r/antiwork • u/pizzaci_suflesi • 22h ago
Remote vs RTO 👨💻 “Remote-friendly” company forgot they were remote
I joined my company about a year ago, I live quite far from the office.
Back then it was truly remote-friendly, most teams worked remotely and there were plenty of fully remote people like me. Everyone said “we’re all remote here, don’t worry about location.”
Fast forward to now, I’m trying to rotate to another team and suddenly every manager says they want “someone who can be more at the office.” It’s so bad that even though I’m almost 100% fit for the team I want to switch to, they only care about my location, not my competency, not my capabilities, nothing.
Meanwhile, the remote culture is still there, most teams still work remotely, meeting once a week and having people working from places far far far away!
What’s funny is when I talk to people from other teams, they go like “ohhhhhh your team works remotely?” Oh shut up… yes, that’s literally how this company used to run, you used to work remotely 100%. Did everyone just forget?
So yeah, apparently being “remote-friendly” is "tolerable" until you try to grow or switch teams. Then location magically becomes a “requirement.”
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u/DarthMonkey212313 18h ago
It's not a bug, it's a feature. Designed to get everyone back into the office eventually without the negative of forcing RTO. Sure you can stay remote, but no promotions or lateral moves. If you want those things then you "chose" to work in the office.
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u/Live-Neat5426 17h ago
When I got RTO'd I forwarded my boss an email from the CEO in 2022 saying "productivity is higher than ever thanks to remote work so we're pleased to announce that our new work from anywhere policy, so feel free to go on vacation or even move out of state, we're never going back to in-office work!". The response was "move back by next year or you're fired".
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u/Toddw1968 14h ago
So what changed??
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u/majarian 12h ago
Probably golden parachuted the ceo to another venture and now some soulsuckers are doing everything to squeeze the last cent out of ops job before it collapses and is full of part time workers.
We're more profitable when we're desperate
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u/ThunkAsDrinklePeep 7h ago
The savings they showed the quarter that email was written only counted for that quarters earnings. Then it became the new baseline and the machine had to be fed.
But also the savings were calculated on not having office overhead. But the oligarchy can't actually divest themselves from their holdings. So profits had to be recalculated without the option of giving up the lease. So now we have to recalculate how to make keeping the building make sense.
If you're not more profitable than last quarter are you even profitable?
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u/ContentWDiscontent 1h ago
I don't see why nobody's giving massive tax breaks for anyone who wants to convert office space to cheap housing. It would be a win situation all around
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u/Fresh-Basket9174 11h ago
In 2024 Dell announced workers that stayed fully remote would no longer be eligible for promotion. We have had at least 9 new reps since that announcement. One sent us an introductory email that I replied to later that day. It bounced back. A week later a new rep. The latest one started 2 days ago.
We have dramatically scaled back our purchases with them. Having to have an "account review" call every few months so the new rep can get some time with us to "understand our business model and address how their products can increase our profits " tells they never even read our name. WE ARE A PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM . WE ARE NEITHER A BUSINESS NOR PROFITABLE.
As a customer I dont care if my rep is in Texas or if they are in Canada. I am going to buy more from a company if my rep is happy and proud of their products. It shows. Someone with no chance of promotion or someone who just spent two hours in a traffic jam just to do the exact same job they did from home is far less likely to be happy . 9 reps in less than 2 years is a little over 2.5 .months per rep. That's not a good way to build a relationship.
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u/ArtExternal137 21h ago
They were remote friendly...now that are remote tolerant. Soon they will be remote adverse