I work in a big corporate, which name I won’t mention for fear of retaliation. Even though they train us to speak up and not be afraid of retaliation, I am starting to believe it’s all a bunch of BS since I feel I am being lied to, used and disposed to their pleasure. Before I speak any further, I want to preventatively address all those comments about “Working from home is not real work”. Like I heard other say, in the past 3 years I have WFH, I have worked more than any other time in my life (I have been in the same company for 15 years) and definitely I have been more efficient, not to mention the huge gain in work life balance, but this is not even the point. I have also to clarify that even though there were some talks about going back to the office a couple of years ago when we (mistakenly) thought that COVID was over, we ended up not going back, I believe because of a huge push back from the majority of employees and the fact that the data didn’t justify it, since it showed no decrease in overall productivity over all these years. We are defined as “hybrid” but the maybe underlying understanding, at least for our team, is that hybrid meant to get together every couple of months or so to remember what we look like, have lunch, socialize a bit and call it done.
Just last week, our leaders announced that they were shutting down some office space to save some money, since so many people no longer go to the office, and that made all complete sense to us.
Then, this week, out of nowhere, our CEO announces that he wants to see people in the office more. When asked, publicly why, he couldn’t provide any better explanation other than he just want to see people in person (that’s not even exactly what he said. What he said was way more ridiculous). I am extremely upset, I feel lied to, and I cannot make any reason out this. I previously read comments on this forum around “conspiracy theories” that this is a way to lay off people without telling them they are being laid off and most importantly, not having to give them a severance package.
There. I mostly needed to vent.