#officeculture

So is the hybrid or remote working for part of the week just brushed under the carpet now, the question never even gets asked anymore at Townhalls
I assume it's just never going to change it will always just be 5 days in office.

What will we learn about today? That their idea of making people more comfortable is to add a Wellbeing center to a fully saturated, overpopulated, and loud office environment? Or pickleball for all? None of that will improve the quality of the experience for the customer, who can’t hear us on our calls due to the noise around us. The only part that makes me feel included is that it stinks for everyone.

The MN location I'm out - keeps getting areas reserved for group 'xyz'. And the tool to reserve cubes is never updated to reflect that. The notion that 'you can work in any office' that's close to you..... is a farce.

We’re 5x back in office since Sep 1. How’s it going? My manager just reminded me about attendance’ - he’s remote btw!

I hate going into the office but not landed a remote role yet despite interviewing. So, my act of defiance is coffee badging and maybe spending 1-2 hours about twice a week for ‘visibility’.

There’s zero in-person collaboration or meetings. So much for ‘culture’!

The lack of energy in the office is incredible. We aren't hiring so many but HR can't even keep up

Our stock price is heading into the toilet due to all the lost customers

There are many rounds of layoffs on the horizon as our CEO said on the town hall

I can't be the only one.

I'm dying to see if there is anybody who can say anything positive.

I hate RTO. I eat lunch in my car most days because I just can't deal with the constant noise and the incessive small talk anymore. That little bit of quiet is honestly the best part of my day.

I’ve seen a couple of people in Boston post holding back to school signs - so cringe.

Today I am 47 years old. When I grow up, I want to spend 2½ hours commuting so executives can see me on Teams from a different building.

Then the HR talent acq people chiming in “how clever”

They should dress us in orange and have us hold up our A numbers instead like a mug shot.

How’s the first day back going in the 100% RTO sites?

I like to talk to my reports and go out to lunch with them. I think it's important to keep a close eye on these projects so that timelines don't slip. I have a pass they can take when they need to use the restroom and that way no one wastes company time.

Where's the collaboration they promised with RTO? I only talk to people remotely, never in person, outside of the random meeting that I might as well skip. I even eat my lunch alone. It's a joke.

Saw on Fuel that geographical information will be removed from Email names. I think this is a precursor to the Town hall coming.

There will be a relaxation of office mandates and more people will be moving back to remote work as previously announced by Takis.

Removing the Geographical location will prevent others from knowing where someone works from just by their email tag.

I was watching TV, and saw a workplace where people showed up to an office where they had their own desk, in some cases an office, where they interacted with their team in the physical world, where in person meetings were the norm, and where the job was tactile and real. What happened to that? Is what we get paid enough to give up basic expectations for work? Is the standard now just showing up for work at a stand up/sit down hot desk just to jump on meetings on teams with no real human interaction? When did something mundane on TV like "the Office" become a fantasy? I realize the traders at Helios might not care, but since my bonus isn't in the high six figures I want something more.

Why it’s always empty .
Everyday, every time I go there, it empty. Rows upon rows of empty desk.

No one comes to work in this office. Yet they say it’s full and booking is hard.

Heard that they are thinking of playing around with the WFH policy. Sales maybe in office 4 days a week and the rest of company stay 3 days. To be decided, they are not sure based on seating availability.

HR to managers - don’t bully reps into thinking they have to be here 100% of the connect weeks. The requirement is they have to be here 50% of the connect weeks.

Managers to people - per HR you need to be in the office 100% of the time or HR won’t give you a bonus.

HR to managers - no that’s literally what we told you NOT to do. Also don’t blame us.

HR to managers - let’s try this again, we’re going back to the office full time. No assigned seating.

Managers to reps - the higher powers of being decided they want all the sociology majors to quit so they don’t look bad by firing them. We’re working on a seating chart.

Months later

Managers to reps - ok we have your assigned seating come find where you will sit. Also remember there is officially “no assigned seating”. Just remember this is your desk and you cannot sit anywhere else.

Going in to the office is like a dose of human sadness. Of course everyone is all smiles when an exec comes in so dear leader can be happy. But here’s what I see. Rows of grown adults sitting in their cubicles with their heads down scrolling on their phones and jiggling the mouse in their open spreadsheet every couple minutes. No one is talking. No one is collaborating. Most people avoid eye contact. We’re all just waiting for our phone alarms to go off so we can get our 8 hours and leave. Others- post what you see in your office.
Abandon hope all who enter.

The new operation isn't what it was promised to press.

Hours are thin..sales still not what they were before all that calamity

I Do think we will be closing in Northbrook and I've heard Oakbrook has been pretty slow too

LMAO..WFH for the next three weeks!

How pathetic is it that Canon provides these slum-like conditions?

So embarrassing for a company of their size.

RTO is getting exciting. My work area is over capacity, so I’m assuming the normal agenda is:

8:55 - Make awkward eye contact with someone already sitting in a chair
8:57 - Still searching for a chair
9:00 - Find a chair
9:15 - Defend chair
9:30 - Establish territorial boundaries
10:00 - “Collaboration”
10:15 - Someone steals my chair

Next time put Musical Chairs Corporate Edition, in the calendar invite.

I’m exploring alternative workspaces. Current availability:

My assigned desk - occupied by someone who got here before sunrise

Conference room - booked through 2047

Phone booth - currently housing three people and a flute

Break room - apparently eating lunch is considered “collaboration”

Lobby - security says I can’t plug my laptop into the revolving door

Cafe - one table, 37 people, and someone has already claimed the outlet

Stairwell - “not an approved workspace,” despite having excellent acoustics

Bathroom - HR has asked that I stop referring to Stall #3 as my “private office”, also has excellent acoustics

Parking lot - Wi-Fi signal mysteriously disappears once I cross the property line

Elevator - currently occupied, but I’m confident I can squeeze in with my laptop and spend the day riding between floors while aggressively maintaining eye contact on Zoom

My car - becoming the strongest candidate

I’m sure leadership has a flexible solution.

Apparently “return to office” means return to the general vicinity of the office and figure the seating situation out amongst yourselves. Our return was planned, but seating wasn’t.

Hearing rumors they are not looking at just badge swipes any more and are now looking at ip addresses of laptops and where people are accessing the network from.

Has anyone heard more about this?

How long are we staying in the office, if there is a badge-out system?

Is there a “minimum number of hours required”?

Does anyone know the “rules”?

Was just informed that my designated working area is over capacity by 10-15 heads. “Expect some flexibility” I’m sorry but who decided it was okay for someone to not have a seat to DO THEIR WORK IN. I shouldn’t be surprised anymore but here we are. If I don’t have a seat, and am expected to work in the cafe off one tiny laptop screen, I’m politely turning around and driving home. If HR comes knocking, I’m claiming harsh working conditions because this is absolutely ridiculous.

Once we are full RTO, planning on having lunch in my car with a few IPAs.

Lots of out of office notifications. What’s up with that?

If executive logic dictates that the office is a temple of collaboration, the reality on the ground often resembles a sensory nightmare. The most glaring flaw in sweeping return-to-office mandates—at Fidelity and across the multinational financial sector—is a fundamental miscalculation of modern organizational geography.

The modern financial workforce is inherently distributed. A Vice President in Boston is rarely working exclusively with a team sitting on the same floor. Their direct reports, stakeholders, and project partners are spread across regional hubs in Rhode Island, Texas, Ireland, and India.

This creates the defining absurdity of the 2026 RTO push: the "Zoom-in-a-Room" paradox.

Workers are suffering grueling commutes, paying inflated prices for parking and gas, only to arrive at an open-plan desk to strap on noise-canceling headphones. They spend their required eight hours on the exact same Microsoft Teams and Zoom calls they would have taken from a quiet home office.

The Degradation of the Physical Space
The physical reality of the office has also degraded. During the pandemic, firms aggressively reconfigured their real estate, embracing "hot-desking" and "hoteling" to cut costs. Now that they are forcing the workforce back, the infrastructure is buckling.

Employees report arriving to find no available desks, forcing them to work from noisy cafeterias. The promised amenities that supposedly make the commute worthwhile—subsidized cafeterias, high-end coffee bars, dry cleaning services—have often been drastically reduced or eliminated entirely. Instead, workers describe environments that are loud, crowded, and lacking basic privacy.

When an employee says, "it's loud, it smells, and the services are terrible," they are pointing out the hypocrisy of the mandate. The C-suite demands a return to a premium, collaborative environment that simply no longer exists.

The Verdict: A Crisis of Purpose
This is the ultimate failure of the blunt-force RTO mandate. You cannot mandate cross-continental collaboration by forcing a local employee into a cubicle.

When workers are commanded to commute simply to stare at a screen and speak to people in different time zones, the office ceases to be a hub of innovation. It becomes a deeply inefficient call center.

If executives like Abigail Johnson truly want to foster mentorship and solve complex problems, they must acknowledge that the geography of work has permanently changed. Pretending that a Boston turnstile swipe somehow improves collaboration with a team in London is an exercise in corporate fiction. Until leadership recognizes that the office must serve a specific, intentional purpose rather than acting as a mandatory holding pen, the divide between the C-suite and the workforce will only widen.

I've heard 5, 6 and 7 as the minimun required for in-office RTO compliance
But someone just said 6.5

Omg these take two with OA videos is so cringey. Wtf are we even doing???

I am being told by my band 3 managing director that Merrill will be 4 days in office, regardless of location or office/assigned seat/flex seat. Client facing areas may be 5 days in office if they are not already.

It's happening folks, enjoy the weekend.

😂😂😂😂 no one is on my floor today. It is so empty! I am going home now - guess I missed the memo that RTO is optional.

DO NOT COMPLY! Bill’s gonna cry!

What do these people do all day? Honestly they never get back to tickets. It’s like pulling teeth for simple requests. Why are they outsourced to “Beacon Hills Staffing”? This company wastes so much money. Go back to the 90s when we had actual employees in the building handling requests in a timely fashion.

Today at the office in Tempe they were going to have a pizza party for the upcoming conversion and everyone both in office and remote declined attending. It is kinda sad and funny.

Am I the only one who has noticed that the Webster, NY buildings feel warmer this summer than they did last summer? There is zero cool air movement in some of the labs and some of the cubicle areas. One lab in particular, which we used to call "Ice Box," is now "The Bahamas." It is literally that hot in there.

Will all the dinosaurs will go extinct after RTO ? or they will flourish ?

Did they auto assign seat for you or did you get to pick your seat? I would hate to have to sit to a loud talker or someone eating microwave fish next to you