#officeculture

Pre-WFH, I've had two managers who obsessed over start times and break lengths. Neither of them actually knew how to lead. They just watched the clock because it was easier than doing their real jobs. It never improved productivity, but it worked for them. Those are the kind of people who want us back in the office. To hide their own failings.

I’ve been loving the open-plan HMP setup and how much it’s boosted real collaboration, but I feel like we’re leaving some upside on the table. A lot of the private offices were only supposed to be temporary, yet plenty of people (especially in Subsurface and the old CTC groups) are still camped out in them long-term. It’s starting to feel like the last holdouts keeping us from going full one-team.

If we accelerated the rollout and moved everyone into the open plan, it would be a game changer. No more closed doors creating little silos. Just full visibility, spontaneous conversations, and everyone including our geologists and reservoir engineers ... mixing it up with the rest of the business every day. That kind of constant collaboration would help us move faster, share knowledge better, and really crush the competition.
Management has already shown they’re willing to make bold calls on workspace. Speeding this up and finally transitioning Subsurface out of those temporary offices would send a strong message and unlock even more of the culture and performance gains we’ve been seeing.

Chevrons heading in the right direction. Let’s finish what we started and make the open environment the standard everywhere. Anyone else think it’s time to push harder on this? Especially curious how the field and ops folks see it when you’re in the office. Would getting Subsurface fully into the open plan help with handoffs and alignment, or am I off base?

Of course it’s not about collaboration. But companies are worse than pre covid with the on office stuff. I know someone at another company that said a senior manager sits by the door to see who is leaving “early”. Like 5 minutes early. Seriously what is going on? All the big companies are doing it. Spending money monitoring stuff that you thought went away in the early 2000s.

Me and the boys completed our first week of the old badge switcheroo. It was a wild success!

We take turns holding everyone else's badges. Then, the one holding the badges goes into the office and scans everybody else in. It works like a charm!

Now, each of us only goes in once per week!

We are already talking about ways to make it better. We are open to your ideas!

Hearing different rumors about Summer Friday’s this week.
WFH every Friday over the summer, two weeks of your choice to WFH. and up to your department head about coming to office Fridays.
Any truth of any of these?

Ever coming or we hybrid now

My team is in a different office, and I’m the only one at another site. With full-time RTO, how are people approaching this when it doesn’t impact team collaboration?

I want to work from home tomorrow, but I don’t want to miss my mighty badge swipe

I love coming to the office to see everyone (including me) play on their phones.

Sitting in AT&T's open office today. No assigned desks. Five day mandate. "Collaboration" is the official reason.
The reality: complete silence. Cold shoulders. Headphones. Everyone either annoyed or running on fumes. The only conversations happening are between people who already knew each other before they got here.

Forced proximity is not culture. It never was.

McElfresh posted about collaboration last week and got 403 likes from 130,000 employees. The open office told the truth he won't.

And for the person who always replies "see you on the commute" congratulations. You've perfectly summarized what AT&T calls culture.

Two hours of traffic. A hot desk with no name on it. Headphones in. Eyes down. And a COO posting about collaboration from a corner office while the rest of us perform presence for a badge reader.

This is what market-based culture looks like from the inside.

Work for a satellite office, don’t see much of a difference. Are they just tracking badge swipes at worst? I highly doubt this is enforceable across a 50k employee base

Went in-office for work today, and thankfully no one showed up so I can conduct my virtual meetings in peace. Happy Mental Health Awareness month!!!

Can we not do better here? If you want people in the office, maybe push a vacuum or dust once in a while? Office is so filthy we itch when we come in, cups and coffee are few and far between. No working water dispensers in any floor currently. Reserve space covered in grease from prior persons lunch…Thanks USBank for return to office bacterial frappe :(

I see people bragging that they badge in, have a coffee and leave. That is not return to office and is in violation.

If you want to work remote, that is your choice but work remote with a different company. I go in at least 3 days, some weeks I go in all 5 days.

Starting 9/26 employees are told to be in office 5 days per week. No doubt BNY will follow the same mandate as they they are always in lockstep with the other financial companies.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2026/04/29/business/fidelity-return-to-office-five-days-boston/#:~:text=Fidelity%2C%20which%20employs%20more%20than,immediately%20after%20the%20Great%20Recession.

Buckle up!

I think it’s time we revisit who owns reserved parking spaces - too many open and not enough general spots

We’re almost at a year of return to office and I still don’t have a desk. Anyone else?

It seems most building offices are constrained for space and with the recent return to office, it has made hiring in locations almost impossible. Are they going to open up new buildings are get leases for locations constrained?

Which office is the worst?

Heard rumors that HR is attempting to come up with a system to ensure everyone is spending 8 hours in the office.

Anyone else can confirm this?

Until now it seems they screen for badging in the office. This of course completely leaves out all the evening / weekend calls and booting up vpn on the laptop to resolve issues (sometimes for several hours), not to mention when you need to be in the house for the occasional service but can definitely work from home very efficiently.

Why even ask this question and upvote it, what did you think they’d say, 4 hours? The real question was are they tracking hours in order for it to count as an office day.

Hour long meeting full of insults. The idea that working in office will foster conversation and innovation is, as someone else has said, a fat load of kwap. There are SO many reasons for why this isn't going to go well on the 4th, but I don't want to beat a dead horse.

I'm just tired, man.

I'm really not trying to rant here, I'm actually asking. Does anyone feel productive when they come in? My office days are pure chaos. People talking about sports, playing on their phone, solving puzzles together. Random coworkers keep stopping by my desk to chat. I spend half my energy just trying to tune it all out so I can do my job. At home I get ten times the work done. How is any of this helping us collaborate?

So let me get this straight…

Leadership just rolled out a “neighborhood seating” plan to reduce coordination costs by literally assigning people to sit closer to executives. Because apparently the problem all along was… proximity?

What did we do before COVID? Walked over. Talked to people. Solved problems. No color-coded maps required.

Now we’ve got:

• Color-coded zones like we’re in kindergarten
• Executives getting prime, protected seating
• Everyone else fighting Hunger Games-style for what’s left
• And lines drawn on a floor plan like we’re zoning districts

And the justification? “Coordination costs drop when people are physically near each other.”

Translation: “We want you where we can see you.”

Let’s be real this isn’t about collaboration. It’s about control.

Also… using literal colored lines (including red) to divide where people belong? In a corporate environment? In 2026? You really didn’t think that one through.

Meanwhile, instead of investing in actual tools, processes, or fixing broken workflows… we’re rearranging chairs and calling it strategy.

If this is what “driving value through proximity” looks like, we’ve officially lost the plot.

Girl in 3WF has been openly playing Solitaire ALL morning.
The most IDGAF move I’ve ever seen.

Those of you who aren't in a production based role and aren't being tracked 24/7 do you keep yourself active on teams even when you have nothing to do?

I know that would personally make me feel much better about my Phase 2 colleagues being excused from RTO, while the rest of us are required to be in the office doing the same exact job. Maybe some motivational posters? The kitten dangling from a tree branch that says “hang in there”?

I was in the office and there was a lady repeatedly peeking into all the focus/conferences rooms on my floor. Not sure if she was just a busy body or it was her job. I hope people continue to use those rooms so at least there’s less people in open areas. There’s little to no separation between the cube spaces and it gets loud. Funny how it’s acknowledged that those rooms help people to focus yet there is a horrible open space design everywhere with no effort to make it a better experience.

Just saying.
The whole thing makes no sense.
Why come in at all.

Today is the day that many folks in SP1 are moving offices. What is the intent of the office building reshuffles? Will space be sublet out or is this just to free up space for future growth?

AC not working in Burlington everyone is complaining, its so miserable. We're all jammed into these smaller rooms I'm sure all the body heat is not helping. How about let us leave an hr early instead of having this 1 hr social hr!!! The A side is working of course because no one is working over there.

Do IP logs only count during certain hours?

They give half-baked answers, I don't feel like asking any. F the policy.

PORTLAND GUY DAY:

Show up between 930 and 10 as a group. Almost everyone wearing sunglasses in the office like complete tools.

Immediately take a coffee break in the Cafe with the entire group until 1015-1030.

Take an hour lunch 12-1.

Leave between 2-3 PM.

I’m told I can’t have my phone out at my desk even if it’s just to pull it out and turn on music while I work.

Meanwhile, the people who sit in the next row over talk all day and it’s so distracting. I have no idea how to get anything done. And I have people from other areas walking over to them all day long as well and all these people talk about are their lunch plans and then complain about their peers at other sites.

I need to put my AirPods in and listen to something that helps me stay focused- the way I see it. I’ll get fired either way… either from pulling my phone out to turn on Spotify or because my work is not as productive as it used to be because of these geniuses that sit around me who have zero respect for others.

So I’m guessing the bank went back to assigned seating? I’ve been out on sabbatical and just returned to our new space, but all of the seats appear to be assigned and I have no idea where I should randomly sit.

It doesn’t feel good to start my day like this every morning, trying to search for a place to sit that isn’t near the break room. But I’m told all the other spaces are neighborhoods. I can’t continue to take calls from a desk next to the break room so people keep asking me to go on mute because I hear all the noise, but then I have to forget to go off mute to start talking and lose my opportunities to speak up. This is ridiculous.

Those teams sitting in a neighborhood who are not on the phone all day. Need to have their dedicated seating over here. I don’t know how they got away with giving them the prime seats.. but I can’t continue working like this and I will be figuring out a way to work from home if this continues.

• Jacksonville, Florida

Get your popcorn ready!

Remember when that was a thing? Now they scheduled a mandatory meeting for Friday at 4 PM. Then they cancelled it at 3:55. Then they rescheduled it for Monday at 8 AM. That's the new culture.

My hub doesn’t have coffee pods or tea bags, nothing. Bring your own coffee, tea bags,and bottled water.
‘So cheap

Is this just my hub or bank policy to not even offer free coffee pods and tea bag…not even water other than from the sink