https://www.tomsguide.com/computing/office-software/microsoft-teams-will-start-snitching-to-your-boss-when-youre-not-in-the-office-and-this-update-is-coming-in-december
I don’t care as my team knows I’m not in office, but between this and AI taking 80% of jobs (or some similar dire forecast), it’s absurd to give anything to the company beyond the minimum.
@3ds
H-1B is a temporary U.S. visa for skilled workers in specialty occupations, requiring a bachelor’s degree. It’s capped annually and involves a lottery system, with a max stay of 6 years. Many professionals use the H-1B as a stepping stone to a green card.
On the other hand, EB-1C is part of the EB-1 category, which is for individuals who are multinational executives or managers. If you’ve worked abroad for at least 1 year in a managerial or executive role and are being transferred to a U.S. branch of your company, you may be eligible for an EB-1C green card. The EB-1 category is one of the fastest paths to a green card, doesn’t require labor certification, and avoids the lottery system.
Other green card categories include EB-2 (for professionals with advanced degrees or exceptional ability) and EB-3 (for skilled workers, professionals, and other workers). These categories have longer processing times and different requirements, but still offer a path to permanent residency.
Many Indian companies use a strategy where they send employees in managerial or executive roles to Canada for a year. After that, they can become eligible for the EB-1C green card when transferred to a U.S. branch. This allows employees to gain the required experience while benefiting from Canada’s more flexible immigration options, which can also be a stepping stone to U.S. immigration.
@392 Most, myself included, don’t what these visa categories are. what’s the difference between h1b and e1b and what’s the significance of canada in this.
The EB1C post for the Tools team is inaccurate if it is in context of Schwab
Some third-party vendors in the industry are known to promote employees into “manager” roles and move them to Canada so they can later qualify for the EB-1C category. This workaround isn’t new—it's a pretty common strategy used across multiple companies.
Meanwhile, the situation for India-born applicants continues to be tough. Even people who manage to stay employed through brutal job markets often end up waiting so long for a green card that they don’t get it until they’re around 45–50 years old.
For context, here’s the EB-1 primary applicant data from 2014–2024:
6,938 | 6,750 | 8,540 | 9,466 | 8,769 | 7,882 | 6,991 | 8,169 | 9,016 | 11,970 | 11,971
Total primary applicants over this period: 96,462
If you assume ~2.5 people per case (including dependents), that’s roughly:
≈ 241,155 people
And with only about 2,500 EB-1 visas available per year for India (plus whatever spillover happens), the backlog and wait times are obviously massive.
So many companies are doing this. It's not just location, they can see your screens. If you have one of those wiggle sw apps on you laptop, or use a manual auto mouse movers, or even saw someone use a thing that manually pushed the Enter button every 10 secs, they can see you aren't doing work. Big brother has evolved. Enjoy the WFH days. Mwhaaaaa
The company already uses several means to know the location of devices accessing Schwab's network. They use it primarily for the purposes of compliance with laws on working internationally and preventing unauthorized access from prohibited countries. It could fairly easily be used to determine WFH vs Office, but they have this information just from badging activity, so there would be no need for it at the larger level. Individually this kind of info being reported by Teams may give managers/coworkers easy access though, and for that reason it would be more likely to be turned off. HR generally does not like or allow personnel data (like tracking location) to be available without restriction.
@hm Between 2014 and 2025, approximately 80,000 unique EB-1 (all subcategories) I-140 petitions have been approved. Since 2020, most newly approved I-140s in the EB-1 category have been for Indian applicants. Additionally, there continues to be a steady inflow of individuals moving upward from the EB-2 and EB-3 categories.
@k3 That feature was status. This new feature is location. Status was indicative of the computer being on and not in screen lock. This is different and using network data.
this feature was already turned on before i left. if you hovered over a person’s name in teams, there was an “in office” field.
@hb I already know some folks who had talks with their PLs to opt for GCC once it's open in India and come back in an year on EB1C to fast track their green card.
The EB1C post for the Tools team is inaccurate if it is in context of Schwab employees. Schwab doesn’t have an IT corporate office outside the United States yet. So Schwab cannot sponsor EB1C (multinational manager) green cards.
A while back, I was part of a team that specialized in supporting a variety of third-party tools. We were informally known as the "Tools Team," and our main focus was on integrating and managing these external software solutions.
Our manager came from a "desi" firm that had relocated to Canada. It was pretty clear that he was trying to pull off an EB1-C scam. For those who might not know, EB1-C is a visa category for multinational executives and managers, and some people use it as a fast track to obtaining a green card.
This manager was always asking co-workers if someone had arrived, if they were late, or if they were working from home.
Now, "Microsoft Teams will soon inform your boss if you’re working from home," which added to the surveillance culture. Now, his informers or minions have to do real work.
they already know by your ip address and badge if you are in the office
STS and legal are unlikely to implement this. But badge access is tracked.