this post was submitted on 21 Aug 2024
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Just corporate real estate.
That's literally it. The whole reason.
It's also easier to spy on their employees
I dunno, I felt the most spied upon in my (programming) career when my team had a Slack channel going and everybody was expected to be available during working hours, even though I was WFH. When I actually worked in the main headquarters in downtown Philly, I would fuck off a lot and go shopping or take two hour lunches with beer and stuff like that. They even had a "sick room" on my floor with a very comfortable couch that I would take regular 45 minute naps on after lunch (until the fucking InfoSys contractors discovered it). Nobody ever said shit.
Ultimately both situations required me to produce actual software to keep the bosses happy, but the Slack channel experience was the only time I was really expected to be present mentally the whole official work time.
Really? You can keep Slack up in the background and appear "online" all day. Get the app on your phone, and you don't even have to be at your desk to be "available." I've had Slack conversations while walking around at the local park. It's really no big deal.
If they expect you to be available for huddles at the drop of a hat, that's just unreasonable. But as long as responding to a chat within an hour or two is acceptable, WFH is fantastic.
I respond to Slack messages by end of day. If someone has something urgent they will call me (on the work number, of course).
At my org, we don't have phone numbers for each other. If it's urgent, just keep pinging them on Slack until they respond, and ping multiple people who can potentially help. It's incredibly rare that you'll ever need a specific individual on an urgent basis, almost everything can wait until tomorrow morning, and even emergencies can be handled by more than one person.
Fucking Infosys contractors indeed.
That's a fair take and I've certainly heard horror stories about the invasive programs WFH people have been made to install on their devices.
Maybe it just feels like it'd be easier to spy on you in the building they own haha.