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.
17 replies (most recent on top)
On the next survey I am going to suggest cross functional mandatory team building exercises.
I’ve noticed the same thing in my building — people seem genuinely worn down with low morale these days, and I think that heaviness shows up in how distant or standoffish they can be. The other week I was waiting outside for a colleague I was giving a ride home, and I ended up people‑watching as everyone streamed out of the building. Their faces struck me. There was this blank, drained look, almost as if the life had been pressed out of them. It actually reminded me of a documentary I once saw about North Korea, showing commuters moving through a subway station with that same lost, beaten‑down expression. It was unsettling to see such a similar look on employees in a place that’s supposed to feel free and full of possibility.
T has hired some weird people; very few like RTO, but damn, some grown a-s adults do everything they can to not make eye contact, say a word or acknowledge another human beings presence. How TF you get a job? You work for a communications company and you wouldn’t know the meaning of that word if it slapped you or your mama in the face
I’ve noticed the same thing in my building — people seem genuinely worn down these days, and I think that heaviness shows up in how distant or standoffish they can be. The other week I was waiting outside for a colleague I was giving a ride home, and I ended up people‑watching as everyone streamed out of the building. Their faces struck me. There was this blank, drained look, almost as if the life had been pressed out of them. It actually reminded me of a documentary I once saw about North Korea, showing commuters moving through a subway station with that same lost, beaten‑down expression. It was unsettling to see such a similar look here, in a place that’s supposed to feel free and full of possibility.
T has hired some weird people; very few like RTO, but damn, some grown a-s adults do everything they can to not make eye contact, say a word or acknowledge another human beings presence. How TF you get a job? You work for a communications company and you wouldn’t know the meaning of that word if it slapped you or your mama in the face
@fx , misanthropes (un)united. 😏
Not to be rude, but some of us don't want to talk to people.
Nevermind collaborate. I go days without even seeing anyone other than the security guard. There’s three people on my whole floor. The other two folks sit on the other side of the office. I rarely even see them.
I somehow missed the first couple RTO mandates, but they finally caught up with me. They sent me to a call center that was at that time, at best, 1/3 occupied. Half the floor had been vacant for a decade, per the manager tasked with setting me up. Easily 100 call center stations, caked in 10 years of dust. When I got there, there was ONE other person sitting a cube all by herself, and when they brought me in, she was "YAY, I have someone to collaborate with! /s" Our workflows never came within a mile of each other.
After a couple of months she got surplussed (it was good news for her), so I remained in the Fortress of Solitude that looked like a scene from a first person sho-ter in the deserted Soviet city of Pripyat after the Chernobyl disaster. They eventually moved me to a different call center where there were more people and less dust, but just as much "collaboration."
My friends sit in different buildings. I can’t sit with them, I have to sit in my assigned building alone. When I do get the chance to visit for a meeting or retirement party, the Presence report notes my not being where I’m ’supposed’ to be even though I’m at a company admin office.
I have learned to conform at my assigned building. I walk without making eye contact. I sit and eat lunch alone. Keep my earphones on regardless if I’m listening to music or not.
This is how the new collaboration plan is actually working.
I go in, I sit by people I don’t know, I don’t talk to anyone in the office, I get my work done. I have Teams meetings to collaborate ON MY Work, located in other hubs. I could easily do this from home like I had been doing for the past 27 years. If I wasn’t getting my job done I’d have been laid off long ago. Just because I’m at the office now, doesn’t mean I have to talk to anyone in person to get work done. Maybe if my team was colocated, it would be different.
RTO is all about the employee count reducing wolf in collaboration clothing!!.
Regardless if who was in office, incentives would be there to get people out again & get more money flowing to businesses again, HOWEVER Stank didn’t have to do the HARD 5.
I’m happy to trade with you. I am surrounded by needy people who have nothing else to do except hang around others’ desks. I get interrupted constantly, even when I clearly am in a Teams Meeting. I have real work to do. I don’t have time to make small talk and make sure your emotional needs are met. Leave me alone.
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.
That's some serious entitlememt. How much effort do YOU spend meeting and talking to people in the office?
No.
Blame spineless "managers" who couldn't be bothered to enforce expectations (to the extent that these problems even existed), along with bootlickers like you that try to malign the workers instead.
blame your coworkers that abused wfh
Set the example that others need to follow.