Teletubbies are peak stopgap pedagogy. Lots of scientific backing.

Wait, hear me out. The whole show is set up so that you have repetitions of the same thing said at different levels of language acquisition so small kids can identify with whichever tubbie is at their level, look down a bit on the ones below that, and up to the ones above it (it goes all the way from pretty much baby speech to full adult). Thus their minds can climb the ladder.

Under normal circumstances that kind of setup is present in a child's environment -- differently-aged kids and adults, either in the family or neighbourhood, they get plenty of exposure. Now enter capitalism, alienation and atomisation and small kids get parked in front of the TV which might speak to them at a language level they aren't at, and can't react to them either, by translating their baby speech to more adult speech. Along come the Teletubbies, making sure that those kids at least have a resemblance of language skill once they reach school age.

And all that so the US can cut billionaire taxes to avoid paying for universal free daycare. Not that it should be taken off the air, also countries without that fucked of a situation air it because it doesn't hurt anyone and might help the occasional kid and the rest are merely entertained, but it's specifically the US combination of atrocious child rearing conditions (can't even play with other kids because you can't roam suburbia because that would get the parents arrested), combined with enough university resources to come up with the Teletubbies that, well, created the Teletubbies.

Stop making me old! I can be young as long everyone works together to say 1999 was last year. And we can all believe we'll be able to start up a tech company to get rich!

I have managed to never see an episode of The Teletubbies

I tried once. You haven't missed much. Or maybe I'm not young and hip enough to get it.

This was the moment that everyone realized that Ellen was a massive piece of shit. Like, Dukat? Have you no shame?

That will help foster a sense of community and teamwork. Thank you for your attention. Please return to your cafeteria seat.

Sincerely,

Your Manager

Business Innovation™

We are getting ready to have to RTO next week. Buy every single person on my team was hired after the company went fully remote and only 4 of us out of 14 are near an office to return to. So, we get to drive in rush hour traffic there and back, not have enough seats/monitors and may not get to be near our team members that ARE there. And, regardless, till have to be on Teams calls all day because the majority of our team is is spread out across the country and internationally.

They won't even have the cafeteria operational yet, no immediate plans to do so either, nor is it big enough to seat everyone. They will have one coffee shop that they have assured us "serves lunch items", but we'll have ~1000 people in the building trying to get lunch and i've never seen a coffee shop serve more than one or two sandwiches a minute. So... for the ~120 of you that get fed, congrats.

Also, the nice thing is that they pulled back the original 4 day in office requirement to only 2 days. However, the only reason for that is because they realized they literally cannot get everyone in the building at once and it's not even close. So, I'm not filled with confidence on the logistics of this.

That's where the innovation happens, didn't you read the memo?

Damn, I just rotate one vertical and then sort through the USBC until I find the one that actually works.

/me takes notes

You're right, it's five minutes now. You can request another 5 minutes from HR for a full tea ceremony.

Or that's their excuse while they're simply making life difficult for their opposition.

Don't get me wrong, either -- I'm not at all in favor of mandatory RTO policies, and that team that I loved at my old employer is now scattered to the winds as a result of layoffs and related attrition. The corporate arm of that company had nothing to do with how well my team meshed and worked together (though I will give lots of credit to my immediate boss there -- I went to work at that company to work with her specifically, and she was one of the best managers one could ever ask for), and I suspect we'd have all agreed to be in-office together one or two days a week even without the RTO mandate. But it's been hard to get integrated at this new place of work, and I was looking forward to this trip as a way to start connecting with coworkers, only to find out none of them actually turned up to the office anyway. Without the company making a specific effort to bridge the gap, I think that remote work can become really isolating and reinforce existing cliques and teams to the detriment of those who join up later on.