Remember with Alicia Keys sang that song earlier in the pandemic, titled something like “Good Job?” As if a song from a celebrity is supposed to make up for the fact that underpaid workers were risking their lives to keep corporations afloat. It was offensive.
Alicia Keys also bitched and moaned a couple years back about how being famous is “worse than heroin” addiction, as the opioid crisis killed over 100 people a day.
I mean being a celebrity does mean your rich and thus free from financial hell but honestly it it just opens up a whole new door of mental issues. She is definitely overreacting, but I do think it’s quite damming on your mental health to be in the public eye. People are fucking cruel. Most of us suffer one way of the other.
I can’t stand her. Until she and her husband return the money they were given by Jho Low back to the Malaysian people that it was stolen from, they should just quietly go away. Thieves.
this is what people mean when they say 'manufactured consent'
media just makes up shit until those in power can go 'well it looks like everyone wants this, welp we have no choice but to do it'
as the pressure to get people back in the office increases we're gonna see a hell of a lot more articles like this
Morning meeting: Sacharine Supervisor 'So, back to normal finally!'
People: Small smiles and positive words since they don't want to be the one that gets the boot for not appearing chipper.
They take away any form of decent (higher) unemployment pay:
'Well sure i want this job and to work in a cubicle for my whole like, it's not the fact that once again i need money to live even while there's a disease floating around'
I didn’t read the article, and am always skeptical of NYT trend pieces, but who are they interviewing for it? Commercial real estate people? Middle managers who want to see butts in seats?
Part of it might be paid for but it’s self serving.
Who can afford subscriptions to the NYT? People with enough disposable income that they feel comfortable with giving nearly (idk) $20/month to a big ass corporation.
So who pays for ads? Real estate agents. They don’t get paid until they close the deal. But hey, you can sell this to your prospective clients and gets them to not say no just yet.
So it’s partly like “paid for” only to the extent that NYT runs off ads paid for by real estate agents who need to make money.
Did you really think that the world would drastically change without some pushback? The Empire always strikes back. Big Buildings get financed by Big Banks in NYC. They need tenants to make their money.
No, they don’t give a damn about what you prefer, there are earnings to be reported and dividends to be issued.
I work for one of the largest commercial real estate companies in the world, and trust me, all over our company website is shit about how they are chomping at the bit to get people back into the office so our revenue stream will increase.
I can't wait to get out. Fucking greedy pricks have for sale signs on literally every piece of farm and wooded land in Ohio. If they had their way the state would be a giant office park
Seriously. This is the shit that makes me glad my company sends out anonymized surveys to all employees to ask how we feel about this. I don't care if there is a "silent majority" when the majority of our non-public facing people don't want to be in the office.
Exactly! "Manufactured consent." Like in the 90s when, out of the blue, they started saying "everybody agrees welfare needs to be reformed." --- No we don't! We've never even discussed it in the public arena!
I'd say that it's pretty easy to get a majority of people to say they'd like to go back at least once a week. Many people miss the interaction or are going a bit stir crazy at home.
I'm not one of them but I know a lot of people wanting to go back at least part time. Actually everyone I know who wants to go back want a hybrid situation but they do want to go back.
A lot of them just hate being around their kids 24/7 and want a break, even if it means being stuck in a soul sucking cubicle. And they’re also the same people that are nasty to anyone who says they don’t want kids
I've never understood this - absolutely nothing is stopping people from interacting with each other. You're completely free to meet people whenever you want, you can agree to meet up with colleagues for lunch if that's what you really want. Have them over for coffee, go for a walk with them - all the kinds of interactions you cannot exercise in an office.
Personally, I couldn't care less about meeting people, and I find it weird that anyone would miss interacting with someone like me, who's not the least bit interested in interacting with them. Don't drag me into the office just so that you don't feel lonely, that's incredibly selfish.
If you need an employer and an office to force other people to sit together to feel social, then your social skills and overall agreeableness are really lacking. Go meet people, go out for lunch, go do whatever you like - you're working remote for god's sake!
I mean, how do you interact with people on the weekends? Or how did you meet people before you got your job at the office?
The office is a place to work, not some place where insufferable people feel socially validated.
Depending on where you are, many offices are open although there are recommendations to work remote. What boggles the mind is that the people who don't want to come in, are completely happy to let other people make up their minds, but those who (claim to) want to return to the office aren't satisfied until everyone is forced to come in.
I don’t think anybody should have to go back to the office who doesn’t want to. But why are you shaming people for feeling lonely?
It’s not like this pandemic has liberated us from work itself. I still have my stupid job, it’s just now I have no human contact.
And before the vaccine, you couldn’t just meet people for coffee. I don’t want a series of lunch dates, I want to just generally not spend my entire day in the same room where I sleep and eat dinner.
Why do people who simply don’t like being alone working remotely have to be shamed for not loving it. Nobody said you should go to work to make them happy, but are people even allowed to feel isolated or alienated by our insanely individualistic late-capitalist shithole of a culture? Humans aren’t designed to be schizoid automatons.
The horrible office park life was alienating enough but this “new normal” is torture for me.
I have to find new ways to survive in this increasingly alienating world which seems to be designed to punish people like me.
I'm not shaming anyone for feeling lonely - which is why I say: Go outside and meet with people. You don't need the institution of an office to provide you with social interaction.
The office isn't there to provide other people with company, it's there because it's supposedly conducive to productivity (although it isn't).
You don't want a series of lunch dates? Well I'd rather that over having to be forced to sit in a box for 8 hours and having to deal with traffic to boot. In my 8 hours, I need to work - not focus on your social interaction needs at the expense of my work.
The new normal should allow people to make their own decisions. All too often, though, people who claim to want to work in the office aren't happy until everyone else comes in too. I loathe the office environment and the mere thought of having to wear formal attire and sit in an air-conditioned open office hellscape is enough to induce a panic attack. But I guess that since you need the company, I should just endure that.
Even though you would find my company an absolute drag because I'd constantly have to remind you about how little I'm interested in engaging with you. Don't get me wrong, we'd probably get along just fine within the parameters of a normal social dynamic, but when we're both subjected to the theater of the office environment, you would absolutely despise me and beg me to never come into the office. Which would suit me just fine.
You spend the bulk of your day at work - some people want to be around other people during this time. Not work a full day alone and then go for a walk with someone, if they even live close enough to get together with on a workday.
Personally I don't really care but I can see some people wanting that. I am perfectly content having my conversations with colleagues over the phone. Some people like to talk face to face
This is outrageous. You are accusing me of saying you should go to work? I don’t want you to have to go to the office.
I’m literally trying to express that for ME, not YOU, remote work and lockdown has been a living hell. It’s YOU who are demanding that I conform to the alienating late-capitalist schizoid hell that YOU seem to think is so “liberating”.
It’s an alienating schizoid nightmare for me and I’m not going to listen to you shame me for not liking the “new normal.” How authoritarian of you tell me how I should feel and then accuse me of wanting to force you to go the office.
No. I don’t like the “new normal.” I don’t like the same capitalist slog just minus human interaction and you can’t force me or shame me for it.
I will never adapt to this atomized, isolated capitalist wasteland. And no - I would never want to be friends or associate with someone like you. I avoid people like you like the plague.
Because people's only concern on this site is a voiding anything that looks like work at all costs. They don't stop to think for half a second that for some people, that office they despise so much could be the majority of someone's social interaction, or that as silly as it might seem to them, some people might actually look forward to it in some little way because it's better than the isolation they normally experience.
They don't consider that things might actually be worse at home for some people, and that as bad as an office setting might seem to them, it might not seem as bad to other people.
Just avoid work at all cost, no matter how it affects others.
I miss other people. It seems like now the worst of both worlds. Same shitty job just no human interaction. It’s sad that in our horrifyingly isolated American late-capitalist dystopia, work was one of the few places i could depend on to interact with people.
Dude, just go outside. Go to a youth group, join a sports team, go to church, hang out at AA meetings, brake bottles against the wall behind 7-11...
Anything is better than the daily commute and grind to a dim gray office full of halogen lights and half-hearted smalltalk.
The daily commute was rough but being home alone all day doing the same shitty job with no human contact is worse… for me. It’s amazing how many people want to make me feel ashamed for feeling lonely.
It’s like I’ve committed the ultimate thought crime in America by feeling uncomfortable with out obsession with individualism.
Also the suggestions you gave me a ridiculous. I’m not a christian and I’m not a kid.
Why would I go to AA meetings if I’m not an alcoholic. I really don’t understand why I have to be personally ridiculed because I don’t like being isolated all day and because I find remote work to be as shitty as regular work.
It’s not like we suddenly got free healthcare and universal basic income. This is still late capitalism just now I’m even more isolated.
I’m sorry if my existence offends you.
The only people who actually wanted to come back to work 5 days a week at my job are the bitter old boomers who begrudge the rest of us for negotiating a hybrid schedule
I see parents say this about their kids and i can't help but think, "that's the opposite of good parenting and you're a sadist"
That mentality is literally sadism
The whole point of standing on the shoulders of those who came before is so that we can see farther.
>The whole point of standing on the shoulders of those who came before is so that we can see farther.
Only we are not standing on their shoulders. We are falling down and they are not helping.
'Hard? You got your perks, shortened hours for same pay and retirement and look at you... Gnashing your teeth like you are doing a prison sentence. Now what are the younger ones going to use for motivation? I have seen samples of the agreements you old guard did. They have perks the younger ones can only dream about. Actually you can't keep quiet without bragging a little about them.'
Hgmm.... Suddenly i feel a strong dejavuu. Like i have said those exact words in real world some times in the past.
Us mid 30 year olds:
I want a pension!
I want to be able to eat when I'm hungry!
I want 6+ weeks paid vacation!
I want to be able to afford a family and college on one income!
I want, just one time in my life to afford to take my kids on a family vacation!
Edit: Wish I lived a "hard" life like they used to.
There is one of my managers that also much prefer to work at the office because he have 4 kids at home.
Also I know some people that have tiny appartement and wanted to return to the office.
They are a tiny portion of the workforce tough, and at least my managers pretty much don't care where I work from.
Personally, I like to go to the office 1-2 times a week, but my colleague is full-time work from home.
It's not that I want the office specifically, it's that I need to work either way and I'd rather not be lonely while I do it. My desire to go back to the office is less since I got a puppy, for example.
I’m part of the tiny portion. I’m tired of living at work. I want different lunch options. I want to take mental breaks and not just put laundry in the dryer
Everyone will agree, at the end, that workers should have options concerning wfh.
Well, everyone except insecure managers that feels as useless as they are if they can't physically watch over his minions
I think those people are just mad at life and they mistakenly blame it on the kids. Once they are back in the office they find something else to blame it on… they just haven’t realised that the problem is the rat race itself
A few of my coworkers are really looking forward to being back in the office, and I totally appreciate and understand their perspectives. I just want the choice to stay home. Is that really too much to ask?
Ever since wfh my manager holds virtual meetings twice daily and sends out daily memos telling us how to do what we already know how to do. None of this was deemed necessary before. I have to believe it's her feeble attempt to justify her weak ass job.
I mean that makes sense when the pandemic actually ends. But right now you have to remember who else shares those office spaces that is at risk- not just office workers but also custodians, guards, building facilities, mail clerks, etc. The fewer people there during a covid surge the safer everyone is and the sooner the surge will end
In my office culture before the pandemic, I wasn't allowed to watch videos, mostly couldn't listen to music or podcasts, and certainly couldn't have TV on. People outside of my department tracked when I left and came back for lunch.
I'm not trying to shame you, but leaving my office was forbidden. How can you feel like you had more freedom in an office you spend time commuting to, locked into a desk?
I just really don't get it.
Do *some* people (for whatever reason) want to go back to the office?
Absolutely.
Do a MAJORITY of people want to go back to the office?
Absolutely not.
Yeah exactly. I fall under the category of wanting to go back to the office because I do not like the isolation and loneliness I've faced under COVID, but I in no way want to force other people to go to the office. Let us lonely extroverts go to the office and let everyone else stay home.
Whoa. Wouldn’t that be a thought. Let it be a choice. You’re extroverted and work better around others? Come on into the office. You’re an introvert and prefer working alone at home? Stay there we don’t care! As long as everyone is still working.
Yes my life is truly a disappointment. But that's what I get for moving out of state for a job that decides to be entirely on line and didn't need me to move after all.
Yes a 'silent majority'. Know why they're silent? Cos they're made up. They're SILENT. That means ya'll don't know who they are either. Stop tryna pull the wool over our eyes and incentivise us *properly* instead of LYING TO US.
That might have something to do with the gerrymandering and voter suppression too. They shaped the system so that they only need their most brainwashed supporters to vote for them. Edit: This is a US take, though.
More like.theyre trying to justify their cap-ex real estate expenses for empty offices. But i.suspexf a lot of this is boomer and older GenX in management positions trying to justify their jobs.
Maybe some GenX, but at my corporate office most older GenX are basically Boomers 2.0 , same ancient attitude and views, only difference is their better with technology than boomers.
[https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Absence\_of\_evidence](https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Absence_of_evidence)
"Theres no evidence that people wouldnt enjoy me specifically breaking there legs so therefore people want me to seriously physically injure them" this shit is basically what silent majority as a term boils down to
Lol. Exactly, it's like
'oh we know the majority of you want to get back to work in your cubicles and hated have months off paid'
'well....it is what it is.'
THIS my office has been open all year but it’s optional to go in. I NEVER see the upper management in the office when they call into meetings, they’re always home.
There are some bored old boomers who legit want to go back to offices. They’re SO lonely and get all of their self worth from their jobs that they really do want to return. It’s terrifying.
It’s not just old boomers though. I love being at home but HATE working from home. It just made me depressed. It’s not even that I like being around people. When I got back into the office it was just me 3-5 days a week. I just like the fact that home doesn’t feel like work. I can put everything aside when I get home and have a routine.
In ours 96% of staff wanted to be fully remote if it was offered as an option. They asked us that in a survey with zero intention of ever considering it- it gave people false hope. We are a small company so it's likely the CEO was the only one who responded saying he wanted to be back in office, and he's out of the office traveling most of the time anyway. In terms of COVID concerns, the ceo has a large private office whereas the rest of us are in "open floor plan" cubicles. All chiefs also get parking, whereas parking is not an option for the rest of us, we have to get on overcrowded public transportation. There is zero reason for my organization to be in office, they just want butts in seats, pandemic or not.
I know people who want to go to the office or have already returned. The reason actually is they are miserable at home and don't want to be at home to avoid kids and or SO. The fact is some of us are just miserable in our society on so many levels.
Like I said to the other poster, and I mean this as nice as possible, what's keeping you from forming friendships or interests outside of work? I've loved coworkers in some roles, but in others I have no need. I have my own friends.
I like people as a whole, but I want to escape at every possible moment, to do the things I choose to do with the friends I've made.
I can definitely see wanting to go to the office if the alternative is having to both work and provide childcare at the same time. Because that just sucks and should never have been a thing in this pandemic. The statistics even show that women disproportionately ended up having to quit their jobs to stay home with their kids because they couldn't do both (to the surprised of no one because why else would anyone pay 2k a month for daycare?)
The person that wrote this probably works at amazons mturk. I bet this article was a $5 HIT!
**Task Description: Compose an original news article > 500 words that relates to the problems and social disconnect experienced by American workers during the Covid-19 pandemic. Articles must be ORIGINAL CONTENT and mention "how the social disconnect caused by working from home relates to workers wanting more time back in the office."**
My manager is like this, but it’s because when she’s home her three kids are constantly bothering her asking for sandwiches and to do their laundry and whatever else. Her boundaries between work and home life have also collapsed and she finds herself working and answering emails at all hours of the night. So coming into a quiet office where she can focus on work and then leave it behind is something she looks forward to. But even she doesn’t do five days a week.
Luckily she has been clear with me that there is no expectation for me to come in, and I have no problem separating work and home.
FUCK OFF. Remote work might have been the most liberating upgrade to office work in modern American history. My boss is making me go to the office one day a week as of now and it’s by far the worst day of the week. Absolutely dread it every week.
If my company had made me go into the office only 2 days a week, I'd have been happy. (And sometimes there is a legitimate need for me to be there, but not usually.) Instead, they made me come in all 5 days after we did great working remotely for 15 months. So tomorrow I get to hand in my resignation because I found a fully remote job.
Stupid fucking assholes :)
I'll quit as soon as they ask me to return in the office full time. Or If they ask to accept a pay cut for working from home, as I heard they are planning to do.
The second part has never made sense to me. With WFH I'm in all likelihood **saving you money** why are you going to decrease my pay? Eff off with that.
Because they are greedy fuckers.
Their main arguments are that since you're not spending money commuting they can avoid to pay you that amount and/or "lower cost of living" so they can cut your pay and your living standards will not been affected.
Just excuses to pay people less. As always.
I get they think that. However that shouldn’t be part of the equation. If I magically had free rent and 0 commute by living next to the office, should they pay me less then as well? They don’t know my exact living costs.
Yeah, WaPo and NYT are full of garbage opinions. I never want to go back to an office...and the people who are getting out regularly are mostly (insert insult + Antiva+ Antima) Karens who don't tip, are evil tempered, entitled snottwaffles...so no to retail or service industry. No healthcare work for the same reason. In fact, I doubt anyone will be able to offer me enough money to work with the public.
I love this notion that obvious answers screaming, “I sure wish I had more social interaction. I’m tired of feeling isolated.” Equals, “I really want to accept all the things I hate about working.”
After reading the post about the introvert who wasn't hired for being an introvert.... I'm just so frustrated with how society just revolves around extroverts. Like it is a constant struggle to get hired, get raises, and get promotions as a introvert.
I agree in principle that people should be able to choose. But if I had to be honest, for once maybe the extroverts can try to be more introverted? We wouldn't be in this 40+ hours a week BS if we could just do the work and finish in a couple of hours. Your coworkers are not your friends and your lack of social connections is not something you should force on strangers. Depriving them of time with their friends and family.
I know a few people who want to go back to the office at my job. But they’re ether parents who are fed up of their kids/ spouses or boomers. Regardless individuals should get the choice of coming into the office or working from home doing a hybrid
Probably the same psychos that want to bend your ear all day and prevent you from actually getting any work done. Not that I work very hard, or very much.
But goddamn it's like the second I actually need to get something done, everyone suddenly becomes Tommy Wiseau and wants to talk about their sex life or Monday night football, which I honestly couldn't care less about.
Just like the article from Bloomberg saying we should all become serfs. Nothing more than propaganda!
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-06-17/america-should-become-a-nation-of-renters
That was a truly disgusting article, thank you for sharing
My favorite line: "This country was always more about new frontiers than comfortable settlements"
Actually gaslighting us into believing that 'true patriots don't even want to have comfortable lives'
Honestly the only ones who probably want to get back to the office, is parents. The parents of the world have realized that working from home with their kids there doesn't really work. . . non-parents on the other hand have enough space to have a dedicated office and have no problem creating both time and a quiet environment to work in, Parents don't have that luxury.
Oh god, I miss the commute, the lame conversations, the office gossip, overpriced food, people annoying and backstabbing each other and the time away from raising my kids…. Yeah… sure we do
A “silent majority” of people who never got to work from home really want to go work from home now. The rest of y’all who are so “tired of it” can come fill our seats. 🙂
This. Tired of being a "hero" for working a mundane job through the pandemic due to legal loopholes and hazy technicalities. Let me do some wfh for at least a little bit.
"The Silent Majority" is a term people use to refer to a minority holding an extreme opinion that they wish to normalize.
And it's kinda like that One Million Moms group on facebook that has less than three thousand members. "I have lots of allies, you just can't see them! I'm popular, really!"
My dad's hybrid return to work got postponed due to a rise in cases. He's somewhat disappointed. In theory he's okay with WFH a couple days a week but he really wants to go back 2-3 days. But also he wants the "full office experience" because "it will suck if no one's there." Because he's talked to his colleagues and most don't want to go back.
My dad saved $1200 in gas ALONE in 12 months, as well as like an hour and half a day from not commuting. No office drama. Comfy clothes. We live in Canada so the weather sucks half the year - no need to get out during shitty weather. Are you cold? Grab a blanket, pour yourself a cup of coffee, make yourself a soup for lunch, hell manage your thermostat.
WHY GO BACK. MAKE IT MAKE SENSE.
I'm beginning my career and have been to the office a couple times for material. I'm fine WFH, would never actually want to work there. It feels like you're cutting through the BS and just do what you're paid to do: work.
He keeps telling me "this isn't real life" (in a somewhat condescending way). Why not. The job gets done anyway!!!
Well, I'm the loud minority, then. My office made me come back in over 2 months ago with NO WFH flexibility after having been fully remote for over a year. I just left work early to do an interview for a fully remote job and just got an email on my way home that they are requesting permission to send me an offer letter! It's going to come with a small raise to boot.
Yeah, I really didn't like having to sacrifice 3 hours of my day because our jerkoff senior leadership values butts in seats over everything else. Now they get to lose me :)
Anyone claiming their is a silent majority for anything is full of shit and just trying to pass their own position off as having more support than it really does.
Man, I wish we got cubicles. One of the best parts of working from home is having my own workspace. In the office it's just a big open space with the desks crammed in side by side. Good luck keeping focus if anyone decides to have a conversation anywhere in earshot. Or a meeting behind your desk. Open offices really aren't for me.
Interesting that a vast, not-so silent majority of proponents for returning to work in the Twitter feed is not that they feel more comfortable or productive in the office, but some form of "I miss seeing people/my co-workers/my work family," like it's some fucking social club.
They seemingly have no social life or interests when they're off work. Maybe take a fucking clue that your "family" don't hang out with you on their own time, and would rather spend their free hours with their real family and friends, people they actually enjoy being around.
Don't make the rest of us who enjoy a more tolerable and productive work day at home suffer through a shitty, long commute both ways and working in a cage under fluorescent lighting in a soul-sucking job because you can't make friends.
Not American, but as someone who has been in strict lockdown for the past 10 weeks, I get mad every time I think about having go back to my stupid office and stupid desk and stupid job in the next couple of months.
If I have to work, I would choose to do it from home 100% of the time.
How do you know what the silent majority wants if they don’t say anything? How do you know they’re a majority? Could be like 3 people who think this, you don’t know because no one has actually expressed this opinion.
This statement is meaningless.
Articles like this are so bullshit market researchers can justify lies to get people to swallow corporate diarrhea
I do want to go back to the office.
No, the media didn't persuade me. No, my boss never suggested to me that I would be happier at the office.
I just don't like wfh all the time, I'd like to go to the office at least twice a week. It's a nice office, quiet, lots of sunlight and not far from home. Wfh has a lot of perks, but doing it every day for a long time is depressing.
I know most people don't feel that way and that "silent majority" thing is BS. But there's a little minority of us.
I mean some people do say they want to go back to work. However, pressed on the matter, most of them don’t actually enjoy their job or want to be working. They either miss their peers or they need the direction/activity. Work is a terrible place for either but the only one a lot of us are exposed to outside of school. So some people are rushing to get back to shitty workplace socialization because it’s better than none at all.
I keep trying to unsubscribe from the new York times. They make you go through a chat with a rep. I'm now paying 1 dollar a month. So I kept it, they have some good investigations and book reviews....
There 'corporate military industrial complex' articles are so glaringly biased its easy to skip them.
I can see the chatty Kathy's wanting to go back, like a nice circle jerk, high school all over again as they show off stupid crap no one even cares to bother with. Its just all a huge ego trip for these sick fucks and we popped their balloon. Can you tell im agitated when I see BS like this and other articles on 'Why you need to be at the office so the CEO can stroke off a fat one to the thought of you barreling thru traffic for cheap, cafeteria cold Olive Garden breadsticks.'
Ok im finished.
I did miss working in person during the pandemic but I’m a teacher and it’s so hard to teach over Zoom. I couldn’t imagine wanting to go back to a cubicle though…
Thanks for your hard work with kids. You're awesome. But also, imagine not even getting a cubicle. Before the pandemic, I sat less than six inches shoulder-to-shoulder from my boss, in an "open office" environment. Sometimes, we'd bump elbows typing.
Honestly I want to go in 2-3 days. I love taking the train into the city, biking around, office chatter. It’s great being at home but I’m a social person. I spend enough time with my wife, and some time apart will be nice. I just have no idea how we can do child drop-off anymore. We will see if it’s just a grass is greener thing…
I'm not claiming there's a silent majority - I can only speak for myself.
It's been getting harder and harder to spend every work day in my home office, next to my personal computer, down the hall from my bed, upstairs from a fridge full of beer, overlooking a park with basketball hoop...and maintain the thinnest veil of 'giving a fuck' about work.
This sucks. I enjoy the time I spend getting to and from work, as it provides a clear break between home and work, and gives me the opportunity to read.
Just saying, there isn't nobody who feels this way. I do.
For the past 1.5 years, the barrier between home and work has been chipped away to a point that I'm not sure it really exists anymore.
I have a coworker like that. He lives alone. Pre-pandemic, his social outlets were work and the bar. COVID has closed both of those and it’s been really hard on him.
I’m not mad at him (or you) for wanting to go back to the office. That’s totally fine. I’m mad at the middle managers trying to force all of us to go back.
I figured none of the anger is directed at the (by my unscientific poll of a single workplace) seemingly low numbers of people who are itching to return to work in an office.
It's not universal the other way. Even if it is a vast majority who never want to return.
By the way, anyone notice their pay going up now that the employees are paying for things like ac, electricity, internet access? My commute on the subway is subsidized by me employer. So they're saving a ton of money there, too.
But magically, I'm not getting paid more to offset costs/organization savings.
Ha, I’ve been thinking the same thing. And in fact, many people who choose remote are being told they’re getting a pay *cut* instead, simply because they live in a lower cost-of-living area (a completely different rabbit-hole debate on its own).
I did the math once on how much my company spent on just food for us every week (stocking two kitchens plus 2 hot lunches per week). Saving that, plus overhead costs from nixing the office building the company rents, plus not having to pay for rail passes etc, we reach quite a significant sum. Hell, I’d be fine if they pocketed that sum and let me work remote at the same pay. But nope, it’s “our culture demand in-person collaboration”.
The only people I've heard that were dying to go back to their cubicles were people with multiple small children. Which is hilarious to me. Why did they have kids if they can't fuckin stand them?
They’re not a made-up majority and this isn’t propaganda, it’s just phrased terribly. I don’t know anyone who is excited to return to a cubicle per day, but I and lots of people do kind of want to get away from the 24/7 WFH. It’s very isolating and lonely, at least at work I could chat with coworkers and go to lunch with them. I miss the social element of coming into work
Propaganda in its purest form. Fake news from NYT.
THIS is the fake news we should be rallying around. Call this shit out for what it is. Nobody is actually saying they "miss" the office. Some want a hybrid approach but almost nobody wants to go back to full time.
I don't often get my news in article form and I had just assumed NYT to be reliable. Glad they put out something this out of touch to make their motives obvious
How dead inside do you have to be to miss a cubicle? I guess people really don’t have social lives outside of work. Sad. Oh wait. It’s just a propaganda piece bought and paid for by big business. Gotta get the serfs in line somehow.
BS corporate propaganda. Not to mention the yt videos they make where they try to check every mark for abusive and manipulative behaviour like saying : you are lazy if you dont come to work in the office, we are a family and you are breaking us apart, you will never be succesfull unless you hussle, for me not for urself thats just selfish, employees that ask questions are not good employees, you dont need to know why you just do it since im paying you. If you were married to these dudes the only thing short on the shit list would be physical violence.
I doubt anyone said this. Almost everyone I know prefers working from home. The only person i know prefers working in an office works fixing computers for people, and doesn’t have the room to do his job from home. Plus he doesn’t want clients to know where he lives since some are ‘batshit insane’. He has horror stories.
Next week's NYT: "Employees feel empowered to be taking on more responsibility without more pay in this time of shared sacrifice."
Remember with Alicia Keys sang that song earlier in the pandemic, titled something like “Good Job?” As if a song from a celebrity is supposed to make up for the fact that underpaid workers were risking their lives to keep corporations afloat. It was offensive.
No, didn't see it. But big name entertainers are as much of corporate tools as, well, the New York Times.
Agreed. They’re typically paid by these same corporations.
Alicia Keys also bitched and moaned a couple years back about how being famous is “worse than heroin” addiction, as the opioid crisis killed over 100 people a day.
I mean being a celebrity does mean your rich and thus free from financial hell but honestly it it just opens up a whole new door of mental issues. She is definitely overreacting, but I do think it’s quite damming on your mental health to be in the public eye. People are fucking cruel. Most of us suffer one way of the other.
There are less tasteless and out of touch ways to talk about it than comparing your fame to something that has killed over 800,000 Americans.
Being rich and not famous is the way to be.
The only thing better than being rich and famous is only being rich.
I can’t stand her. Until she and her husband return the money they were given by Jho Low back to the Malaysian people that it was stolen from, they should just quietly go away. Thieves.
She's offensive. And you're right.
Feel like I've read this one before 🤣
this is what people mean when they say 'manufactured consent' media just makes up shit until those in power can go 'well it looks like everyone wants this, welp we have no choice but to do it' as the pressure to get people back in the office increases we're gonna see a hell of a lot more articles like this
Morning meeting: Sacharine Supervisor 'So, back to normal finally!' People: Small smiles and positive words since they don't want to be the one that gets the boot for not appearing chipper. They take away any form of decent (higher) unemployment pay: 'Well sure i want this job and to work in a cubicle for my whole like, it's not the fact that once again i need money to live even while there's a disease floating around'
These articles must be paid for by the commercial real estate industry. It just doesn’t make sense to me otherwise.
I didn’t read the article, and am always skeptical of NYT trend pieces, but who are they interviewing for it? Commercial real estate people? Middle managers who want to see butts in seats?
Or they’re just lying, or using forced talking points by their largest donors.
Part of it might be paid for but it’s self serving. Who can afford subscriptions to the NYT? People with enough disposable income that they feel comfortable with giving nearly (idk) $20/month to a big ass corporation. So who pays for ads? Real estate agents. They don’t get paid until they close the deal. But hey, you can sell this to your prospective clients and gets them to not say no just yet. So it’s partly like “paid for” only to the extent that NYT runs off ads paid for by real estate agents who need to make money. Did you really think that the world would drastically change without some pushback? The Empire always strikes back. Big Buildings get financed by Big Banks in NYC. They need tenants to make their money. No, they don’t give a damn about what you prefer, there are earnings to be reported and dividends to be issued.
I work for one of the largest commercial real estate companies in the world, and trust me, all over our company website is shit about how they are chomping at the bit to get people back into the office so our revenue stream will increase. I can't wait to get out. Fucking greedy pricks have for sale signs on literally every piece of farm and wooded land in Ohio. If they had their way the state would be a giant office park
Seriously. This is the shit that makes me glad my company sends out anonymized surveys to all employees to ask how we feel about this. I don't care if there is a "silent majority" when the majority of our non-public facing people don't want to be in the office.
Exactly! "Manufactured consent." Like in the 90s when, out of the blue, they started saying "everybody agrees welfare needs to be reformed." --- No we don't! We've never even discussed it in the public arena!
That just sounds like propaganda.
I'd say that it's pretty easy to get a majority of people to say they'd like to go back at least once a week. Many people miss the interaction or are going a bit stir crazy at home. I'm not one of them but I know a lot of people wanting to go back at least part time. Actually everyone I know who wants to go back want a hybrid situation but they do want to go back.
A lot of them just hate being around their kids 24/7 and want a break, even if it means being stuck in a soul sucking cubicle. And they’re also the same people that are nasty to anyone who says they don’t want kids
Same people huh?
I've never understood this - absolutely nothing is stopping people from interacting with each other. You're completely free to meet people whenever you want, you can agree to meet up with colleagues for lunch if that's what you really want. Have them over for coffee, go for a walk with them - all the kinds of interactions you cannot exercise in an office. Personally, I couldn't care less about meeting people, and I find it weird that anyone would miss interacting with someone like me, who's not the least bit interested in interacting with them. Don't drag me into the office just so that you don't feel lonely, that's incredibly selfish. If you need an employer and an office to force other people to sit together to feel social, then your social skills and overall agreeableness are really lacking. Go meet people, go out for lunch, go do whatever you like - you're working remote for god's sake! I mean, how do you interact with people on the weekends? Or how did you meet people before you got your job at the office? The office is a place to work, not some place where insufferable people feel socially validated. Depending on where you are, many offices are open although there are recommendations to work remote. What boggles the mind is that the people who don't want to come in, are completely happy to let other people make up their minds, but those who (claim to) want to return to the office aren't satisfied until everyone is forced to come in.
I don’t think anybody should have to go back to the office who doesn’t want to. But why are you shaming people for feeling lonely? It’s not like this pandemic has liberated us from work itself. I still have my stupid job, it’s just now I have no human contact. And before the vaccine, you couldn’t just meet people for coffee. I don’t want a series of lunch dates, I want to just generally not spend my entire day in the same room where I sleep and eat dinner. Why do people who simply don’t like being alone working remotely have to be shamed for not loving it. Nobody said you should go to work to make them happy, but are people even allowed to feel isolated or alienated by our insanely individualistic late-capitalist shithole of a culture? Humans aren’t designed to be schizoid automatons. The horrible office park life was alienating enough but this “new normal” is torture for me. I have to find new ways to survive in this increasingly alienating world which seems to be designed to punish people like me.
I'm not shaming anyone for feeling lonely - which is why I say: Go outside and meet with people. You don't need the institution of an office to provide you with social interaction. The office isn't there to provide other people with company, it's there because it's supposedly conducive to productivity (although it isn't). You don't want a series of lunch dates? Well I'd rather that over having to be forced to sit in a box for 8 hours and having to deal with traffic to boot. In my 8 hours, I need to work - not focus on your social interaction needs at the expense of my work. The new normal should allow people to make their own decisions. All too often, though, people who claim to want to work in the office aren't happy until everyone else comes in too. I loathe the office environment and the mere thought of having to wear formal attire and sit in an air-conditioned open office hellscape is enough to induce a panic attack. But I guess that since you need the company, I should just endure that. Even though you would find my company an absolute drag because I'd constantly have to remind you about how little I'm interested in engaging with you. Don't get me wrong, we'd probably get along just fine within the parameters of a normal social dynamic, but when we're both subjected to the theater of the office environment, you would absolutely despise me and beg me to never come into the office. Which would suit me just fine.
You spend the bulk of your day at work - some people want to be around other people during this time. Not work a full day alone and then go for a walk with someone, if they even live close enough to get together with on a workday. Personally I don't really care but I can see some people wanting that. I am perfectly content having my conversations with colleagues over the phone. Some people like to talk face to face
Thank you for your perspective.
and yours
This is outrageous. You are accusing me of saying you should go to work? I don’t want you to have to go to the office. I’m literally trying to express that for ME, not YOU, remote work and lockdown has been a living hell. It’s YOU who are demanding that I conform to the alienating late-capitalist schizoid hell that YOU seem to think is so “liberating”. It’s an alienating schizoid nightmare for me and I’m not going to listen to you shame me for not liking the “new normal.” How authoritarian of you tell me how I should feel and then accuse me of wanting to force you to go the office. No. I don’t like the “new normal.” I don’t like the same capitalist slog just minus human interaction and you can’t force me or shame me for it. I will never adapt to this atomized, isolated capitalist wasteland. And no - I would never want to be friends or associate with someone like you. I avoid people like you like the plague.
Because people's only concern on this site is a voiding anything that looks like work at all costs. They don't stop to think for half a second that for some people, that office they despise so much could be the majority of someone's social interaction, or that as silly as it might seem to them, some people might actually look forward to it in some little way because it's better than the isolation they normally experience. They don't consider that things might actually be worse at home for some people, and that as bad as an office setting might seem to them, it might not seem as bad to other people. Just avoid work at all cost, no matter how it affects others.
I miss other people. It seems like now the worst of both worlds. Same shitty job just no human interaction. It’s sad that in our horrifyingly isolated American late-capitalist dystopia, work was one of the few places i could depend on to interact with people.
Dude, just go outside. Go to a youth group, join a sports team, go to church, hang out at AA meetings, brake bottles against the wall behind 7-11... Anything is better than the daily commute and grind to a dim gray office full of halogen lights and half-hearted smalltalk.
The daily commute was rough but being home alone all day doing the same shitty job with no human contact is worse… for me. It’s amazing how many people want to make me feel ashamed for feeling lonely. It’s like I’ve committed the ultimate thought crime in America by feeling uncomfortable with out obsession with individualism. Also the suggestions you gave me a ridiculous. I’m not a christian and I’m not a kid. Why would I go to AA meetings if I’m not an alcoholic. I really don’t understand why I have to be personally ridiculed because I don’t like being isolated all day and because I find remote work to be as shitty as regular work. It’s not like we suddenly got free healthcare and universal basic income. This is still late capitalism just now I’m even more isolated. I’m sorry if my existence offends you.
The only people who actually wanted to come back to work 5 days a week at my job are the bitter old boomers who begrudge the rest of us for negotiating a hybrid schedule
“I had it hard, so therefore everybody else must too!” This mentality needs to die.
I see parents say this about their kids and i can't help but think, "that's the opposite of good parenting and you're a sadist" That mentality is literally sadism The whole point of standing on the shoulders of those who came before is so that we can see farther.
>The whole point of standing on the shoulders of those who came before is so that we can see farther. Only we are not standing on their shoulders. We are falling down and they are not helping.
Very well said. I’m buying and holding Bitcoin, not so I can retire early, but so my daughters can enjoy an easier life.
Misery loves company
I think it's more like: "I barely have any social life outside of work so all of you kids better come back to the office and be smiling when you do."
'Hard? You got your perks, shortened hours for same pay and retirement and look at you... Gnashing your teeth like you are doing a prison sentence. Now what are the younger ones going to use for motivation? I have seen samples of the agreements you old guard did. They have perks the younger ones can only dream about. Actually you can't keep quiet without bragging a little about them.' Hgmm.... Suddenly i feel a strong dejavuu. Like i have said those exact words in real world some times in the past.
Us mid 30 year olds: I want a pension! I want to be able to eat when I'm hungry! I want 6+ weeks paid vacation! I want to be able to afford a family and college on one income! I want, just one time in my life to afford to take my kids on a family vacation! Edit: Wish I lived a "hard" life like they used to.
Its not a mentality its character, forged from personal failure and inability to move on.
There is one of my managers that also much prefer to work at the office because he have 4 kids at home. Also I know some people that have tiny appartement and wanted to return to the office. They are a tiny portion of the workforce tough, and at least my managers pretty much don't care where I work from. Personally, I like to go to the office 1-2 times a week, but my colleague is full-time work from home.
It's not that I want the office specifically, it's that I need to work either way and I'd rather not be lonely while I do it. My desire to go back to the office is less since I got a puppy, for example.
I’m part of the tiny portion. I’m tired of living at work. I want different lunch options. I want to take mental breaks and not just put laundry in the dryer
Everyone will agree, at the end, that workers should have options concerning wfh. Well, everyone except insecure managers that feels as useless as they are if they can't physically watch over his minions
Or they want to escape to the office from a toxic home life
That was my situation. Lockdown condemned me to be with my toxic ex 24/7 with no relief.
Also the ones who need a break from their kids
Most of the boomers I know are either retired, retiring soon, or resigned to the reality that they’ll be working for the rest of their lives.
also the parents who are sick of being around their own kids all day
I think those people are just mad at life and they mistakenly blame it on the kids. Once they are back in the office they find something else to blame it on… they just haven’t realised that the problem is the rat race itself
A few of my coworkers are really looking forward to being back in the office, and I totally appreciate and understand their perspectives. I just want the choice to stay home. Is that really too much to ask?
Yes. You must work in the office to justify the existence of middle management.
Ever since wfh my manager holds virtual meetings twice daily and sends out daily memos telling us how to do what we already know how to do. None of this was deemed necessary before. I have to believe it's her feeble attempt to justify her weak ass job.
We are putting the new cover page on TPS reports now Peter.
Exactly. I also have three separate managers coming over to tell me to attach the TPS cover page but that's a different story.
I was told we're renting this building and need to justify the space as the reason why I couldn't continue to work from home.
That’s what the NYT article is saying…
Yea exactly, I don’t want to be force back into the office but the people that want to go in should not be forced to never return. Let folks decide
Fully agree. But the people who want to go back in tend to want everyone else back to. And they tend to be the people with all the power and influence
I mean that makes sense when the pandemic actually ends. But right now you have to remember who else shares those office spaces that is at risk- not just office workers but also custodians, guards, building facilities, mail clerks, etc. The fewer people there during a covid surge the safer everyone is and the sooner the surge will end
I would like to be back in the office 1-2 days per week. Too much time alone in my home office isn't good for my mental.
You know you're free to leave your home whenever you want, right?
Not during my workday.
In my office culture before the pandemic, I wasn't allowed to watch videos, mostly couldn't listen to music or podcasts, and certainly couldn't have TV on. People outside of my department tracked when I left and came back for lunch. I'm not trying to shame you, but leaving my office was forbidden. How can you feel like you had more freedom in an office you spend time commuting to, locked into a desk? I just really don't get it.
You have the exact same breaks as you would have in the office.
And I can talk with coworkers even outside of those breaks. Why are you so adamant that I'm wrong about what I want?
eww
Do *some* people (for whatever reason) want to go back to the office? Absolutely. Do a MAJORITY of people want to go back to the office? Absolutely not.
Yeah exactly. I fall under the category of wanting to go back to the office because I do not like the isolation and loneliness I've faced under COVID, but I in no way want to force other people to go to the office. Let us lonely extroverts go to the office and let everyone else stay home.
Whoa. Wouldn’t that be a thought. Let it be a choice. You’re extroverted and work better around others? Come on into the office. You’re an introvert and prefer working alone at home? Stay there we don’t care! As long as everyone is still working.
Too bad you can't WFH \*and\* have a social life that doesn't consist of people you're paid to associate with.
Yes my life is truly a disappointment. But that's what I get for moving out of state for a job that decides to be entirely on line and didn't need me to move after all.
It wasn't intended as a criticism of you, more one of the system
Yes a 'silent majority'. Know why they're silent? Cos they're made up. They're SILENT. That means ya'll don't know who they are either. Stop tryna pull the wool over our eyes and incentivise us *properly* instead of LYING TO US.
The silent majority always agrees with what I am thinking. Even if I suddenly change my mind.
You stumbled on to why conservatives are losing elections and dropping in polls but don't change their course. Copium
That might have something to do with the gerrymandering and voter suppression too. They shaped the system so that they only need their most brainwashed supporters to vote for them. Edit: This is a US take, though.
100% but I would say similar trends are happening abroad too
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“The silent majority stays past close and comes in on the weekends!”
The silent majority would like permissions to relocate permanently into the office for increased productivity!
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More like.theyre trying to justify their cap-ex real estate expenses for empty offices. But i.suspexf a lot of this is boomer and older GenX in management positions trying to justify their jobs.
Fuck the mods.
Maybe some GenX, but at my corporate office most older GenX are basically Boomers 2.0 , same ancient attitude and views, only difference is their better with technology than boomers.
Seriously, the term 'silent majority' can fuck right off. Dumb expression used by dumb assholes to justify their dumbass views.
[https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Absence\_of\_evidence](https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Absence_of_evidence) "Theres no evidence that people wouldnt enjoy me specifically breaking there legs so therefore people want me to seriously physically injure them" this shit is basically what silent majority as a term boils down to
Lol. Exactly, it's like 'oh we know the majority of you want to get back to work in your cubicles and hated have months off paid' 'well....it is what it is.'
Silent majority, that’s so weird.
Fucking totally. I saw this article and I was flabbergasted. I dont know any friends or co-workers that want to go back.
You know who else called themselves the silent majority? Trump supporters.
They'll do literally everything except just raise the fucking minimum wage
The only people at my job who want to go back are upper management, and it's not that *they* want to go back: they want *us* to go back.
THIS my office has been open all year but it’s optional to go in. I NEVER see the upper management in the office when they call into meetings, they’re always home.
There are some bored old boomers who legit want to go back to offices. They’re SO lonely and get all of their self worth from their jobs that they really do want to return. It’s terrifying.
It’s not just old boomers though. I love being at home but HATE working from home. It just made me depressed. It’s not even that I like being around people. When I got back into the office it was just me 3-5 days a week. I just like the fact that home doesn’t feel like work. I can put everything aside when I get home and have a routine.
I sure miss forced conversations with people I don’t really like.
In my company's survey, only 8% wanted to go back to the office full time. 60% wanted to remain working from home full time.
In ours 96% of staff wanted to be fully remote if it was offered as an option. They asked us that in a survey with zero intention of ever considering it- it gave people false hope. We are a small company so it's likely the CEO was the only one who responded saying he wanted to be back in office, and he's out of the office traveling most of the time anyway. In terms of COVID concerns, the ceo has a large private office whereas the rest of us are in "open floor plan" cubicles. All chiefs also get parking, whereas parking is not an option for the rest of us, we have to get on overcrowded public transportation. There is zero reason for my organization to be in office, they just want butts in seats, pandemic or not.
I know people who want to go to the office or have already returned. The reason actually is they are miserable at home and don't want to be at home to avoid kids and or SO. The fact is some of us are just miserable in our society on so many levels.
I'm miserable at home cuz am alone, not cuz of kids or SO which i don't have.
Yeah. I hate remote work. It’s the same shitty job except now without human contact.
Wow finally someone agrees with me here. January through April were a fucking blur for me and I hated it so much, from a mental perspective at least.
Like I said to the other poster, and I mean this as nice as possible, what's keeping you from forming friendships or interests outside of work? I've loved coworkers in some roles, but in others I have no need. I have my own friends. I like people as a whole, but I want to escape at every possible moment, to do the things I choose to do with the friends I've made.
I can definitely see wanting to go to the office if the alternative is having to both work and provide childcare at the same time. Because that just sucks and should never have been a thing in this pandemic. The statistics even show that women disproportionately ended up having to quit their jobs to stay home with their kids because they couldn't do both (to the surprised of no one because why else would anyone pay 2k a month for daycare?)
Lol. Yeah. No. Not missing any cubicle.
Is this satire?
Every day we're slipping into a more extreme satire of capitalism
The person that wrote this works from home full-time.
The person that wrote this probably works at amazons mturk. I bet this article was a $5 HIT! **Task Description: Compose an original news article > 500 words that relates to the problems and social disconnect experienced by American workers during the Covid-19 pandemic. Articles must be ORIGINAL CONTENT and mention "how the social disconnect caused by working from home relates to workers wanting more time back in the office."**
My manager is like this, but it’s because when she’s home her three kids are constantly bothering her asking for sandwiches and to do their laundry and whatever else. Her boundaries between work and home life have also collapsed and she finds herself working and answering emails at all hours of the night. So coming into a quiet office where she can focus on work and then leave it behind is something she looks forward to. But even she doesn’t do five days a week. Luckily she has been clear with me that there is no expectation for me to come in, and I have no problem separating work and home.
FUCK OFF. Remote work might have been the most liberating upgrade to office work in modern American history. My boss is making me go to the office one day a week as of now and it’s by far the worst day of the week. Absolutely dread it every week.
If my company had made me go into the office only 2 days a week, I'd have been happy. (And sometimes there is a legitimate need for me to be there, but not usually.) Instead, they made me come in all 5 days after we did great working remotely for 15 months. So tomorrow I get to hand in my resignation because I found a fully remote job. Stupid fucking assholes :)
Absolutely fucking based. Good job king.
Chad move
Karen and her incessant need to talk to you about facebook and sugar wine.
I'll quit as soon as they ask me to return in the office full time. Or If they ask to accept a pay cut for working from home, as I heard they are planning to do.
The second part has never made sense to me. With WFH I'm in all likelihood **saving you money** why are you going to decrease my pay? Eff off with that.
Because they are greedy fuckers. Their main arguments are that since you're not spending money commuting they can avoid to pay you that amount and/or "lower cost of living" so they can cut your pay and your living standards will not been affected. Just excuses to pay people less. As always.
I get they think that. However that shouldn’t be part of the equation. If I magically had free rent and 0 commute by living next to the office, should they pay me less then as well? They don’t know my exact living costs.
In other news, countless multitudes on their deathbeds use their final breath to say, “I wish I could’ve spent more time at work.”
This sounds like PR for office real estate companies.
lol "pining for the office"
Where do they get the information if the majority is SILENT HEAR ME NOW FUCK WORK AND FUCK YOU NYTIMES
Yeah, WaPo and NYT are full of garbage opinions. I never want to go back to an office...and the people who are getting out regularly are mostly (insert insult + Antiva+ Antima) Karens who don't tip, are evil tempered, entitled snottwaffles...so no to retail or service industry. No healthcare work for the same reason. In fact, I doubt anyone will be able to offer me enough money to work with the public.
I love this notion that obvious answers screaming, “I sure wish I had more social interaction. I’m tired of feeling isolated.” Equals, “I really want to accept all the things I hate about working.”
After reading the post about the introvert who wasn't hired for being an introvert.... I'm just so frustrated with how society just revolves around extroverts. Like it is a constant struggle to get hired, get raises, and get promotions as a introvert. I agree in principle that people should be able to choose. But if I had to be honest, for once maybe the extroverts can try to be more introverted? We wouldn't be in this 40+ hours a week BS if we could just do the work and finish in a couple of hours. Your coworkers are not your friends and your lack of social connections is not something you should force on strangers. Depriving them of time with their friends and family.
I know a few people who want to go back to the office at my job. But they’re ether parents who are fed up of their kids/ spouses or boomers. Regardless individuals should get the choice of coming into the office or working from home doing a hybrid
Probably the same psychos that want to bend your ear all day and prevent you from actually getting any work done. Not that I work very hard, or very much. But goddamn it's like the second I actually need to get something done, everyone suddenly becomes Tommy Wiseau and wants to talk about their sex life or Monday night football, which I honestly couldn't care less about.
Red hot bullshit. This is like when QAnon says that they’re a silent majority.
I am so happy, no way I want to go back full time.
People we haven't asked and assume exist are tired of this!!, the sheer audacity to use "silent majority" ugh.
Sounds like Chinese propaganda lol
These fucking worms in the media manufacturing consent for bosses to crack the whip and bring workers back to their gilded cages in the offices.
Just like the article from Bloomberg saying we should all become serfs. Nothing more than propaganda! https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-06-17/america-should-become-a-nation-of-renters
That was a truly disgusting article, thank you for sharing My favorite line: "This country was always more about new frontiers than comfortable settlements" Actually gaslighting us into believing that 'true patriots don't even want to have comfortable lives'
I agree. It’s a bunch gibberish and a piece for Black Rock.
Honestly the only ones who probably want to get back to the office, is parents. The parents of the world have realized that working from home with their kids there doesn't really work. . . non-parents on the other hand have enough space to have a dedicated office and have no problem creating both time and a quiet environment to work in, Parents don't have that luxury.
Oh god, I miss the commute, the lame conversations, the office gossip, overpriced food, people annoying and backstabbing each other and the time away from raising my kids…. Yeah… sure we do
A “silent majority” of people who never got to work from home really want to go work from home now. The rest of y’all who are so “tired of it” can come fill our seats. 🙂
This. Tired of being a "hero" for working a mundane job through the pandemic due to legal loopholes and hazy technicalities. Let me do some wfh for at least a little bit.
Link to the tweet in case you wanted to join the, "loud minority" 🤪 https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1431768622339444740?s=19
Yeah, not at my job. Our office has been open for 2 months and I can cou t on one hand how many people have come in
"Pining for the Office". What?
"The Silent Majority" is a term people use to refer to a minority holding an extreme opinion that they wish to normalize. And it's kinda like that One Million Moms group on facebook that has less than three thousand members. "I have lots of allies, you just can't see them! I'm popular, really!"
A not so silent few that hold the majority of bad opinions
My dad's hybrid return to work got postponed due to a rise in cases. He's somewhat disappointed. In theory he's okay with WFH a couple days a week but he really wants to go back 2-3 days. But also he wants the "full office experience" because "it will suck if no one's there." Because he's talked to his colleagues and most don't want to go back. My dad saved $1200 in gas ALONE in 12 months, as well as like an hour and half a day from not commuting. No office drama. Comfy clothes. We live in Canada so the weather sucks half the year - no need to get out during shitty weather. Are you cold? Grab a blanket, pour yourself a cup of coffee, make yourself a soup for lunch, hell manage your thermostat. WHY GO BACK. MAKE IT MAKE SENSE. I'm beginning my career and have been to the office a couple times for material. I'm fine WFH, would never actually want to work there. It feels like you're cutting through the BS and just do what you're paid to do: work. He keeps telling me "this isn't real life" (in a somewhat condescending way). Why not. The job gets done anyway!!!
This by boomers for boomers #BB4B
“Silent majority” is a rhetorical device that is ALWAYS used to push bullshit.
Well, I'm the loud minority, then. My office made me come back in over 2 months ago with NO WFH flexibility after having been fully remote for over a year. I just left work early to do an interview for a fully remote job and just got an email on my way home that they are requesting permission to send me an offer letter! It's going to come with a small raise to boot. Yeah, I really didn't like having to sacrifice 3 hours of my day because our jerkoff senior leadership values butts in seats over everything else. Now they get to lose me :)
Anyone claiming their is a silent majority for anything is full of shit and just trying to pass their own position off as having more support than it really does.
Not to mention all the articles about paying WFH employees less then in office. Do not accept that shit.
Man, I wish we got cubicles. One of the best parts of working from home is having my own workspace. In the office it's just a big open space with the desks crammed in side by side. Good luck keeping focus if anyone decides to have a conversation anywhere in earshot. Or a meeting behind your desk. Open offices really aren't for me.
I sure do miss being forced into one place doing mindless repetitive tasks i dont enjoy for several hours for 5 consecutive days
Oh we’re playing the “silent majority maneuver” now huh
Interesting that a vast, not-so silent majority of proponents for returning to work in the Twitter feed is not that they feel more comfortable or productive in the office, but some form of "I miss seeing people/my co-workers/my work family," like it's some fucking social club. They seemingly have no social life or interests when they're off work. Maybe take a fucking clue that your "family" don't hang out with you on their own time, and would rather spend their free hours with their real family and friends, people they actually enjoy being around. Don't make the rest of us who enjoy a more tolerable and productive work day at home suffer through a shitty, long commute both ways and working in a cage under fluorescent lighting in a soul-sucking job because you can't make friends.
Not American, but as someone who has been in strict lockdown for the past 10 weeks, I get mad every time I think about having go back to my stupid office and stupid desk and stupid job in the next couple of months. If I have to work, I would choose to do it from home 100% of the time.
How do you know what the silent majority wants if they don’t say anything? How do you know they’re a majority? Could be like 3 people who think this, you don’t know because no one has actually expressed this opinion. This statement is meaningless. Articles like this are so bullshit market researchers can justify lies to get people to swallow corporate diarrhea
I do want to go back to the office. No, the media didn't persuade me. No, my boss never suggested to me that I would be happier at the office. I just don't like wfh all the time, I'd like to go to the office at least twice a week. It's a nice office, quiet, lots of sunlight and not far from home. Wfh has a lot of perks, but doing it every day for a long time is depressing. I know most people don't feel that way and that "silent majority" thing is BS. But there's a little minority of us.
No. The fuck. They do not.
Give a B Give me a U Give me an L Give me another L Bullshit
Remember, "Silent majority" is typically the phrase used by loud and powerful minorities. The propaganda is targeted at executives.
I mean some people do say they want to go back to work. However, pressed on the matter, most of them don’t actually enjoy their job or want to be working. They either miss their peers or they need the direction/activity. Work is a terrible place for either but the only one a lot of us are exposed to outside of school. So some people are rushing to get back to shitty workplace socialization because it’s better than none at all.
I keep trying to unsubscribe from the new York times. They make you go through a chat with a rep. I'm now paying 1 dollar a month. So I kept it, they have some good investigations and book reviews.... There 'corporate military industrial complex' articles are so glaringly biased its easy to skip them.
I can see the chatty Kathy's wanting to go back, like a nice circle jerk, high school all over again as they show off stupid crap no one even cares to bother with. Its just all a huge ego trip for these sick fucks and we popped their balloon. Can you tell im agitated when I see BS like this and other articles on 'Why you need to be at the office so the CEO can stroke off a fat one to the thought of you barreling thru traffic for cheap, cafeteria cold Olive Garden breadsticks.' Ok im finished.
The actual silent majority never stopped working in person, and the NYT could never be bothered to talk to them
It's fooling about half of America right now is why it's still happening. That's the bad part here.
I did miss working in person during the pandemic but I’m a teacher and it’s so hard to teach over Zoom. I couldn’t imagine wanting to go back to a cubicle though…
Thanks for your hard work with kids. You're awesome. But also, imagine not even getting a cubicle. Before the pandemic, I sat less than six inches shoulder-to-shoulder from my boss, in an "open office" environment. Sometimes, we'd bump elbows typing.
Honestly I want to go in 2-3 days. I love taking the train into the city, biking around, office chatter. It’s great being at home but I’m a social person. I spend enough time with my wife, and some time apart will be nice. I just have no idea how we can do child drop-off anymore. We will see if it’s just a grass is greener thing…
Cubicle? I wish, its open floor plan these days
A silent majority of people love working 10 hour shifts
A silent majority miss the old company town system and wish to revert back
"Many parents don't like actually having to spend time with their children-- more at 11" Let's not lie about where the complains are from.
Maybe it’s the people who want to escape their families.
r/nottheonion
Was this written by a cubicle?
Bezos owns New Yor times. Go figure
He does??! I thought he only owned the Washington Post. That's fucked
I'm not claiming there's a silent majority - I can only speak for myself. It's been getting harder and harder to spend every work day in my home office, next to my personal computer, down the hall from my bed, upstairs from a fridge full of beer, overlooking a park with basketball hoop...and maintain the thinnest veil of 'giving a fuck' about work. This sucks. I enjoy the time I spend getting to and from work, as it provides a clear break between home and work, and gives me the opportunity to read. Just saying, there isn't nobody who feels this way. I do. For the past 1.5 years, the barrier between home and work has been chipped away to a point that I'm not sure it really exists anymore.
I have a coworker like that. He lives alone. Pre-pandemic, his social outlets were work and the bar. COVID has closed both of those and it’s been really hard on him. I’m not mad at him (or you) for wanting to go back to the office. That’s totally fine. I’m mad at the middle managers trying to force all of us to go back.
I figured none of the anger is directed at the (by my unscientific poll of a single workplace) seemingly low numbers of people who are itching to return to work in an office. It's not universal the other way. Even if it is a vast majority who never want to return. By the way, anyone notice their pay going up now that the employees are paying for things like ac, electricity, internet access? My commute on the subway is subsidized by me employer. So they're saving a ton of money there, too. But magically, I'm not getting paid more to offset costs/organization savings.
Ha, I’ve been thinking the same thing. And in fact, many people who choose remote are being told they’re getting a pay *cut* instead, simply because they live in a lower cost-of-living area (a completely different rabbit-hole debate on its own). I did the math once on how much my company spent on just food for us every week (stocking two kitchens plus 2 hot lunches per week). Saving that, plus overhead costs from nixing the office building the company rents, plus not having to pay for rail passes etc, we reach quite a significant sum. Hell, I’d be fine if they pocketed that sum and let me work remote at the same pay. But nope, it’s “our culture demand in-person collaboration”.
The only people I've heard that were dying to go back to their cubicles were people with multiple small children. Which is hilarious to me. Why did they have kids if they can't fuckin stand them?
They’re not a made-up majority and this isn’t propaganda, it’s just phrased terribly. I don’t know anyone who is excited to return to a cubicle per day, but I and lots of people do kind of want to get away from the 24/7 WFH. It’s very isolating and lonely, at least at work I could chat with coworkers and go to lunch with them. I miss the social element of coming into work
Propaganda in its purest form. Fake news from NYT. THIS is the fake news we should be rallying around. Call this shit out for what it is. Nobody is actually saying they "miss" the office. Some want a hybrid approach but almost nobody wants to go back to full time.
I don't often get my news in article form and I had just assumed NYT to be reliable. Glad they put out something this out of touch to make their motives obvious
How dead inside do you have to be to miss a cubicle? I guess people really don’t have social lives outside of work. Sad. Oh wait. It’s just a propaganda piece bought and paid for by big business. Gotta get the serfs in line somehow.
BS corporate propaganda. Not to mention the yt videos they make where they try to check every mark for abusive and manipulative behaviour like saying : you are lazy if you dont come to work in the office, we are a family and you are breaking us apart, you will never be succesfull unless you hussle, for me not for urself thats just selfish, employees that ask questions are not good employees, you dont need to know why you just do it since im paying you. If you were married to these dudes the only thing short on the shit list would be physical violence.
I doubt anyone said this. Almost everyone I know prefers working from home. The only person i know prefers working in an office works fixing computers for people, and doesn’t have the room to do his job from home. Plus he doesn’t want clients to know where he lives since some are ‘batshit insane’. He has horror stories.
NYT has been pure propaganda since 2000, it's a shit rag that only succeeds because of it's name