Can someone explain why companies are forcing people to come back to the office? I have a job where I need to be there all day. There are a lot of jobs for people don’t need to be there. And there are a lot of jobs were people are more efficient from home. And there are a lot of jobs where if your company is more efficient working from home and you did not need to own or rent a gigantic building, seems like everything would lead you towards work from home. So I wanted the reason they are trying to get people to go back to the office?
A very common reason is because you’re not clerical staff, you’re courtiers. The bosses want an office with people running around hurriedly doing busy stuff, which accounts for a lot of the bullshit jobs that workers are assigned, not that they need to be done, but to serve as a Tiger Repellant Rock. Or the bear patrol, which is from the same Simpsons episode.
A more conscious answer is that offices had been leased out for years at a time, and leaving them empty would mean they go to waste. While this means workers time is wasted (commute, prepping lunch out etc.) they don’t care about that as much.
When RTO orders became required (RTO or be laid off / RTO or get reassignment) that was part of the ownership class reasserting their dominance over a working class who was suddenly in demand after the lockdown and post-epidemic period. It was notable that even the Democratic officials were glad to memory-hole all the progressive programs that manifested to facilitate business during the lockdown. In fact, the telecommute controversy became the keystone issue, since workers learned they were happier and did better work at home. But the boss wanted to see them labor in their cubicle.
We suck at retaining class consciousness, or the super-giant conservative propaganda machine is really good at suppressing it. Seriously, FOX News and OAN are poison.
ETA A more comparable occupation is garden hermit which is a hired performer who lives in an aristocrat’s garden as part of the scenery, say if he’s comically eccentric. He may even have duties like ringing the hour chime or pretending to make shoes.
Commercial property owners are lobbying Congress to force RTO because their properties will lose value if people work from home.
Shortsighted local governments like RTO because it forces people to be stuck in a part of town where they are more likely to patronize local buisnesses.
What they all look past is the growing resentment not just for RTO, but this entire system where we sacrifice our time and dignity for the cred of our politicians and the moneynof our slave masters.
my organization rto’d very early on after the pandemic, and promptly lost 40% of their staff who retired. It’s an old place, demographically. I can guarantee that everyone forced back in was refusing (and continues to refuse) to buy anything for lunch and brown-bags out of spite, especially given some dummies were stupid enough to claim that as the reason. Lots of eateries continuing to shut down in the area, and you know what? nobody cares. In attempting to “save” something, they’ve practically guaranteed its demise by pissing off an entire generation.
I wish others shared your view. Got chatting to someone similar (had to be in 5 days a week) at a wedding. We established why he thought everyone should be was just jealousy!
My view is it makes it better for office workers not to have 9 other idiots on the road so your commute is nicer. And if your partner is one of them they can do all the chores while you commite/at lunch etc.
In my sector it’s just incompetence. Bosses are under the illusion that being able to see the workers in and out makes them better at managing their hours (false) and that being able to physically reach someone makes the communication more efficient (also false)
They’re stuck in long leases for commercial real estate, and feel the need to justify the money being spent
They’re stuck with shit for brains middle managers who don’t contribute anything but acting like glorified, unnecessary babysitters, and the company feels the need to justify keeping these people around
Some of the answers you already received are partially correct, but I work in Commercial Real Estate and I’d wager it’s because when a large tenant stops operating at a location, it causes a trigger on the loan that has repercussions due the property owner. Often, they lose access to manage their own rents.
This happens even if the tenant is still paying rent. It’s because a vacant tenant, especially a large one, loses business for the surrounding business.
Example: A grocery store in a strip mall closes down for repairs. Even if they are still occupying the space, it would cause a trigger. Lots of the other spaces in the strip mall are more valuable with traffic from the grocery store shoppers.
TLDR, they don’t want a loan violation that will cost them.
It can vary from location to location, but honestly I think a lot of it is that a pretty significant percentage of management can’t get an erection unless they’re watching people suffer.
Control. They want to feel like they’re in control of all aspects of their team/company. I work from home, but they’ve put on tons of monitoring software to check if we’re looking at different pages, moving our mouse, and interacting with our keyboards. It’s all just about control. When people are in the office, they feel like they have control over what they’re doing. They’re being observed by other coworkers, etc.
Can someone explain why companies are forcing people to come back to the office? I have a job where I need to be there all day. There are a lot of jobs for people don’t need to be there. And there are a lot of jobs were people are more efficient from home. And there are a lot of jobs where if your company is more efficient working from home and you did not need to own or rent a gigantic building, seems like everything would lead you towards work from home. So I wanted the reason they are trying to get people to go back to the office?
A very common reason is because you’re not clerical staff, you’re courtiers. The bosses want an office with people running around hurriedly doing busy stuff, which accounts for a lot of the bullshit jobs that workers are assigned, not that they need to be done, but to serve as a Tiger Repellant Rock. Or the bear patrol, which is from the same Simpsons episode.
A more conscious answer is that offices had been leased out for years at a time, and leaving them empty would mean they go to waste. While this means workers time is wasted (commute, prepping lunch out etc.) they don’t care about that as much.
When RTO orders became required (RTO or be laid off / RTO or get reassignment) that was part of the ownership class reasserting their dominance over a working class who was suddenly in demand after the lockdown and post-epidemic period. It was notable that even the Democratic officials were glad to memory-hole all the progressive programs that manifested to facilitate business during the lockdown. In fact, the telecommute controversy became the keystone issue, since workers learned they were happier and did better work at home. But the boss wanted to see them labor in their cubicle.
We suck at retaining class consciousness, or the super-giant conservative propaganda machine is really good at suppressing it. Seriously, FOX News and OAN are poison.
ETA A more comparable occupation is garden hermit which is a hired performer who lives in an aristocrat’s garden as part of the scenery, say if he’s comically eccentric. He may even have duties like ringing the hour chime or pretending to make shoes.
Commercial property owners are lobbying Congress to force RTO because their properties will lose value if people work from home.
Shortsighted local governments like RTO because it forces people to be stuck in a part of town where they are more likely to patronize local buisnesses.
What they all look past is the growing resentment not just for RTO, but this entire system where we sacrifice our time and dignity for the cred of our politicians and the moneynof our slave masters.
my organization rto’d very early on after the pandemic, and promptly lost 40% of their staff who retired. It’s an old place, demographically. I can guarantee that everyone forced back in was refusing (and continues to refuse) to buy anything for lunch and brown-bags out of spite, especially given some dummies were stupid enough to claim that as the reason. Lots of eateries continuing to shut down in the area, and you know what? nobody cares. In attempting to “save” something, they’ve practically guaranteed its demise by pissing off an entire generation.
I wish others shared your view. Got chatting to someone similar (had to be in 5 days a week) at a wedding. We established why he thought everyone should be was just jealousy!
My view is it makes it better for office workers not to have 9 other idiots on the road so your commute is nicer. And if your partner is one of them they can do all the chores while you commite/at lunch etc.
In my sector it’s just incompetence. Bosses are under the illusion that being able to see the workers in and out makes them better at managing their hours (false) and that being able to physically reach someone makes the communication more efficient (also false)
Some of the answers you already received are partially correct, but I work in Commercial Real Estate and I’d wager it’s because when a large tenant stops operating at a location, it causes a trigger on the loan that has repercussions due the property owner. Often, they lose access to manage their own rents.
This happens even if the tenant is still paying rent. It’s because a vacant tenant, especially a large one, loses business for the surrounding business.
Example: A grocery store in a strip mall closes down for repairs. Even if they are still occupying the space, it would cause a trigger. Lots of the other spaces in the strip mall are more valuable with traffic from the grocery store shoppers.
TLDR, they don’t want a loan violation that will cost them.
Thank you, this is the first one where I can understand why it would make financial sense to the company. Also, that’s such total BS.
Happy to help! The industry I work in is fairly small in number but we handle a huge portion of commercial loans.
It’s just not one of those things most people know unless you are directly impacted by it. It’s not like Residential Mortgages as much as you’d think.
EDIT: Also, it is BS. You’re right.
They want you to quit
It can vary from location to location, but honestly I think a lot of it is that a pretty significant percentage of management can’t get an erection unless they’re watching people suffer.
Control. They want to feel like they’re in control of all aspects of their team/company. I work from home, but they’ve put on tons of monitoring software to check if we’re looking at different pages, moving our mouse, and interacting with our keyboards. It’s all just about control. When people are in the office, they feel like they have control over what they’re doing. They’re being observed by other coworkers, etc.