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

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

Here’s some relevant snippets

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

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

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

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

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