Colonel_Panic_

My entire department, and honestly probably 95% of my company do all of our work on a computer on the network, that's the only requirement, it can be a PC at a desk on site or a laptop on WiFi at a coffee shop or home or the beach for that matter.

My company did the big RTO mandate last year after 6 years of WFH since Covid first started. Those 6 years marked some of the highest productivity and highest job satisfaction ever.

Then the C suite decided they either didn't like not being able to watch their worker bees go, or maybe they also had financial investments in the commercial district (conflict of interest if they do IMO) or maybe they got lonely? Or maybe they just read a stupid article that told them they should assert control by making their employees lives harder, who knows? But ours, like so many, all did it seemingly blindly like a fad, with no real reason or goal and just a vague empty promise of "collaboration and culture" whatever THAT even means.

Also really funny that in the same paragraph they will praise "cloud data", "cloud AI", "remote servers", but the humans can't be remote because reasons.

The real sore point that I resent VERY much is that half the company is out of state, so exempt, including my supervisor. So now me and my team commute in to an office to sit in a sad cube by ourselves and then we still have to join a video call for every meeting, but doing that from a conference room is hell compared to a headset and your own laptop, not to even mention all the technical issues we keep having while everyone at home stares blankly waiting for us, it's so dumb.

All I know is for me and my team and every single person I've talked to, the collaboration is so much worse in-person. The communication is worse. They wave their hands and say "collaboration", but then if one person is talking on the floor it is disrupting 50 people that can easily hear every word. The morale is worse. Everything takes so much long to do. So much time and money is wasted sitting in cars in traffic for no reason. I don't get it. It was a huge win-win when we all went WFH. We worked more, did more, were happier and more productive, saved money, saved time, communication was better since everyone was on the same level field.

Mandating RTO is wild to me, it feels like going back to typewriters in a world of laptops, because "well we used typewriters in the past, it's the way it's been done"

Then on the flip side, some people want and do better in a central office, fine, have that available, but don't mandate everyone does it. It should be up to each worker or their managers to figure out the actual need and what is best. "One size fits all" doesn't work, it fits 1 person and excludes 10.

What if we kissed on the government watch list?

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!

(terms and conditions apply)

No no, I mean, how could they possibly ever know: A. That I wrote a thing. B. I did it within a timeframe. C. It should be theirs.

Etc.

Like, if made "Flappy Bird 2" this weekend and made money on it, how would they ever even know? I did it on my PC, on my time, in my home.

I guess only if I made mega money and they found out, but couldn't I just say I wrote the game years ago, but just published it now, so it still isnt yours?

Just seems impossible to enforce.

Going outside and yelling at the clouds. For now.

Real.

Glad you have the ability to take that time with family, that is awesome!

Yeah, it really is rough right now. Fascist AI hellscape is accurate.

Automating my own job was what I did do for decades of my career, the problem is that SOMETHING changed in the past year or two. I don't know what it is or was. AI speculation and fears? Late stage capitalism? The govt? The economy? All of it?

But it shifted pretty heavily from development and code and a desire from all aspects of the company of wanting automation and UIs and scheduled jobs and better reports and just... You know, the useful corporate crap. It used to be in constant demand It was "boring" because it was corporate pie charts and data, but it was still coding and problem solving and technical and engaged more than 2 brain cells. I enjoyed it. I was useful. It made sense. And it all shifted and is now meaningless bureaucratic corporate bullshit. I can't tell if ANYTHING tangible is actually being done at the end of the day anymore. It feels like 100% fluff and no meat. Ya know? I don't feel alone in that feeling either. I think a lot of us are feeling a weird and sudden disconnect.

What did you go to? Still in tech or did you go down the pipeline to gardening or become a cryptid in the local forest that scares people?

Weird coincidence, all my hobby code I've ever done at home is "drop database" and corrupt system files scripts. If they want them they can have them. 😈

I don't get how anyone could EVER enforce a law or agreement or rule that says something I wrote at home on my device on my time is theirs. Don't touch my files with your gross corporate fingers! Ahhh!

I have 3 decades of experience in programming. I started with QBasic on an IBM386. I learned what system files to not delete out of Windows or Linux. I went to university and learned Java and .Net and SQL. I've done web. I've done server admin. I've got decades of Windows and Linux and shell scripting and databases of every flavor and just... All of it.

What do I do lately at work? I fill out spreadsheets with information that already exists in 7 other spreadsheets, but we need this in THIS format for THIS VPs request. And I fill out status updates. And I go to meetings and listen for an hour as everyone talks about their status updates on projects I don't even know anything about or care.

My manager asks us to make sure we are learning and using AI. Why? Well, the C and VP suites think we should be. Does it actually help or make anything better? Not really. But ok, fine.

And then the real irony kick in the balls. As we push literally everything in the company to be "Cloud This" and "Distributed That" and "AI more!" and "Be flexible !" .... and they did the big RTO mandate last year. The fuck? You want everything to be remote and cloud and distributed and modern and agile, except employees must commute in and sit in this specific chair to join their video call meeting. And 3/5ths of my team is out of state and so exempt from the RTO mandate, including my supervisor. What the fucking fuck? I have to drive in and sit in a shitty cube while they get to kick back at home? Fuck that.

Decades of knowledge and experience and talent, and I fill out spreadsheets with duplicate information IN PERSON while coworkers get all the benefits of WFH and the same damn pay.

I don't even know what my supervisor does except ask us "is XYZ done yet?" a couple times per week, that seems to be it, I don't think they even know what we do tbh. They just sit at home and make sure all our check boxes get checked. But if you mention a single detail of a project beyond "done" or "not done" they get confused. Fucking hell.

And it hurts even more knowing the CEO makes 100x my pay + benefits + stock + who knows wtf else.

What are we doing?

Addon: Oh! And then there have been layoffs. And cutbacks. And hiring freeze. And no promotion or raises beyond a basic 2-4% yearly "cost of living" raise, even though the cost of living has fucking gone up like 300% in the past few years.

I haven't actually programmed anything in so long. It's depressing to be wasted pointless effort in a bureaucratic corporate nightmare.

It's even funnier when you are trapped inside it!

"AI" from 90s video games, where you tell your unit to go build something and it gets stuck on the one tree in its path.

CEOs fall for it every time.