this post was submitted on 27 Oct 2025
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Work Reform

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A place to discuss positive changes that can make work more equitable, and to vent about current practices. We are NOT against work; we just want the fruits of our labor to be recognized better.

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[–] moopet@sh.itjust.works 18 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I love the way any article which says remote work is good still has to use the word, "surprisingly" as often as possible. Nobody is surprised.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 2 points 6 days ago

So much of this is just slop for the White Collar hogs. You're not "Working from Home" as a retail employee or a grease monkey or a machinist. They spilled a thousand bytes to tell you what you already know "surprisingly", but I don't see word one in there about paid sick leave or vacation time.

[–] Formfiller@lemmy.world 10 points 6 days ago

It’s the shareholders who own our government that make money off commercial real estate that want everyone back at work. Shareholders don’t give a fuck about your wellbeing. They’re literally looting our government, destroying any and all global safety nets and installing facism worldwide quite publicly.

[–] melsaskca@lemmy.ca 9 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Working from home also proved that the "middle-manager" was at best, a part-time job, maybe not necessary at all.

[–] pulsey@feddit.org 1 points 6 days ago (1 children)
[–] mad_lentil@lemmy.ca 3 points 6 days ago

IMO It's still useful to have an actual human in the loop who is up to date on what a bunch of people are doing, to help coordinate as well as deflect ad hocs

[–] laranis@lemmy.zip 8 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Evidence shows performance holds or climbs when people choose flexible setups with solid support from managers and peers.

That's the part these chuckle-head RTO folks willfully ignore. In a virtual environment you have to lead differently, and since they're never the ones who are wrong it must be everyone else who is broken.

With the right leadership and support mechanisms virtual work absolutely can raise all boats. But that means you have to be willing to change. And open-mindedness is not typically an attribute selected for in corporate senior leaders.

[–] mad_lentil@lemmy.ca 3 points 6 days ago

B-b-but I was told big tech companies love disruption!

[–] Angelevo@feddit.nl 9 points 6 days ago (2 children)

All about balance. Working from home is such an improvement from past times. Face to face contact with your peers should not be underestimated though - very valuable.

[–] SpaceCadet@feddit.nl 6 points 6 days ago (1 children)

It's bad enough having to hear my colleagues in teams meetings, I don't see why I have to smell them too.

[–] Angelevo@feddit.nl 1 points 5 days ago

This simply means that your local culture is flawed. Where I am, everyone looks and smells beautiful.

[–] mad_lentil@lemmy.ca 2 points 6 days ago (1 children)

While this sounds intuitive, I've crunched side-by-side with a coworker (literally couch-coop, sshing into pods to solve a production issue), and then having also done the same over Discord with screen sharing, I can confidently say that once you actually embrace remote there is no marked tangible advantage to in person.

Other than it's easier to recruit for a union push on company time because people are constantly jawing, rather than doing their job when in person.

[–] Angelevo@feddit.nl 2 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Are you painting the whole picture here?

First thing that comes to my mind is: You have met the person, thus connected, then worked together remotely.

That is a physical presence. How much physical presence is required for a good working relationship differs from individual to ~; having personally experienced a coworker is invaluable in my opinion.

The second paragraph does not resonate with me, I am from across the pond. To each their own!

[–] mad_lentil@lemmy.ca 1 points 10 hours ago

I think it really does come down to individuals. Neither approach is going to work for everyone.

Not to oversimplify, but I think a big component is that extraverts feel more connected in person, whereas introverts will thrive when they can more easily regulate draining social encounters.

[–] AutistoMephisto@lemmy.world 1 points 6 days ago

And the richies grab the scientists by the mouth and go, "Shutfuckup! Shutfuckup!".

[–] jjjalljs@ttrpg.network 125 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Time to repeat my topical story.

I worked for a startup that prided itself on being "data driven". They'd talk about how other startups were doing stupid things because they followed their feelings instead of data.

One day in one of those all hands meetings, the CEO was taking questions. Someone said, "Studies are showing that four day work weeks are more effective on like every metric. Can we look into that?"

The CEO said "No, we're not doing that ". Didn't read the linked studies. Didn't entertain it at all. His mind was made up, and the data was irrelevant.

Because he doesn't really care about data. He cares about feeling smart and irreverent. He cares about being seen as a cool disruptive startup guy who's going to grind his way to success.

The dishonesty makes me want to puke.

But you know what also makes me sick? All the sycophantic boot lickers that would gather round and tell him his every idea was great. The people who would work unpaid long hours to "get shit done". Bunch of fucking wormtongues who would sell out their coworkers for crumbs.

Maybe he was a real person once who really did care about data. But by the time I met him, he was an empty suit

[–] quetzaldilla@lemmy.world 32 points 1 week ago

Lol, did we work at the same place?

"Empty suits" it's the realest statement.

I resigned my position because I couldn't take it anymore. I told leadership that I refuse to use my skills and talents for those who I do not respect, and they responded by saying that there was a lot of money on the line.

They can fucking keep it. Fucking ghouls.

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[–] Maeve@kbin.earth 45 points 1 week ago

They know this. A schismed individual is a compliant employee.

[–] ceenote@lemmy.world 43 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

I've been studying managers for much longer, and I've reached a very clear conclusion: they don't care.

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[–] elderorb@feddit.nl 40 points 1 week ago (5 children)

Does anyone have a link to the actual study? The article doesn't seem to have it.

[–] NycterVyvver@lemmy.world 26 points 1 week ago

I'm having a tough time finding it. I found this citation from an article that appeared to reference the same four year study.

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0248008

[–] FunctionallyLiterate@lemmy.ca 20 points 1 week ago (2 children)

What? You don't automatically trust "The Editorial Team's" assertion at the bottom that "This article is based on verified sources and supported by editorial technologies" is valid? I mean they linked to a few other articles - the fact they're only ones on their own site shouldn't matter...

🙄 "Trust me, bro!"

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[–] HugeNerd@lemmy.ca 34 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Sleep. Precious beautiful sleep. I can roll out of bed, rip a huge wet fart, log into Teams, pretend to care for 5 minutes, go right back to sleep (and still be able to smell that fart, thankfully), take a long nap, get up to take a big smooth dump, then put in the same 3 hours of actual work I'd do at the office, then play Sokoban all afternoon. All the while reducing resource usage.

This is the UBI/leisure society I was promised as a kid.

If you spend most of your day getting to and from work, then pretending to be busy at the office, you don't have time to think or be a threat to the billionaires by starting your own competing company/product.

[–] laranis@lemmy.zip 5 points 6 days ago

You paint a beautiful, utopian picture of how life could be.

[–] WorldsDumbestMan@lemmy.today 1 points 6 days ago

Nope. Never mind I nearly shoved a bundle of iron rods into a co-workers head in a moment of anger. If it were not for that bit of self-control, and pulling back I was mid-swing, well yeah. Very safe.

[–] Archangel1313@lemmy.ca 28 points 1 week ago (4 children)

I find it really weird that companies would want to pay the enormous cost of maintaining huge buildings full of people, that don't actually need to be there, in person. That just seems like a huge waste of money.

[–] ToastedRavioli@midwest.social 31 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Partly because people that control large companies that lease large office buildings have a lot of money to lose if office space were devalued as much as it should be.

Large commercial office spaces are one of the more historically stable investments that banks have money tied up in. The WFH shift of covid was a massive threat to those portfolios and freaked people out

[–] TexasDrunk@lemmy.world 20 points 1 week ago

This is the answer. And the C levels renting from these spaces are absolutely invested in the companies that lease the space.

I've seen it even more incestuous as well. CEO buys building for kids and lets other C levels get in on it. The company rents a space. Everyone at C level agrees it's the best space because they can get a sweetheart deal on rent for the company. Company pays for space, money flows back to C Suite and CEO doesn't have to pay for kids' lifestyles anymore.

There's a very nice office building like that down from me, except it's CEOs cousin or nephew or something. It came out when they started pushing for RTO as soon as they could.

Must be nice getting C level salary, a little extra in your bonus for getting a sweetheart rental deal, and passive income from being a partial owner of the building your company rents from.

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[–] Rivalarrival@lemmy.today 27 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Working in an office for 8 hours a day costs me an additional hour getting ready and commuting to to work, an hour away from home for lunch, an hour commuting back home and unwinding after work, turning 8 hours of paid labor into 11 hours of doing shit for other people.

Working at home claws back 15 hours a week.

[–] BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 2 points 6 days ago

As well as 15-20 more hours that you don't really work while at the office, and you have to actively disguise as work-related activity. Add that to your prep time, and you've clawed back 30+ hours of time.

You could get that second job you need to survive!

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[–] hark@lemmy.world 26 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Advancing tech was sold as a way to make all our lives better. Here is an instance of tech making our lives better, but instead companies dismiss it because the real purpose of tech for the capital class is control.

[–] BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 4 points 6 days ago

I bet they aren't going to make the AIs come into the office.

[–] DarkFuture@lemmy.world 22 points 1 week ago

You mean we had a worldwide event that proved to us that an incredible technology that allows us to work remotely could actually be used to work remotely, then our overlords chose to ignore that and now studies are proving what we already knew was true, is true?

Neat.

[–] lazynooblet@lazysoci.al 20 points 1 week ago (2 children)

It is 0850. I start at 0900. I am still in bed.

Working from home is great.

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