Dell announced a new return-to-office initiative earlier this year. In the new plan, workers had to classify themselves as remote or hybrid.
Those who classified themselves as hybrid are subject to a tracking system that ensures they are in a physical office 39 days a quarter, which works out to close to three days per work week.
Alternatively, by classifying themselves as remote, workers agree they can no longer be promoted or hired into new roles within the company.
Holy corporate oppression, Batman! That’s a shitty deal no matter which option you choose.
I’m glad they’ve got themselves into a sticky situation.
Also, this observation was funny (in a sad way):
One person said they’d spoken with colleagues who had chosen to go hybrid, and those colleagues reported doing work in mostly empty offices punctuated with video calls with people who were in other mostly empty offices.
One major downside of hybrid working really is that if you are having a meeting where even a single person is not there, then the entire meeting may as well be a video call. If you are on a video call, then why do you need to be in the office for it?
At my job we work with physical objects, so being in office is a requirement at least part of the time, but if I’m just going to be in meetings for most of the day, there is no way I’m going into the office just to sit on video calls all day.
You mean to tell me, three days a week, they have to:
- wake up extra hours early
- pack a lunch or plan to pay for one
- put on hard pants
- drive their own vehicle in traffic, with their own gas and wear/tear
- pay for their own parking.
- do the exact same work in their designated space
- drive back home in traffic 9 hours later
All for the same pay and several hours away from my family, home, or bed?
No fucking thanks.
Going remote was the best fucking raise I ever got, and it didn’t cost them a dime.
So you could just got he the office days straight and don’t show up for the rest of the year… interesting… but considering promotions are everything but lately i’d just go remote anyway.
And Dell said “Great, thanks, saved us a ton on severance packages and allowed us to replace our high paid tenured employees with hungry graduates who are prepared to work themselves to death for peanuts”
who are prepared to work themselves to death for peanuts
…while having no idea what they are doing
That’s not this quarter’s problem, silly!
Yeah that’s the next CEOs problem.
That’s a problem for next months Me to fire you for!
Truth.
Been job hunting in similar fields for a while and as a middle-aged person, I simply cannot get a callback from any of these companies, then when you actually visit them and see some of their workforce, you rarely see anyone over late-20’s, and it’s all these high-energy, eager-to-please, eager-to-work-for-recognitionbucks, fresh-outta-college kids who can be exploited and turned over rapidly.
I am job hunting because the previous company I managed was bought out, downsized, and all the senior employees making more than entry level wages were cut. This is happening everywhere.
More and more technology, overseas outsourcing options, and general service/gig systems for filling job openings has left companies treating workers as disposable as toilet paper.
This is because almost every business is now part of a huge chain of ownership, and the shareholders at the top, groups of very rich old white dudes, just gather together in their hooded cloaks and look at the bars and graphs every month and decide what investments are to be amputated, and which to be kept. Before going back to their private sex islands.
High paying jobs with tons of new graduates have an oversaturated supply problem. It’s no surprise that when people figure out that becoming a software developer is easy street to 150k+++ WFH that there was a huge rush to get those jobs… now that there are TONS and TONS of young junior devs there is no shortage to hire someone for near minimum wage.
Why pay 400k for a senior developer when you can hire a mid-level for ~100k to be a manager, and 4 juniors for 60k a piece, and augment them with chatgpt to help them learn what they are skill gapped by.
Plus junior devs are so desperate you can force them to come into the office, something the dev divas ten years ago refused to do back when there was a huge shortage of coders.
Absolutely correct, I watched this happen to our tech team before I was also thrown in the chipper.
And it doesn’t help that a lot of the young people trying to get into coding and tech fields are not what you would call titans of confidence and charisma, these are mostly introverted and thoughtful people who have studied most of their lives under the belief that meritocracy exists, and they can prove themselves in the business world by doing great work and being a good employee.
Meanwhile glance over at the sales side of the building and there are people there making six figures a year who do next to nothing but party and tell lewd jokes, but are absolutely invulnerable to layoffs and downsizing as long as they can talk to clients and joke about sports with the CEO.
The disillusionment around the business world is real and unsustainable.
God my last sales team were annoying. You can hear their bullshit from the floor above. They never shut up.
Every job I’ve had I’ve ended up becoming a liaison of sorts between the sales teams and the operational teams because I seem to be the Daywalker, who can walk between worlds and communicate with the techy nerds, take their issues to the loud sales assholes and make it all work.
It’s not an enjoyable role but it always earned me high marks because nobody else can stomach it.
I had the misfortune to have to share an office with a bunch of sales morons. I can recommend Bose idiot-cancelling headphones. What a bunch of selfish noisy fuckwombles.
and this is why we are going to have a surge in enshittification in every piece of software and engineering around. eagerness and high energy does not replace decade of experience and ability to hold your composure against corporate pressure to do shady shit (if anything eagerness to please enable it)
Since the shareholders only care about 6-month projections, they will always choose a shitty, short-term successes with rushed products with patches later or promises of continued bugfixing, than spending more money and time to make something that users approve of and passes all requirements.
The shit is already running pretty deep.
They work in tech, promotions are achieved by moving employers. Internal mobility is always terrible in tech companies.
Very much this. I have never switched employers and not received a sizable salary bump in the process. This isn’t quite “don’t threaten me with a good time” territory, but it’s not far removed from it.
Yup. It’s the same fucked-up psychology corps use for their customers. Like running ads for super discounts for new customers. Existing customers that have never missed a payment? Fuck-em. Instead of giving 1% “thank you” for good customers, corps would rather lose the good customers and pay a premium to find new ones.
So it goes.
I’ve never been promoted in a job and the biggest pay increase I’ve ever gotten was 10%. Switching jobs never failed to get me at least 30% more and a promotion.
I’m admittedly not familiar with the data, but I have the impression that this is true with quite a few fields, tech or otherwise. I think they prey upon loss aversion.
I think it is just American working culture. Corporations slowly eroded benefits over the years to where we are today and your salary is pretty much stuck at a 3% cost of living raise if you are lucky. My last job had an HR cap at 10% and my boss “pulled some strings” to get me an 8% bump (with a ton of extra responsibilities) and I still made 20k less than the fucking new hires. I still stayed 2 more years.
Not just American unfortunately… crap ass managers use the internet too, the news spreads… beyond the marginal raise i get due to inflation every year i only ever get a decent raise by, well, changing companies.
Others said their local offices had closed since the pandemic
This part is wild. So they closed down the office and then punish the employees for not coming into the office. Tell me this is illegal.
If this country cared about the environment or workers’ safety, they’d fine companies who make employees work in the office/on site when they could work from home instead.
Problem is most of the folks influencing those that make laws also have huge real estate portfolios of commercial real estate.
Imagine how many people die every year commuting to jobs they could have done from home
If the commute was included in workplace deaths and injuries, I wonder where it would rank with OSHA’s statistics
This would be a handy way to get rid of half your staff, but the people you chase away are usually the ones you want to keep. As per the Dead-Sea Effect, the ones who will leave are the ones who generally are more able to, who will be your most employable people, and thus your most talented. Usually.
Making work suck, and letting the best half of the staff bail, seems like stupid and a game show.
I read somewhere that convincing people to quit was party of some companies’ plan when demanding return to office, but as you pointed out, they probably lost their top 10% or more in the quality workers group. So do that introvert parasites can have their “corporate culture” (or more critically, justify leading that bigass office building).
I think you mean extrovert parasites
Doesn’t matter in the world of next quarter vision. So shortsighted.
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ineligible for promotion
This seems like an empty threat to me. Every promotion I’ve ever gotten internally has come with a negligible pay increase (~4%). The best promotions I’ve gotten have been leaving to take a new job somewhere else (~20-50%).
And that 4% just buys you a year before inflation cuts it back down again. Searching for a job from home is easier.
Promotions haven’t been worth it for 30 years. Most people stick around cuz it’s a PITA getting a new job
If promotion means becoming a manager… no thanks.
Can confirm. ^^’
Though I am just going to resign on Monday and give myself the push.
duuuude get a new job before you quir the old one
That would be the dream, but it hasn’t panned out, and my long notice period is hampering me. I’m not going to continue slogging it out here indefinitely, and I don’t need to.
I don’t need any additional anxiety to discourage me from getting out of this before I just burn out and am in a worse position.
I saw a handmade sign in a floating workshop for ships, it stated “Please Resist Entropy”. That has inspired me ever since. It sounds like you are resisting entropy and good for you. Wish you better times and a better job. o7
Man these sensational titles for articles have been setting such a deceiving narrative. I feel like I’m in a veiled world since like 2015
Quiet unionizing?
Friends don’t let bosses purchase Dell computers.
Considering that HP is the other choice that most businesses consider, I’d take the Dell 100% of the time. HP’s laptops are complete and utter trash.
Lenovo is at the top of the enterprise devices game right now. I always say they operate in cycles and usually each brand trades every 2 years who is at number one.
I still will always shit on HP. And HPE Aruba switches are absolutely trash.
What about for personal use? I’m in the market for a relatively high end machine around $2k, but build quality is pretty high up on my priorities.
Framework
HP’s laptops are complete and utter trash
a) yes b) perhaps that also describes their management
perhaps that also describes their
managementeverything
When I got hired at my job where I could write and dictate policy, the first thing I did was write up a new IT Purchasing Policy with a “Banned Manufacturers” section right up top with HP right at #1 and Dell at #2
What’s the issue with Dell? Everyone I know at work with Dell laptops likes them. I’ve used XPS 15 and 13 in the past and they’ve been generally fine. Battery life sucked but I haven’t ever seen an x86 laptop with what I would consider good battery life.
What did you prefer? Lenovo?
Lately, Lenovo. It was Asus and Lenovo, but lately they’ve been shitting the bed IMO. And MSI is about to join HP and Dell if I have to replace one more of their damn shitty ass fans
Sounds like that list is getting pretty short
System76!
Their product quality and servicing are top notch but they don’t have a good price/performance ratio. “Lemur Pro” starts at 1.4k and this gives you Intel GPU & 8GiB RAM. https://system76.com/laptops/lemur#specs
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Anyone want to start a company. Work from home. We’ll split profits among ourselves. We can. Build blackjack lottery machines and webhookers
I will start developing the webhookers!
I’ll run quality control on the webhookers!
We’ll call it HookerGPT
SlutGPT
Just use AI. People can’t tell.
They just wanna live an unreal fantasy and jerk off.
Dude… you’re getting “or else.”
Lolbruh. Go ahead and tell me to go to the office 5 days. I’ll peace the fuck out.
I peaced out at 2. Manager was a bit of a prick, and the office was bright, hot, cramped, loud, and had no visual or audio privacy.
No fucking thanks.
Found a job thanks to my peers and it’s a little more pay and 100% remote as per the union contract. Wheeee. Work anywhere in the country.
Work anywhere in the country
can you remote while out of the country?
The problem is taxation for the employer usually. But you can become self employed and pay your taxes locally as your own employer and invoice your sercices to the company you work with.
This is what I did some years ago without moving borders.
What happens if you refuse both options?
That’s called “time to get a new job.”
Before I came in here, I assumed that’s what “or else” meant, and I’m still not sure it doesn’t mean that.
Can you be fired for conditions they decided to change?
In the USA, if it is not explicitly written in your job description/contract that you are remote, yes. It also means you can’t apply for unemployment as you were terminated for refusal to perform work duties, even if you are working.
In most US states, you can be fired for any reason that isn’t explicitly illegal.
In the US, yes, in most states. If you’re not following company policy, even if that changed since you started, that’s not wrongful termination unless it’s for “unfair labor practices” or something. Employment contracts don’t really exist unless you’re a contractor.
Just pick hybrid and fake the system that tracks you. Probably not super hard to trick it.
It’s by your employee id card, gotta go on site to swipe card, then you can sneak home. remeber to sneak back in to swipe out!
