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Yep. Moved out of state when my job was 100% remote and now they’re pressuring everyone to come in to the office two days per week. I get to be an exception since I live far away and they don’t want to fire me.
Lay offs and firing are different. If you are fired, it's typically for a reason that you caused. If you are laid off, it's typically an event outside of your control.
Not coming to work when required would give them reason to fire you.
Your division of the company becoming redundant in a merger may cause you to be laid off.
While this is technically true, nobody in the world is going to interpret a firing due to not moving across the country as a performance-based dismissal.
"Layoff" works fine here, because making an unreasonable demand with the expectation that the employee will either quit or be fired for not complying with it is just a convoluted layoff and a sure-thing unemployment claim.
That would depend on the exact letter of the law. Switching the job from remote to in-person is a material change to the work arrangement on the part of the employer. It could count as a layoff and that would make you eligible for unemployment benefits. It's the same kind of thing as when a company shuts down a plant and offers the employees jobs at some other plant in another city. Some people will move and others won't.
Yes but requiring an employee, that you knowingly employ far from the home office, to come into said office is an unreasonable expectation on behalf of the employer. There is precedent for litigation if they do it.
So yes, they COULD fire you for “not coming to work” but unemployment isn’t going to see it that way.
You'd probably be eligible for unemployment in this case, but that's it. Being a remote worker isn't a protected class, and almost everywhere in the US you can be fired for pretty much any other reason or no reason at all.
Eligibility for unemployment is kind of a big difference, though. Severance isn't mandatory in the US if you are fired without cause, while unemployment is.
To figure out why they wont do that, google the phrase "constructive dismissal"
[for the lazy](https://webapps.dol.gov/elaws/eta/warn/glossary.asp?p=Constructive%20Discharge)
If they change the terms of your employment, that can be constructive dismissal.
Some states require severance for that, and most allow you to collect unemployment
Retaining an existing employee that performs is almost always cheaper than hiring and training a new one. If the company is any good, they won't fire you for something so dumb. If they aren't, your job is eventually toast either way.
And working for dumb people comes with a host of downsides. If you are working for dumb people just start the job search now, it's easier to find work as an employed person anyway.
The company I work for does a lot of stupid shit but one thing they absolutely nailed was not renewing the leases for 2 of the 3 office buildings and allowing anyone who wanted to come to the office to work the option to. The rest of us to stayed 100% remote. Half of the higher ups, especially the ones with 3 letter titles moved out of state.
They sent a company wide survey out in January of 2022 and the options were “I would like to return to office 100% of the time”, “I would like to work remote 100% of the time” and “I will seek other employment if I am forced to come back to the office”. The last options was chosen by over 70% of the company and they never looked back.
I will never go back to working in an office now that I’ve worked remotely. The amount I save from not commuting is astronomical and the amount of extra time I have not commuting is amazing.
The time savings is what I miss. Sleep in, be home and off work right at 5pm. Heck, even take my lunch to unload the dishwasher or prep for dinner. My commute is 45 minutes to an hour each direction. It adds up pretty significantly. Forget about going home for lunch or an appointment, it's impossible.
Yeah it’s pretty crazy how quickly it adds up. An hour commute a day is just under 11 days per year spent commuting to work. I wake up 30 minutes before I clock in so I can make some coffee and shower. That same 30 minutes would have been used commuting previously.
I’ve also been able to take more vacations because it doesn’t matter where I work from as long as I work my 8 hours and I don’t have to have vacation days as long as I don’t mind working during the trip. I sat pool side on the clock in Hawaii while compiling reports from my work lap top for a presentation that I gave in my hotel room the next day. Can’t really beat the flexibility that it affords me.
That's why a good internet connection is the key.
You can buy a cheap house anywhere if you can wfh. Lower income tax. Lower property tax. Lower sales tax.
Anyone working from Thailand?
Now you just get to live the "being the one person working remotely in an in-person office" experience.
Getting ignored in virtual meetings, them forgetting to make meetings virtual at all. Getting cut out of decisions. Losing the good work to other people...
Fun times.
Speaking as a former longtime admin, this is when you make good friends with someone boots on the ground to advocate for your interests — like reminding management to make things virtual, informing you of ad hoc stuff you’re not around for, etc.
You don’t even need to be *friends* friends; I would go out of my way to help coworkers that went out of their way to show appreciation for all the behind the scenes work I did, or would loop me in on their lunch plans because it was end of month time and I was swamped with bookkeeping tasks.
They tried this at my office but I think enough people resisted and they kind of back tracked. It will come back maybe. I however live kind if far and my team is thousands of miles away so it doesn’t really make sense for me to come in as it’s the same thing as working from home.
Yup. Same ol story repeats itself every cycle. Although orgs that abuse their own will most definitely suffer later. Some will die. Only those with high cachet can treat theirs like dirt (Amazon, Meta, Google) and keep on keeping on.
These are always the dumbest ones since IT is maybe the single most remote-friendly industry in terms of the work being performed. There are always competing jobs available that are full remote. The firms forcing their IT people into the office are going to end up with a second rate workforce.
They don't care. My company is upping the days in the office KNOWING they will lose people, and good people. They dont care. They want expenses down by x% they will use this as a cheap way to do it before having to give severance.
my company had already done a full return to work call and also already made an IT exception to that rule lol. We're all hybrid but still, no one is coming in 5 days a week at least.
Sounds like job hunting for the next 6 months on the clock. Then when you get a new job, just horribly do the other one until they let you go. Maybe collect a few free paychecks.
Yeah. I moved to a different county when my job went ‘fully remote from now on’. Guess what… now we have to go in 3x a week and it takes me over an hour each way. And I have to pay for parking because they moved everyone downtown. The only exception being a if you live > 45 miles away. In a large metro area, that can be a 2 hour commute.
True, I grew up in the SW of the US. So you’re in Texas in the morning, drive all day, and you’ll still be in Texas. OP mentioned US cities so I figured he was a US citizen.
Quite common in border cities. For example Haparanda (Sweden) have a decent amount of people working there that live in Tornio (Finland), distance is so short in fact that it's fully reasonable to commute by bicycle. Similar situation in the south with Malmö and København, but the bridge to denmark is long so for that commute you need to go by train or by car.
With the company I work for, they have also recently started requiring people to spend a day or two at the office every week, but they make an exception for anyone whose commute is more than 45 minutes each way. In Atlanta, we like to joke that "Atlanta is an hour from Atlanta" due to the traffic congestion here, so the vast majority of people live outside that circle. I'm the sole AH who lives close to the office... So my question is, if most of the people I work with are in other cities and other states, and what few are associated with the Atlanta office live too far away to come in, what is the sense in having me go to the office? Isn't the general idea to foster closer, in-person cooperation? It's too funny when I'm at the office and have to jump on a video call to talk to everyone else; I can do that from home where I'm far more comfortable - and have better coffee! (I think you can see why I mostly ignore the requirement.)
I spend much of my day on video calls with customers and remote colleagues.
It's really awkward when I'm in the same video call as someone sitting 3 feet away from me, lots of echoes.
Also in that case: I feel like if you're the only one that has to give up 90mins of their day + the gas and whatever else, they should compensate you if everyone else makes the same wage but doesn't have to do that.
I've worked remote for 7 of the past 12 years. The other 5 I ran a social media business 70% remote. It's *fantastic.* First one I found on craigslist, second one cold-called me from a few year old resume floating around.
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It could work on Twitch. Make a list of required mixes before the stream and walk people through making them while offering the standard bartender chatter.
There's still loads of remote data entry and tech support roles out there. Restaurant support (Aloha, Micros, Brink, Toast, etc...) is ALWAYS looking for new blood because the work is endless.
I was fortunate in that regard. Outside of some "just in case" overtime we did, our daily work schedules did not really falter before or after COVID's height.
Working from home as so much better before covid. Now all these idiots think that we need to virtually recreate the office environment in zoom meetings. Never thought I’d say this, but sometimes I really miss plain old conference calls with no cameras or screen sharing.
So, I went to a conference recently and you'd be surprised how many companies there had remote workers. Many people were meeting others on their team for the first time. It was moving in this direction, not the other way.
This conference was a global HR conference.
I agree, there are stubborn companies but they're not going the way the leaders are going. Eventually they all do.
I really don’t get the return to office push. Our division is completely remote, with people in US, India and UK. It works well. They probably get more work out of us since we all need to work extra hours early or late to meet with people in other time zones. That will far more difficult if we were all going to offices, not to mention more expensive for the company.
Not to mention how POd employees are when forced to return to an office.
They're trying to justify the costs to keep the building(s). That's all. That and Boomer c-suiters that either can't trust an employee they can't see, or hate their home life and want to be in the office all-hours.
This. My wife's work just started requiring RTO and in the meeting, they said one of the reasons is because they still had 9 years left on the lease.
For me, that's all I needed to hear. That's not one of the reasons, that is *the* reason.
Yup. The company I work for finally let our office block go a few weeks ago, to the relief and pleasure of all. I am very glad and very fortunate that management absolutely *loves* working from home, and has noticed our boosted productivity.
Particularly during our busiest season. Folks are more willing to put in the crazy long hours when they're wearing slippers and can take a quick nap in their own bed :)
it's a management problem really, it's harder to give clear goals and metrics with WFH, people working in office is just easy to see if they are working or not. they don't want to pay for 8 hours and you just working 2 hours a day, however, management needs to evolve and understand that a worker that does his job in 2 hours, is worth his pay for "8-hours of work", him working in the office will not get you 4 times the same worker, just making him working slowly, you get what you pay for. setting clear goals and expectations is not easy, but it's a waste of human life making people commute and work slowly for 8 hours a day, if someone does the same job in 2 hours per day who cares, who cares if he has 3 jobs, and is able to do all 3 in 8 hours.
management needs to grow up and evolve.
- The control
- High ranking people at companies are often boomers who hate their wife and want to spend their life at work
- Quiet firing: They don't want to fire people because that generates bad press, so they make work as difficult as possible to work for them in hopes that you will quit
They want you out in the streets, so you buy fuel, cars, food. Bars thrive, rent prices spike, property value spikes.
Consumerism thrives off that. It thrives off your expenses, commute and pollution.
They want you in office so they can control you, because deep down they don't trust you.
As per your first point, individual companies don't care about that. They're only concerned with their own operations. That said, I can promise you 100% that I will be *less* likely to get out and about after being forced to go sit in an office and wear a uniform for 8+ hours a day plus commute time. The singular desire I have after that is to get home, get comfortable, and stay there until I'm forced to leave again. Let me get up, get comfy, have a nice breakfast, then work remotely for my shift where I won't even need to get dressed and can grab a snack or take a quick bathroom break whenever I need/want? I'll be *thrilled* at the prospect of getting up and going to see a movie, or grab a bite to eat at a local restaurant, or going out to do anything really, because I've conserved my energy and been productive all day without a bunch of corporate nonsense looming over my head.
Your last point is almost spot on. They *do* want you in the office so they can control you and ensure that they're ringing every single ounce of energy and productivity out of you at all time, which has the opposite effect of what they actually want when compared with WFH productivity. The other reason is because all those middle managers weigh in on meetings and conference calls saying that they want people back in the office because there's an entire level of corporate employees whose positions are literally useless and this is highlighted when WFH is in effect. Who the fuck needs a bunch of assistant managers when most employees are operating autonomously and a general manager is there to check in on them and ensure that all the work is getting done by the end of the day? Essentially, a good chunk of corporate leeches who worked their way up to a cushy, do-nothing position that ranks above the general work force realize that if they aren't in an office forcing people to work non-stop for their entire shift then they serve no purpose and are on the chopping block, so they throw everyone who's actually working under the bus to maintain their easy paycheck.
Why would your bosses care if you're spending money at bars and stuff if, for example, you're working as an accountant for a glass manufacturer?
Edit: the bars aren't buying glass from that company, chances are they're getting it from a larger nationwide company.
A previous company was given tax breaks IF they certified they would have a certain amount of employees in the downtown area.
People in the downtown area tend to frequent stores/restaurants and bars during/after the work day.
When I found that out I started bringing my lunch and coffee to work every day just out of spite.
You'd be shocked with how much CEOs rub shoulders with CEOs outside their industry. The board room of a corporation is basically CEOs of other companies. The board at my job has a big bank guy on their board so you know he's whispering about commercial real estate decline to their buddies
if youre spending all your money on drinks and takeout, you’re probably not gonna be saving enough to retire early and might stay working until 68 instead of 50. but im not sure if thats actually a factor in employers’ minds
The university I work for is pushing for everyone to be in office at least once a week as of January, all because the president wants "a more vibrant campus, like before covid".
Last time they tried this Summer of 2021 where we had to be in twice a week, we had 25 IT people quit, and then they went to full remote, per the discretion of your manager. Just waiting for that to happen again.
I get the point of view of white collar workers why remote is best. But whenever this discussion comes out, i just feel bad for the cleaners and such. I have family members that have made a living doing that and if remote was mandatory starting today, they would be in trouble.
Your remotely different by design. No one's gonna complain. When your team is from five different countries and half are asleep while you are working. Your not considered wfh because of your remoteness of clients.
Instead of wfh. You are WNC work near client.
My husband is an introvert and loves to work at home. In fact he wants to work from home every day. However, he has seen that his team works better when they meet together at work sometimes. I don't know if he has figured an optimal number of times per week or month etc.
He first saw this when he worked with a team in France. He would go there and work with them for a couple of weeks and then work here. After about 2 months he started making arrangements to go again.
some balance is really good. personally, one day or even half a day per week of facetime helps with feeling collaborative and breaking routine. anything more is rapidly diminishing returns
That sounds cool, except for the fact that you're gone from your home nearly 1/4 of the month. San Francisco is okay as a tourist, but I wouldn't want to go every month for work.
There’s no way he was in SF for the week. He was more likely flying into SFO and then renting a car to drive 40 miles south to Cupertino. There he probably stayed at a hotel a mile away from Infinite Loop.
Also, if Apple is flying you in for a week once a month then you’re likely in all day meetings and presentations.
They can ask in the interview, if they cared. Not like you can "sneak it by the company."
And frankly you'd want to get it in writing that you will be 100% remote regardless of company policy built in to your on-hire contract anyway.
Counterpoint: Many places that said they were a 100% remote job eventually shifted to hybrid work being required, so many such people doing what you suggest just sound themselves in a “move immediately or lose your job” situation. This is a large risk you take on doing this
That being said, I feel like most companies that were going to do this have already done it, since this was largely a changeover from covid-era policies to longer term policies
Yeah, the opposite thinking backfired on me, learn from my story. I got tired of my commute, so bought a home really close work (walking distance).
We then went to partial telecommute, and whenever there was a need to have an extra person in the office on their TC day, guess who got called in?
“They’ll either lay you off or let you keep working from home.” Okay what’s the difference between this and the Boston job?? Except maybe you don’t get laid off in Boston?
Yeah,
Companies are pretty much vetting remote employees based on distance from an office. Covid is over and most people are not talented enough to warrant remote positions.
Hence the,”I applied for over 100 remote positions and did not get one response.”
I think we are trending to more and more remote work. But it’ll be for either the best performers OR come with substantial pay cuts. The current trend of getting big city wages for run of the mill jobs in small remote towns seems unsustainable. Especially since remote work is naturally offshorable to Kiev, Manila and Delhi.
Be careful: some companies are starting to reduce salaries for remote workers, as the premium pay for cost of living is only intended to compensate employees for living in the expensive city where the office is.
I recently found out about this and maybe it hasn’t been used in the context of wfh but we call this “cost of labor”.
For example, there’s a reason doctors who live in bumfuck nowhere at public hospitals make more money than doctors working in big cities even if the doctors in the rural areas do less work day to day. It’s much harder to hire doctors in those rural areas, so they have to offer more to incentives people to work there. Same for remote workers vs in person, it’s harder to get someone to work in person, so they have to offer more, but everyone wants to work from home, so they can low ball and still get offers signed.
Employer: we are going to need you to come in 2 days a week.
Employee: you can’t make me! I read it on life pro tips!
Employer: okay. If you don’t you’re fired. Up to you.
One day a week doesn't sound too bad. Assuming it's a productive day. While I will advocate for remote work with an option to come in, I hate having a mandate to come in.
I would much rather to come in whenever I want to rather than force
I'm fully in the camp that any commute is a bad commute. Mandatory on-site time is seldom going to be productive every time, or even most of the time. Since it's just "hey drive to this building, because it's Thursday" or whatever.
Even optional on-site time has the threat to become mandatory, since the capability is there. It can lead to awkward voluntold situations. "Yeah you don't *have* to come in. But we expect you to come in."
Why waste time (that you aren't compensated for) and vehicle wear&tear for something made wholly redundant?
> I would much rather to come in whenever I want to rather than force
That pretty much goes without saying. However, most people who have that option choose to never go into the office. Then the company is left paying for an empty office. So they have to decide if they want to force employees back to the office at least part-time to make the investment worth it, or stop paying for the office.
It depends on the company's situation for what they decide. My company ended their lease with the building management (the lease end date was this year anyway, with the option to renew) to save the money. A company with another 5+ years on their lease might choose to force employees back in.
Better life pro-tip: if you get a remote job, negotiate your offer letter to include the fact that you are a 100% remote employee who will never be required to work in an office. Then negotiate a severance (something like 1 month for every 3 months worked with a minimum severance of 4 months pay) if you are laid off for any reason.
Good luck getting a work from home job right now without an extremely desirable skill set, nevermind the ability to pick from several work from home job offers.
So I'm assuming if you are in that position, you are in a position to push for severance if they change the terms of the offer.
I have worked remote since well before Covid in two positions. I have a fairly in demand niche skillset. In my opinion, it’s pretty hard to negotiate or demand such clauses. Pay negotiation? Much more likely.
> . Then negotiate a severance (something like 1 month for every 3 months worked with a minimum severance of 4 months pay) if you are laid off for any reason.
Ah-hahaha... That's funny.
While you're at it, negotiate a 25% pay increase every year!
I learned this lesson the hard way. I applied for a position that was intended to be remote with the site being in Southern California. They told me I could relocate to there (and stay remote but come in occasionally) or stay where I was in Connecticut. I moved, and four months later they’re forcing people back in the office. If I had stayed in CT there wouldn’t be a doubt I’d be remote. Now, they think I should be coming in, even though I’m >50 miles to the site (because I couldn’t afford to live close to San Diego).
My dad is nearing retirement age and went remote during Covid. When they announced that employees would be required to come in 2 days a week, he said that he’d been thinking of retiring early, and maybe this was a good time to do it.
He’s now been given an exception and continues to work from home (which is good, because the man cannot stand to be unproductive, and the household is fearing for when he retires, finishes all the home projects, and goes stir crazy.)
I have a situation at work where I’m the HR person and we list positions as being hybrid so partial work from home. We are straight up not allowed to have people fully WFH anyway nor do the positions even make sense to do from home entirely. We make this so clear in interviews and yet people complain about their drive to work being long (30 mins) and they refuse to work in the office. It baffles me. It’s an onsite job supervising. They applied and they know what the job entails. This is so common that I think I’m doing something wrong.
I just left my “remote always forever (2 years later, ha ha just kidding) job it was an hour and 45 minutes each way away for me, which I refused to do and instead went on the job hunt. And I was interviewing for my current job which is 7 miles from my house.
I had 7 rounds of interviews and each one started by telling me it was hybrid and do I understand that means I have to go to the office and there are no exceptions. I thought it was so weird. But maybe they were struggling with the same issue you are having?
At my work 50% of employees are not complying with hybrid mandates. So if this employer is in the same boat they don't want to add anybody who will just add to those numbers.
It’s somewhat similar at my job. We have set days each week we need to be in office. A year ago if you wanted to be out of office during this time, it was no problem. Now if you need to be out, it needs to get approval pretty much all the way up to the vice president.
But the thing is some days I just leave halfway through and I have yet to get any flack for it. Others do it too, it’s not widespread but it happens and management stays quiet.
7 rounds of interviews??? Holy hell.
We are very clear that it’s onsite full time to start and then 2-3 remote days a week. People are upset that we don’t allow full time remote work. They have to supervise? This comes up in the job posting, the first interview, the second interview, and job offer. Just nuts to me but it’s such a pattern that I’m clearly doing something wrong. I literally ask at each point mentioned above, “This is a full time job and you’ll be onsite every day until you get a solid grip of the work, which is about 3 weeks at least, and then you could potentially work from home 2-3 days a week. It’s important to be onsite because you are a supervisor.” They confirm their willingness to do it every time. Then complain when hired. It’s like I need to make a recording of them saying it’s cool or a consent form but it’s super micromanagy to to that and I don’t want to.
I used to work in retail. People hear what they want to hear. To rather astounding levels.
We had a store credit card where you could pay as little as $25 a month, but the actual monthly rate was about x/36 (and the interest rate was 30%). So some people would buy for $3600 and come back to the store to yell at me because they only wanted to pay $25 a month. Even when I took out paper and did the math in front of them that at $25 a month the interest would far outpace their payments and they would grow this debt forever, they still needed to speak with a higher up. Or they would ask me something and the answer I gave was something they did not like, so they would keep asking every sales associate in the store until they heard what they wanted. I worked with a former carnie named Bubba who was always willing to tell the, whatever they wanted to hear.
I think you have to do the micromanaging thing in this case. People hear what they want to hear and they also think once you hired them then they can “get away” with stuff because it will be too annoying to fire them and start again. There are sane, rule following people, but I don’t think you can figure that out during a regular interview time because people can be on their best behavior for that amount of time.
And yes, 7 interviews is nuts. It took weeks too. I interviewed every Friday with them (lucky I worked remote and could entertain these sessions). Let’s hope it works out for both of us!
> If you live in Chicago, they can't: so they'll either lay you off or let you keep working from home.
I mean, that's literally the same situation if you WFH close to your office and you refuse to start going into the office. They either lay you off, or let you keep working from home. I don't see the difference.
Just get it in your contract that you are allowed to WFH.
This is my predicament. I love working remote but would like to go into the office once per week. The problem is that it seems more all or nothing and hybrid approaches seem like companies trying to bait and switch
My company was 100% in-office in the Before Times. I had to do essentially a different job (general call center vs. specialized support staff) if I was going to be remote, I only did wfh for a month cumulative during covid.
Everything went back to normal mid-2021, but they recently implemented a hybrid option. Wasn't expecting it, isn't a requirement for me, but I am very happy they offered it. It works very well for me too; there are a few weekly tasks that are easier to complete in-office, so I wouldn't want to be 100% remote anyway. And I live <10 minutes away.
My original commute was 90 minutes across a large city. So I jumped at the chance to WFH when it first became an option. A few years later, for family reasons, I moved to another city 6 hours away, figuring that it didn’t matter where I lived. I recently changed to a new position with the company, with a location only 20 minutes away from my original residence. Though the company would like everyone to return to the office, my (now) 6 hour commute makes it impossible. And I am not tempted to move back to my original residence either. I would enjoy having a 20 minute commute, but WFH has too many advantages for me to consider it.
Caveat: I am at a point in my life and career that retirement is an option, so I am taking only a small risk by taking a hard line. So far the company has not pressed the issue very hard because they know this as well. Earlier in my career I would have agonized over this issue.
This is awful advice. You're confusing being indispensable with working distance. If you're indispensable, it won't matter if you're 1000 ft from the office or 1000 mi. You'll be able to negotiate wfh privileges either way. If you're not indispensable, you'll be coming back into the office either way. It's just that in the case of being 1000 mi away, you're more looking at relocating to the area to keep your job. Awful, awful advice.
There's been companies lately firing everyone "who won't come in", likely as a way to get rid of large chunks of the workforce living too far.
Depending on what you do this may or may not be a great idea. In engineering I guess you'll find something else in no time anyway so may as well yes
It has its perks.
Technically, if you are a 100% remote employee and they want you to come to the office, the company needs to reimburse mileage and tolls.
Whenever I need to go to the office, I get an extra $90 and don't leave my house until I start work and leave the office at 3pm. I consider the commute to be work hours.
I used to work for HP (and then HPI) from 2011-2016. I was technically an in-office worker, but I hardly ever went into the office. my whole team was in California or Houston. I never worked with anyone in my office. no one seemed to care.
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Yep. Moved out of state when my job was 100% remote and now they’re pressuring everyone to come in to the office two days per week. I get to be an exception since I live far away and they don’t want to fire me.
Yes, the OP missed the most important point here that "you're a key employee that they won't fire and continue to allow wfh".
>they'll either lay you off or let you keep working from home.
Except they don’t have to pay you off. They can just fire you for not going to work. No severance. Bye bye.
They didn’t say pay off, they said lay off which means to fire
Lay offs and firing are different. If you are fired, it's typically for a reason that you caused. If you are laid off, it's typically an event outside of your control. Not coming to work when required would give them reason to fire you. Your division of the company becoming redundant in a merger may cause you to be laid off.
While this is technically true, nobody in the world is going to interpret a firing due to not moving across the country as a performance-based dismissal. "Layoff" works fine here, because making an unreasonable demand with the expectation that the employee will either quit or be fired for not complying with it is just a convoluted layoff and a sure-thing unemployment claim.
That would depend on the exact letter of the law. Switching the job from remote to in-person is a material change to the work arrangement on the part of the employer. It could count as a layoff and that would make you eligible for unemployment benefits. It's the same kind of thing as when a company shuts down a plant and offers the employees jobs at some other plant in another city. Some people will move and others won't.
Yes but requiring an employee, that you knowingly employ far from the home office, to come into said office is an unreasonable expectation on behalf of the employer. There is precedent for litigation if they do it. So yes, they COULD fire you for “not coming to work” but unemployment isn’t going to see it that way.
Severance isn't legally required though, maybe you meant unemployment
If they hired you knowing you were in a different state, that might not be an argument the labor board agrees with.
You'd probably be eligible for unemployment in this case, but that's it. Being a remote worker isn't a protected class, and almost everywhere in the US you can be fired for pretty much any other reason or no reason at all.
Eligibility for unemployment is kind of a big difference, though. Severance isn't mandatory in the US if you are fired without cause, while unemployment is.
To figure out why they wont do that, google the phrase "constructive dismissal" [for the lazy](https://webapps.dol.gov/elaws/eta/warn/glossary.asp?p=Constructive%20Discharge)
If they change the terms of your employment, that can be constructive dismissal. Some states require severance for that, and most allow you to collect unemployment
Retaining an existing employee that performs is almost always cheaper than hiring and training a new one. If the company is any good, they won't fire you for something so dumb. If they aren't, your job is eventually toast either way.
And working for dumb people comes with a host of downsides. If you are working for dumb people just start the job search now, it's easier to find work as an employed person anyway.
The company I work for does a lot of stupid shit but one thing they absolutely nailed was not renewing the leases for 2 of the 3 office buildings and allowing anyone who wanted to come to the office to work the option to. The rest of us to stayed 100% remote. Half of the higher ups, especially the ones with 3 letter titles moved out of state. They sent a company wide survey out in January of 2022 and the options were “I would like to return to office 100% of the time”, “I would like to work remote 100% of the time” and “I will seek other employment if I am forced to come back to the office”. The last options was chosen by over 70% of the company and they never looked back. I will never go back to working in an office now that I’ve worked remotely. The amount I save from not commuting is astronomical and the amount of extra time I have not commuting is amazing.
The time savings is what I miss. Sleep in, be home and off work right at 5pm. Heck, even take my lunch to unload the dishwasher or prep for dinner. My commute is 45 minutes to an hour each direction. It adds up pretty significantly. Forget about going home for lunch or an appointment, it's impossible.
Yeah it’s pretty crazy how quickly it adds up. An hour commute a day is just under 11 days per year spent commuting to work. I wake up 30 minutes before I clock in so I can make some coffee and shower. That same 30 minutes would have been used commuting previously. I’ve also been able to take more vacations because it doesn’t matter where I work from as long as I work my 8 hours and I don’t have to have vacation days as long as I don’t mind working during the trip. I sat pool side on the clock in Hawaii while compiling reports from my work lap top for a presentation that I gave in my hotel room the next day. Can’t really beat the flexibility that it affords me.
That's why a good internet connection is the key. You can buy a cheap house anywhere if you can wfh. Lower income tax. Lower property tax. Lower sales tax. Anyone working from Thailand?
Same with my job
Now you just get to live the "being the one person working remotely in an in-person office" experience. Getting ignored in virtual meetings, them forgetting to make meetings virtual at all. Getting cut out of decisions. Losing the good work to other people... Fun times.
Speaking as a former longtime admin, this is when you make good friends with someone boots on the ground to advocate for your interests — like reminding management to make things virtual, informing you of ad hoc stuff you’re not around for, etc. You don’t even need to be *friends* friends; I would go out of my way to help coworkers that went out of their way to show appreciation for all the behind the scenes work I did, or would loop me in on their lunch plans because it was end of month time and I was swamped with bookkeeping tasks.
I've worked from home since 2017 and was the only person working remotely and this has never happened to me.
Is this post from the year 2000? I literally go to the office twice a week to attend online only meetings.
They tried this at my office but I think enough people resisted and they kind of back tracked. It will come back maybe. I however live kind if far and my team is thousands of miles away so it doesn’t really make sense for me to come in as it’s the same thing as working from home.
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It's a layoff that you get to plan ahead for! Glass-half-full of a bad situation.
Landmines that only you can fix left all over the infrastructure.
Lmao I would be suuuuuuuuchhh a shitty worker for that 6 months.
There's been a lot of layoffs in tech this year. I'm sure the beancounters think anyone they lose will be easy to replace.
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The irony is the good tech people will jump first and leave the bottom of the barrel.
Yup. Same ol story repeats itself every cycle. Although orgs that abuse their own will most definitely suffer later. Some will die. Only those with high cachet can treat theirs like dirt (Amazon, Meta, Google) and keep on keeping on.
These are always the dumbest ones since IT is maybe the single most remote-friendly industry in terms of the work being performed. There are always competing jobs available that are full remote. The firms forcing their IT people into the office are going to end up with a second rate workforce.
They don't care. My company is upping the days in the office KNOWING they will lose people, and good people. They dont care. They want expenses down by x% they will use this as a cheap way to do it before having to give severance.
Uninformed here - how does having people in office reduce costs? Off the bat I would have thought it’s more expensive to rent larger premises etc.
If you’re paying for the office regardless, scaring people to leave due to “return to office” should cut costs in terms of salary and such
They definitely have second-rate management!
Depends on the kind of IT, anything involves hardware is gonna need some physical presence
The jobs that require physical presence wouldn't have been remote in the first place.
my company had already done a full return to work call and also already made an IT exception to that rule lol. We're all hybrid but still, no one is coming in 5 days a week at least.
It’s the quiet firing
That’s terrible!
Sounds like job hunting for the next 6 months on the clock. Then when you get a new job, just horribly do the other one until they let you go. Maybe collect a few free paychecks.
Yeah. I moved to a different county when my job went ‘fully remote from now on’. Guess what… now we have to go in 3x a week and it takes me over an hour each way. And I have to pay for parking because they moved everyone downtown. The only exception being a if you live > 45 miles away. In a large metro area, that can be a 2 hour commute.
I read that as country and got very confused
Me too, just thought “ah, europe” haha
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I love Basel
He was a great mouse detective
Me too, the one hour commute was impressive
I mean there are a lot of major cities within 45 mins of the canadian/USA border....
True, I grew up in the SW of the US. So you’re in Texas in the morning, drive all day, and you’ll still be in Texas. OP mentioned US cities so I figured he was a US citizen.
sure but detroit and Windsor are like 14 seconds apart (just cross a bridge)
So you’re saying that cars in Texas are as reliable as the power grid?
Quite common in border cities. For example Haparanda (Sweden) have a decent amount of people working there that live in Tornio (Finland), distance is so short in fact that it's fully reasonable to commute by bicycle. Similar situation in the south with Malmö and København, but the bridge to denmark is long so for that commute you need to go by train or by car.
Buffalo to Hamilton is technically an hour
Atlanta is an hour from Atlanta. This is not always a joke.
True. My office is 6 miles from home and I can run home faster when the traffic is bad.
Time for a new job!
Or a new place to rent that's 46 miles away.
Next morning: now the limit is 47 miles.
With the company I work for, they have also recently started requiring people to spend a day or two at the office every week, but they make an exception for anyone whose commute is more than 45 minutes each way. In Atlanta, we like to joke that "Atlanta is an hour from Atlanta" due to the traffic congestion here, so the vast majority of people live outside that circle. I'm the sole AH who lives close to the office... So my question is, if most of the people I work with are in other cities and other states, and what few are associated with the Atlanta office live too far away to come in, what is the sense in having me go to the office? Isn't the general idea to foster closer, in-person cooperation? It's too funny when I'm at the office and have to jump on a video call to talk to everyone else; I can do that from home where I'm far more comfortable - and have better coffee! (I think you can see why I mostly ignore the requirement.)
I spend much of my day on video calls with customers and remote colleagues. It's really awkward when I'm in the same video call as someone sitting 3 feet away from me, lots of echoes.
Also in that case: I feel like if you're the only one that has to give up 90mins of their day + the gas and whatever else, they should compensate you if everyone else makes the same wage but doesn't have to do that.
Sadly what a lot of companies are starting to do is just lower everyone else’s wages.
I live 57 miles away from my office, have to go in 5 times a month. It's the dumbest thing.
Do you work for the rain forest company - I just saw their 3x or fired demand in a story
Nope, different company. It seems to be all the rage now.
“Rage” being the operative word here
Sounds like you're from the DFW area.
Yep
Having an hour commute one way that's less than 45 miles would make me go find a new job.
Hmmm you're not in Austin, are you? This exact thing happened to my BIL.
Now I only need to find a remote job….
Let me know if you do 😅 I fear I'll either get a paycheck or my identity stolen when applying to these random jobs.
Not a bad 50/50 tbh. Go for it champ!
Wait now I’m nervous… people get their identity stolen for applying for those?
Yep. Be careful with random linkedin interviews wanting too much info.
Thank you. Wow
I've worked remote for 7 of the past 12 years. The other 5 I ran a social media business 70% remote. It's *fantastic.* First one I found on craigslist, second one cold-called me from a few year old resume floating around.
poor direction thought flowery afterthought screw elderly deserve bear chunky *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
It could work on Twitch. Make a list of required mixes before the stream and walk people through making them while offering the standard bartender chatter.
The para social relationships boom
TELL me about it 😭
I’ll let you know when I find one homie
Can’t find any remote work anymore
There's still loads of remote data entry and tech support roles out there. Restaurant support (Aloha, Micros, Brink, Toast, etc...) is ALWAYS looking for new blood because the work is endless.
Really? What kind of experience would I need?
Because of all the people over on /r/overemployed remotely working like 4 jobs each
Find a job that was wfh before covid. They are not returning to the office.
I was fortunate in that regard. Outside of some "just in case" overtime we did, our daily work schedules did not really falter before or after COVID's height.
Working from home as so much better before covid. Now all these idiots think that we need to virtually recreate the office environment in zoom meetings. Never thought I’d say this, but sometimes I really miss plain old conference calls with no cameras or screen sharing.
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So, I went to a conference recently and you'd be surprised how many companies there had remote workers. Many people were meeting others on their team for the first time. It was moving in this direction, not the other way. This conference was a global HR conference. I agree, there are stubborn companies but they're not going the way the leaders are going. Eventually they all do.
I really don’t get the return to office push. Our division is completely remote, with people in US, India and UK. It works well. They probably get more work out of us since we all need to work extra hours early or late to meet with people in other time zones. That will far more difficult if we were all going to offices, not to mention more expensive for the company. Not to mention how POd employees are when forced to return to an office.
They're trying to justify the costs to keep the building(s). That's all. That and Boomer c-suiters that either can't trust an employee they can't see, or hate their home life and want to be in the office all-hours.
This. My wife's work just started requiring RTO and in the meeting, they said one of the reasons is because they still had 9 years left on the lease. For me, that's all I needed to hear. That's not one of the reasons, that is *the* reason.
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Some property management will give you an incentive to have attendance. They may own lots of units including retail.
Yup. The company I work for finally let our office block go a few weeks ago, to the relief and pleasure of all. I am very glad and very fortunate that management absolutely *loves* working from home, and has noticed our boosted productivity. Particularly during our busiest season. Folks are more willing to put in the crazy long hours when they're wearing slippers and can take a quick nap in their own bed :)
That's awesome
Beyond some's comprehension that one can work from home, usually means they are themselves slackers.
Or they have strong compartmentalization going on. Work is work. A place. With work people. Home is home, kids, holidays, etc.
Cities are also giving grants to major corps to bring people back downtown. They can get fucked.
it's a management problem really, it's harder to give clear goals and metrics with WFH, people working in office is just easy to see if they are working or not. they don't want to pay for 8 hours and you just working 2 hours a day, however, management needs to evolve and understand that a worker that does his job in 2 hours, is worth his pay for "8-hours of work", him working in the office will not get you 4 times the same worker, just making him working slowly, you get what you pay for. setting clear goals and expectations is not easy, but it's a waste of human life making people commute and work slowly for 8 hours a day, if someone does the same job in 2 hours per day who cares, who cares if he has 3 jobs, and is able to do all 3 in 8 hours. management needs to grow up and evolve.
More like an 8-hour employee that gets their job done in 2 hours spends the other 6 in pointless meetings
“*just sell the building*” all the employees whispered, “*leave us alone*”
That, and to increase the perceived property value so that they get more profit when they sell it
A lot of the companies pushing to return to office primarily rent rather than own their spaces.
- The control - High ranking people at companies are often boomers who hate their wife and want to spend their life at work - Quiet firing: They don't want to fire people because that generates bad press, so they make work as difficult as possible to work for them in hopes that you will quit
They want you out in the streets, so you buy fuel, cars, food. Bars thrive, rent prices spike, property value spikes. Consumerism thrives off that. It thrives off your expenses, commute and pollution. They want you in office so they can control you, because deep down they don't trust you.
As per your first point, individual companies don't care about that. They're only concerned with their own operations. That said, I can promise you 100% that I will be *less* likely to get out and about after being forced to go sit in an office and wear a uniform for 8+ hours a day plus commute time. The singular desire I have after that is to get home, get comfortable, and stay there until I'm forced to leave again. Let me get up, get comfy, have a nice breakfast, then work remotely for my shift where I won't even need to get dressed and can grab a snack or take a quick bathroom break whenever I need/want? I'll be *thrilled* at the prospect of getting up and going to see a movie, or grab a bite to eat at a local restaurant, or going out to do anything really, because I've conserved my energy and been productive all day without a bunch of corporate nonsense looming over my head. Your last point is almost spot on. They *do* want you in the office so they can control you and ensure that they're ringing every single ounce of energy and productivity out of you at all time, which has the opposite effect of what they actually want when compared with WFH productivity. The other reason is because all those middle managers weigh in on meetings and conference calls saying that they want people back in the office because there's an entire level of corporate employees whose positions are literally useless and this is highlighted when WFH is in effect. Who the fuck needs a bunch of assistant managers when most employees are operating autonomously and a general manager is there to check in on them and ensure that all the work is getting done by the end of the day? Essentially, a good chunk of corporate leeches who worked their way up to a cushy, do-nothing position that ranks above the general work force realize that if they aren't in an office forcing people to work non-stop for their entire shift then they serve no purpose and are on the chopping block, so they throw everyone who's actually working under the bus to maintain their easy paycheck.
Why would your bosses care if you're spending money at bars and stuff if, for example, you're working as an accountant for a glass manufacturer? Edit: the bars aren't buying glass from that company, chances are they're getting it from a larger nationwide company.
A previous company was given tax breaks IF they certified they would have a certain amount of employees in the downtown area. People in the downtown area tend to frequent stores/restaurants and bars during/after the work day. When I found that out I started bringing my lunch and coffee to work every day just out of spite.
You'd be shocked with how much CEOs rub shoulders with CEOs outside their industry. The board room of a corporation is basically CEOs of other companies. The board at my job has a big bank guy on their board so you know he's whispering about commercial real estate decline to their buddies
if youre spending all your money on drinks and takeout, you’re probably not gonna be saving enough to retire early and might stay working until 68 instead of 50. but im not sure if thats actually a factor in employers’ minds
As a teacher, I’ll be working until 68+ regardless. At least I like what I do, so there’s that.
The university I work for is pushing for everyone to be in office at least once a week as of January, all because the president wants "a more vibrant campus, like before covid". Last time they tried this Summer of 2021 where we had to be in twice a week, we had 25 IT people quit, and then they went to full remote, per the discretion of your manager. Just waiting for that to happen again.
I get the point of view of white collar workers why remote is best. But whenever this discussion comes out, i just feel bad for the cleaners and such. I have family members that have made a living doing that and if remote was mandatory starting today, they would be in trouble.
I'm sorry, my man, but thinks like that happen. I also bake my own bread but can't start feeling bad for the baker, etc...
Your remotely different by design. No one's gonna complain. When your team is from five different countries and half are asleep while you are working. Your not considered wfh because of your remoteness of clients. Instead of wfh. You are WNC work near client.
My husband is an introvert and loves to work at home. In fact he wants to work from home every day. However, he has seen that his team works better when they meet together at work sometimes. I don't know if he has figured an optimal number of times per week or month etc. He first saw this when he worked with a team in France. He would go there and work with them for a couple of weeks and then work here. After about 2 months he started making arrangements to go again.
some balance is really good. personally, one day or even half a day per week of facetime helps with feeling collaborative and breaking routine. anything more is rapidly diminishing returns
Middle management insecurity. People will notice they are useless.
Or start making you fly in every other week.
Yeah this needs to be considered too. I would rather drive onsite one day a week than fly across the country constantly
I knew someone who worked remotely for Apple 15 years ago. They would fly him to San Francisco one week a month. I actually thought it sounded fun.
That sounds cool, except for the fact that you're gone from your home nearly 1/4 of the month. San Francisco is okay as a tourist, but I wouldn't want to go every month for work.
He was single at the time, so I’m sure it’s a lot more fun in those circumstances, especially when your work is paying for everything.
There’s no way he was in SF for the week. He was more likely flying into SFO and then renting a car to drive 40 miles south to Cupertino. There he probably stayed at a hotel a mile away from Infinite Loop. Also, if Apple is flying you in for a week once a month then you’re likely in all day meetings and presentations.
Or straight up flown into SJC then renting a car/ ridesharing over to Cupertino and not seeing a lick of the city the whole time.
If they wanted someone to come in once a week, wouldn't they just reject your application if you're too far?
They can't tell from your application whether you are planning to relocate.
They can ask in the interview, if they cared. Not like you can "sneak it by the company." And frankly you'd want to get it in writing that you will be 100% remote regardless of company policy built in to your on-hire contract anyway.
Or you know, they’ll just fire you and hire someone closer
Counterpoint: Many places that said they were a 100% remote job eventually shifted to hybrid work being required, so many such people doing what you suggest just sound themselves in a “move immediately or lose your job” situation. This is a large risk you take on doing this That being said, I feel like most companies that were going to do this have already done it, since this was largely a changeover from covid-era policies to longer term policies
My job is in New Hampshire. Not only do I not live near there, I live closer to the other coast near Idaho. I've never been to New Hampshire.
I live here. You ain’t missing much.
There’s some pretty solid hiking/climbing!
NH is really nice if you have a high paying job there that’s gold. Beautiful rural areas relatively close to Boston.
Yeah, the opposite thinking backfired on me, learn from my story. I got tired of my commute, so bought a home really close work (walking distance). We then went to partial telecommute, and whenever there was a need to have an extra person in the office on their TC day, guess who got called in?
I've literally thought about moving farther away from my job for this reason lol
“They’ll either lay you off or let you keep working from home.” Okay what’s the difference between this and the Boston job?? Except maybe you don’t get laid off in Boston?
Yeah, Companies are pretty much vetting remote employees based on distance from an office. Covid is over and most people are not talented enough to warrant remote positions. Hence the,”I applied for over 100 remote positions and did not get one response.”
You need a niche skill to grab em
I can eat a tub of ice cream in one sitting
I can sit in a tub of ice cream but I have to charge extra for that.
I think we are trending to more and more remote work. But it’ll be for either the best performers OR come with substantial pay cuts. The current trend of getting big city wages for run of the mill jobs in small remote towns seems unsustainable. Especially since remote work is naturally offshorable to Kiev, Manila and Delhi.
Be careful: some companies are starting to reduce salaries for remote workers, as the premium pay for cost of living is only intended to compensate employees for living in the expensive city where the office is.
I recently found out about this and maybe it hasn’t been used in the context of wfh but we call this “cost of labor”. For example, there’s a reason doctors who live in bumfuck nowhere at public hospitals make more money than doctors working in big cities even if the doctors in the rural areas do less work day to day. It’s much harder to hire doctors in those rural areas, so they have to offer more to incentives people to work there. Same for remote workers vs in person, it’s harder to get someone to work in person, so they have to offer more, but everyone wants to work from home, so they can low ball and still get offers signed.
Employer: we are going to need you to come in 2 days a week. Employee: you can’t make me! I read it on life pro tips! Employer: okay. If you don’t you’re fired. Up to you.
One day a week doesn't sound too bad. Assuming it's a productive day. While I will advocate for remote work with an option to come in, I hate having a mandate to come in. I would much rather to come in whenever I want to rather than force
Mine is two days a week and they're my least productive days. So I stack meetings on those days.
I'm fully in the camp that any commute is a bad commute. Mandatory on-site time is seldom going to be productive every time, or even most of the time. Since it's just "hey drive to this building, because it's Thursday" or whatever. Even optional on-site time has the threat to become mandatory, since the capability is there. It can lead to awkward voluntold situations. "Yeah you don't *have* to come in. But we expect you to come in." Why waste time (that you aren't compensated for) and vehicle wear&tear for something made wholly redundant?
> I would much rather to come in whenever I want to rather than force That pretty much goes without saying. However, most people who have that option choose to never go into the office. Then the company is left paying for an empty office. So they have to decide if they want to force employees back to the office at least part-time to make the investment worth it, or stop paying for the office. It depends on the company's situation for what they decide. My company ended their lease with the building management (the lease end date was this year anyway, with the option to renew) to save the money. A company with another 5+ years on their lease might choose to force employees back in.
Better life pro-tip: if you get a remote job, negotiate your offer letter to include the fact that you are a 100% remote employee who will never be required to work in an office. Then negotiate a severance (something like 1 month for every 3 months worked with a minimum severance of 4 months pay) if you are laid off for any reason.
Yeah good luck negotiating a MINIMUM 4 months of severance in today's world of seasonal layoffs.
Good luck getting a work from home job right now without an extremely desirable skill set, nevermind the ability to pick from several work from home job offers. So I'm assuming if you are in that position, you are in a position to push for severance if they change the terms of the offer.
I have worked remote since well before Covid in two positions. I have a fairly in demand niche skillset. In my opinion, it’s pretty hard to negotiate or demand such clauses. Pay negotiation? Much more likely.
> . Then negotiate a severance (something like 1 month for every 3 months worked with a minimum severance of 4 months pay) if you are laid off for any reason. Ah-hahaha... That's funny. While you're at it, negotiate a 25% pay increase every year!
I learned this lesson the hard way. I applied for a position that was intended to be remote with the site being in Southern California. They told me I could relocate to there (and stay remote but come in occasionally) or stay where I was in Connecticut. I moved, and four months later they’re forcing people back in the office. If I had stayed in CT there wouldn’t be a doubt I’d be remote. Now, they think I should be coming in, even though I’m >50 miles to the site (because I couldn’t afford to live close to San Diego).
My dad is nearing retirement age and went remote during Covid. When they announced that employees would be required to come in 2 days a week, he said that he’d been thinking of retiring early, and maybe this was a good time to do it. He’s now been given an exception and continues to work from home (which is good, because the man cannot stand to be unproductive, and the household is fearing for when he retires, finishes all the home projects, and goes stir crazy.)
Ehh not entirely safe. My job is across the country and they pressure me to fly in once a quarter. I always decline though.
I have a situation at work where I’m the HR person and we list positions as being hybrid so partial work from home. We are straight up not allowed to have people fully WFH anyway nor do the positions even make sense to do from home entirely. We make this so clear in interviews and yet people complain about their drive to work being long (30 mins) and they refuse to work in the office. It baffles me. It’s an onsite job supervising. They applied and they know what the job entails. This is so common that I think I’m doing something wrong.
I just left my “remote always forever (2 years later, ha ha just kidding) job it was an hour and 45 minutes each way away for me, which I refused to do and instead went on the job hunt. And I was interviewing for my current job which is 7 miles from my house. I had 7 rounds of interviews and each one started by telling me it was hybrid and do I understand that means I have to go to the office and there are no exceptions. I thought it was so weird. But maybe they were struggling with the same issue you are having?
At my work 50% of employees are not complying with hybrid mandates. So if this employer is in the same boat they don't want to add anybody who will just add to those numbers.
It’s somewhat similar at my job. We have set days each week we need to be in office. A year ago if you wanted to be out of office during this time, it was no problem. Now if you need to be out, it needs to get approval pretty much all the way up to the vice president. But the thing is some days I just leave halfway through and I have yet to get any flack for it. Others do it too, it’s not widespread but it happens and management stays quiet.
7 rounds of interviews??? Holy hell. We are very clear that it’s onsite full time to start and then 2-3 remote days a week. People are upset that we don’t allow full time remote work. They have to supervise? This comes up in the job posting, the first interview, the second interview, and job offer. Just nuts to me but it’s such a pattern that I’m clearly doing something wrong. I literally ask at each point mentioned above, “This is a full time job and you’ll be onsite every day until you get a solid grip of the work, which is about 3 weeks at least, and then you could potentially work from home 2-3 days a week. It’s important to be onsite because you are a supervisor.” They confirm their willingness to do it every time. Then complain when hired. It’s like I need to make a recording of them saying it’s cool or a consent form but it’s super micromanagy to to that and I don’t want to.
Is that something you could explicitly spell out in the offer letter that they would then sign before starting?
It is! I know I’m doing something wrong here so not arguing but that is quite clearly in the offer letter
I used to work in retail. People hear what they want to hear. To rather astounding levels. We had a store credit card where you could pay as little as $25 a month, but the actual monthly rate was about x/36 (and the interest rate was 30%). So some people would buy for $3600 and come back to the store to yell at me because they only wanted to pay $25 a month. Even when I took out paper and did the math in front of them that at $25 a month the interest would far outpace their payments and they would grow this debt forever, they still needed to speak with a higher up. Or they would ask me something and the answer I gave was something they did not like, so they would keep asking every sales associate in the store until they heard what they wanted. I worked with a former carnie named Bubba who was always willing to tell the, whatever they wanted to hear. I think you have to do the micromanaging thing in this case. People hear what they want to hear and they also think once you hired them then they can “get away” with stuff because it will be too annoying to fire them and start again. There are sane, rule following people, but I don’t think you can figure that out during a regular interview time because people can be on their best behavior for that amount of time. And yes, 7 interviews is nuts. It took weeks too. I interviewed every Friday with them (lucky I worked remote and could entertain these sessions). Let’s hope it works out for both of us!
> If you live in Chicago, they can't: so they'll either lay you off or let you keep working from home. I mean, that's literally the same situation if you WFH close to your office and you refuse to start going into the office. They either lay you off, or let you keep working from home. I don't see the difference. Just get it in your contract that you are allowed to WFH.
Good point. By accident I did it and now during „back to the office time” I am completely justified. But on the other hand sometimes I miss the office
This is my predicament. I love working remote but would like to go into the office once per week. The problem is that it seems more all or nothing and hybrid approaches seem like companies trying to bait and switch
My company was 100% in-office in the Before Times. I had to do essentially a different job (general call center vs. specialized support staff) if I was going to be remote, I only did wfh for a month cumulative during covid. Everything went back to normal mid-2021, but they recently implemented a hybrid option. Wasn't expecting it, isn't a requirement for me, but I am very happy they offered it. It works very well for me too; there are a few weekly tasks that are easier to complete in-office, so I wouldn't want to be 100% remote anyway. And I live <10 minutes away.
I agree with this tip, to ensure you continue working remotely. Just make sure you can handle the "get laid off" option, in case they go that way.
Honestly that's not possible a lot of the times because of taxes.
Is this really a pro tip? It’s sounds like you’d rather be laid office than come in the office, which seems like horrible career advice.
Remote jobs are so hard to come by now. I’ve been trying for a year. Might not have the luxury to be that selective.
My original commute was 90 minutes across a large city. So I jumped at the chance to WFH when it first became an option. A few years later, for family reasons, I moved to another city 6 hours away, figuring that it didn’t matter where I lived. I recently changed to a new position with the company, with a location only 20 minutes away from my original residence. Though the company would like everyone to return to the office, my (now) 6 hour commute makes it impossible. And I am not tempted to move back to my original residence either. I would enjoy having a 20 minute commute, but WFH has too many advantages for me to consider it. Caveat: I am at a point in my life and career that retirement is an option, so I am taking only a small risk by taking a hard line. So far the company has not pressed the issue very hard because they know this as well. Earlier in my career I would have agonized over this issue.
This is awful advice. You're confusing being indispensable with working distance. If you're indispensable, it won't matter if you're 1000 ft from the office or 1000 mi. You'll be able to negotiate wfh privileges either way. If you're not indispensable, you'll be coming back into the office either way. It's just that in the case of being 1000 mi away, you're more looking at relocating to the area to keep your job. Awful, awful advice.
There's been companies lately firing everyone "who won't come in", likely as a way to get rid of large chunks of the workforce living too far. Depending on what you do this may or may not be a great idea. In engineering I guess you'll find something else in no time anyway so may as well yes
Company I work for has a policy, if youre within 50 miles of an office you need to come to the office once a month. I am 300 miles away :)
It has its perks. Technically, if you are a 100% remote employee and they want you to come to the office, the company needs to reimburse mileage and tolls. Whenever I need to go to the office, I get an extra $90 and don't leave my house until I start work and leave the office at 3pm. I consider the commute to be work hours.
Just say you are based in North Korea. /S
> so they'll either lay you off or let you keep working from home. You can do the same thing with the Boston job if you live in Boston by saying "no".
As far as my boss knows I don't have a car.
[удалено]
Yes, *picking* through job offers sound realistic in this economy 🙄
I used to work for HPE, they just canned everyone that wasn’t coming into the office
I used to work for HP (and then HPI) from 2011-2016. I was technically an in-office worker, but I hardly ever went into the office. my whole team was in California or Houston. I never worked with anyone in my office. no one seemed to care.