California tech company films bizarre video pushing return-to-office plan — Internet Brands, an El Segundo-based tech company with subsidiaries like WebMD and CarsDirect::California tech company Internet Brands, WebMD’s parent, films a bizarre video pushing a return-to-office plan.
there really needs to be some legislative support for WFH, or to at least prevent companies from retracting it so wantonly. it’s good for the environment, it’s incredible for quality of life (for those who chose it)… brenden pls
it’s really insane how many people have this stockholm syndrome for the office, for putting on a shirt and fulfilling the social ideal of being an Adult with a Place To Be from 9-5. it’s arbitrary, it’s unnecessary, it’s archaic
Agreed with the Stockholm syndrome part, but can’t exactly agree with the legislative part. What legislation would you propose to support WFH? I say this very rarely, but I think the free market has this one. Idiotic businesses would be bogged down by expensive real estate costs, while the smarter ones would completely bypass these. Also, there would be more demand for WFH jobs, which would mean either cheaper or much higher quality labor for the WFH jobs.
Carbon tax employers for miles commuted by employees, unless c-suite and board salaries are equal to the general population median salary for a 15 mile radius from the office location.
Something tells me this company never enforced masking.
The soda can crushing to “crush the competition” is so cringe… I don’t know maybe that talks to sales people.
I think it does, since they are ringing loud bells and cheering in the office when they get a sale…
Cult of Sales
Yeah, I find it so weird. Do they think workers care, how well the company is doing?
No small feat to become a top 5 hated person on the Internet for a day. Well done Internet Brands exec team.
Why does their CEO look like he could be a human version of Mr Poopy Butthole from Rick and Morty?
Also I like the choice of including a damn vending machine in the video. My new job might only be hybrid WFH but at least the break room is stocked and completely free.
He looks like someone started dating Bill Nye, then changed to Bill Nighy but messed up and crumpled it up and threw it away.
Notice how all the C-level management are the speakers in this video and they desperately need people to come back because otherwise they’d have to work themselves.
In theory the amount of work for people doing HQ level administration (executives, accountants, etc.) doesn’t change when they work from home. The work is different because face to face communication is replaced with telecommunication, but the same tasks that were done in office are still being done.
My observation is that the people who want to see a return to office have one or more (but not necessarily all) of the following traits:
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They think short term or buy into the sunk cost fallacy and want to justify long, expensive commercial leases that the company is locked into.
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To understand that work is happening they need to see work happening. This can be driven by difficulty dealing with abstraction or generalized trust issues.
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They don’t have a good home life. For a lot of people home is unpleasant and work is a respite. That respite has been taken away by a large, sudden societal shift.
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I really hope all these commercial real estate entities sink into a deep hole.
They’ll try to blame people for not wanting to come into the office, but they need to die, the parasitic clowns they are.
