Someone Lied – About Working from Home and It’ll Cost em’

Monday

Monday is a girl (person) who works for a large commercial company. Monday has been working from home now for well over a year. The reason Monday was able to work from home was due to Covid-19. Prior to this, her company had a policy of every day in the office. As the situation with Covid changed and progressed her company changed their position on working from home about 50x. Not unlike Monday’s company, many companies didn’t have a strategy for Covid and working from home.

There are a ton of problems with companies being wishy-washy about working from home in the first place. When it was convenient and necessary they relented and made the mandatory concessions for the good of the business. All said, as usual, some idiot in the senior ranks of the company still thinks it’s a good idea to “bump into others” or “collide” in the hallway for corporate success. While I acknowledge there are benefits to being together and having people available in the same physical location, the costs to the company and the people outweigh the benefits.

If companies are true “data-driven” they’d look at the data for working remotely. I don’t think they do. I think corporate leaders sit in Zoom meetings about the same 5 topics they’ve been discussing since 2010. The problem with this situation is that people have found remote working is better. It’s not a controversy, it is reality. Many people Not ALL but many like the option of working from home. They are more productive and happier. They don’t want to be in the office for many reasons.

Many large companies moved with lighting speed on pronouns, adjectives, and adverbs but they couldn’t let “Lolly Lolly Lolly” work from home? That makes NO SENSE. If you don’t know Lolly

The Lies

“I’m not upset that you lied to me, I’m upset that from now on I can’t believe you.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

Employees are saying.

You said, we would have flexible work and we wouldn’t have to go back in to the office and then mandated us going back into the office.

You said some people may have to come back into the office and didn’t specify who “some people” are.

You said we would embrace a new way of working but the new way is now back in the office because the old way is remote now. (what?)

You lied because you didn’t know what the hell you were doing. You lied about the response to Covid and “working from home” consistently. Instead of making a plan, spending the time to really think it through, and follow through, you spent time on other things like shipping receiving devices from IT. Maybe if you were honest and said “we don’t know” instead of flat-out bologna people would be more understanding.

Why it WILL COST – SOMEONE 🙂

Some folks believed company jargon and literally moved. If you were working for a company that said “working from home” is the new normal and you moved, you are either shit out of luck or you have to move back because companies can change their policy. It’s flat out disingenuous.

How many people lose their jobs for bullshit “need to be in corporate HQ” policies which are nonsensical in the first place. Those are really cost cutting measures and opportunities to lay people off. Unless you are in a business requiring hands on work or close contact, there is very little need to have people breathing the same air.

The fear of losing a job and managing change still exists. It isn’t what it used to be though. Many people realize their value and understand the market works in multiple ways. Finding good talent isn’t easy. Just ask senior leadership, it is for sure one of the top five things they talk about.

It goes a little something like this..

“We need to find the best talent, our company needs it.”

“OK, lets get a campaign going on every issue we can think of and buy banners and swag.”

“Great idea, let’s get those going and invest tons of money in the people who sniff socks campaign. I mean, lots of people sniff socks out there and they are feeling bad about it so.. we need to invest to get the best talent. They can wave their socks around and it will make us a more productive and better company.”

While there are valuable corporate campaigns for important issues, seems that many companies are focused on the wrong things for the whole of their population. People are getting tired of the stupidity and they are realizing they have options.

When good people leave, there is a cost. When you consistently treat people like shit through stupid nonsense policies, they will choose to leave. If you haven’t figured it out, get with the program. Companies have reduced their human resources down to one leader and a cadre of consultants. Working remotely should be a top priority but with some of the recent stupidity I’ve seen, it can’t possibly be.

Something that drove me to write this post was the sheer amount of people reaching out to me about finding or connecting work for them as they “don’t want to go back to the city.” Many large companies are forcing people to go back either now or not long from now. I have to tell you, people are walking because they realize that making an extra few bucks AIN’T WORTH IT. On top of that, they believe they were duped.

I don’t mind simply calling this one out because the solution is clear.. Lets see how this goes….

WHAT DO YOU THINK?