#officeculture

RR5 desks being uprooted in our department. Nice cubes being removed in favor of call center style desks sandwiched together with no privacy to speak to customers and clients alike. Floor will resemble a boiler room environment over the next month. I guess we are looking at the Sears customer support model from 1988?

WFH works for me so much better, but, hey - what to do.

We have 60

First you have to search for a parking space.
Next after the parking lot experience, your search for a desk will be pretty much fruitless so you work in a break area.
Then when you have to go you have to search for an open stall.

Three hours at a ballpark is manageable but 8 hours of trying to find a usable toilet is utter craziness and then to have your manager ask where were you I see you were away from your computer for 20 minutes.

Take a sip every time you hear:

• We've got more work to do

• We gotta make the hard decisions

• Xerox is BACK. We are here!

• The Street is loving us/The Street is excited

• I will answer that later

Funny skit by comedian Joe Fenti. Think we can all relate!

https://youtube.com/shorts/U9Tk12ZrS3k?si=owuft9DO1AYNj4Lm

Email went out today telling us to go in on mondays for Friday bc Tuesday thru Thursday are the busiest days. Yeah a--holes you’re cramming us all in and making people show up into less space.

Hopefully to lighten the mood for some this evening while they enjoy an IPA or wine (or even scotch, Peter since we know you come back here often).

The record Halloween blizzard hit Minnesota inundating Twin Cities and Duluth both over 2 feet of snow.

Desi's 1st day of work as CEO was Friday Nov 1st. Somehow he showed up but people at 3M Center were given Friday off. Not sure about Cottage grove. I don't even remember how people were told but THAT 3M is a faded image of what is today. Sounds like SOLV is being ruined by Hanson.

Any fun times feel free to share as I head in after Halloween on the porch and get the 1st IPA of the night poured. Cheers!

They will tell you in Townhalls that other places "like" the Open Plan, unassigned hoteling.

The truth is that if you actually speak to any of those "other places" (San Ramon, Perth, etc.); none of them have a good thing to say about it.

HMP is a slow motion disaster, designed to get you to quite without severance.

Just drop in, plenty of parking and places to sit.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DQCYbPOFGpK/

Why they give me only 2 weeks?

I put on my resume that I’m management material. How long before I apply for greatnes?

I heard the office was a hoe down show down ya feel. When we going back?

Has anyone seen this report? What is all on it? Is it a yearly average? Does it show login/logout etc? What have you been told on it?

https://www.reddit.com/r/boringdystopia/comments/1oe0ud0/jp_morgan_new_headquarters

How are y'all liking it so far? Looks super enticing - comfortable, efficient, and productive surroundings where I'm sure you can all do your best work

To the dude constantly on your phone with no control over the volume of your voice: STFU or take it to a focus room. You know who you are.

My most minor gripe that would make me 0.5% happier about being in the office 5x days a week is better coffee. Also, why are we nickel and diming employees for drip coffee from the cafe..

1. Salaried employees who stroll into the office over a half hour after everyone has arrived and leaves exactly at 5:00. They know their boss doesn’t keep track of their whereabouts, so they come and go as they please. I know for a fact that particular ones are not putting in hours online in the evening and weekends to make up for this time.

2. Untrained or lazy employees who forward an email to random people / departments looking for help, and the subject matter has nothing to do with what our department handles. They CC others on the email to make it look like they are doing something, then the CC people bombard us with angry replies because we haven’t responded. So, it’s our problem to deal with since the original sender decided to punt the ball over to us.

Why do some people feel SPECIAL that they can spend the entire day in a focus room rather than the intended max 2 hours?
It’s not your private office!

AT&T made some half a55ed promises to smooth out the RTO experience. I've not seen changes of any substance. Tell us where your office is located and list a few specific things that must be addressed to make that work location somewhat tolerable.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMFLC7IS4QA&list=TLPQMDIxMDIwMjUL_TeNWO39JA&index=6

Can someone tell our executives to seek a style consultant. I remember when the board dressed well, shaved, hair was cut. I hope they dress better when the meet clients. It seems they all go for the Seattle Grunge look. The ladies look professional. The guys not so much.

If a coworker talks to us for 30 mins in the hall and we can’t touch our computer does that mean we have to stay an extra 30 mins in the office?

Genuine question - Does anyone even find themselves productive in the office? Not here to rant - actually just genuinely curious. My in office days are filled with trying to tune out an outrageous amount of noise and side chatter about sports, etc. (people playing mini golf in the aisles, solving puzzles). How is that collaborative when it comes to a work environment? I have to struggle to tune out the insane amount of noise and random people coming up to my desk to talk in order to actually get my job done properly. I get ten times the amount of work done at home. So frustrating.

Our team has it figured out. Since leadership wants us to collaborate face to face, we all show up around 9:30-10:00 a.m. to avoid traffic, stand around visiting for a few hours, all go out to 2 hour team lunches (the restaurants around the office are so much better than in our suburbs!), come back and visit some more, and leave around 2:00 p.m.

Office days are the best!

When I worked in ECMO, I noticed that every single manager and team lead had a photo of their family for their computer wallpaper. Isn't that weird? What's that all about? Do they get a memo saying something along the lines of, "Now that you're a manager...", or do they just tribalistically recognize the "family values" hokum? Seriously makes Wells Fargo seem like a cult. Is it this way at all large corporations?

For those that haven't been in an office for years, what is the general dress code in the Hub locations?
Is everyone wearing jeans these days?

Any other lines of business that are going in 4 days besides Corp Risk?

The office has become a shell. For those who have returned, it feels like working in a morgue — silence, no collaboration, no energy. At least at home people could put the radio on and feel some life around them. We tried free coffee for a week, but once that was gone, so were the people. Now we have staff commuting in only to sit in isolation on video calls. It is soul-destroying, and I worry about the mental impact on those who are complying. If management isn’t prepared to properly enforce office attendance, then this halfway approach is pointless and damaging.

RTO kickstarted the gossip-mill. “So and so did/said/posted this!!” Did. Ot miss that at all.

The chair i sat in today has been sat on by over 1000 different bottoms. The keyboard and mouse i handled, was handled by some poor snotty nose woman yesterday. This workstation has a weird smell to it.

Never been much of a city person. I know some of you folk are used to sharing subway trains and busses. Never had to do any of that myself and i sure am thankful. I can see how this.. ahem.. logic is applied here.

Its not that i dont enjoy sharing the workstation as Janice, Jessica, Albert, Ethan, Olivia, Mason, Sophia, Liam, Ava, Noah, Emma, Lucas, Isabella, Elijah, Mia, James, Harper, Alexander, Aria, Benjamin, Layla, William, Zoe, Daniel, Violet, Matthew, Chloe, Jacob, Stella, Samuel, Grace, Nathan, Audrey, Henry, Scarlett, Owen, Lily, Caleb, Nova, Isaac, Riley, Julian, Penelope, Carter, Savannah, Leo, Autumn, Gabriel, Hailey, Wyatt, Aurora, and Miles, its just.. I'm not used to it i guess? Look, i get it, i'm just a spoiled first world country person.

I did invest in my own car to get here. So at least thats still private. I'm told everyone can see all the things i type and do on the computer. Not sure why they would be interested in the boring things that i do, but okay.

I am getting better at tuning out my paripheal vision since Paul is sitting close enough that i can see his mouth moving (hes chewing some gum). I was thinking about having him look over this email im about to send to Sanjeet Pashminderdajeed, he's the one heading our big project from india. I wonder what its like over there this time of year? I'm losing my train of thought, what was i doing? Ah right, trying to tune out Pauls gum chewing habit. Oh look at that, its time for lunch! I wonder what the vending machine has in store today?

What are the future plans for T&D in Edinburgh? The fact that we are currently based in a WeWork office, which is a co-working space, does not seem very promising..

RTO either has a lot of no shows, or 3M cut that many! Hearing some avoiding RTO because boss and co-workers are in other states or countries, so why RTO? For those that are in office, most are just on calls with global employees anyways. It makes no sense to push a RTO

I left Ford many years ago. I can’t believe these RTO stories. Not enough desks, working in cafeteria, people stealing chairs?? Absolute insanity. Which buildings are like this?

State: Illinois
Company: Rivian
Locations: Normal, Illinois
Departments affected: Salaried manufacturing roles
Number laid off: About 140, roughly 1 percent of workforce
Headquarters: Irvine, California
What happened: Rivian confirmed a small salaried reduction around its Normal factory as it preps for the R2 model and rebalances capacity. Local reporting puts the cut near 140 people, with hourly roles unaffected. The company said impacted staff can apply for other openings.  
Sources: https://www.25newsnow.com/2025/06/27/rivian-announces-layoffs-some-salary-employees/

https://techcrunch.com/2025/06/26/rivian-cuts-dozens-on-manufacturing-team-ahead-of-r2-launch/

Does anyone here have any crazy, wild, or just outright weird stories from Comcast?

During my time at Chesterbrook, PA location we had a BedBug infestation, apparantly an employee brought it into work and we had to go on lockdown back in 2016 to exterminate.

Also had an employee who was black out drunk at a Happy Hour and was asked to sleep it off in her car, Yikes.

I’ve been at Teradata for 7 years now, and I still feel lucky to come into the Rancho Bernardo office. The gym here is awesome, the cafeteria is way better than most places I’ve worked, and the natural light in the building just makes the day feel lighter. The people are the real difference though—helpful, down-to-earth, and always willing to share what they know.

Yeah, there have been some tough cuts, but that’s true almost everywhere these days. What I really like is that Teradata seems to be steering in the right direction with Vantage—focused on innovation and positioning us for the long run. I can see the vision, and it makes me hopeful I’ll still be here another 20 years.