TL;DR:
I do remote work but am forced to do it from the office, got Covid from the same offices which are constantly falling short of the government guidlines for Covid safety. CEO doesn't care about workers' safety or comfort, reacts very egotistically when criticized.
I work as remote tech support for mostly elderly customers in Denmark, while physically being located in Spain, where the main offices of the company are. Given the nature of my work, I feel strongly that this can and should be done from home rather than from the office, especially during Covid times.
The following email exchange comes after a recent mass-email from the CEO promoting an upcoming sports tournament which the company sponsors started with the sentence: “Now that Corona is behind us, we can all enjoy this tennis tournament with friends and family”. Reading this after just having Covid a few weeks earlier, and then another flu the same week as this was sent out, I was quite bothered by this sentiment.
I sent the following email to the CEO later that day:
“This is great news for you _____!
Is covid really behind us, though?
To me, saying that 'corona is behind us' seems insensitive to your employees who are putting themselves at risk every day working in the office doing a job which can easily and safely be perfomed remotely. For many of us, covid is still very much in the present.
4 of your emplyees on the ______ team, including myself and our families, and are still seeing the after effects of having covid just a few weeks ago.”
skip past the weekend and this is the response email I received from the CEO:
“Dear (OP), many thx for your mail, but who do you really think you are?
I have had Corona too…..
And no, you are absolutely showing your ignorance and lack of understanding anything about running a company and what it takes. Do you really think we would have 6 offices if we at ______ management team thought it would not be necessary with offices and the staff showing up there?
Interesting that you have another view, maybe you would be better suited as an entrepreneur than an employee in a 500 staff big and successful company where ATTITUDE, TEAMWORK, COMMITMENT and PERFORMANCE are the cornerstones….then you can decide yourselves how to run your company and let all your employees work from home. Seems like you have no clue and don't understand much, so I encourage you to either talk to your manager, our COO ______ or our HR management, ______. Im sure they can educate you a little on how you successfully run AND BUILD companies and team…..it is for sure not from home!!!!
Best regs, _____”