681

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.stad.social/post/20808

I'm shocked. Shocked, I tell you. I'd never imagine that nice Mr. Musk would do that... Oh? He's been a total ass to workers at his other companies too you say? No, say it isn't so...

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[-] AlmightySnoo@lemmy.world 169 points 1 year ago

I don't really like the "return-to-work" wording, it implies that when you're working from home you aren't really working. What's ironic is that work-from-home hasn't prevented Nvidia from being a trillion dollar company: https://fortune.com/2023/10/14/nvidia-skips-return-to-office-sticks-to-remote-work-among-hottest-tech-companies/

(archive.today link without paywall: https://archive.ph/jzBIx)

[-] keefshape@lemmy.ca 29 points 1 year ago

I was just coming to complain about that too. It invalidates everyone who is successfully working from home, while obfuscating the fact that is really return-to-office.

[-] Fades@lemmy.world 26 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Elon is a little piss baby who desperately needs to feel in control. Same with most of these c-suite cunts to be honest. (Also they want to introduce things like second-by-second AI monitoring of each employee, this is already a reality; ever heard of WADU? Sounds bad but not that bad right? wrong)

Here’s some relevant snippets

I think everyone expects their employer to track them to some extent. It is pretty standard practice for employers to monitor and run analysis on things like building badge swipes and the amount of time spent connected when working from home. It has also become very common place for employers to record audio and video at the office. WADU is on a different level. It is an artificial intelligence & machine learning system for workforce human behavior. Starting at the moment you arrive to the building, WADU is tracking you using facial and speech recognition. Most JPMC offices and branches have been outfitted with some of the best HD AV security cameras. Whenever you are at your desk, know that there is a HD camera tracking you the entire time. WADU uses the array of HD cameras at the office to monitor all of your non-verbal body language all throughout the day. The collected information is then fed into the AI/ML system and it is used to update your WADU profile in real time. Every manager gets access to a dashboard that lists all the metrics about their subordinates. The productivity metrics about an employee start getting updated immediately after an employee logs into the system. If the employee is at the office, two bio-metrics are available, attention/focus and stress. The bio-metric feeds are updated from the facial and behavioral tracking. Having a bad day? Stressed about something? WADU has already noticed this and alerted your manager. Can’t focus? Not working at your usual pace? WADU has already noticed this and alerted your manager. Did something you normally don’t do? It’s possible WADU flagged it as suspicious and alerted your manager. WADU is also why they are pushing RTO or “return to office” so hard. Upper management does not care if some employees are more productive when they are working from home. They want everyone back in the office as much as possible so that their WADU profiles are being refined. Enhancing their insight into you is more important to them than better productivity from working from home. A lot of teams are now required to come in two to three days per week. Director level and higher are required to come in four to five days per week. Upper management wants to see everyone at all levels back in the office five days a week. They have invested millions into the WADU system, and they want to get a return on that investment. That only happens whenever people are in the office as much as possible.

Dystopian bullshit aside, they talk like this because it’s all about narrative, this is them trying to manipulate the court of public opinion, playing to retirees, other people who can’t work remotely, etc. I’ve seen a lot of rhetoric lashing out against office workers because of their ability to work remote. They want to apply pressure from themselves as well as from your peers.

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[-] ipkpjersi@lemmy.ml 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Yeah, it's supposed to be called return-to-office, but they call it return-to-work because they explicitly want to make it sound like it's not work and that work isn't happening remotely. Unfortunately to a lot of companies, especially ones run by old-style boomer (and older) management, it doesn't matter how many complete corporation management platforms/complete administration websites or entire e-commerce platforms including multiple payment integrations you make, they still don't see it as work even as all the extra money comes in. It's pretty sad, honestly. You could be just as productive as in the office, if not likely far more productive, and they still won't see it as work. It's like they are all soulless husks or something, like there's nothing inside. It's so weird to me.

That's why I enjoy working for a company that is over 5 hours away from where I live, because of how clear they made it that they specifically wanted me and that I was the right person for the job, and I proved it to them since they hired me too.

Generally, if you're more experienced, you're going to have a lot more opportunities, even remote ones, even in 2023 with all the tech layoffs happening (although it is harder with all the tech layoffs happening).

[-] skymtf@lemmy.blahaj.zone 63 points 1 year ago

Back to the office is such a big scam! Like the only ones defending it are absolute bootlickers to the corporate world. The legit purpose is so they can have mass layoffs without calling it a mass layoff or paying severence.

[-] JoeKrogan@lemmy.world 58 points 1 year ago

Fuck the office and all the bullshit that goes with it. Stop forcing people to be in a place when the job can be done remotely. If people want to go it thats one thing but those who dont should not be forced.

[-] Maalus@lemmy.world 23 points 1 year ago

It's all about real estate contracts, nothing more.

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[-] bappity@lemmy.world 53 points 1 year ago

my company still has WFH and we're more productive than ever. sometimes we go into the office by choice just to get out of our houses every now and then

[-] whoisearth@lemmy.ca 32 points 1 year ago

How it should be. Executives aren't dumb. They have seen study after study showing productivity jumped with the pandemic. They're being disingenuous about why they want return to office. Socialization is part of it but that does not require 3-5 days a week.

My conspiracy theory is real estate market is driving it.

[-] NovaPrime@lemmy.ml 14 points 1 year ago

It's not a conspiracy at all. It's 100% driven by real estate and city tax incentives for office population and commerce traffic boosts to nearby businesses which the city has incentives to try and enforce

[-] whoisearth@lemmy.ca 6 points 1 year ago

The problem is without the hard paper trail showing it as fact it's not fact. I believe it is and I you do too, but the problem we have no one digging to confirm and then what next? Workers lose.

[-] Elderos@lemmings.world 4 points 1 year ago

My buddy works in a bank and they spelled it out loud that the return-to-office was in fact because of real estate, and making sure that the restaurants and business located in the same building had customers. He was admittedly pretty pissed. Makes you realize the futility of it all, all those useless jobs and useless commute. Do society really needs us to work, or are we used as pawns to pay for parking, over-priced coffee and to inflate commercial real estate value. Back to my buddy, he vowed to never ever buy anything in that building again lol.

[-] Fades@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

I agree real estate is part of it, but control and monitoring is another: https://archive.ph/oMbXp#selection-1877.0-2023.82

[-] some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org 4 points 1 year ago

My previous employer (~25 people) ran a test for six weeks and had everyone come in twice a week. The metrics showed no meaningful difference in output and we went full-wfh. Got a smaller office, to receive deliveries, and tasked one person from mgmt each day with being there to receive.

I believe in the socializing aspect of office work. I didn't care for a guy hired during the wfh period until we had a company team-building in-person event. I found out he was really great when we had dinner and beers. But that's about as much in-person as is required. Wfh works.

[-] Fades@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

It’s not about productivity bud.

https://archive.ph/oMbXp#selection-1877.0-2023.82

I think everyone expects their employer to track them to some extent. It is pretty standard practice for employers to monitor and run analysis on things like building badge swipes and the amount of time spent connected when working from home. It has also become very common place for employers to record audio and video at the office. WADU is on a different level. It is an artificial intelligence & machine learning system for workforce human behavior. Starting at the moment you arrive to the building, WADU is tracking you using facial and speech recognition. Most JPMC offices and branches have been outfitted with some of the best HD AV security cameras. Whenever you are at your desk, know that there is a HD camera tracking you the entire time. WADU uses the array of HD cameras at the office to monitor all of your non-verbal body language all throughout the day. The collected information is then fed into the AI/ML system and it is used to update your WADU profile in real time. Every manager gets access to a dashboard that lists all the metrics about their subordinates. The productivity metrics about an employee start getting updated immediately after an employee logs into the system. If the employee is at the office, two bio-metrics are available, attention/focus and stress. The bio-metric feeds are updated from the facial and behavioral tracking. Having a bad day? Stressed about something? WADU has already noticed this and alerted your manager. Can’t focus? Not working at your usual pace? WADU has already noticed this and alerted your manager. Did something you normally don’t do? It’s possible WADU flagged it as suspicious and alerted your manager. WADU is also why they are pushing RTO or “return to office” so hard. Upper management does not care if some employees are more productive when they are working from home. They want everyone back in the office as much as possible so that their WADU profiles are being refined. Enhancing their insight into you is more important to them than better productivity from working from home. A lot of teams are now required to come in two to three days per week. Director level and higher are required to come in four to five days per week. Upper management wants to see everyone at all levels back in the office five days a week. They have invested millions into the WADU system, and they want to get a return on that investment. That only happens whenever people are in the office as much as possible.

[-] AstroTechie 32 points 1 year ago

I hate that I can't block posts about X. I have a bunch of keywords blocked with filters but obviously I can't use X as a keyword. I'm sick of news/posts about X.

[-] ipkpjersi@lemmy.ml 14 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Well to be fair you could probably block the words "Elon" and "Musk, wouldn't that have caught this post?

Also how do you even block keywords? I'm still kinda new to Lemmy and I didn't see an option for it unless I'm missing something.

[-] AstroTechie 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Yes actually I already had those blocked but turns out that I had Elon's but this title has Elon’s, different quote characters ' and ’ so that's why it didn't work. Funny thing, after adding that keyword I couldn't come back to reply and I thought the post was deleted, had to remove it just so I can access the post again.

I use Sync for lemmy on Android, it has a nice option where you can add a list of keywords and it hides posts that have it in the title.

[-] Acters@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Fair enough, filtering is a tough thing to do. Maybe we can use llm to process content to help?

[-] radix@lemm.ee 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I think it's app-specific. I use Voyager and the most recent version has ability to block keywords.

[-] SoaringDE@feddit.de 7 points 1 year ago

Maybe filter for ' X','X ',' X ' if that's possible

[-] AstroTechie 2 points 1 year ago

Thanks, you gave me an idea, the problem was that my keyword had ' but the title has ’ so now I had both types of quotes and it works.

[-] spiderplant@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago

Would the second not block every word ending in x?

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[-] avater@lemmy.world 16 points 1 year ago

ah the daily reminder that twitter is a cesspool, lead by a bunch of cunts.

[-] vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 year ago

Cunts are warm and inviting, these fuckers are sceptic waste with a high concentration of mercury.

[-] ALoafOfBread@lemmy.ml 10 points 1 year ago

The tech company I work for had been pushing hard for employees to work remotely at least 3 days per week for the last six years or so because of the obvious cost savings, ability to hire people where the cost of labor is lower, and because it was a benefit for employees that cost the company less than nothing.

They changed their tune along with all of these larger tech firms, presumably due to the commercial real estate market and maybe trying to get people to quit without having to pay severance for layoffs. Of course, they're calling it a "return" to work when they had been telling us to work remotely for over half a decade... needless to say, everyone is still pissed 8 months later, and nearly every conversation at the office includes at least one complaint about the policy. If Muskyboye ran our company, he'd have to fire a whooole lot of us.

[-] autotldr@lemmings.world 9 points 1 year ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:


CNBC reports that the National Labor Relations Board alleged, in a complaint filed Friday, that X violated labor law when it fired an employee who criticized the company.

Elon Musk bought the company, then known as Twitter, in October and threatened to fire workers who didn’t return to in-person office work.

CNBC writes that in the complaint, the NLRB accuses X of keeping workers at the company from exercising their legal labor rights.

In July, ex-employees of X filed a new lawsuit over the company’s alleged refusal to pay for arbitration that a judge had determined in January they were contractually obligated to use.

The judge’s decision halted their class action lawsuit that alleged that X had not given the employees proper notice under both federal and California state laws.

The company had begun laying off much of its workforce in November last year.


The original article contains 204 words, the summary contains 144 words. Saved 29%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

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this post was submitted on 14 Oct 2023
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