KEY POINTS
- Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, whom President-elect Donald Trump appointed to lead a new government efficiency team, said they intend to call federal employees back to the office five days a week.
- Companies such as Amazon and The Washington Post are adopting a similar policy in 2025.
- But many companies will keep remote or hybrid work arrangements, largely because they boost profits, economists said.
- Some view return-to-office mandates as a stealthy way to reduce employee head count.
Ok, let’s say it is a covid-era privilege. Why does that mean it has to go away? Why can’t it be a modern day innovation? Isn’t it a curb on vehicle emissions? More spending money in people’s wallets if they’re not paying for gas or coffee or meals on the go due to commuting? What’s the fuckin downside?? We stumbled upon a good thing
Oh fuck, I forgot the real estate prices. My bad. Yea let’s cancel this whole thing
You forgot, it saves people 30 mins - 2 hours every day. What are they going to do with that time? Enjoy themselves? Advocate for their own interests?
No, clearly this cannot stand
If someone still has secret guilt of this looking like a conspiracy thing - it isn’t, there’s buying and there’s buying out on markets, these are different.
Also a pretty normal thing for authoritarian governments to make honey pots for intelligent people, so that they’d work in some kinda useful, but more importantly well-paid positions different from where they could make a difference.
I still think there are 3 other components, all of which can be considered good to some degree - 1) feeling of belonging and, ahem, of hierarchy, people all seeing each other and their employer, 2) less disruption in case of connectivity problems, 3) better understanding of processes and dynamics when in one location. To be clear, 1 is bs, 2 is factual, but can be negotiated for some skeleton group, 3 is bs. But some people make think this way without malice.
Makes me wonder, though, when they say Musk has ASD, how in hell would he be against remote work. Other than commute being hard, actually being present among all those people, boss or not (even worse when boss), should be exhausting. There is that pop culture idea that ASD is connected to being very intelligent (actually no, just caring about interests above social needs), so perhaps it’s a PR thing and he really doesn’t have it.
No, you don’t understand… This isn’t a “the government is doing this to control people” kind of conspiracy
This is a “consulting firms like McKinsey have been quietly but openly pushing the idea of exploiting workers to keep them too busy to advocate for their interests for the last 50 years, using concepts such as corporate culture, surpressing wages, and most recently return to office” thing
It’s the investigative journalism kind of conspiracy
Oh. Corporate culture is something I absolutely hate. I have ASD and get sick from the thought itself.
Musk didn’t say he was against remote work for himself. This is for peons like the American worker class, not for the ruling oligarchy.
But I also wouldn’t be surprised if ASD is just PR to help explain away some truly disturbing behavior throughout Musk’s career.
ASD doesn’t explain anything disturbing. That would be ASPD.
Isn’t it a curb on vehicle emissions?
Welllll, Elon owns a large share of a company that makes vehicles. So the more people drive, the better for him.
It’s also incredibly fucked up that they’re worried about real estate prices falling in an economy where so many are having a problem paying rent or owning a house.
Can Musk please, please, please, just fucking die already? Preferably burnt to death while trapped in a cybertruck. He’s just so stupid and has too much power, and I’m tired of people treating him like he’s worth more than utter contempt.
Ramaswamy can go, too. Conspiracy theory peddling sycophant.
Or just have him go to mars or something. And take Bezos with him. With some luck, they will miss Mars… Or be stuck there.
With some luck, they will hit Mars…
FTFY
Covid - the best times of our lives
If COVID was the best, just wait till bird flu gets here.
They probably won’t lock down again. It will be full steam ahead for the economy. Keep throwing bodies into the burner.
All hail the Economy. We must sacrifice the plebs to make sure the Economy continues to award those at the top.
I’ve been working remotely long before the pandemic and I will continue to do so - I’m far from being alone in that. Also, we are still in the “covid-era”, we just collectively decided to pretend we aren’t.
HE’S WORKING FROM FUCKING MARALAGO FUCK YOU
Rip Disabled people I guess.
And this is coming from the same peoppe saying “just get a job”.
You gotta provide accomodations my guy.
I mean, I wouldn’t be surprised if they re-invent Aktion T4 and kill all the undesirables. It’s just much more efficient, you know?
The company I work for is pushing almost all of IT to WFH so they can get rid of all the office space they’re renting. It actually kind of sucks for me because I don’t like working from home.
Give it a some time. I didn’t like it the first 3 months. Now I’d never go back.
You mean the “privilege” of working from home so tech CEOs could make billions of dollars?
Obviously billions of dollars is just the result of hard work and not a privilege at all.
What i don’t get in all of this: There are already companies that did go out of business because too many people just left, due to them not being able to do WFH. Personally, I do like going to the office 1-2 times a week, but even I would leave the company if the got rid of WFH completely. There’s near full employment everywhere, especially tech companies already have to go the extra mile to get people to work for them. Why would anyone stay at a company that does not do WFH, if that’s one thing they got to enjoy?
This is why they’re also fighting for those visas. They want to hire people but don’t want to pay US wages. And when your residency depends on your employment, you’re going to be much less likely to call out bullshit or whatever
These large tech companies are relying upon their brand to keep talent. Amazon and the rest all believe people will put up with shit to have their company listed on someone’s CV.
Or it’s all about quiet layoffs.
Musk and ramoswamy are foreign invader trash and they should go back to exploiting their own shitty countries. Fucking scum. Deport these counts or throw them in a detention center with no toilet. MAGA
Still trying to look as cool as possible, and it doesn’t work when they do it, so they try harder, which makes it even worse. Dweebs.
I like the freedom to watch the kids remote work brings, but I hate the loss of concentration that having kids “at the office” (home) brings.
Ramaswamy should be shipped back to his dalit homeland
He’s a terrible human being, but I don’t think he deserves to be sent back to Ohio.
I believe most jobs that can be done from home can be automated by AI within the next 5 years.
It doesn’t matter whether AI can do the jobs of humans, it only matters whether management believes that AI can do the job of a human.
If it means I can have my old job back with the compensation and terms I dictate, then by all means, go ahead, give ai a try!
Narrator: It did not mean that.
What’s the old job? And what’s keeping you from it now?
I guess people misread. I meant go ahead and have an AI take my job. Then when it fails miserably, and they need me back, id be rehired on my terms. Know a few people who got that deal.
Oh! Yes that.
And literally everyone without billions in their bank account will suffer from that. But line go up, so it must be great!
