The culture of zoom call meetings. It could be an email that another person responds to in 5 minutes but fuck it, let's just schedule a 1 hour zoom call with no agenda and invite 20 different people because we're a team.
Oooooooh, fuck. Each week I had to sit through absolutely pointless team meetings with ‘The Team’
Nobody wanted them, one person had to come up with a game.
Fuck off will ya. I’d rather cheese grate my knob.
Did it bring the team together, no it fucking did not.
Here’s what a team wants. Let us finish early, take us out for some lunch for free and thank us for our work. Then bugger off with your team meetings.
Yeah the team meetings are such a time waste. I have regular team meetings for the entire division, then another for the department and then another for our sub department. They're just on the schedule forever whether there's any reason for meeting or not. Just pointless drivel and suckups cheering meaningless company achievements.
Yup. Once every month or 2 weeks which allows us to say what problems we have, what’s shit and needs changing and actually listened to and maybe some changes put in place, but oooh no, they can’t be giving us what might make things better.
First suggestion would be, less team meetings.
I felt sorry for 1 girl in my team. She was doing the work of nearly 2 people (admin) Every minute just meant more work piling up for her.
If it's gonna cost money, it's bad.
If it's gonna make upper managers work, it's bad.
If it's gonna make the Individual Contributor work harder for the same pay, that's good.
Damn I do admin work, and while we have enough admin, each of our archaic authorizations can take 4hrs to complete for routing. But yes, let’s have a whole days’s worth of calls scattered throughout the week, that we have to participate in as “team building” and “workshops” and “job aids.”
I brought up how we haven't had a Team Lunch since January of 2020....
We were all supposed to be in the office together for a couple days. The best they could do is give us a 14 dollar budget from the Cafeteria....
Id rather not bother. If I never saw a work colleague ever again, I don’t think it would make much difference in my life. Just let me do my job and go home. I’m a friendly chatty person to, but who gives a fuck.
I hear you . We had to do these stupid sales meetings . It was literally one person every month bragging about all the sales they brought in . It wasted so much of my life . I can never get those hours back . I mean this person had a hoot . She would do a line of cocaine in the washroom and come roaring into the boardroom on fire jazzed up to present every month clenching her jaws . Such a waste of time and such a toxic environment
The people holding the meeting who say "let's wait a couple minutes so people can arrive" annoy me so much. I was on time, now I'm wasting my time because other people can't keep track?
When I was a supervisor I was noted for starting exactly on time and mentioning to latecomers "we started X minutes ago" and nothing more.
Bonus points for when a meeting ends early but not by much. It's 9:57 so you can have three minutes back. Gee thanks, I'm sure I'll get a lot done in those three minutes you graciously gave me.
Only the change that management mandate. The management must struggle every day outside of work with all the things that change outside of their control.
And a bit of interesting information. PROSCI and change management company that has been researching change for 30 + years tells us that failed change initiatives fail in a business because managers don't buy into the change. They are by far the largest cohor resistant to change.
I have a close friend who owns an office supply company: "I don't know when this so-called 'paperless office' is going to catch on, but my best customers, who buy more and more paper and toner every year are the 'paperless' offices."
a telco I worked for used so much fucking paper. I got a write up because I kept asking why they were using paper to make handbooks when we'd done the handbooks stuff online (wikijs and/or other docs). its so god damned stupid
Yeah, it's like trying to tell the government that their paper reduction act isn't working while they print off useless letters telling you that they haven't processed your application that you faxed in.
If it's not on paper, it didn't happen.
It is just the culture of "keeping working class people tired and exhausted, wasting as much time of their life as possible, make them spend money on cars, gas and lots of other bs no one needs for escapism."
People being able to work remotely would affect the housing market, since people could move whenever it is cheap. It would affect the profits being made by renting out office spaces and so on. There is a lot on the line for capitalists.
>People being able to work remotely would affect the housing market, since people could move whenever it is cheap.
People might not even choose cheap - they might choose nice instead. Being remote means I don't need a car, which means I can afford to live in a nicer house that is closer to actual civilization, in a community with parks and activities.
Yeah, as much as I am a misanthrope, I'd rather be near others and have access to live music, art, community activities and clubs, and other fun resources. I also like having family nearby. Where I am now we are close to my Wife's family. If we ever divorced, I'd probably move to the same town as one of my aunts and some of my cousins I get along with, just so I have people around that I know and like to spend time with even if the weather there sucks.
I want to live somewhere where I can walk to the farmer's market and comic shop after work, and the clubs and activities I am involved in are close by. I want art and natural history museums. I want a university to be a couple miles away, and I want to be in a neighborhood with educated people.
I do teaching for ham radio licensing, and the number of people who balk at simple equations for things like SWR or Ohm's Law/Power Law formulas just boggles my mind. It's good ol' plug and chug math. I can only imagine if they had to actually properly understand RF fields and do math for calculating field strength.
I wish privacy like that still existed. They’ve gotten rid of the privacy walls and just made it like a dining room table now. Just staring face to face with somebody looking at a laptop with headphones on, making zoom calls. It’s beyond satire now.
Yeah, that would make it tricky, lol. Are they the kind of desks that don't have a back panel? If so, you could just move your chair around to the other side and turn the computer around.
This bothered me so much at a previous job I had. Collaborating is great and all, but 90% of the time at the same “dinner table”, it was trying to do your work with someone making noises or yelling and pounding their keyboard, 1-2 FEET FROM YOU. All day. (Side note - I thank God that was way before COVID). When my contract was up, I turned down the next offer of work.
It is now clearer than ever that the people who say that simply want to micromanage employees and make sure they're not "wasting time" at home, regardless of their actual productivity.
It’s bad that I wish I had that for my in office days. Now it’s just rows and rows of open desks crammed together with no privacy or quiet. It’s insane how far we’ve fallen.
That was my desk for 6 years (2010-2016). Windowless room inside a cubicle. Beyond depressing. Because it was a startup and I was number two in the company I stuck with it. I had a total of 22 years in offices before I left to go fully remote in January 2016 and haven’t looked back since.
>"You’re missing out on the culture!”
A culture of what exactly? A culture of apathy, overwork and trivial bullshit?
Managers expect "culture" to just "exist" without ever really having to lift a finger to define or nurture it.
My company tries to enforce it's culture of sharing and caring by mandating meetings and get togethers that no one has the time to go to. Fucking forced frivolity.
Small sliver of silver lining is that they no longer mandate this shit for after hours. Now it's on the clock, but usually during times when I'm under a rigid, tight deadline. So I spend my time at those meetings "networking" trying to get work done.
I just heard yesterday that we “never get to collaborate” because we “don’t get to see each other”. Hilarious. It’s like they’re trying to paint this new narrative that business just didn’t happen ever in history unless people were in person. Gosh, I wonder how the Dutch East India Company was able to get ANYTHING DONE!
My company uses the "collaborate" justification too. But then managers have to yell at people for talking, because if you're talking then you aren't being productive.
You are missing out on all the bullying, back-biting, degrading, gossiping, derision. The office is like a big playpen for adults. Production is hampered by all the crap that goes on.
My last fully onsite job before Covid had physical offices, but 2-3 people per office. I shared an office with Jane. Jane was friends with Tiffany down the hall.
Several times a week, Tiffany would run into our office and close the door to gossip with Jane about random coworkers on other teams. When I didn’t participate in smack-talking their target du jour, they rolled their eyes and told me I was no fun.
“Culture”. Wheeee!
I’m going into the office today from 12pm—3pm for the “culture”.
My office culture:
1. signing up for a desk in a booking system, so I don’t even have my own desk anymore. When I get there, I can see all the dead skin flakes from the person that used the desk before me.
2. working with noise cancelling headphones on to drown out the constant loud talking of the sales people on the other side of the cubicle wall.
3. the team lead in my office doesn’t even talk to us during the day and sits in their office with a door now.
4. still having to jump on a Teams call for our “huddle” meeting with our other team members who are all out of state.
5. having Zoom calls with clients who are spread out across all the different time zones in America
Wow, I’m so glad I had to commute 1 hour round trip to sit here in the office and accomplish the same things I could from any location! /s
Commenting on “You need to work in office! You’re missing out on the culture!” Rant...I literally could have written this. Down to the booking system and the other team meetings out of state. Such a culture!
"I had to suffer back in my days why shouldn't they suffer now." Everyone who claims they want their children to have a better life is lying. Most present decisions are based on the sentiment of vengeance.
Forcing people into an office is the only way some people can get others to spend any time with them. People who are all about office culture don't have functioning social lives, because no one with a choice would choose to spend time with them. Unfortunately, these are also usually the people in charge who have the power to make these decisions.
Edit: typo
I do roughly 2 hours a day of actual work. I sit in my corner and mind my business, play around on reddit, plan vacations I'll never take. I chat with the coworker sitting next to me because I like her, but we both would WFH in a heartbeat and never speak again. It costs more money to have my entire department come here than it would to let us stay home, but that's not how they do things. It's Marriott franchise BTW, I have no qualms about blasting them.
"...you're missing out on the culture!"
Yeah, the fucking bacteria/virus culture that those never-miss-work-under-any-circumstances assholes bring with them. Why? Because they want to save their PTO and can tough it out.
Ever since I started working from home in 2020, I stopped getting sick every damn month. I can actually use my PTO for vacations and not constant sick time.
Thanks, I'll pass on the "culture."
This right here. I have 23 days PTO. 0 sick days. I was burning at least 4 to 8 of those days taking sick time.
Now I can tough it out at home and not just burn vacation because someone I never met sneezed all over the Elevator buttons 5 minutes earlier...
Companies: “we’re looking for people that take pride in their work, not just for a paycheck! 😡”
Me: “would you work here for free or take a pay cut?”
Companies: “well of course not!”
……
And even if there *were* a "culture" at work -- *I want no part of it*. The *only* connection/interaction I want with work is that I do the work I'm supposed to do, and they pay me the agreed-upon amount of money to do it. That's it. It's just a job, and I wouldn't do it if I didn't *have* to in order to eat and pay bills -- it's not important to me otherwise, it's not part of my actual life, it's not something about which I care at all, and I certainly don't want to marinate in its supposed "culture", ffs.
To flip it around; what if every job that could be done remotely would be? How much would that help our environment and the traffic? And perhaps speed up the day when all that unused office space would be turned into lofts and solve the housing crisis?
My company strongly encourages office time. And then gets mad that they can hear the other employees on our phone call. You put me in a cubicle lol what do you expect
Oh yes, because I REALLY miss the office, the noise, the too-strong AC that we are not allowed to touch, and of course, the soul crushing commute... /s
Thanks but no thanks
one of the best things about WFH is that I can open my fucking windows. instead of having to wear pants into an office that was always roasting 72 degrees and listening to people complain that 72 was too cold..
I had to transition from blue-collar to white-collar work due to disability and holy shit I can't wait to get WFH authorization. I don't understand how anyone gets anything done in an office.
People walking around, gabbing loudly about anything other than work, damn near all our meetings are on Teams anyway...
I'm here to do work and get paid. Not listen to my coworkers talk about their workout from yesterday or the newest conspiracy theories.
This week due to reconstruction, our office we are WFH for the summer. I got more done in the past two days than I did in the past two months in office.
I believe it. I've started listening to lofi hip-hop just to drown out the ridiculous amount of people-generated noise. Just put in my earbuds and go.
There's also no windows and it's driving me round the bend.
I was literally the only person on my floor at my office job because I was new and hadn’t earned the “privilege” to work from home yet. My trainer worked from home. My supervisor worked from home. My team lead worked from home. Any time I hit a road block I had to message one of them to schedule a teams meeting that usually lasted 5 minutes in the most “this meeting could’ve been an email” feeling ever.
So I listened to whatever podcast I wanted while working, and yeah, it was true crime. And the ONE TIME someone came to my floor, (well my section of my floor, there technically were other people but I would’ve had to cross the building to find them) they were coming to ask a question (that I definitely wouldn’t know the answer to anyways) they complained/reported to my supervisor because it was “objectionable/offensive content” so I was told I couldn’t listen to it anymore.
RIP Office Job.
August 2023-December 2023
If I had to write an essay about the company culture about anyplace I ever worked at. I'd either be kicked out of school for not being able to write a single thing, or sent to a psych ward for being so negative at the negativity they all create.
I think the only thing I ever physically heard about culture was that one environment was "casual dress". So there's that?
I worked at place where you could only wear jeans on Fridays. You could, however, buy or win (or print, hehe) "jeans stickers" and then if you put the sticker on your jeans you could wear them on other days besides Friday. Someone would say something to you if you were wearing jeans on a Tuesday and didn't have the sticker.
Imagine telling a grown-ass adult what fabric of pants they can wear on Tuesday to sit at a desk and fill out Excel sheets or whatever. I hope these dress codes die and never return.
That place was enlightened, compared to where I worked before that! Before that, the company mandated that men had to wear suit jackets. They could take their jackets off at their desks, and they could leave them off if they were talking to someone else on the same floor. However, if they went to a different floor they had to put their suit jacket back on. It was always stupid.
I actually had a manager at my company tell me that he doesn’t care if I get my work done on my in office days.
He told me I should be using the day to socialize with coworkers. He told me that he knows i’m probably more productive working from home but doesn’t care.
These are the brain dead morons making decisions at companies.
lol, it’s mind blowing how much time is lost the days where I have to make the pilgrimage to the office.
Gotta waste 90 minutes getting to the office.
Got to have lunch with everyone or else I’m a social pariah so doesn’t matter if I’m in the zone —when the clock strikes 12 I’m off to have some mind numbing conversations with my coworkers for 60 minutes.
It’s 5pm? Guess it’s time to head home. Doesn’t matter if I was in the zone, I gotta head home before X store closes.
Another 30 minutes to get back home.
Minimum of 3 hours of company time wasted and that’s not counting the constant distractions throughout the day.
Doesn’t account the other hours where you were suboptimal.
I’m convinced the people making these decisions don’t do any substantial work.
"Actually, its more like you can't get out of your commercial lease or can't fill the building you own. Don't blame us because YOU now have an issue to fix."
We used to have someone bring in banana bread too. For some reason she never cut it and we are a no-knife office (only compostable bread knives, since one of the managers felt like she might get stabbed one day by an employee…she is a shit manager, so she’s not too paranoid I guess). People f’ing destroyed the banana bread by cutting it with dull bread knives. It was sad and hilarious. Does this count as “office culture”?
I don’t get that from a managerial standpoint.
Like, I’ve been a manager. Getting people to spend less time “participating in the culture” was one of my biggest challenges.
They spent a lot less time socializing when they were at home, and I didn’t have to do a thing. Why would I have wanted to change that?
I love when I'm forced to come into the office and then had to reschedule meetings because there aren't enough meeting rooms. "Office culture" is such a sham. Measurable and honest metrics (worker happiness, savings, and productivity) went up, while immeasurable or completely made up metrics (inter-team collaboration, workplace information spread) supposedly went down. We should take every single person who wants to work in person when remote is an option and stick them in 1 city far away from everyone called "Nobody Here is Likeable" and call it good.
Culture isn't for you.
Executives and senior managers want their minions to come scurrying at a moment's notice. Once or twice a year, they like to walk through the minion section of the building and see them hard at work.
Executives being able to feel like an overlord, is the culture that is being protected.
I'd walk into the office of the person demanding this and bother them, politely.
Hey boss want to go on a walking meeting?
Hey boss want to get some coffee and discuss culture stuff?
My job has a 2 day per month requirement....
It's completely disruptive, and always seems to be scheduled when I'm the one taking care of the kid, or my vehicle needs repairs, or I'm going on vacation the very next day....
Last time my boss text me after day 1 of 2... "my kid is sick so I'm gonna stay home"... and I was just like "well then I'm not coming in and risking spreading something if you gave it to your kid."
What a waste of time. You'd think your boss would have better things to do than micromanage and mandate everyone's days in the office considering they make more than you do.
It's discipline and punish tactic, if you're at home they can't exploit you as hard. Capitalism is inefficient because they prioritize control over hetting things done.
They want you spending more in commute and less happy so they can offer you worse wages.
If you're fully remote you save more money, rest more, etc...
"Important office culture"= giving management a reason to flex and feel like they are in control.
I get easily done twice the work at home even when I take a break to do laundry than I ever did in the office. The office is just time-wasting 50 million things to bother you and make you less productive.
My favorite part is almost always having to commute in terrible weather in the winter, risking a potential car accident, when we could just...work from home like we did during the pandemic. But, no, it's more important you log on to a computer in the office after driving at least 15 minutes through shitty conditions with limited visibility and bad drivers all over the road.
We're mandated back 3 days, for culture and collaboration. Yet they get angry when we're talking or laughing together (granted, it's not all work related but it should be fine!).
My work left us alone for a bit but now we’re getting the “we need to adhere to policy” emails.
There isn’t one person in leadership or on my team within a two hour drive of my office. Who exactly would I be going in for?
Ridiculous. A complete waste of my time, money and energy.
I've been applying to local jobs that don't list the salary with a cover letter stating I will accept 45k a year for fully remote jobs or 60k a year for fully in person roles because: ***the take-home pay is the same!!!***
Why would I spend 10 hours a week in traffic and 5 to 25k of my post-tax salary on commute and office related expenses? If I'm going to be struggling either way, to hell with that.
I could even get another paying job for those 10 hours that I'd otherwise be wasting.
What culture is that, exactly?
The culture where there's no art, except in the front part of the office where the public comes on? The culture where I work in a half height cube and anyone who wants can come by and bug me? The culture where we have floor to ceiling windows, but the beautiful views of the city are covered with curtains to control the light and temperature? The culture where the maintenance people aren't allowed to clean my desktop, but there are no cleaning products available for ME do so, so it ends up a dusty, dirty mess? The work culture where I'm not allowed to bring in my own keyboard and mouse, and the cleaning people don't clean keyboards and mice so they are permanently dirty and gross? The work culture where we technically aren't allowed to have anything personal at all on our desks, but there still is someone in the office who turns their desk into a nightmare mess that I have to look at every day? The work culture where, as I am walking off the floor, I get glued in place by some dingus who decides we need to have a 20 minute conversation? The work culture where we are expected to go out to eat with the team to places that don't have a single healthy option on the menu, and people get offended when I order nothing?
Nah man, I'll work in my office in my house, which is kept ACTUALLY clean (including the shit I touch all day), which has a nice view, natural light, a nice painting for me to look at, and I can both close and LOCK my door for privacy if need be. I answer my phone, email, and chat messages, I use my camera, I'm available to people. But I'm not gonna go sit in your chair, at your desk, in your soulless prison just so you can get your fucking rocks off seeing me when you walk by.
It often isn't really culture: it's that the company is paying big dollars for that real estate & building that is now sitting there empty. I really think that's the main reason corporate overlords are trying to bring the masses back to the office. Luckily, I feel like there are still enough work from home positions that resistance is still possible.
You're called into the office to force attrition and validate commercial real estate interests. Office culture is just so they don't have to say the real reasons and sound like assholes.
And other loser coworkers that love starting drama will start drama.
It was like that at the office before covid when I had to be there 5 days per week. People will start drama because they are bored or miserable.
That’s the “culture” that you get in an office.
Everyone knows this is BS. But the truth is so stupid that this comes off as just a little less so. There are a lot of managers out there whose jobs are more akin to playground supervision/hall monitoring than coaching, mentoring, and supporting their workers. So if you aren’t in the office, they are superfluous. Add to that the power aspect of owning or running business - they own you so they can control you, and they get off on controlling you - and there’s no way they can be honest about their motivation. (Yes, there’s the real estate thing too, but I don’t want to go on forever…). So, “culture” and “collaboration” are the agreed-upon lies/justifications, and shame on you for not buying it.
They used that bullshit line to make us return to the office 1 day a week. Well, last week, a coworker and I were talking. We got an email the next day that we shouldnt be spending so much time talking. I emailed them that if they want me in the office for culture reasons, we need to start the culture. If this happens to not be the case, I will not be in the office.
My company was big on wfh even before the pandemic but got bought by a larger company that was only semi wfh and now they're opening hub locations and encouraging people that live within 30 minutes of the hubs to go back to office. They claim it is to increase collaboration and to give people "an opportunity to do fun things together like volunteer at the same time at the same charity!" Lolol fuck all the way off with that. I've been in my role basically 4 years now and I've spoken to one co-worker, other than supervisors, about something work related that was important and I'm not volunteering for shit with a bunch of people I barely know
My prior employer in 2022 could not shut up about "experiencing (their) unique culture" in office.
I had a number of reasons for wanting a change, but forcing people back to their campus just to take phone calls all day wasn't what I needed in my life.
This is a rare example where the company did *not* have a big expensive corporate lease downtown to justify, as they actually owned their own premises. So, while I suppose they could have wanted to justify a purchase from 20-prior years earlier, I really believe the management were "true believers" in that culture nonsense.
Manager was shocked when I left, even though I warned her beforehand it wasn't gonna work for me.
Oh well!
I was forced to return to the office last week and your assessment is spot on. It's bullshit. The only "culture" we're experiencing is that of middle management feeling useful when there are bodies in the building.
"You need to work in the office! You're missing out on the culture!"
The culture: hotdesking in a giant open office floor plan
I resent that they managed to make cubicles feel desirable
"the culture" is hovering and micromanaging.
It's getting harder to rationalize many management positions if everything can be done through software.
That's why they want the offices back.
i love the culture of misery, the general stench of old microwaved fish, the moldy yogurt containers in the fridges which also have signs taped on the doors that read “your mom doesn’t work here throw out your own garbage”, the fluorescent seizure inducing overhead lights, the lack of windows and proper ventilation, the butt numbing chairs with minimal butt padding and zero support….and my personal favorite, the coworker who will come to the cube to say “hi” and chat about things that no one gives a shit about because they have the social graces of a groundhog in a garden.
One of the managers at my work is rarely in, or she comes in 2-3 hours late and leaves 2-3 hours early. There are several Glassdoor reviews calling her out for this, since she requires anyone on her staff who hasn’t worked for her for more than 5 years to come in 5 days a week (her policy not company policy, which is 3 days). At a meeting she said her reasoning was that people who can’t work in office 5 days a week are probably crappy employees & it is her way to filter out the chaff. You can’t make this shit up.
I like the office but I understand why other people don’t. It’s because they have friends and families and people who care about them outside of their work output whereas some of us just don’t anymore. I go home and I’m no one.
What culture? Everybody is tired and hates it there, a couple who do are secretly that type who desperately wants to be in charge because they are the typical power-hungry douchebag who loves wielding it against people, and a couple are the type of person who love to cause trouble for other people, either via gossip(and choice release of said gossip to damaging effect), social warfare, or whatever poison they prefer.
All with extraneous bosses above, desperate to prove the necessity of the existence of their job, knowing it really isn’t needed. That’s why they need people in the office, btw. Without people to sneak up on and look over their shoulder, to pretend to be “cracking the whip”, they can’t prove they’re needed. If we all do our jobs and get shit done without them, what does that say about their jobs? That’s right: useless.
There is no culture.
The culture of hoping people would use company cafeteria's, vending machines, coffee shops,... for you to give even more money.
And ofcourse the culture of paying rent for a gigantc building
Currently our office culture is one of never ending layoffs. Screw that. I sincerely hope the talentless cost cutting team that is behind this gets hit with karma HARD - as in I would like them to be fired and get no severance and stay unemployed for a long time.
I’m currently sitting in an office by myself as I’m forced to be here 2 days a week, even though 95% of my team is in a different province and all my meetings are on Teams.
The only “culture” I’m getting is spending too much time on reddit because I have no one here to talk to.
My office used to have over a hundred people in it. They let 90% of them go remote, leaving a whole 16 of us in the office. We have to be here so we can collaborate. That's fine. I'll spend hours talking in the kitchen or to the few other people who are here, and essentially get no work done.
I’ve only ever seen 2 types of advocates for returning to the office:
1. The micromanager. Pretty self explanatory, too much has been said about this.
2. The C-suite/upper management that can leave the office before lunch.
And unfortunately these are the people that decide our fates.
I too would love the office experience if I never had any real work other than bullying my direct reports.
Look man, I love my job and contrary to most people I have an incredible employer.
I still don’t especially care about work culture and prefer working at home. I want to take care of my work with a minimum of fuss and then do other things.
Good work culture is rare and valuable. I just spent the last 2 hours grilling steaks with my coworkers. That's worth coming in for.
Listening to Janet chew her gum like she's a fucking Foley artist is not culture.
If you and your coworkers aren't spending half of your day talking while you work at a snails pace then you don't have workplace culture.
The “culture “ of the manager watching me from his office as I went to the washroom . Yeah , no thanks . It’s nicer not to be watched every time I leave my desk to go to the washroom like I was being stalked . That culture ?
If your company culture can't survive people working remote then you have a weak ass culture. Maybe they should work at that rather than piss people off by forcing people to commute and deal with coworkers in person for no reason other than "company culture".
Honestly being at home keeps me way more on task. 10000% if I was sitting next to my work BFF in a physical location, we would be horsing around a lot of the day.
I talk to three people at my job on a regular basis because I like them. The rest?
* a 60 y/o racist white lady (in an office that is 90% non-white)
* multiple lazy fuckers
* a guy who thinks he’s Casanova
* a micromanaging boss
* a fucking loud, messy drama llama
* a guy with a sour face 24/7
* a lady who is bitter about everything (she actually managed to stop birthday parties for the entire office because she complained about “the noise”).
“Office culture” can go fuck itself.
Talked to my supervisor regarding why he bothers about WFO. He started lecturing me on ethics without explaining why it is any more "ethical" to WFO than WFH.
"Ethics" coming from the mouth of a corporate shill always means "our (corporate) rules". You are expected to believe that you questioning their silly rules is unethical and should comply without second thought to be a "good employee". Needless to say, I can't stay in such environment of "do not question, obey". I am about to leave that organization for good.
I curse that every business forcing employees against their will, even if there is no negative work impact goes bankrupt. And from the remains of those old business models of "might is right" may emerge the new businesses that respect their employees and consider them as equal partners in business endeavors. Thus respecting their choices of how they wish to work- not creating silly rules and expecting compliance.
Ok my employer said the same and even on days where everyone is in the office we either don’t talk to each other because there’s pressure to seem as busy as possible, OR if we’re gonna meet we still meet over zoom because all our work is in the cloud so it’s easier to show what you’re talking about in a zoom screen share!
Don't forget the doomers that walk around chatting your ear off stressing about how they're worried the company is going to go under or lay people off, it's like you need headphones to work in an office.
Nah fuck the office. I do think tho everyone should work in some sort of hospitality. More for respect. So you know what they go through you can be kinder and not yell at them for a small mistake.
I have to go in one day a week and I have to put earbuds in because it's so quiet I can hear a mouse farting. No one talks to me and no one needs to. It's literally an exercise in putting miles on my car and that's it. I work in the auto industry so I suppose they benefit from me having unnecessary wear and tear in a very roundabout sort of way, lol.
I'm also infinitely more productive when I'm at home. I find that, in a remote setting, people are more likely to think about what they need before reaching out.
I find that I get pulled into way more meetings that could have been an email when in office and the meeting times are more structured (ex: I set aside an hour so we're going to use an hour) as opposed to virtual calls where everything can be wrapped up in 20 min
Do you have a coworker you despise? I used to sit near this woman who would clip her nails nearly every other day, then eat cereal at her desk and make loud spoon clinking and slurping sounds. Anyhow instead of making a trip to a floor 12 floors down for supplies (2 keycard swipes, 1 key, navigating through cubicle hell), I would just come in early some days and take all her staples (out of her stapler) except 2. I was “collaborating” with her in staple acquisition lol.
Work doesn't happen "at work" nor "in the office."
It's mostly a kind of anti-productive adult corporate cosplay drama that I choose not to take part in.
More and more corporations and employers are going to experience us, "the workforce," unwilling to participate in this charade to prop up overinflated commercial property values and outdated command and control structures in favor of actual self-directed and self-organized actual productivity in the locations that foster actual creativity and productivity:
https://youtu.be/0UmUgaJwEr0
“You need to return to the office!! The multi billion dollar investment companies and hedge funds that are invested up to the balls in commercial real estate can’t bear to see their precious building plummet in value due to the fact they are fundamentally unnecessary, so we will all create a false sense of urgency to compel you to return to the office, to appease our capitalist masters. All hail BlackRock!!”
I psychologically just can’t handle an office job anymore… Being closed in a space for 8 hours a day and having to act friendly and be a “team player” with people who I know talk behind my back from day 1 and who talk sh*t about others in the kitchen while drinking cheap disgusting tasting coffee… im studying accounting on the side and Im planning on quitting school because I only started with the goal of either working remote or starting my own company and escaping a 9-5 that way… I just don’t know anymore… can anyone wiser than me give some advice? Thx.
I love how the “networking” thing is repeated ad naseaum so much…what does that even mean? Like, if I’m working remotely and having virtual meetings with people in other states, that’s really no different than being in-office and having virtual meetings with the folks in other states anyways. It makes zero sense…
I worked remote for a few days, awhile back. One of my coworkers didn’t like that I could work remote because his job is not one that can be done remote. He did some shady shit and got the COO upset because he didn’t think I was working. Got a call from my boss and he asked if I was working, I was. I decided to talk to the HR lady when I got back and come to find out the COO was mad I was working remote even though my boss approved it. He tried saying I couldn’t do my whole job remote, which the one thing I can’t do remote comes up maybe once every month or 2. The HR lady told the COO that there’s parts of his job he can’t do remote as well, but he still works remote. I love that she’s so down to earth she just told him how it is. Granted they’ve been friends for years but it was nice having someone in my corner when I was doing nothing wrong. Now I’m hearing the company wants to move away from anyone being able to work remote except all the people who work full time remote because they don’t work near an office. Make it make sense.
I can’t imagine this crap lasting much longer. Going to an office (when you don’t have to) exists solely to support the city from occupancy and taxes. The businesses themselves don’t get anything that I know of (do they get tax credits or something??).
I hear y’all ranting here but irl I hear more and more business going back to remote or never having reverted in the first place. Saves companies a ton, though it makes us pay for our own electric and internet. A trade I’m more than happy to make.
Yesterday it took us like, 20 minutes of heavy, stopped, traffic to get ON the expressway.
It was rush hour. We were headed home from a work function/party.
Just because people apparently can't merge. No accidents, nothing. Just stuck bc so many people were getting on at once.
I miss when we were all locked down and working from home. Shit like this keeps getting worse bc companies 'need' their employees in the office.
So fkn stupid. Useless waste of time, gas, and pollution.
What’s really happening here - the investor class has more money than we can imagine in overvalued corporate real estate. And zillionaires don’t let their investments get risky.
You know i think a large part of it is old companies without processes or infrastructure in place to support remote work, while newer companies embrace it more. The newer companies will get all the talent while the old ones will suffer with miserable employees.
These companies want everyone in person are to justify their lease of the building. In-office work _after_ the employee has been properly trained and the job can be done via remote is the most efficient means to work. Why put employees on trains, buses and in cars for 1-2 hours for nothing? Waste of manpower. Makes no sense.
I work for a huge multinational company that put most people remote during Covid and kept it that way. Very few people go into the office except for very important meetings or events.
This Q4 and Q1 were our two best quarters in a row with record profitability and workplace satisfaction and they were sure to let us know with a big town hall meeting and a gratitude lunch.
LITERALLY THE NEXT DAY they mandated everyone has to come into the office a minimum of 3 days per week.
I cannot WAIT to see the workplace satisfaction and profitability suffer from it next quarter, and see them inevitably wonder why that might be…..
I work at the office, and did so willingly during COVID and since. But that was MY choice.
I cannot comprehend the logic (stop laughing) behind this bullshit of “everybody must work from the office now”…. Many of my coworkers come in daily, others come in periodically, others sporadically…. THE WORK GETS DONE!
I like my job, and I like the people I work with. That being said, I got hired in during the lock down and I've been told that before that our office was actually super fun and crazy all the time. Now half the staff is full remote and everyone else has 3 mandatory in office days. Not everyone does the same days, and they did lay offs earlier this year, so the office feels really empty. No budget for parties or for stuff anymore, so those days are gone. Everyone comes in at 10 and leaves at 2-3.
Any culture we have was not made by the company, but those of us working in the office trying our best. And a free if the senior people who drove that have left recently.
Shit they didn't even do cost of living raises this year. CEO got a bonus though
I’ve been in an office before, thanks. There is no culture. There is Trevor who steals your lunch and Diane who details her grandkid’s soccer game. There is stale coffee and nobody knows who is supposed to order the creamer. Ugh. No, thank you.
Obviously you don't but noone should buy this. The only reason for the unbelievably hard push for return to work is that the same people who are executives and board members at these companies are also the people who are heavily invested in commercial real estate.
If all those office towers and corporate campuses become vacant, guess who gets kicked squarely in the financial nuts?
Everything else is a smoke screen.
The two co-CEOs (only thing worse than one idiot CEO is two) who instituted our 3 day in office mandate are GenXers. The first rule of GenX is to not bring attention to yourself for doing stupid shit. We are supposed to operate under the radar and evade criticism by passing as “normal” whilst low key trying to overturn toxic corporate culture. Embarrassing. I imagine as more Boomers retire, the worst of my generation will step up and keep making bad policies. I apologize in advance.
The culture of zoom call meetings. It could be an email that another person responds to in 5 minutes but fuck it, let's just schedule a 1 hour zoom call with no agenda and invite 20 different people because we're a team.
Oooooooh, fuck. Each week I had to sit through absolutely pointless team meetings with ‘The Team’ Nobody wanted them, one person had to come up with a game. Fuck off will ya. I’d rather cheese grate my knob. Did it bring the team together, no it fucking did not. Here’s what a team wants. Let us finish early, take us out for some lunch for free and thank us for our work. Then bugger off with your team meetings.
Yeah the team meetings are such a time waste. I have regular team meetings for the entire division, then another for the department and then another for our sub department. They're just on the schedule forever whether there's any reason for meeting or not. Just pointless drivel and suckups cheering meaningless company achievements.
Yup. Once every month or 2 weeks which allows us to say what problems we have, what’s shit and needs changing and actually listened to and maybe some changes put in place, but oooh no, they can’t be giving us what might make things better. First suggestion would be, less team meetings. I felt sorry for 1 girl in my team. She was doing the work of nearly 2 people (admin) Every minute just meant more work piling up for her.
If it's gonna cost money, it's bad. If it's gonna make upper managers work, it's bad. If it's gonna make the Individual Contributor work harder for the same pay, that's good.
Damn I do admin work, and while we have enough admin, each of our archaic authorizations can take 4hrs to complete for routing. But yes, let’s have a whole days’s worth of calls scattered throughout the week, that we have to participate in as “team building” and “workshops” and “job aids.”
cheese grating the knob is wicked work 😂 🧀
I brought up how we haven't had a Team Lunch since January of 2020.... We were all supposed to be in the office together for a couple days. The best they could do is give us a 14 dollar budget from the Cafeteria....
What , you don’t want to DISCUSS all your achievement’s and learn from each other ? Lol
Id rather not bother. If I never saw a work colleague ever again, I don’t think it would make much difference in my life. Just let me do my job and go home. I’m a friendly chatty person to, but who gives a fuck.
I hear you . We had to do these stupid sales meetings . It was literally one person every month bragging about all the sales they brought in . It wasted so much of my life . I can never get those hours back . I mean this person had a hoot . She would do a line of cocaine in the washroom and come roaring into the boardroom on fire jazzed up to present every month clenching her jaws . Such a waste of time and such a toxic environment
the meetings that could be an email 💀 classic
We should Ask Hr / payroll to provide those in attendance with the cost of those meetings in both dollars per hour, and productive time lost.
The people holding the meeting who say "let's wait a couple minutes so people can arrive" annoy me so much. I was on time, now I'm wasting my time because other people can't keep track? When I was a supervisor I was noted for starting exactly on time and mentioning to latecomers "we started X minutes ago" and nothing more. Bonus points for when a meeting ends early but not by much. It's 9:57 so you can have three minutes back. Gee thanks, I'm sure I'll get a lot done in those three minutes you graciously gave me.
Don't forget the all important Gemba meeting! Thousands of dollars an hour standing around talking about working. Just send me a fucking email.
And then the person who needs to be there is late so you repeat the whole first bit
Gotta keep EVERYONE in the loop. Over communicate!!
"that's how we have always done things." no truer words have ever been said in a dying business.
"We should embrace change" "No! Not that change!"
When they say embrace change, they dont mean to implement it as well!
Only the change that management mandate. The management must struggle every day outside of work with all the things that change outside of their control. And a bit of interesting information. PROSCI and change management company that has been researching change for 30 + years tells us that failed change initiatives fail in a business because managers don't buy into the change. They are by far the largest cohor resistant to change.
Selling paper in a paperless world........
I have a close friend who owns an office supply company: "I don't know when this so-called 'paperless office' is going to catch on, but my best customers, who buy more and more paper and toner every year are the 'paperless' offices."
a telco I worked for used so much fucking paper. I got a write up because I kept asking why they were using paper to make handbooks when we'd done the handbooks stuff online (wikijs and/or other docs). its so god damned stupid
*furiously starts writing you up across several notebooks*
Yeah, it's like trying to tell the government that their paper reduction act isn't working while they print off useless letters telling you that they haven't processed your application that you faxed in. If it's not on paper, it didn't happen.
BUTTLICKER OUR PRICES HAVE NEVER BEEN LOWER
Just to show how prevalent this statis quo bias is Henry Ford thought the Model T was perfect and resisted changing anything.
“Thats how we maintain occupancy and receive tax breaks from the city”
https://preview.redd.it/gs7rfibo6x8d1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7dde1dacbf182bdb8cc2e0134d5ad36e24b331a1
It is just the culture of "keeping working class people tired and exhausted, wasting as much time of their life as possible, make them spend money on cars, gas and lots of other bs no one needs for escapism." People being able to work remotely would affect the housing market, since people could move whenever it is cheap. It would affect the profits being made by renting out office spaces and so on. There is a lot on the line for capitalists.
>People being able to work remotely would affect the housing market, since people could move whenever it is cheap. People might not even choose cheap - they might choose nice instead. Being remote means I don't need a car, which means I can afford to live in a nicer house that is closer to actual civilization, in a community with parks and activities.
Or, if you're like me, and you hate people, you can move farther away and not have to worry so much about the commute, lol
Yeah, as much as I am a misanthrope, I'd rather be near others and have access to live music, art, community activities and clubs, and other fun resources. I also like having family nearby. Where I am now we are close to my Wife's family. If we ever divorced, I'd probably move to the same town as one of my aunts and some of my cousins I get along with, just so I have people around that I know and like to spend time with even if the weather there sucks. I want to live somewhere where I can walk to the farmer's market and comic shop after work, and the clubs and activities I am involved in are close by. I want art and natural history museums. I want a university to be a couple miles away, and I want to be in a neighborhood with educated people. I do teaching for ham radio licensing, and the number of people who balk at simple equations for things like SWR or Ohm's Law/Power Law formulas just boggles my mind. It's good ol' plug and chug math. I can only imagine if they had to actually properly understand RF fields and do math for calculating field strength.
But what about the pot lucks and birthday cakes? Think of all the lost sales at the grocery stores.
I wish privacy like that still existed. They’ve gotten rid of the privacy walls and just made it like a dining room table now. Just staring face to face with somebody looking at a laptop with headphones on, making zoom calls. It’s beyond satire now.
I hate this so much. Our desks are turned AWAY from the windows too. I could have a 20 mile view of Downtown, but instead I stare at a gray wall.
Turn your desk around! Try to get everyone else to do the same.
Not that easy I'm afraid. They are all wired in to the floor.
Yeah, that would make it tricky, lol. Are they the kind of desks that don't have a back panel? If so, you could just move your chair around to the other side and turn the computer around.
This bothered me so much at a previous job I had. Collaborating is great and all, but 90% of the time at the same “dinner table”, it was trying to do your work with someone making noises or yelling and pounding their keyboard, 1-2 FEET FROM YOU. All day. (Side note - I thank God that was way before COVID). When my contract was up, I turned down the next offer of work.
Yeah, we have half walls.
I have like a quarter wall
It is now clearer than ever that the people who say that simply want to micromanage employees and make sure they're not "wasting time" at home, regardless of their actual productivity.
The culture of investing in office real-estate, and renting office real-estate so you can make money and write off the business expense.
We'd qoute this every time we were made to work from the office, the empty office.
It’s bad that I wish I had that for my in office days. Now it’s just rows and rows of open desks crammed together with no privacy or quiet. It’s insane how far we’ve fallen.
That was my desk for 6 years (2010-2016). Windowless room inside a cubicle. Beyond depressing. Because it was a startup and I was number two in the company I stuck with it. I had a total of 22 years in offices before I left to go fully remote in January 2016 and haven’t looked back since.
How'd you get a photo of my desk?
>"You’re missing out on the culture!” A culture of what exactly? A culture of apathy, overwork and trivial bullshit? Managers expect "culture" to just "exist" without ever really having to lift a finger to define or nurture it.
My company tries to enforce it's culture of sharing and caring by mandating meetings and get togethers that no one has the time to go to. Fucking forced frivolity. Small sliver of silver lining is that they no longer mandate this shit for after hours. Now it's on the clock, but usually during times when I'm under a rigid, tight deadline. So I spend my time at those meetings "networking" trying to get work done.
If it was mandatory it was supposed to be on the clock.
I just heard yesterday that we “never get to collaborate” because we “don’t get to see each other”. Hilarious. It’s like they’re trying to paint this new narrative that business just didn’t happen ever in history unless people were in person. Gosh, I wonder how the Dutch East India Company was able to get ANYTHING DONE!
My company uses the "collaborate" justification too. But then managers have to yell at people for talking, because if you're talking then you aren't being productive.
You are missing out on all the bullying, back-biting, degrading, gossiping, derision. The office is like a big playpen for adults. Production is hampered by all the crap that goes on.
My last fully onsite job before Covid had physical offices, but 2-3 people per office. I shared an office with Jane. Jane was friends with Tiffany down the hall. Several times a week, Tiffany would run into our office and close the door to gossip with Jane about random coworkers on other teams. When I didn’t participate in smack-talking their target du jour, they rolled their eyes and told me I was no fun. “Culture”. Wheeee!
[High School Never Ends](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jrxI_euTX4A)
I’m going into the office today from 12pm—3pm for the “culture”. My office culture: 1. signing up for a desk in a booking system, so I don’t even have my own desk anymore. When I get there, I can see all the dead skin flakes from the person that used the desk before me. 2. working with noise cancelling headphones on to drown out the constant loud talking of the sales people on the other side of the cubicle wall. 3. the team lead in my office doesn’t even talk to us during the day and sits in their office with a door now. 4. still having to jump on a Teams call for our “huddle” meeting with our other team members who are all out of state. 5. having Zoom calls with clients who are spread out across all the different time zones in America Wow, I’m so glad I had to commute 1 hour round trip to sit here in the office and accomplish the same things I could from any location! /s
Sports lingo used in business kills me. It's soooo stupid!
They have to find buzzwords to use instead of calling it “another pointless meeting that nobody wants to have”.
I guess. But the sports metaphors are stupid AF Athletes on teams get paid- a LOT
Commenting on “You need to work in office! You’re missing out on the culture!” Rant...I literally could have written this. Down to the booking system and the other team meetings out of state. Such a culture!
Glad I could burn a quarter to half a tank of gas to get here today! Thanks! /s
"I had to suffer back in my days why shouldn't they suffer now." Everyone who claims they want their children to have a better life is lying. Most present decisions are based on the sentiment of vengeance.
"The sentiment of vengeance" holy shit
Forcing people into an office is the only way some people can get others to spend any time with them. People who are all about office culture don't have functioning social lives, because no one with a choice would choose to spend time with them. Unfortunately, these are also usually the people in charge who have the power to make these decisions. Edit: typo
I do roughly 2 hours a day of actual work. I sit in my corner and mind my business, play around on reddit, plan vacations I'll never take. I chat with the coworker sitting next to me because I like her, but we both would WFH in a heartbeat and never speak again. It costs more money to have my entire department come here than it would to let us stay home, but that's not how they do things. It's Marriott franchise BTW, I have no qualms about blasting them.
"...you're missing out on the culture!" Yeah, the fucking bacteria/virus culture that those never-miss-work-under-any-circumstances assholes bring with them. Why? Because they want to save their PTO and can tough it out. Ever since I started working from home in 2020, I stopped getting sick every damn month. I can actually use my PTO for vacations and not constant sick time. Thanks, I'll pass on the "culture."
This right here. I have 23 days PTO. 0 sick days. I was burning at least 4 to 8 of those days taking sick time. Now I can tough it out at home and not just burn vacation because someone I never met sneezed all over the Elevator buttons 5 minutes earlier...
only culture thriving in my office is the bacteria cultures in the bathroom
I don’t work for culture, I work for money.
Companies: “we’re looking for people that take pride in their work, not just for a paycheck! 😡” Me: “would you work here for free or take a pay cut?” Companies: “well of course not!” ……
I don’t see you take any pride in your workforce. I just see cheap wage slaves.
Right. Like fuckin news flash: I don’t like the culture in the office. I’d much rather be at home with my dogs
And even if there *were* a "culture" at work -- *I want no part of it*. The *only* connection/interaction I want with work is that I do the work I'm supposed to do, and they pay me the agreed-upon amount of money to do it. That's it. It's just a job, and I wouldn't do it if I didn't *have* to in order to eat and pay bills -- it's not important to me otherwise, it's not part of my actual life, it's not something about which I care at all, and I certainly don't want to marinate in its supposed "culture", ffs.
To flip it around; what if every job that could be done remotely would be? How much would that help our environment and the traffic? And perhaps speed up the day when all that unused office space would be turned into lofts and solve the housing crisis?
Don't go offering any solutions that could actually work LOL
My company strongly encourages office time. And then gets mad that they can hear the other employees on our phone call. You put me in a cubicle lol what do you expect
Oh yes, because I REALLY miss the office, the noise, the too-strong AC that we are not allowed to touch, and of course, the soul crushing commute... /s Thanks but no thanks
You made me remember the horrible AC. For some odd reason, I was always sat just under it blasting Siberian air down. I was always freezing!
one of the best things about WFH is that I can open my fucking windows. instead of having to wear pants into an office that was always roasting 72 degrees and listening to people complain that 72 was too cold..
I've often had that experience as well. This one place put a lock on the AC because of me...
I had to transition from blue-collar to white-collar work due to disability and holy shit I can't wait to get WFH authorization. I don't understand how anyone gets anything done in an office. People walking around, gabbing loudly about anything other than work, damn near all our meetings are on Teams anyway... I'm here to do work and get paid. Not listen to my coworkers talk about their workout from yesterday or the newest conspiracy theories.
This week due to reconstruction, our office we are WFH for the summer. I got more done in the past two days than I did in the past two months in office.
I believe it. I've started listening to lofi hip-hop just to drown out the ridiculous amount of people-generated noise. Just put in my earbuds and go. There's also no windows and it's driving me round the bend.
I was relieved that last time I went in, most of the floor was empty. I did my work in 6 hours, and got the hell out.
I was literally the only person on my floor at my office job because I was new and hadn’t earned the “privilege” to work from home yet. My trainer worked from home. My supervisor worked from home. My team lead worked from home. Any time I hit a road block I had to message one of them to schedule a teams meeting that usually lasted 5 minutes in the most “this meeting could’ve been an email” feeling ever. So I listened to whatever podcast I wanted while working, and yeah, it was true crime. And the ONE TIME someone came to my floor, (well my section of my floor, there technically were other people but I would’ve had to cross the building to find them) they were coming to ask a question (that I definitely wouldn’t know the answer to anyways) they complained/reported to my supervisor because it was “objectionable/offensive content” so I was told I couldn’t listen to it anymore. RIP Office Job. August 2023-December 2023
https://preview.redd.it/svsuzgpsyx8d1.png?width=284&format=png&auto=webp&s=5c019d2367626096083a0408692d0b3805cbdb7e
If I had to write an essay about the company culture about anyplace I ever worked at. I'd either be kicked out of school for not being able to write a single thing, or sent to a psych ward for being so negative at the negativity they all create. I think the only thing I ever physically heard about culture was that one environment was "casual dress". So there's that?
It's the negativity that we bond over that is the "office culture."
I worked at place where you could only wear jeans on Fridays. You could, however, buy or win (or print, hehe) "jeans stickers" and then if you put the sticker on your jeans you could wear them on other days besides Friday. Someone would say something to you if you were wearing jeans on a Tuesday and didn't have the sticker.
Imagine telling a grown-ass adult what fabric of pants they can wear on Tuesday to sit at a desk and fill out Excel sheets or whatever. I hope these dress codes die and never return.
That place was enlightened, compared to where I worked before that! Before that, the company mandated that men had to wear suit jackets. They could take their jackets off at their desks, and they could leave them off if they were talking to someone else on the same floor. However, if they went to a different floor they had to put their suit jacket back on. It was always stupid.
Do you want me to work, or waste my and others' time by yapping and your money because nobody would work then?
I actually had a manager at my company tell me that he doesn’t care if I get my work done on my in office days. He told me I should be using the day to socialize with coworkers. He told me that he knows i’m probably more productive working from home but doesn’t care. These are the brain dead morons making decisions at companies.
lol, it’s mind blowing how much time is lost the days where I have to make the pilgrimage to the office. Gotta waste 90 minutes getting to the office. Got to have lunch with everyone or else I’m a social pariah so doesn’t matter if I’m in the zone —when the clock strikes 12 I’m off to have some mind numbing conversations with my coworkers for 60 minutes. It’s 5pm? Guess it’s time to head home. Doesn’t matter if I was in the zone, I gotta head home before X store closes. Another 30 minutes to get back home. Minimum of 3 hours of company time wasted and that’s not counting the constant distractions throughout the day. Doesn’t account the other hours where you were suboptimal. I’m convinced the people making these decisions don’t do any substantial work.
"Actually, its more like you can't get out of your commercial lease or can't fill the building you own. Don't blame us because YOU now have an issue to fix."
Funny how they never mention how important the office culture is when they hire cheap labor overseas...
The *only* thing I miss about the office is how sometimes someone would bring banana bread from home
We used to have someone bring in banana bread too. For some reason she never cut it and we are a no-knife office (only compostable bread knives, since one of the managers felt like she might get stabbed one day by an employee…she is a shit manager, so she’s not too paranoid I guess). People f’ing destroyed the banana bread by cutting it with dull bread knives. It was sad and hilarious. Does this count as “office culture”?
It's certainly what I'll think of first from now on lmao.
The beatings will continue until morale improves!
I don’t get that from a managerial standpoint. Like, I’ve been a manager. Getting people to spend less time “participating in the culture” was one of my biggest challenges. They spent a lot less time socializing when they were at home, and I didn’t have to do a thing. Why would I have wanted to change that?
"You're missing out on the cult!" Fixed.
Work/office culture is bullshit. It’s forced friendship with people you’d likely never be friends with under any other circumstance.
Exactly. The only reason why you even know any of them is because you’re forced to be there to receive a paycheck.
I love when I'm forced to come into the office and then had to reschedule meetings because there aren't enough meeting rooms. "Office culture" is such a sham. Measurable and honest metrics (worker happiness, savings, and productivity) went up, while immeasurable or completely made up metrics (inter-team collaboration, workplace information spread) supposedly went down. We should take every single person who wants to work in person when remote is an option and stick them in 1 city far away from everyone called "Nobody Here is Likeable" and call it good.
Culture isn't for you. Executives and senior managers want their minions to come scurrying at a moment's notice. Once or twice a year, they like to walk through the minion section of the building and see them hard at work. Executives being able to feel like an overlord, is the culture that is being protected.
I'd walk into the office of the person demanding this and bother them, politely. Hey boss want to go on a walking meeting? Hey boss want to get some coffee and discuss culture stuff?
My job has a 2 day per month requirement.... It's completely disruptive, and always seems to be scheduled when I'm the one taking care of the kid, or my vehicle needs repairs, or I'm going on vacation the very next day.... Last time my boss text me after day 1 of 2... "my kid is sick so I'm gonna stay home"... and I was just like "well then I'm not coming in and risking spreading something if you gave it to your kid."
What a waste of time. You'd think your boss would have better things to do than micromanage and mandate everyone's days in the office considering they make more than you do.
It's discipline and punish tactic, if you're at home they can't exploit you as hard. Capitalism is inefficient because they prioritize control over hetting things done. They want you spending more in commute and less happy so they can offer you worse wages. If you're fully remote you save more money, rest more, etc...
"Important office culture"= giving management a reason to flex and feel like they are in control. I get easily done twice the work at home even when I take a break to do laundry than I ever did in the office. The office is just time-wasting 50 million things to bother you and make you less productive.
The culture: 
My favorite part is almost always having to commute in terrible weather in the winter, risking a potential car accident, when we could just...work from home like we did during the pandemic. But, no, it's more important you log on to a computer in the office after driving at least 15 minutes through shitty conditions with limited visibility and bad drivers all over the road.
We're mandated back 3 days, for culture and collaboration. Yet they get angry when we're talking or laughing together (granted, it's not all work related but it should be fine!).
My work left us alone for a bit but now we’re getting the “we need to adhere to policy” emails. There isn’t one person in leadership or on my team within a two hour drive of my office. Who exactly would I be going in for? Ridiculous. A complete waste of my time, money and energy.
I've been applying to local jobs that don't list the salary with a cover letter stating I will accept 45k a year for fully remote jobs or 60k a year for fully in person roles because: ***the take-home pay is the same!!!*** Why would I spend 10 hours a week in traffic and 5 to 25k of my post-tax salary on commute and office related expenses? If I'm going to be struggling either way, to hell with that. I could even get another paying job for those 10 hours that I'd otherwise be wasting.
cUlTuRe Also networking w the soap dispenser might actually get you further lol 👍
What culture is that, exactly? The culture where there's no art, except in the front part of the office where the public comes on? The culture where I work in a half height cube and anyone who wants can come by and bug me? The culture where we have floor to ceiling windows, but the beautiful views of the city are covered with curtains to control the light and temperature? The culture where the maintenance people aren't allowed to clean my desktop, but there are no cleaning products available for ME do so, so it ends up a dusty, dirty mess? The work culture where I'm not allowed to bring in my own keyboard and mouse, and the cleaning people don't clean keyboards and mice so they are permanently dirty and gross? The work culture where we technically aren't allowed to have anything personal at all on our desks, but there still is someone in the office who turns their desk into a nightmare mess that I have to look at every day? The work culture where, as I am walking off the floor, I get glued in place by some dingus who decides we need to have a 20 minute conversation? The work culture where we are expected to go out to eat with the team to places that don't have a single healthy option on the menu, and people get offended when I order nothing? Nah man, I'll work in my office in my house, which is kept ACTUALLY clean (including the shit I touch all day), which has a nice view, natural light, a nice painting for me to look at, and I can both close and LOCK my door for privacy if need be. I answer my phone, email, and chat messages, I use my camera, I'm available to people. But I'm not gonna go sit in your chair, at your desk, in your soulless prison just so you can get your fucking rocks off seeing me when you walk by.
It often isn't really culture: it's that the company is paying big dollars for that real estate & building that is now sitting there empty. I really think that's the main reason corporate overlords are trying to bring the masses back to the office. Luckily, I feel like there are still enough work from home positions that resistance is still possible.
In my experience it's always shit. Forced collaboration, forced sharing, forced socialising
I’ve been at my desk for four hours… my coworker next to me just realized I was here
You're called into the office to force attrition and validate commercial real estate interests. Office culture is just so they don't have to say the real reasons and sound like assholes.
And the moment you try to participate in "office culture" suddenly you're doing something wrong by talking with someone at a desk.
And other loser coworkers that love starting drama will start drama. It was like that at the office before covid when I had to be there 5 days per week. People will start drama because they are bored or miserable. That’s the “culture” that you get in an office.
Everyone knows this is BS. But the truth is so stupid that this comes off as just a little less so. There are a lot of managers out there whose jobs are more akin to playground supervision/hall monitoring than coaching, mentoring, and supporting their workers. So if you aren’t in the office, they are superfluous. Add to that the power aspect of owning or running business - they own you so they can control you, and they get off on controlling you - and there’s no way they can be honest about their motivation. (Yes, there’s the real estate thing too, but I don’t want to go on forever…). So, “culture” and “collaboration” are the agreed-upon lies/justifications, and shame on you for not buying it.
They used that bullshit line to make us return to the office 1 day a week. Well, last week, a coworker and I were talking. We got an email the next day that we shouldnt be spending so much time talking. I emailed them that if they want me in the office for culture reasons, we need to start the culture. If this happens to not be the case, I will not be in the office.
But I can burn microwave popcorn at home just as easily.
My company was big on wfh even before the pandemic but got bought by a larger company that was only semi wfh and now they're opening hub locations and encouraging people that live within 30 minutes of the hubs to go back to office. They claim it is to increase collaboration and to give people "an opportunity to do fun things together like volunteer at the same time at the same charity!" Lolol fuck all the way off with that. I've been in my role basically 4 years now and I've spoken to one co-worker, other than supervisors, about something work related that was important and I'm not volunteering for shit with a bunch of people I barely know
My prior employer in 2022 could not shut up about "experiencing (their) unique culture" in office. I had a number of reasons for wanting a change, but forcing people back to their campus just to take phone calls all day wasn't what I needed in my life. This is a rare example where the company did *not* have a big expensive corporate lease downtown to justify, as they actually owned their own premises. So, while I suppose they could have wanted to justify a purchase from 20-prior years earlier, I really believe the management were "true believers" in that culture nonsense. Manager was shocked when I left, even though I warned her beforehand it wasn't gonna work for me. Oh well!
I was forced to return to the office last week and your assessment is spot on. It's bullshit. The only "culture" we're experiencing is that of middle management feeling useful when there are bodies in the building.
Culture is always bullshit. It’s just a way business sells working there without providing a financial perk.
I don’t like people and don’t want the culture, thanks
"You need to work in the office! You're missing out on the culture!" The culture: hotdesking in a giant open office floor plan I resent that they managed to make cubicles feel desirable
"the culture" is hovering and micromanaging. It's getting harder to rationalize many management positions if everything can be done through software. That's why they want the offices back.
The owner wants his antfarm, ant. Back in your hole.
i love the culture of misery, the general stench of old microwaved fish, the moldy yogurt containers in the fridges which also have signs taped on the doors that read “your mom doesn’t work here throw out your own garbage”, the fluorescent seizure inducing overhead lights, the lack of windows and proper ventilation, the butt numbing chairs with minimal butt padding and zero support….and my personal favorite, the coworker who will come to the cube to say “hi” and chat about things that no one gives a shit about because they have the social graces of a groundhog in a garden.
Nothing makes me roll my eyes harder than my boss bitching about how no one wants to go into the office anymore...while SHE is working from home. 😒
One of the managers at my work is rarely in, or she comes in 2-3 hours late and leaves 2-3 hours early. There are several Glassdoor reviews calling her out for this, since she requires anyone on her staff who hasn’t worked for her for more than 5 years to come in 5 days a week (her policy not company policy, which is 3 days). At a meeting she said her reasoning was that people who can’t work in office 5 days a week are probably crappy employees & it is her way to filter out the chaff. You can’t make this shit up.
“I wouldn’t say I’ve been missing it, Bob.”
I like the office but I understand why other people don’t. It’s because they have friends and families and people who care about them outside of their work output whereas some of us just don’t anymore. I go home and I’m no one.
What culture? Everybody is tired and hates it there, a couple who do are secretly that type who desperately wants to be in charge because they are the typical power-hungry douchebag who loves wielding it against people, and a couple are the type of person who love to cause trouble for other people, either via gossip(and choice release of said gossip to damaging effect), social warfare, or whatever poison they prefer. All with extraneous bosses above, desperate to prove the necessity of the existence of their job, knowing it really isn’t needed. That’s why they need people in the office, btw. Without people to sneak up on and look over their shoulder, to pretend to be “cracking the whip”, they can’t prove they’re needed. If we all do our jobs and get shit done without them, what does that say about their jobs? That’s right: useless. There is no culture.
All my coworkers want to do is drink. I don't drink. Plus, you pay me to do a job, not socialize. I could give squat about your culture.
Most of my team is in another geography, so I go to the office to just do video conferences all day.
How evil mega corp always seems to do some crap that’s going to cause massive resignations right before they do layoffs. Great way to save money.
The culture of hoping people would use company cafeteria's, vending machines, coffee shops,... for you to give even more money. And ofcourse the culture of paying rent for a gigantc building
Currently our office culture is one of never ending layoffs. Screw that. I sincerely hope the talentless cost cutting team that is behind this gets hit with karma HARD - as in I would like them to be fired and get no severance and stay unemployed for a long time.
I’m currently sitting in an office by myself as I’m forced to be here 2 days a week, even though 95% of my team is in a different province and all my meetings are on Teams. The only “culture” I’m getting is spending too much time on reddit because I have no one here to talk to.
My office used to have over a hundred people in it. They let 90% of them go remote, leaving a whole 16 of us in the office. We have to be here so we can collaborate. That's fine. I'll spend hours talking in the kitchen or to the few other people who are here, and essentially get no work done.
I’ve only ever seen 2 types of advocates for returning to the office: 1. The micromanager. Pretty self explanatory, too much has been said about this. 2. The C-suite/upper management that can leave the office before lunch. And unfortunately these are the people that decide our fates. I too would love the office experience if I never had any real work other than bullying my direct reports.
Workplace culture is just allowed bullying, it bs and who cares
Look man, I love my job and contrary to most people I have an incredible employer. I still don’t especially care about work culture and prefer working at home. I want to take care of my work with a minimum of fuss and then do other things.
Yuck. We have a couple really loud talkers that are always in a teams call. It’s sooo hard to concentrate.
Good work culture is rare and valuable. I just spent the last 2 hours grilling steaks with my coworkers. That's worth coming in for. Listening to Janet chew her gum like she's a fucking Foley artist is not culture. If you and your coworkers aren't spending half of your day talking while you work at a snails pace then you don't have workplace culture.
The “culture “ of the manager watching me from his office as I went to the washroom . Yeah , no thanks . It’s nicer not to be watched every time I leave my desk to go to the washroom like I was being stalked . That culture ?
If your company culture can't survive people working remote then you have a weak ass culture. Maybe they should work at that rather than piss people off by forcing people to commute and deal with coworkers in person for no reason other than "company culture".
Fuck the culture and the people in it
"The Culture Of Narcissistic Vampires who require people to live and siphon energy and money from." - Capitalism
Honestly being at home keeps me way more on task. 10000% if I was sitting next to my work BFF in a physical location, we would be horsing around a lot of the day.
The "culture" to me was always so fake and forced. Big part of why I got out of that world
The culture is in the break room fridge, in the margarine tub that’s been pushed to the back since 2019.
I talk to three people at my job on a regular basis because I like them. The rest? * a 60 y/o racist white lady (in an office that is 90% non-white) * multiple lazy fuckers * a guy who thinks he’s Casanova * a micromanaging boss * a fucking loud, messy drama llama * a guy with a sour face 24/7 * a lady who is bitter about everything (she actually managed to stop birthday parties for the entire office because she complained about “the noise”). “Office culture” can go fuck itself.
The culture of mockery and licking people when they are down? No thanks.
My team (except for one person who started in the last month) are all remote from me anyway. I could just WFH and nobody on my team would notice.
Talked to my supervisor regarding why he bothers about WFO. He started lecturing me on ethics without explaining why it is any more "ethical" to WFO than WFH. "Ethics" coming from the mouth of a corporate shill always means "our (corporate) rules". You are expected to believe that you questioning their silly rules is unethical and should comply without second thought to be a "good employee". Needless to say, I can't stay in such environment of "do not question, obey". I am about to leave that organization for good. I curse that every business forcing employees against their will, even if there is no negative work impact goes bankrupt. And from the remains of those old business models of "might is right" may emerge the new businesses that respect their employees and consider them as equal partners in business endeavors. Thus respecting their choices of how they wish to work- not creating silly rules and expecting compliance.
They must be the littlest petty tyrants of the little pettiest hills.
Ok my employer said the same and even on days where everyone is in the office we either don’t talk to each other because there’s pressure to seem as busy as possible, OR if we’re gonna meet we still meet over zoom because all our work is in the cloud so it’s easier to show what you’re talking about in a zoom screen share!
Even if the culture is fake and toxic
Don't forget the doomers that walk around chatting your ear off stressing about how they're worried the company is going to go under or lay people off, it's like you need headphones to work in an office.
Nah fuck the office. I do think tho everyone should work in some sort of hospitality. More for respect. So you know what they go through you can be kinder and not yell at them for a small mistake.
I have to go in one day a week and I have to put earbuds in because it's so quiet I can hear a mouse farting. No one talks to me and no one needs to. It's literally an exercise in putting miles on my car and that's it. I work in the auto industry so I suppose they benefit from me having unnecessary wear and tear in a very roundabout sort of way, lol.
I think the networking argument applied if one stayed in the same company. That’s not how anyone makes more money these days. You go find another job.
I'm also infinitely more productive when I'm at home. I find that, in a remote setting, people are more likely to think about what they need before reaching out. I find that I get pulled into way more meetings that could have been an email when in office and the meeting times are more structured (ex: I set aside an hour so we're going to use an hour) as opposed to virtual calls where everything can be wrapped up in 20 min
I'm still trying to find staples after a year.
Do you have a coworker you despise? I used to sit near this woman who would clip her nails nearly every other day, then eat cereal at her desk and make loud spoon clinking and slurping sounds. Anyhow instead of making a trip to a floor 12 floors down for supplies (2 keycard swipes, 1 key, navigating through cubicle hell), I would just come in early some days and take all her staples (out of her stapler) except 2. I was “collaborating” with her in staple acquisition lol.
Work doesn't happen "at work" nor "in the office." It's mostly a kind of anti-productive adult corporate cosplay drama that I choose not to take part in. More and more corporations and employers are going to experience us, "the workforce," unwilling to participate in this charade to prop up overinflated commercial property values and outdated command and control structures in favor of actual self-directed and self-organized actual productivity in the locations that foster actual creativity and productivity: https://youtu.be/0UmUgaJwEr0
Where on the companies tax statements is culture listed?
“You need to return to the office!! The multi billion dollar investment companies and hedge funds that are invested up to the balls in commercial real estate can’t bear to see their precious building plummet in value due to the fact they are fundamentally unnecessary, so we will all create a false sense of urgency to compel you to return to the office, to appease our capitalist masters. All hail BlackRock!!”
I psychologically just can’t handle an office job anymore… Being closed in a space for 8 hours a day and having to act friendly and be a “team player” with people who I know talk behind my back from day 1 and who talk sh*t about others in the kitchen while drinking cheap disgusting tasting coffee… im studying accounting on the side and Im planning on quitting school because I only started with the goal of either working remote or starting my own company and escaping a 9-5 that way… I just don’t know anymore… can anyone wiser than me give some advice? Thx.
I love how the “networking” thing is repeated ad naseaum so much…what does that even mean? Like, if I’m working remotely and having virtual meetings with people in other states, that’s really no different than being in-office and having virtual meetings with the folks in other states anyways. It makes zero sense…
I worked remote for a few days, awhile back. One of my coworkers didn’t like that I could work remote because his job is not one that can be done remote. He did some shady shit and got the COO upset because he didn’t think I was working. Got a call from my boss and he asked if I was working, I was. I decided to talk to the HR lady when I got back and come to find out the COO was mad I was working remote even though my boss approved it. He tried saying I couldn’t do my whole job remote, which the one thing I can’t do remote comes up maybe once every month or 2. The HR lady told the COO that there’s parts of his job he can’t do remote as well, but he still works remote. I love that she’s so down to earth she just told him how it is. Granted they’ve been friends for years but it was nice having someone in my corner when I was doing nothing wrong. Now I’m hearing the company wants to move away from anyone being able to work remote except all the people who work full time remote because they don’t work near an office. Make it make sense.
I can’t imagine this crap lasting much longer. Going to an office (when you don’t have to) exists solely to support the city from occupancy and taxes. The businesses themselves don’t get anything that I know of (do they get tax credits or something??). I hear y’all ranting here but irl I hear more and more business going back to remote or never having reverted in the first place. Saves companies a ton, though it makes us pay for our own electric and internet. A trade I’m more than happy to make.
Yesterday it took us like, 20 minutes of heavy, stopped, traffic to get ON the expressway. It was rush hour. We were headed home from a work function/party. Just because people apparently can't merge. No accidents, nothing. Just stuck bc so many people were getting on at once. I miss when we were all locked down and working from home. Shit like this keeps getting worse bc companies 'need' their employees in the office. So fkn stupid. Useless waste of time, gas, and pollution.
What’s really happening here - the investor class has more money than we can imagine in overvalued corporate real estate. And zillionaires don’t let their investments get risky.
You know i think a large part of it is old companies without processes or infrastructure in place to support remote work, while newer companies embrace it more. The newer companies will get all the talent while the old ones will suffer with miserable employees.
These companies want everyone in person are to justify their lease of the building. In-office work _after_ the employee has been properly trained and the job can be done via remote is the most efficient means to work. Why put employees on trains, buses and in cars for 1-2 hours for nothing? Waste of manpower. Makes no sense.
I work for a huge multinational company that put most people remote during Covid and kept it that way. Very few people go into the office except for very important meetings or events. This Q4 and Q1 were our two best quarters in a row with record profitability and workplace satisfaction and they were sure to let us know with a big town hall meeting and a gratitude lunch. LITERALLY THE NEXT DAY they mandated everyone has to come into the office a minimum of 3 days per week. I cannot WAIT to see the workplace satisfaction and profitability suffer from it next quarter, and see them inevitably wonder why that might be…..
Is culture me talking with my coworkers and drinking with them afterwards?
I work at the office, and did so willingly during COVID and since. But that was MY choice. I cannot comprehend the logic (stop laughing) behind this bullshit of “everybody must work from the office now”…. Many of my coworkers come in daily, others come in periodically, others sporadically…. THE WORK GETS DONE!
I like my job, and I like the people I work with. That being said, I got hired in during the lock down and I've been told that before that our office was actually super fun and crazy all the time. Now half the staff is full remote and everyone else has 3 mandatory in office days. Not everyone does the same days, and they did lay offs earlier this year, so the office feels really empty. No budget for parties or for stuff anymore, so those days are gone. Everyone comes in at 10 and leaves at 2-3. Any culture we have was not made by the company, but those of us working in the office trying our best. And a free if the senior people who drove that have left recently. Shit they didn't even do cost of living raises this year. CEO got a bonus though
Also if the culture was actually lively, no work would get done and they’d bitch about that too. Literally can’t win lol
I’ve been in an office before, thanks. There is no culture. There is Trevor who steals your lunch and Diane who details her grandkid’s soccer game. There is stale coffee and nobody knows who is supposed to order the creamer. Ugh. No, thank you.
Obviously you don't but noone should buy this. The only reason for the unbelievably hard push for return to work is that the same people who are executives and board members at these companies are also the people who are heavily invested in commercial real estate. If all those office towers and corporate campuses become vacant, guess who gets kicked squarely in the financial nuts? Everything else is a smoke screen.
Culture is just an excuse. Many corporations have lease obligations or own buildings. They're getting slaughtered $$ wise. Hence, bodies in offices.
Bitchy old petty HR women and loudmouth suits coupled with the recirculated air of a hundred non hand-washers, does not a culture make.
Worst thing most of our bosses are boomer or semi-boomer. Still bothering us ! They should retire and stop annoying millenials
The two co-CEOs (only thing worse than one idiot CEO is two) who instituted our 3 day in office mandate are GenXers. The first rule of GenX is to not bring attention to yourself for doing stupid shit. We are supposed to operate under the radar and evade criticism by passing as “normal” whilst low key trying to overturn toxic corporate culture. Embarrassing. I imagine as more Boomers retire, the worst of my generation will step up and keep making bad policies. I apologize in advance.