual income either had a stay at home husband or with two high incomes could live near office, have nannies and maids run everything easy. Dual income couples were fabulously wealthy in 1994. My SVP Boss made 350K in 1994 and his SVP wife made 350K a year in 1994. They had two nannies, maid, lawn service, vacation home, pied a tier NYC. Today you need two incomes to equal one income.

How did millennials “create” this situation?

My Boomer and Silent Generation bosses were very strict. In office every day in a suit and work 10-12 hours do your time and by 40 your will have that big corner office and a big house. Millennials entered workforce around 2002 and over last 22 years were successful in changing the workplace to what it is today. Ironically, if made life easier for Boomers and Gen X but harder from Millennials as they older bosses are hanging on forever so hard to move up.

It's Boomers. The Boomera didn't leave my company until I turned 50. They have 50% pensions and still wouldn't leave. I have only a 401K and can't be considered a young, high-potential employee anymore. I'd much rather be 35 than 55 right now.

How do you live off a 50 percent pension. I had several uncles who work for govt and at the time you got 50 percent after 20 years, 75% after 30 years and 100 percent after 40 years. Most worked the full 40. How do you stop working after 20 years at 45 with a mortgage, kids at home and bills. They stayed till 65.

uh, you "retire", get your pension and then take a consulting gig if you don't want to see the wife and kids

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Anonymous wrote:I’m like the only person excited to go back to the office.

For all the hate on GenZ, they love to go to the office.

Don't generalize. The Gen z in our office are our strongest wfh supporters.

Completely. Most Gen Zs on my team can't get it together for a 9 am meeting at the desk in their bedroom. I kid you not. One of them asked my boss if the company would pay to Uber her to and from the office so she didn't have to take public transportation in for a week of in person meetings starting at 10 am. By enabling Gen X boss said yes, of course. So many millennials got scr*wed by the financial crisis and had to hustle for years and now we want some flexibility because we have families and that's a crime even though I always worked at companies where there were double standards for parents but on top of that we have to deal with newly child free Gen Xers giving us a hard time and Gen Zers who are incredibly entitled and think it's normal to get on 9 am zoom meetings unshowered and in PJs.

Millennials created the "Catch 22". I say that as in Boomer times once you hit management companies very rigid, in office every day in suit working 10-12 hours a day and productivity was king like a sweat shop. Did not care you had a kid, sick mom, kid in school play, snowstorm, Mom died etc. You just pumped out work. To do this Men need a SAHM wife to keep things running. And people had 3-4 kids back in the 1970s and 1980s.

They had to pay enough on a single salary a person could support a stay at home spouse and a mortgage and pay for everything. And my job the women if dual income either had a stay at home husband or with two high incomes could live near office, have nannies and maids run everything easy. Dual income couples were fabulously wealthy in 1994. My SVP Boss made 350K in 1994 and his SVP wife made 350K a year in 1994. They had two nannies, maid, lawn service, vacation home, pied a tier NYC. Today you need two incomes to equal one income.

How did millennials “create” this situation?

My Boomer and Silent Generation bosses were very strict. In office every day in a suit and work 10-12 hours do your time and by 40 your will have that big corner office and a big house. Millennials entered workforce around 2002 and over last 22 years were successful in changing the workplace to what it is today. Ironically, if made life easier for Boomers and Gen X but harder from Millennials as they older bosses are hanging on forever so hard to move up.

It's Boomers. The Boomera didn't leave my company until I turned 50. They have 50% pensions and still wouldn't leave. I have only a 401K and can't be considered a young, high-potential employee anymore. I'd much rather be 35 than 55 right now.

How do you live off a 50 percent pension. I had several uncles who work for govt and at the time you got 50 percent after 20 years, 75% after 30 years and 100 percent after 40 years. Most worked the full 40. How do you stop working after 20 years at 45 with a mortgage, kids at home and bills. They stayed till 65.

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Anonymous wrote:Tons of employers across the country are announcing layoffs. There have been numerous articles written about how it’s no longer a job seeker’s market. I’m hiring manager for our team. We had a tough time replacing someone a year ago and had to settle on a candidate with significantly less experience than we wanted. We just hired someone else and I couldn’t believe the number of highly qualified applicants.

With the market shift, we’re going to see more and more RTO. Your company is behind the trend, as most already have started requiring hybrid.

+1 There are a lot of layoffs occurring after RTO initiatives. RTO is announced, a set of employees refuse, and the company lays off 12,000 employees. Those employees look for new jobs with remote options and find that most companies don’t offer full remote anymore. Companies care about control, not productivity, and there is no future where most employees work full remote.

I’m a fed, we were instructed to come into the office one day a week at the beginning of the year. People are not complying so they are starting to track badge swipes with time cards and disciplining employees who aren’t in when they reported they were. There aren’t a ton of ways to fire a fed but time card fraud is pretty straightforward and they’ve gotten a number of people out so far.

Anonymous wrote:Tons of employers across the country are announcing layoffs. There have been numerous articles written about how it’s no longer a job seeker’s market. I’m hiring manager for our team. We had a tough time replacing someone a year ago and had to settle on a candidate with significantly less experience than we wanted. We just hired someone else and I couldn’t believe the number of highly qualified applicants.

With the market shift, we’re going to see more and more RTO. Your company is behind the trend, as most already have started requiring hybrid.

+1 There are a lot of layoffs occurring after RTO initiatives. RTO is announced, a set of employees refuse, and the company lays off 12,000 employees. Those employees look for new jobs with remote options and find that most companies don’t offer full remote anymore. Companies care about control, not productivity, and there is no future where most employees work full remote.

If I could choose which 50% of my employees would leave I would be willing to RTO 5 days and 40+ hours per week. Im so sick of hearing people complain about this, and the complainers are usually the ones I’d most like to lose.

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Anonymous wrote:I’m like the only person excited to go back to the office.

For all the hate on GenZ, they love to go to the office.

Don't generalize. The Gen z in our office are our strongest wfh supporters.

Completely. Most Gen Zs on my team can't get it together for a 9 am meeting at the desk in their bedroom. I kid you not. One of them asked my boss if the company would pay to Uber her to and from the office so she didn't have to take public transportation in for a week of in person meetings starting at 10 am. By enabling Gen X boss said yes, of course. So many millennials got scr*wed by the financial crisis and had to hustle for years and now we want some flexibility because we have families and that's a crime even though I always worked at companies where there were double standards for parents but on top of that we have to deal with newly child free Gen Xers giving us a hard time and Gen Zers who are incredibly entitled and think it's normal to get on 9 am zoom meetings unshowered and in PJs.

Millennials created the "Catch 22". I say that as in Boomer times once you hit management companies very rigid, in office every day in suit working 10-12 hours a day and productivity was king like a sweat shop. Did not care you had a kid, sick mom, kid in school play, snowstorm, Mom died etc. You just pumped out work. To do this Men need a SAHM wife to keep things running. And people had 3-4 kids back in the 1970s and 1980s.

They had to pay enough on a single salary a person could support a stay at home spouse and a mortgage and pay for everything. And my job the women if dual income either had a stay at home husband or with two high incomes could live near office, have nannies and maids run everything easy. Dual income couples were fabulously wealthy in 1994. My SVP Boss made 350K in 1994 and his SVP wife made 350K a year in 1994. They had two nannies, maid, lawn service, vacation home, pied a tier NYC. Today you need two incomes to equal one income.

How did millennials “create” this situation?

My Boomer and Silent Generation bosses were very strict. In office every day in a suit and work 10-12 hours do your time and by 40 your will have that big corner office and a big house. Millennials entered workforce around 2002 and over last 22 years were successful in changing the workplace to what it is today. Ironically, if made life easier for Boomers and Gen X but harder from Millennials as they older bosses are hanging on forever so hard to move up.

It's Boomers. The Boomera didn't leave my company until I turned 50. They have 50% pensions and still wouldn't leave. I have only a 401K and can't be considered a young, high-potential employee anymore. I'd much rather be 35 than 55 right now.

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Anonymous wrote:I can’t wait till fully remote becomes an optional policy for all and everybody takes it

You’ll see me send spreadsheets from my mountain cabin in Colorado and will never again step foot in DC save if the president needs me

The could send you spread sheets in Colorado, but they could pay less to send spreadsheet to India or even the UK or EU. WFH is not great for people who expect HCOL salaries

The time differences, language and cultural are truly problematic.

If you require any discussion or interaction about the spreadsheets then you need someone on US soil.

I didn't see anyone worried about cultural differences when it came to importing Filipinas to teach special ed kids, or to provide elder care, in a couple of recent threads. Only your cushy white collar WFH jobs require a genuine American.

Those are the opposite of WFH jobs. If imported Filipinas are just as good, they’ll come for your 5-day in-office job too.

And maybe they should.

Where have you been? In tech, it's been happening for years overseas. If it can be done from home here, it can be done there for much less. Now, it's HR, accounting & back office type jobs.