5 ms·

It's been a "fun" time in Detroit lately. The Big 3 have been forcing people back into the office some, with increasingly shrill demands. Last year, GM required

It's been a "fun" time in Detroit lately. The Big 3 have been forcing people back into the office some, with increasingly shrill demands. Last year, GM required us to come back 3 days a week, you pick the days. Managers looked at that, listened to employees and it was quickly 2 days, then they weren't enforcing it at the HR level at all, so it was no days. Until suddenly in December, after a bit of a struggling year, we got an email (at the same time as our managers and senior managers, make of that what you will) that they had actually been tracking badge swipes in aggregate and that we would all be returning to the office 3 days a week, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday starting the second week in January. Then it got delayed two weeks because there literally weren't enough seats for everyone, much less seats in the building you were assigned to, much less parking, much less parking for the building you were assigned to. And wouldn't you know it, about 6 years ago, GM had moved to "hoteling" or "hot desking" with an intentional 90% capacity for the number of people assigned to the building, but the COVID hiring binge hit us too, so now there were main buildings with as low as 60% capacity for the number of people assigned. Then, we got an updated email, some teams were going to come back a few weeks later, so that IT and facilities would have enough time to fix problems as they arose and get desks setup, etc. Then we had an ugly winter storm. Then it got delayed another two weeks. Now it's the second week in February. Order, followed by counter order, equals disorder. Isn't RTO fun guys?

Liquix 3y ago
> Now it's the second week in February. They're even trying to force time travelers back into the office? Grim
- wcunning 3y ago
  No, my bad for the phrasing, they've pushed the first day you have to RTO out to the second week in February due to the lack of seats in my building. Should have been tomorrow for me, but we got the update today at 4:30.
- FalconSensei 3y ago
  It's kinda obvious what they meant if you have some reading comprehension and basic logic
  - readthenotes1 3y ago
    Tbf, the remark was kinda funny, absurdity in line with original. Plus, taking things literally when that's obviously not the intention is the majority of software developer humor
- latexr 3y ago
  I think they meant: > Now [they say] it's the second week [of] February [that we have to return].
- achates 3y ago
  Debugging is a lot easier when you can ask your future self what the problem was.
  - ryncewynd 3y ago
    Spend 2 days fixing a 2 line production problem? Just schedule a meeting with last years self and fix it in development phase
- TedDoesntTalk 3y ago
  GM is working on new kinds of transportation.
kibwen 3y ago
To be fair, forcing employees to while away their lives by wasting their own unreimbursed time sitting in a car commuting every day represents a non-negligible portion of every automaker's bottom line.
- analog31 3y ago
  It's not that bad, plenty of people spend their spare time in their cars too.
  - toomuchtodo 3y ago
    How others spend their lives is their choice.
  - atoav 3y ago
    As a freelancer things are simple: Want me to come? Pay for it. Want me to stay? Pay for it.
wcunning 3y ago
Taking my bitterness and sarcasm out of it for a moment, in our case it feels much more like a way to deflect blame from senior leadership onto employees for company culture and product choice issues that are affecting the bottom line, along with prep for an ugly round of layoffs to make up some of the cost of conceding to so many of the UAW's demands. Not necessarily that those demands were unreasonable, but it's interesting that "badge swipes will be tracked" came pretty much at the same time that managers were ordered to stack rank like in the bad old MS days under Balmer. We haven't officially received word of the firing of those bottom 10% with "needs improvement" performance reviews, but I think that's mostly a function of performance reviews being communicated now-ish. History says that it'll probably be mid-March. Either way, we've reached updating the old resume time. The unfortunate thing is that I have zero interest in relocating to the Bay, and all the really high paying jobs have also mandated some RTO, so I doubt I'm going to be special enough to get a fully remote role at any of the FAANG companies. Oh, and also ironically, we just hired a bunch of Silicon Valley people who get to be 100% remote, along with some execs in HR, DEI and the like that are weirdly all in Denver. These announcements came roughly in the same time frame as the new RTO mandate, which is especially insulting because a number of people hired in 2021 and 2022 were hired as fully remote, but if they live within 50 miles of a major office center (not counting assembly plants) they were all redesignated as hybrid or in office, without their consent. This means that some of my coworkers now have 40 mile commutes and needed to figure out much more complicated child care, since they get to spend hours on the road that could have been used to pick kids up at reasonable times. Gotta love the double standard.
JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> 3 days a week, you pick the days This is the worst of all worlds.
- Terr_ 3y ago
  In a way, there's almost an argument to be made for offices timeshared out to different companies: On Monday all of AlphaCorp comes in, on Tuesday they're all remote because the office is being used by all of BetaCorp, etc.
tweetle_beetle 3y ago
> And wouldn't you know it, about 6 years ago, GM had moved to "hoteling" or "hot desking" with an intentional 90% capacity for the number of people assigned to the building Why do so many organizations seem to have such a poor grasp on estate management that you keep hearing the same story again and again? Maybe the question should be: why is it apparently so common for leadership to make wide ranging policy without arming themselves with the most basic data, which should be easily available? It's not even a bigcorp thing. I've seen it personally somewhere that has nothing in common with GM.
- boppo1 3y ago
  >Maybe the question should be: why is it apparently so common for leadership to make wide ranging policy without arming themselves with the most basic data, which should be easily available? LIRP/ZIRP prevented the market from weeding out businesses and practices that should have failed. Any time the business world seems incongruous with basic assumptions, LIRP/ZIRP is the culprit. Remember, maximum employment and 'stable prices' are our monetary goals. Not production or efficiency.

Liquix 3y ago

> Now it's the second week in February. They're even trying to force time travelers back into the office? Grim

wcunning 3y ago
No, my bad for the phrasing, they've pushed the first day you have to RTO out to the second week in February due to the lack of seats in my building. Should have been tomorrow for me, but we got the update today at 4:30.
FalconSensei 3y ago
It's kinda obvious what they meant if you have some reading comprehension and basic logic
- readthenotes1 3y ago
  Tbf, the remark was kinda funny, absurdity in line with original. Plus, taking things literally when that's obviously not the intention is the majority of software developer humor
latexr 3y ago
I think they meant: > Now [they say] it's the second week [of] February [that we have to return].
achates 3y ago
Debugging is a lot easier when you can ask your future self what the problem was.
- ryncewynd 3y ago
  Spend 2 days fixing a 2 line production problem? Just schedule a meeting with last years self and fix it in development phase
TedDoesntTalk 3y ago
GM is working on new kinds of transportation.

kibwen 3y ago

To be fair, forcing employees to while away their lives by wasting their own unreimbursed time sitting in a car commuting every day represents a non-negligible portion of every automaker's bottom line.

analog31 3y ago
It's not that bad, plenty of people spend their spare time in their cars too.
- toomuchtodo 3y ago
  How others spend their lives is their choice.
- atoav 3y ago
  As a freelancer things are simple: Want me to come? Pay for it. Want me to stay? Pay for it.

wcunning 3y ago

Taking my bitterness and sarcasm out of it for a moment, in our case it feels much more like a way to deflect blame from senior leadership onto employees for company culture and product choice issues that are affecting the bottom line, along with prep for an ugly round of layoffs to make up some of the cost of conceding to so many of the UAW's demands. Not necessarily that those demands were unreasonable, but it's interesting that "badge swipes will be tracked" came pretty much at the same time that managers were ordered to stack rank like in the bad old MS days under Balmer. We haven't officially received word of the firing of those bottom 10% with "needs improvement" performance reviews, but I think that's mostly a function of performance reviews being communicated now-ish. History says that it'll probably be mid-March. Either way, we've reached updating the old resume time. The unfortunate thing is that I have zero interest in relocating to the Bay, and all the really high paying jobs have also mandated some RTO, so I doubt I'm going to be special enough to get a fully remote role at any of the FAANG companies. Oh, and also ironically, we just hired a bunch of Silicon Valley people who get to be 100% remote, along with some execs in HR, DEI and the like that are weirdly all in Denver. These announcements came roughly in the same time frame as the new RTO mandate, which is especially insulting because a number of people hired in 2021 and 2022 were hired as fully remote, but if they live within 50 miles of a major office center (not counting assembly plants) they were all redesignated as hybrid or in office, without their consent. This means that some of my coworkers now have 40 mile commutes and needed to figure out much more complicated child care, since they get to spend hours on the road that could have been used to pick kids up at reasonable times. Gotta love the double standard.

JumpCrisscross 3y ago

> 3 days a week, you pick the days This is the worst of all worlds.

Terr_ 3y ago
In a way, there's almost an argument to be made for offices timeshared out to different companies: On Monday all of AlphaCorp comes in, on Tuesday they're all remote because the office is being used by all of BetaCorp, etc.

tweetle_beetle 3y ago

> And wouldn't you know it, about 6 years ago, GM had moved to "hoteling" or "hot desking" with an intentional 90% capacity for the number of people assigned to the building Why do so many organizations seem to have such a poor grasp on estate management that you keep hearing the same story again and again? Maybe the question should be: why is it apparently so common for leadership to make wide ranging policy without arming themselves with the most basic data, which should be easily available? It's not even a bigcorp thing. I've seen it personally somewhere that has nothing in common with GM.

boppo1 3y ago
>Maybe the question should be: why is it apparently so common for leadership to make wide ranging policy without arming themselves with the most basic data, which should be easily available? LIRP/ZIRP prevented the market from weeding out businesses and practices that should have failed. Any time the business world seems incongruous with basic assumptions, LIRP/ZIRP is the culprit. Remember, maximum employment and 'stable prices' are our monetary goals. Not production or efficiency.