@agnetha1988 If they are not doing their job that's not quiet quitting. The definition of quiet quitting is to still do your job. You just don't go above and beyond for no extra pay. A lot of people aren't seeing the benefit to "hustle" culture anymore. It certainly drives people to work insane hours to the detriment of their families. But the people who are quiet quitting still do the work required for the job.
Took a job 6 months ago that is hybrid. (Advertised 2 days a week) and they just announced they are going back to fully in office
- Thread starter ilkhanapit
- Start date
-
- Tags
- working moms
agnetha1988
New member
@ke1220 Take it up with the University of Chicago. That was their phrase I borrowed.
And you do if you want to be considered for any higher position. It's common policy in many companies that you need to be able and willing to do the job you want to be promoted into. EDS (the first consulting company I worked for) had that as a virtual article of faith. You had to not only do the job you wanted to get it but you had to train your replacement as well.
I realize that's a little too close to saying, "You have to pay your dues to get ahead" for Gen-Z and they REALLY don't like that idea, but it's still policy in many places.
And you do if you want to be considered for any higher position. It's common policy in many companies that you need to be able and willing to do the job you want to be promoted into. EDS (the first consulting company I worked for) had that as a virtual article of faith. You had to not only do the job you wanted to get it but you had to train your replacement as well.
I realize that's a little too close to saying, "You have to pay your dues to get ahead" for Gen-Z and they REALLY don't like that idea, but it's still policy in many places.
@agnetha1988 Companies also routinely abuse this practice by piling on more work and not giving a promotion. They demand that employees live only for the company and don't have a life outside of work. I'm a lot older than Gen Z but I've recently had a situation with my son that reoriented my priorities. I don't care about climbing the ladder anymore. I do my job and keep my head down. My performance reviews have been good and no one has complained about productivity. What would I get from hustle culture right now? More pay, probably, but also insane hours and no time with my family. With my benefits staying the same. This would likely lead to burnout, so no thanks. The tradeoff isn't worth it to me. If that makes me lazy then so be it. I refuse to live only for the company I work for.
As for my definition, that's how "quiet quitting" is colloquially referred to, except by business articles complaining about it.
As for my definition, that's how "quiet quitting" is colloquially referred to, except by business articles complaining about it.
agnetha1988
New member
@ke1220 The point was being made that RTO has reduced productivity.
It has only done so because is happening. They're not getting pre-Covid levels of output, they're not getting WFH levels of output.
It amounts to an informal work action (I'm not opposed to that, I'm not even arguing that WFH is bad).
But WFH did and continues to provide reduced productivity as compared to pre-Covid productivity (which defaulted to the in-office work model).
What Gen-Z thinks of as "paying their dues" is getting a raise and a promotion after a week of showing up on time, sober, doing only and exactly what's in their job description ignoring any "other duties as assigned" bits, and unaccompanied by a BF/GF.
That's not how it works.
That's certainly not how it worked for me or any other Boomer I know.
It took years to climb the ladder and during those years you had to put in extra work if you wanted to climb.
Doing just enough to not get fired isn't ever going to get you more than you have.
If you're happy with that, Wonderful. Stay there. Live your life. No judgement, no criticism, none at all. I mean that as sincerely as I can express. I know many people who found their niche and stayed there. I found mine (I have quit jobs when forced into management positions - I loathe that work - Ive done it on occasion, but I didn't go into IT because I wanted to be a leader of people).
If you're not happy with it, though, it takes putting in the time and effort for an extended period of time to move up.
I know it looks like the surviving Boomers have it easy, but you're missing the ones that weeded themselves out. Except for the Boomers, Gen-Z has the highest rate of home ownership of any currently living generation at the ages they're at now. They're still only about 2 percentage points off the Boomers and we had the world's recovery from WW-II boosting the American economy. And still they whine and moan about how easy it was for us and how hard it is for them and how every problem they face is unique to them and nO onE HaS EvEr Had iT aS HarD as tHey Do.
You think looking for a job now is hard? Try it without the internet. Try it with having to have resumes printed (no such things as home PCs in my youth or home printers of any kind) and mail them out. Try it without knowing about jobs more than the local paper away from your home or paying a percentage of your first year's salary to a professional to get it out beyond that. Phone interviews? Nope. Every one required you to go there, generally at your own expense unless you were in some extraordinary career. Job hunting was work at the time, not just something you could do between rounds of .
We didn't get here because it was handed to us. We got here because we understood the relationships between work habits, professional reputation, and potential value to management.
Yes, we got taken advantage of as well. And we watched for it and moved to different jobs if it happened. EDS bent me over and did me dry when I converted from Computer Operator to Systems Engineer - four years locked into a salary 1/3 that of my peers doing the same work they did with a massive promissory note hanging over my head if I quit.
I toughed it out and jumped ship the DAY my note obligation was done and more than made up for it very, very quickly.
From there it was just up and up and up and up. I paid my dues. My early consulting jobs, I want way above and beyond to build my professional reputation, and I never looked back.
Did I give away hours to clients? Absolutely, now and then, when it seemed appropriate. Some of them got as much as 10 hours a week "off the books" because I wanted to polish up some project beyond what was specifically spec'd because it was needed or because it opened the door to some other improvement that they needed that I could then provide.
In 30+ years the only IT assignment I ever got fired from was because I got hired by mistake by a small team of rabid lebians at BCBS Florida who mistook my name on the resume for the female variant of that same name and were shocked that they'd accidentally hired a man. I won a wrongful termination suit from the consulting company that placed me there (technically they didn't fire me, they just terminated my contract the day I got there, the consulting company fired me.
I had multiple clients who were always ready to take me back when one assignment ended and I was ready for the next one. I only left that world because I had kids getting old enough for school and I didn't want to bounce around any more from assignment. I took about an 80% pay cut to settle down as an in-house employee at a major auto/home insurance company and still had a six-digit income (counting the annual bonus which always came through).
My advice to OP stands. Memorialize as much of your recruiting and hiring information as you can, get your resume updated, and stand your ground. Even in a right-to-work state, you might well have a defense against job abandonment if you were hired into a WFH/Hybrid job and they redefined the job out from under your ability/willingness to work.
But, understand the rest of you, you're not owed WFH unless you were promised it. Management pays a price for that. It may be one they're willing to pay in order to get a leg up on recruiting in a tight job market, but there is a price and ignoring that because you want it not to be true isn't honest.
It has only done so because is happening. They're not getting pre-Covid levels of output, they're not getting WFH levels of output.
It amounts to an informal work action (I'm not opposed to that, I'm not even arguing that WFH is bad).
But WFH did and continues to provide reduced productivity as compared to pre-Covid productivity (which defaulted to the in-office work model).
What Gen-Z thinks of as "paying their dues" is getting a raise and a promotion after a week of showing up on time, sober, doing only and exactly what's in their job description ignoring any "other duties as assigned" bits, and unaccompanied by a BF/GF.
That's not how it works.
That's certainly not how it worked for me or any other Boomer I know.
It took years to climb the ladder and during those years you had to put in extra work if you wanted to climb.
Doing just enough to not get fired isn't ever going to get you more than you have.
If you're happy with that, Wonderful. Stay there. Live your life. No judgement, no criticism, none at all. I mean that as sincerely as I can express. I know many people who found their niche and stayed there. I found mine (I have quit jobs when forced into management positions - I loathe that work - Ive done it on occasion, but I didn't go into IT because I wanted to be a leader of people).
If you're not happy with it, though, it takes putting in the time and effort for an extended period of time to move up.
I know it looks like the surviving Boomers have it easy, but you're missing the ones that weeded themselves out. Except for the Boomers, Gen-Z has the highest rate of home ownership of any currently living generation at the ages they're at now. They're still only about 2 percentage points off the Boomers and we had the world's recovery from WW-II boosting the American economy. And still they whine and moan about how easy it was for us and how hard it is for them and how every problem they face is unique to them and nO onE HaS EvEr Had iT aS HarD as tHey Do.
You think looking for a job now is hard? Try it without the internet. Try it with having to have resumes printed (no such things as home PCs in my youth or home printers of any kind) and mail them out. Try it without knowing about jobs more than the local paper away from your home or paying a percentage of your first year's salary to a professional to get it out beyond that. Phone interviews? Nope. Every one required you to go there, generally at your own expense unless you were in some extraordinary career. Job hunting was work at the time, not just something you could do between rounds of .
We didn't get here because it was handed to us. We got here because we understood the relationships between work habits, professional reputation, and potential value to management.
Yes, we got taken advantage of as well. And we watched for it and moved to different jobs if it happened. EDS bent me over and did me dry when I converted from Computer Operator to Systems Engineer - four years locked into a salary 1/3 that of my peers doing the same work they did with a massive promissory note hanging over my head if I quit.
I toughed it out and jumped ship the DAY my note obligation was done and more than made up for it very, very quickly.
From there it was just up and up and up and up. I paid my dues. My early consulting jobs, I want way above and beyond to build my professional reputation, and I never looked back.
Did I give away hours to clients? Absolutely, now and then, when it seemed appropriate. Some of them got as much as 10 hours a week "off the books" because I wanted to polish up some project beyond what was specifically spec'd because it was needed or because it opened the door to some other improvement that they needed that I could then provide.
In 30+ years the only IT assignment I ever got fired from was because I got hired by mistake by a small team of rabid lebians at BCBS Florida who mistook my name on the resume for the female variant of that same name and were shocked that they'd accidentally hired a man. I won a wrongful termination suit from the consulting company that placed me there (technically they didn't fire me, they just terminated my contract the day I got there, the consulting company fired me.
I had multiple clients who were always ready to take me back when one assignment ended and I was ready for the next one. I only left that world because I had kids getting old enough for school and I didn't want to bounce around any more from assignment. I took about an 80% pay cut to settle down as an in-house employee at a major auto/home insurance company and still had a six-digit income (counting the annual bonus which always came through).
My advice to OP stands. Memorialize as much of your recruiting and hiring information as you can, get your resume updated, and stand your ground. Even in a right-to-work state, you might well have a defense against job abandonment if you were hired into a WFH/Hybrid job and they redefined the job out from under your ability/willingness to work.
But, understand the rest of you, you're not owed WFH unless you were promised it. Management pays a price for that. It may be one they're willing to pay in order to get a leg up on recruiting in a tight job market, but there is a price and ignoring that because you want it not to be true isn't honest.
@agnetha1988 First off, you are the one making this a generational war here. I'm in my 40s. I'm not Gen Z. I've paid my dues. I just sympathize with the frustration of company cultures that promote overwork to the point of burnout, because that's great for them but is terrible for the employee. They pay lip service to work life balance for their employees, but rarely follow through on it.
To be fair, I know a lot of people get a sense of achievement from their work and that's a great thing. I did at one point as well. But after my son's cancer diagnosis what I did at work seemed to matter a lot less than it did before. So, yes, I'm comfortable where I am. My benefits are good and I enjoy the people I work with. They have also been very accommodating with regard to my son's appointments, which is invaluable right now. Those are the kinds of things I am looking for in a job at the moment and changing to a higher paying, but more stressful, job would likely take some of those things away.
As for your stats, the reason why you are getting pushback is because I've seen a number of articles saying the opposite; that productivity increased among employees working from home. There will always be people who abuse the system and goof off instead of working, but those people existed when most people worked in person as well.
To be fair, I know a lot of people get a sense of achievement from their work and that's a great thing. I did at one point as well. But after my son's cancer diagnosis what I did at work seemed to matter a lot less than it did before. So, yes, I'm comfortable where I am. My benefits are good and I enjoy the people I work with. They have also been very accommodating with regard to my son's appointments, which is invaluable right now. Those are the kinds of things I am looking for in a job at the moment and changing to a higher paying, but more stressful, job would likely take some of those things away.
As for your stats, the reason why you are getting pushback is because I've seen a number of articles saying the opposite; that productivity increased among employees working from home. There will always be people who abuse the system and goof off instead of working, but those people existed when most people worked in person as well.
agnetha1988
New member
@ke1220 All but one of those "studies" talking about productivity increases were including employee-side benefits like reduced commuting time and reduced daycare costs as company benefits.
That isn't how productivity is measured in the sense that businesses say "productivity is down".
Yes, in overall life balance, it benefits workers to WFH.
But to business there is a cost and some of them either can't or won't pay that cost.
There's a difference between goofing off a little at work and buying hardware to allow you to spent the day away from your computer while you're deliberately deceiving your boss about your work status. That's just theft. There's an entire industry out there dedicated to making that possible for WFH employees.
I think it's a little more than what you're making it out to be.
That isn't how productivity is measured in the sense that businesses say "productivity is down".
Yes, in overall life balance, it benefits workers to WFH.
But to business there is a cost and some of them either can't or won't pay that cost.
There's a difference between goofing off a little at work and buying hardware to allow you to spent the day away from your computer while you're deliberately deceiving your boss about your work status. That's just theft. There's an entire industry out there dedicated to making that possible for WFH employees.
I think it's a little more than what you're making it out to be.
@agnetha1988 That article is about one specific company. Here’s one about another Chinese company that said performance increases 13% with WFH. It’s almost like it’s not the same at every company… https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/facult...working-home-work-evidence-chinese-experiment
The Chicago paper is also during the initial phase of early Covid where there was an abrupt and forced change to WFH. Their theory is that the additional meetings in this period are what caused more work time with less productivity. This totally tracks because an abrupt change to WFH would require trial and error for a large company to figure out meeting rhythm, etc. whereas my job was already remote before Covid and I have a lot of remote colleagues, so it was not too difficult to integrate the rest of our on site team into our remote work rhythms. And once you’re in the swing of things you don’t need as many coordination and check in meetings. So this study really isn’t a silver bullet against all remote work. I’d be curious if they repeated it with the WFH staff from same company now, over two years later.
The Chicago paper is also during the initial phase of early Covid where there was an abrupt and forced change to WFH. Their theory is that the additional meetings in this period are what caused more work time with less productivity. This totally tracks because an abrupt change to WFH would require trial and error for a large company to figure out meeting rhythm, etc. whereas my job was already remote before Covid and I have a lot of remote colleagues, so it was not too difficult to integrate the rest of our on site team into our remote work rhythms. And once you’re in the swing of things you don’t need as many coordination and check in meetings. So this study really isn’t a silver bullet against all remote work. I’d be curious if they repeated it with the WFH staff from same company now, over two years later.
agnetha1988
New member
@huey Okay, you're right and all the metrics are wrong. I apologize and I'll go hide in the corner now.
/s
Do you really think companies want their employees back in the office if it's cheaper to leave them at home?
Get your head out of your . . . turtleneck . . . and think. Use that blue mush between your ears and think about what motivates business owners.
They don't give an airborne fornication at Earth's primary satellite about anything but the bottom line.
THEY have metrics that THEY trust and THOSE METRICS tell them that productivity went down with WFH and went down WORSE with RTO.
Now, whether it's the line of business the company is in or the management tools in use for monitoring WFH (apparently any monitoring is resented - that never came up when I did WFH (for on-call stuff or emergency stuff when I was an in-house employee - never a routine thing)) or some other aspect of things, certainly which company it is (or even which division in a very large company it is) could easily affect productivity rates between WFH and RTO, but it's not within the employee's scope to know that.
It's management's job and if they're seeing substantial productivity drops with WFH that can't be explained by Covid and want RTO, then it's RTO (again, OP, if you were PROMISED this, that's a different thing).
That's not a generational thing. It's a cost accounting thing.
If the numbers get WORSE after RTO than before WFH, then that's an employee problem. If the issue is that the workforce contains a proportionally larger number of younger workers then it's a generational problem (that's likely - it was fairly big news not long back that many, many Boomers simply did not return to work after Covid at all).
As much as Gen-Z likes to pretend that they've got it so much worse than everyone else ever did ever in the whole history of the world, they're ahead of everyone but the Boomers in home ownership at their age and only about 2 or 3% behind the Boomers and WE had a worldwide recovery period after WW-II boosting us.
There's an entire market of tools out there designed to cheat employers for WFH workers. Do you think that market exists in a vacuum? Of COURSE there are bad actors involved there and of course they're stupid enough to brag about it on social media.
RTO has costs associated with it that both employers and employees have to pay. I won't do the details unless you ask, but it's substantial on both sides.
WFH has costs associated with it that both employers and employees have to pay, although the immediate costs there are highly skewed toward the employer paying.
Ultimately it is management's job to figure out which one provides the most benefit to the company and implement that.
If they have to pay off some workers hired with WFH guarantees, they'll do that (I suspect). If they have to lose some because they can't or won't RTO, they'll do that as well.
But it's their decision to make. Theirs. Unless you're in a position to buy the company (or controlling interest), complaining about the reality of the needs of the workplace is just empty yakking.
/s
Do you really think companies want their employees back in the office if it's cheaper to leave them at home?
Get your head out of your . . . turtleneck . . . and think. Use that blue mush between your ears and think about what motivates business owners.
They don't give an airborne fornication at Earth's primary satellite about anything but the bottom line.
THEY have metrics that THEY trust and THOSE METRICS tell them that productivity went down with WFH and went down WORSE with RTO.
Now, whether it's the line of business the company is in or the management tools in use for monitoring WFH (apparently any monitoring is resented - that never came up when I did WFH (for on-call stuff or emergency stuff when I was an in-house employee - never a routine thing)) or some other aspect of things, certainly which company it is (or even which division in a very large company it is) could easily affect productivity rates between WFH and RTO, but it's not within the employee's scope to know that.
It's management's job and if they're seeing substantial productivity drops with WFH that can't be explained by Covid and want RTO, then it's RTO (again, OP, if you were PROMISED this, that's a different thing).
That's not a generational thing. It's a cost accounting thing.
If the numbers get WORSE after RTO than before WFH, then that's an employee problem. If the issue is that the workforce contains a proportionally larger number of younger workers then it's a generational problem (that's likely - it was fairly big news not long back that many, many Boomers simply did not return to work after Covid at all).
As much as Gen-Z likes to pretend that they've got it so much worse than everyone else ever did ever in the whole history of the world, they're ahead of everyone but the Boomers in home ownership at their age and only about 2 or 3% behind the Boomers and WE had a worldwide recovery period after WW-II boosting us.
There's an entire market of tools out there designed to cheat employers for WFH workers. Do you think that market exists in a vacuum? Of COURSE there are bad actors involved there and of course they're stupid enough to brag about it on social media.
RTO has costs associated with it that both employers and employees have to pay. I won't do the details unless you ask, but it's substantial on both sides.
WFH has costs associated with it that both employers and employees have to pay, although the immediate costs there are highly skewed toward the employer paying.
Ultimately it is management's job to figure out which one provides the most benefit to the company and implement that.
If they have to pay off some workers hired with WFH guarantees, they'll do that (I suspect). If they have to lose some because they can't or won't RTO, they'll do that as well.
But it's their decision to make. Theirs. Unless you're in a position to buy the company (or controlling interest), complaining about the reality of the needs of the workplace is just empty yakking.
@agnetha1988 Sorry I’m not even reading all of this. You’re the only one worked up about this. My point is “all the metrics” isn’t a real category because you can literally find a study supporting the productivity of WFH for every one you find against it.
I’m in senior management. We’re able to hire and retain better than ever with WFH. So I don’t really care if that highly skilled person who would have never taken a job with us before WFH might be marginally more productive in an office. Because they would not work for us in an office. So my team’s overall performance is way up because of improved talent. Not to mention, retention is up because of WFH, and it is SO EXPENSIVE to replace good talent. So that also boosts my team’s productivity overall to have roles filled and not be spending my time in additional searches. But what do I know, I’m just a turtleneck wearer!
I’m not sure why you’re taking this so personally. I live in NYC and multiple large companies here are pushing return to work because they are trying to justify their expensive office leases and investments, including that a significant part of their investment portfolio aside from their own office is in corporate real estate. So let’s not pretend that executives even have pure intentions about the very narrow type of productivity you’re discussing.
Peace dude
ETA wait are you even a working mom? Why are you so invested in the working mom subreddit to mansplain management perspective to us like none of us are managers? Go pick fights on the anti work subreddit instead with this energy
I’m in senior management. We’re able to hire and retain better than ever with WFH. So I don’t really care if that highly skilled person who would have never taken a job with us before WFH might be marginally more productive in an office. Because they would not work for us in an office. So my team’s overall performance is way up because of improved talent. Not to mention, retention is up because of WFH, and it is SO EXPENSIVE to replace good talent. So that also boosts my team’s productivity overall to have roles filled and not be spending my time in additional searches. But what do I know, I’m just a turtleneck wearer!
I’m not sure why you’re taking this so personally. I live in NYC and multiple large companies here are pushing return to work because they are trying to justify their expensive office leases and investments, including that a significant part of their investment portfolio aside from their own office is in corporate real estate. So let’s not pretend that executives even have pure intentions about the very narrow type of productivity you’re discussing.
Peace dude
ETA wait are you even a working mom? Why are you so invested in the working mom subreddit to mansplain management perspective to us like none of us are managers? Go pick fights on the anti work subreddit instead with this energy
agnetha1988
New member
@joyandhope And in my youth, I was a hustler.
I ran a firewood business and a lawn care business (with my airline pilot dad who was only home 3 days a week) at 9 years old (he bought the equipment and ran the chain saw - I did the grunt work and all the lawn care - we split it 3 ways - one for me, one for him, one for maintenance and fuel for the equipment).
I scrounged bottles for deposit returns. I had a W2 job at 14 working at a Big Star Grocery (before they started clamping down on underage workers - I was 6'4" and had my own car driving on a "hardship license" because my dad was gone so often).
Throughout HS I worked two jobs (always fast food) and still graduated with honors (3rd in a class of about 1100).
I haven't forgotten a thing about my youth. Breakfast? That I can't remember.
I ran a firewood business and a lawn care business (with my airline pilot dad who was only home 3 days a week) at 9 years old (he bought the equipment and ran the chain saw - I did the grunt work and all the lawn care - we split it 3 ways - one for me, one for him, one for maintenance and fuel for the equipment).
I scrounged bottles for deposit returns. I had a W2 job at 14 working at a Big Star Grocery (before they started clamping down on underage workers - I was 6'4" and had my own car driving on a "hardship license" because my dad was gone so often).
Throughout HS I worked two jobs (always fast food) and still graduated with honors (3rd in a class of about 1100).
I haven't forgotten a thing about my youth. Breakfast? That I can't remember.
joyandhope
New member
@agnetha1988 I also hustled, starting working before it was legal for me to be doing so, worked multiple jobs my entire education (I have a PhD so that was 11 years), and you know what? I bitched about MOST of my jobs and most of my bosses. If tik tok existed then I have no doubt I would have been making videos about all of the shit treatment I received in those low wage, low respect jobs. I used to drink after shifts with my coworker so we could vent and commiserate about all the sexual harassment and down right cruelty we were receiving waiting tables and bar tending. I wouldve lost my mind if we didn’t do so. It’s the same thing just not in a widely shareable form. It is truly nothing new. I don’t want to be mean here but you are sounding so wildly out of touch, I really think a smidgen of self reflection and willingness to learn would go far here for helping you keep up with a rapidly changing world. People have been saying for literally thousands of years that the youth today suck and don’t want to work- your parents and grandparents almost certainly said the same about your generation. You can find the same written on scrolls from Ancient Greece (I’m not making this up- it’s literally true I’ve read them). The world is changing. Remote and hybrid is the future. People dragging their asses on embracing it are going to be left behind and having a hard time hiring good talent.
Btw, even in an office there’s people who do barely any work. Those people should lose their jobs whether or not they are doing that at home or in person. If you can’t tell it a person is doing their job by their output, I question if that role should exist at all. If you can’t manage by looking at your employees output, I question your abilities as a manager. If I tried that “mouse jiggling” bullshit it would be apparent in two days, and I would be getting questioned and then likely written up and fired within weeks.
Btw, even in an office there’s people who do barely any work. Those people should lose their jobs whether or not they are doing that at home or in person. If you can’t tell it a person is doing their job by their output, I question if that role should exist at all. If you can’t manage by looking at your employees output, I question your abilities as a manager. If I tried that “mouse jiggling” bullshit it would be apparent in two days, and I would be getting questioned and then likely written up and fired within weeks.
agnetha1988
New member
@joyandhope I had bad bosses, don't get me wrong.
1) A supervisor at the loading dock at Sears on my first day wanted me to physically lift a 1400# lawn tractor into the bed of a customer's pickup. The crane was broken, the mobile ramp was down, and it would have been me just picking it up and placing it there. I handed him my Sears vest and said, "Nope" and walked away.
2) A manager (not mine) at the last place I worked appeared to me to be actively working against the company's interest. I steered clear of her if at all possible. Turned out when we beat a competitor to market with a specific product, she quit, no notice, and her LinkdIn Profile was updated to show that she'd worked for them the entire time. She caused chaos and fear the entire time she was with my company.
3) Got hired into a small sub-division of BCBS of Florida by mistake - they mistook the name on my resume as being a female name (one letter difference would have made it so). The entire group was comprised of extremely militant lesbians (no shit) and they kept piling on unreasonable work requirements until I asked if I could check to see if my wife could cover for something I had to miss to meet one of them and they fired me for "failure to cooperate" (I wasn't trying to avoid it - I was trying not to break a promise to my wife or at least tell her I might need to).
That's it. 30+ year of bouncing around from assignment to assignment as a contract IT pro (3 months was a normal assignment length, a few went as long as a year) and 3 bad bosses.
The rest were either absentee or genuinely helpful. One of them had been Fortune 500's IT Woman of the Year the year before I got brought in. She was brilliant.
1) A supervisor at the loading dock at Sears on my first day wanted me to physically lift a 1400# lawn tractor into the bed of a customer's pickup. The crane was broken, the mobile ramp was down, and it would have been me just picking it up and placing it there. I handed him my Sears vest and said, "Nope" and walked away.
2) A manager (not mine) at the last place I worked appeared to me to be actively working against the company's interest. I steered clear of her if at all possible. Turned out when we beat a competitor to market with a specific product, she quit, no notice, and her LinkdIn Profile was updated to show that she'd worked for them the entire time. She caused chaos and fear the entire time she was with my company.
3) Got hired into a small sub-division of BCBS of Florida by mistake - they mistook the name on my resume as being a female name (one letter difference would have made it so). The entire group was comprised of extremely militant lesbians (no shit) and they kept piling on unreasonable work requirements until I asked if I could check to see if my wife could cover for something I had to miss to meet one of them and they fired me for "failure to cooperate" (I wasn't trying to avoid it - I was trying not to break a promise to my wife or at least tell her I might need to).
That's it. 30+ year of bouncing around from assignment to assignment as a contract IT pro (3 months was a normal assignment length, a few went as long as a year) and 3 bad bosses.
The rest were either absentee or genuinely helpful. One of them had been Fortune 500's IT Woman of the Year the year before I got brought in. She was brilliant.
joyandhope
New member
@agnetha1988 Bruh have fun shaking your fist at the sky and being mad and confused while as you dig in even deeper into your outdated views as the world moves on. Best of luck with that 
joyandhope
New member
Oh and PS- if you are requiring people to be in office five days a week, then you damn well better be paying them enough to afford living within a 20 minute commute if the office building. ETA I think a lot of older managers aren’t realizing how mich of the push for remote work is a response to the housing crises. We can’t afford to live a reasonable commute from city centers anymore. Changing someone’s 8 hour day into a 12 hour day so you can see they have a butt in a seat in an office building is not only poor management, it’s cruel. It’s cutting into peoples family time and the best candidates who have multiple options won’t stand for it. You’ll wind up with people with no other option of enforcing this outdated management style
katrina2017
New member
@joyandhope This is exactly it. And a lot of larger corporations built new buildings a few years before Covid or are finishing now and they certainly are getting their use out of them.
foxhound21136
New member
@ilkhanapit This is stupid af of management to do. Now on top of dealing with an unexpected number of resignations within a short period of time, they will have a terrible rep amongst recruiting circles and job seekers. Top talent will look elsewhere unless they decide to pay a lot more to try and bring them back.
ilkhanapit
New member
@foxhound21136 Yup. The company is great in their industry and typically sought after positions. Some people might stay for a little bit, but once they have the name on their resume for a year or so They will leave. I was outwardly pissed , my manager is also not happy and has expressed his concerns to upper Managment.
smileytahnee
New member
@ilkhanapit Can you just not go? Like this isn't what you signed, and if they think they can find other people let them fire you. I don't think they will, but I'd definitely look for something else as back up.
@smileytahnee My question as well. Can you just not go? It sounds like your manager is on your side, they're not going to rat on you.