Meta Requires Office Workers To Return To Desks Three Days a Week (wsj.com) 87
Meta Platforms employees assigned to an office will have to start coming in three days a week starting in September, as the company shifts to a more structured hybrid schedule. From a report: The move won't affect workers who currently have remote positions, Meta said in a statement Thursday. The three-day mandate only applies to workers already in an office some days. It will take effect Sept. 5. "We're confident people can make a meaningful impact both from the office and at home," a Meta spokesperson said. The change is meant to foster "the collaboration, relationships and culture necessary for employees to do their best work," the spokesperson said.
Surviellence (Score:5, Insightful)
All in office jobs means you will be watched 24/7 likely by AI-enhanced cameras. Smile. Be Happy. You are working.
The irony of the metaverse developers required to be in an office must have flown right over Zuckerberg.
Re:Surviellence (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, if only Meta had some way to get people face-to-face over the Internet...
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It's much easier than that. Actual cameras aren't necessary at all. In their offices, employees have to expect some superior entering in person any time of day. And some managements firmly believe that only that can assure that their wage slaves actually do work. It's pathetic, but that has been how dependent employment worked in capitalism ever since, and, plus that they'll *add* more and more sophisticated surveillance tech at their leisure as soon as it becomes available, that's how it will continue to b
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You think people at home are more efficient and effective in general?
If you believe that then you believe Zuckerberg wants to pay lots of real estate fees to have a less efficient business....
Uh huh....
Re:Surviellence (Score:5, Insightful)
Zuckerberg has already paid lots of real estate fees, and now needs to justify them.
Re:Surviellence (Score:4, Insightful)
You know that businesses don't rent month-to-month, right?
Facebook has acres of leased space that is going completely unused while everyone is working from home. Even more now that they've had all their firings.
They very likely want to actually get some use from those leases, where they can't just break them and get out.
Re:Surviellence (Score:4, Insightful)
Studies seem to bear that conclusion out to be true.
During the pandemic, efficiency rose with all these folks working from home.
While I know SOME jobs require you to be in person, for the most part in IT...I have a hard time thinking of any position that HAS to be done in an office in person....aside from a server floor person needing to be hands on with hardware.
If someone is slacking off at home...they'll be slacking off at the office too, but often in the latter case, they'll get there distracting other people trying to hang and talk with them in the office, the halls....etc.
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The pandemic didn't change much in my life and many people's lives... especially people in tech.
Let's see... typical 20 year old in tech's day. Get up, work, log on call of duty, order a pizza, go to the bathroom, sleep... repeat x 5, get up, open tinder and start swiping until you get a hit, hook up with catfish, sleep, get up, log on call of duty and brush the mildew off the crufty pizza, sleep... repeat x 50... vacation just looks the same as sunday but x 14.
The only thing that changes here is that you d
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Not when they also slashed their product line intended to facilitate this.
Honestly I think those calls are premature, Meta is giving up at the pace of the tech industry without realizing the real world is far behind that. Most managers running Teams meetings aren't yet aware they could have avatars with live real motion and facial expressions in a virtual office space; that they could put a stop to people ghosting during the day. Hell even in tech it's taken a little explaining to get managers to understand
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"If I'm going to be on stinking camera, isolated in my stinking apartment all stinking day, I'd rather just go in, work in person, and have some real human interaction"
Why be on camera? Dude if you are in VR you are projecting an avatar not your actual image. As for preferring to go in... that is mostly just you. Me, I actually LIKE my family and I'd rather have interaction with them than you.
Of course if we are going to be in virtual spaces it does cut out one of the benefits of working from home. At the m
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All in office jobs means you will be watched 24/7 likely by AI-enhanced cameras.
If you're going to devalue a human worker like that, then a chatbot can easily replace the entire HR department.
Wonder what happens when it's the entire HR industry struggling to avoid being "involuntarily separated" in order to keep the human in resources...
Driving Attrition (Score:5, Insightful)
When your CEO literally says some people will have to be "managed out," it gives HR a mandate to find things to make workers uncomfortable and/or change their working situation in ways they will not like. In such a way, you can get 5-20% "attrition" of people leaving voluntarily, with no impact to unemployment rates, severances, etc etc.
It's some Sun Tzu x Machiavelli stuff. This is the real world of "Lean In" -- say nice things to help you personal brand or make the company seem benevolent to its workers, and then behave completely ruthlessly.
You know what fixes that? (Score:2, Troll)
But you can't just unionize Facebook. Otherwise they'll just bring in scabs from somewhere else. You need a large, national Union so that when Facebook goes looking for scabs there aren't any. Also you need that large national union so that when Facebook brings in a multi-million dollar law firm to Union bust you have an equally powerful organization to stand up to it.
The unions didn't turn to the mob because they were corrupt. They tu
Facebook has good uses (Score:2)
When it's used as an actual social network, well, it works. I'm an introvert so I'm not all that interested, but if for some reason I wanted to get out there and do stuff Facebook would make it easy to do that.
The downside is all the data abuse, but we could fix that tomorrow with a handful of laws and regulation. Facebook's profits would go down but they'd su
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It used to work. These days, try to post "Hey who wants to do (xyz)" on a Friday afternoon... and watch how many people say on Monday "man this JUST came up in my feed, I wish I'd known!"
Or try to set up an event for a friend's surprise birthday party, and notice yourself getting down-dinged in reach because... wait for it... you sent out TOO MANY invitations to YOUR OWN FRIENDS LIST for your even without paying the "promote me" fee.
The enshittification cycle has completed [wired.com], and Facebook is dying out sl
Re: You know what fixes that? (Score:1)
> I don't really want to see a return of the Mob, so instead I want to bring enough raw political power that the suits don't feel like they can use violence and intimidation.
Isnâ(TM)t that just kind of outsourcing the mob?
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I look forward to seeing men with Fb jackets pointing mini guns at developers.
You're so fucking hilarious. Thank you for being here every day.
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That's a very motivated misreading of the parent post
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Yeah, because things haven't changed AT ALL since the 1930s when it comes to labor laws. Or firearm laws. Or what is deemed acceptable in an age of mass media and instant global publishing of live video.
I mean, what a hysterical view of the world you have where you think that Zuckerberg is going to have hired goons with machine guns busting up a labor brawl outside their offices in Menlo Park. Are there 11 year olds running around in patched tweed trying to sell newspapers in this vision too?
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Maybe you're wrong and, enhanced on-site laundry, day-care, meals, happy hours, gym facilities with yoga plus expansive outdoor parks along with private commuter busses, (with corporate wifi), to the more affordable suburbs are part of the deal. Then again, maybe those perks are not on offer and you are correct.
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Maybe you're wrong and, enhanced on-site laundry, day-care, meals, happy hours, gym facilities with yoga plus expansive outdoor parks along with private commuter busses, (with corporate wifi), to the more affordable suburbs are part of the deal. Then again, maybe those perks are not on offer and you are correct.
All those perks were always part of the Machiavellian calculations. Notably, it costs far less to hire laundry workers, day care workers, kitchen staff, yoga instructors and landscapers than it does per hour for tech workers, especially savvy engineers. So, you offer these perks so those folks can pour even more of their time into work, often totaling 12-16 hours a day. You don't have to pay the engineers in California for this -- they're all "exempt" from overtime. So you get an extra .5x-1x a high-en
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3 days a week is totally reasonable.
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As I understand it, FB has a lot of turnover; there's probably a very large cohort that got hired after the pandemic lockdowns and never did the "every day of the week" thing.
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Omg, it's soooo horrible working for a FANG company where a developer can easily pull down 500k+ a year in RSU, stocks, cash and other benefits!
And they have great offices packed full of free food, yoga class, and the works! And when asked to come in three whole days per week to this hell hole they are going to quit and gun down some FB execs over the cruelty they had to endure!!!!
Omg, fucking babies. No one is gunning down anyone. Get over it. We live in the easiest times ever for humanity's entire exi
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. Not to say w
Re:Driving Attrition (Score:4, Informative)
We live in the easiest times ever for humanity's entire existence. .
You should read this article [mit.edu], which notes your opinion is one of "capitalism's most enduring myths." While the industrial revolution was the worst for workers, Americans still work a lot more today virtually every other era of history.
And that's the workers..if you want to compare the gentry, let's say anyone VP and above at Meta...they work a lot more than the landed gentry of old.
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Sun Tzu and Machiavelli would never have been so stupid as to keep the dross that has no alternatives and motivate anybody competent to leave.
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Sun Tzu would have executed anyone abandoning their post.
I take it you have not actually read Sun Tzu. I highly recommend you do.
Machiavelli did not command an army of any sort.
So? This is about organizations, not armies. You may want to refer to the posting I am answering to. Machiavelli certainly had a lot of experience with those.
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You probably aren't wrong. If they get people to quit, then they don't have to pay severance, unemployment, equity vesting, etc. So instead of paying people to go away - which they've already done a lot of - they'll instead just make them miserable until they go away on their own.
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True. Of course, longer-term they are destroying their company. But I think that process is well underway anyways for Meta.
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I'm sure the HR team in charge of this decision had to come up with an option to increase "organic attrition:" getting people to quit.
A somewhat cynical friend of mine says HR's job is to tune pay and benefits to get attrition at the level the company wants. I doubt anyone in HR thinks about it that explicitly but that's got to be part of the calculation. The other pars is you need the right mix of employees.
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Or it could be the opposite. The layoffs are to strike enough fear into the workforce that people will just shrug and accept the unnecessary return to the office.
That's OK (Score:3)
I have zero desire to work for Meta anyway.
Dell did this (Score:5, Interesting)
Dell's policy is that if you have upto a one-hour commute, you should work in the office three days a week. Managers have a lot of flexibility, meaning there's no enforcement at this time. We still have to check out a cube (upto a month in advance), and we don't have any place to leave personal stuff, so it's the worst of both worlds.
It Doesn't Make Sense (Score:2, Interesting)
The move won't affect workers who currently have remote positions
It's interesting that the reason given to make people get back to office at least 3 days a week is to foster "the collaboration, relationships and culture necessary for employees to do their best work."
So, workers with remote positions achieve the same collaboration, relationships and culture without even going 3 days a week? Because I don't think Meta will imply that those remote workers do not do their best work.
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you are wrong, that is the exact implication they are making and have been since "everyone" went home
So, when a company literally selling the virtual office as the future Workerworld, demands you risk life and limb jumping in a gasoline-powered car to further poison yourself and the planet for the purposes of justifying overpaid cube farmers to police children in a place where they (allegedly) hire grown-ass adults in order to support a virtual world, I'm assuming a valid response to that level of hypocrisy and arrogance would include death by bitch slap. In front of a live audience. On pay per view.
(Set
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So, workers with remote positions achieve the same collaboration, relationships and culture without even going 3 days a week? Because I don't think Meta will imply that those remote workers do not do their best work.
Meta is just honoring the terms of the agreement with those specific people who were hired on the premise that they would work remotely.
That's not the case of most employees - they were not hired to be remote, and they have a salary for the Bay Area.
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You think those guys aren't working 7 days a week for more hours a day than any of their staff? You don't understand how successful big name CEOs operate. They never leave work. They can be fucking their mistress and they're thinking about work. They dream in work. On vacation they are still working. I'm lazy, the last thing I'd want is to be a CEO. Those guys live and breathe nothing but work. It's their entire existence.
You picked the wrong theme.
Odd spin... (Score:2)
The headline makes it sound like META is making people return to the office but the summary makes clear this only impacts people who already go into the office. Basically it gives hybrid flexibility to current deskbound staff.
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The summary says this this does affect "remote" workers. But what is a "remote" worker? (TFA paywalled). It may only refer to people who do not leave near a Meta office. Everyone else has to come in three days/week.
For reasons specific to my situation I can just about deal with three days/week. Today I was offered a quite promising role with a startup but they insisted on four days/week in the office. I refused. No deal. Coincidently, I am actually working indirectly for Meta. The remote terms are
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"The move won't affect workers who currently have remote positions... mandate only applies to workers already in an office some days."
I think they reasonably define it. So there might be a narrow band of people who go into the office but do so less than 3 days/week that'll have to go in more. But there are likely some who go in 5/week now and will be cut back to 3/week by a change like this.
There is another factor in all this. (Score:2)
Commercial real estate is the lynch pin investment of the wealthy in this country and that real estate as well as the personal home values of those in the valley crashes when people have no need for commercial real estate or to live in the valley.
Ultimately working in VR in shared spaces would kill all business case for having people return to office for virtually every job but doing so would kill the personal real estate investments of everyone in management from the middle up. The shareholders should sue.
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Lol, you think Zuckerberg gives a flying fuck about commercial real estate or the home values near his offices?
Lmao
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You mean commercial real estate like that of FB and home values like his own? Maybe but if you think one guy having total authority is the same thing as one guy running a company you are clueless. Zuckerberg does what his army of underlings guide him to do just like anyone else heading up a large enterprise and I doubt Zuckerberg gives a shit one way or another about remote workers.
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Commercial real estate is the lynch pin investment of the wealthy in this country and that real estate as well as the personal home values of those in the valley crashes when people have no need for commercial real estate or to live in the valley.
Maybe, but it's also a major expenditure for businesses. These folks aren't the kind of "I'll waste a ton of money to prop up this sector for my rich buddies' sake". If they can save a pile of money by going fully virtual with no downside they'll do it.
Certainly, Meta owns it's main campus but I'm guessing most of the rest was leased. If they could cut that lease cost that would make them a lot more money.
Ultimately working in VR in shared spaces would kill all business case for having people return to office for virtually every job but doing so would kill the personal real estate investments of everyone in management from the middle up. The shareholders should sue.
If only there were a major software company that had literally renamed itself on the belief that everyo
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"Maybe, but it's also a major expenditure for businesses. These folks aren't the kind of "I'll waste a ton of money to prop up this sector for my rich buddies' sake". If they can save a pile of money by going fully virtual with no downside they'll do it."
You are mixing things up. Companies don't actually have brains, they are run by people and the people ARE the rich buddies. The business operational expenditure doesn't really cost them anything, it is funny money. If anything the devaluation of the assets
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"Maybe, but it's also a major expenditure for businesses. These folks aren't the kind of "I'll waste a ton of money to prop up this sector for my rich buddies' sake". If they can save a pile of money by going fully virtual with no downside they'll do it."
You are mixing things up. Companies don't actually have brains, they are run by people and the people ARE the rich buddies. The business operational expenditure doesn't really cost them anything, it is funny money. If anything the devaluation of the assets is a bigger deal as long as the cashflow is there. Whereas their home values and personal investments tanking would cost them a great deal. That is real money.
It's not like they own the property the company is renting (outside of the sketchy WeWork dude). Do you really think the depreciation of value in the company stock, which is a big chunk of their net worth, not to mention their potential loss of employment due to poor cashflow, is outweighed by the marginal drop in real estate values from their company ceasing its tenancy?
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"It's not like they own the property the company is renting (outside of the sketchy WeWork dude)."
WeWork dude? We are talking about FB not rando overvalued startup. We also aren't JUST talking about FB, we are talking about FB doing a better job of enabling pretty much EVERYONE to skip the office. So that rando startup no longer pays WeWork dude, they just buy a few quest headsets and keep working out of their respective houses... in fuckall ohio, nebraska, and blood IL pop 500.
"outweighed by the marginal d
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I'm sorry I find your argument very confusing.
"outweighed by the marginal drop in real estate values from their company ceasing its tenancy"
You are assuming someone else hops in to take over the property rather than everyone else also working remotely.
That's not how real estate works. It might take a while to find new tenants, particularly if the owners take a while to drop the rent, but someone will move in.
And it seems to imply this weird narrative where one major tenant leaving causes the value to drop to zero, again, doesn't make sense.
Why would there be depreciation in company stock or poor cashflow... it is an existing expense and if you erased it altogether I very much doubt it would have ANY impact on their stock value.
Removing a major expense improves earnings, and therefore stock value.
Sure, the VR revolution would be a huge boon to FB over the long term but nobody there besides Zuck likely gives a shit about the value of the stock in 15 years.
Remember Zuckerberg completely dominates the decision making of Meta, if there's anyone with a ton inv
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"That's not how real estate works. It might take a while to find new tenants, particularly if the owners take a while to drop the rent, but someone will move in."
No that isn't how real estate HAS worked, which is why there is so much invested in commercial real estate and banks will not only give loans but base them on the cashflow rather than the property of the real estate itself. It's seen like mortgage backed securities as something which can't fail.
Visit the interior of the country and you'll see billi
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"Removing a major expense improves earnings, and therefore stock value."
Not really. Stock value isn't really linked to operations, the increases don't come from profits and the drops don't come from losses. Those changes come from the PERCEPTION of third parties. The building might be a major expense but it isn't major relative to the scale of FB cashflow and won't have any significant impact on earnings that is likely to sway the valuations of the market.
"And it seems to imply this weird narrative where on
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"Removing a major expense improves earnings, and therefore stock value."
Not really. Stock value isn't really linked to operations, the increases don't come from profits and the drops don't come from losses. Those changes come from the PERCEPTION of third parties. The building might be a major expense but it isn't major relative to the scale of FB cashflow and won't have any significant impact on earnings that is likely to sway the valuations of the market.
Then why do stock prices always change when companies release earnings and don't hit their projections?
Perception (ie, expectation of future earnings) is certainly part of it,
"And it seems to imply this weird narrative where one major tenant leaving causes the value to drop to zero, again, doesn't make sense."
Probably because nobody is claiming that.
Really?
You are assuming someone else hops in to take over the property rather than everyone else also working remotely.
You keep trying to twist a narrative of mass exodus from universal in-office employment into a reduced scenario that literally just involves FB ditching their own campus. What would drop the value isn't so much FB leaving as nobody else wanting to move in, certainly not at the current on paper valuation.
Ok, that's a better argument, but still not really great. FB has offices everywhere [metacareers.com]. Even if they allow anyone to work 100% remote they'll still have more than enough employees happy to work in the main campus and be
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Oh it definitely is that. Commercial real estate is one of the best kept trivially discovered secrets there is. Unlike regular real estate which is entirely a money game, tying up a load of capital to secure lending commercial real estate is based on revenue estimates. The bank will want 'skin in the game' but you don't have to have a deposit, repayment can be nearly forever and the rates are rock bottom. Essentially it is a great way for banks to dump capital into relatively secure long term holdings they
So they want to lose anybody competent? (Score:4, Interesting)
Because that will be happening. Anybody competent can get an online or at least mostly WFH job these days, and the employers offering that are the only ones that get enough applications from competent people. The competent people that want to work in an office will leave soon after, because the whole work environment will go to hell.
Incidentally, ist this the same "Meta" that wants people to work in the "Metaverse"? Talk about an abysmally stupid move...
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I can make 500k+ in total comp as a FB dev and go in a few days a week or I can work at a WFH startup and make 180k cash with limited hope my stock options are ever worth anything.
Any rational adult would take the 500k. If they were already so rich they didn't need the 500k then they should retire and enjoy life.
Only a fucking baby would take a 60% cut to work in his underwear at home surrounded by his action figures.
Re:So they want to lose anybody competent? (Score:4, Insightful)
And how many people do you think are getting $500k at Meta as devs? I know one pretty exceptional person that got $250k at Google, but that was not the rule even there. With a bit of research, it looks like Meta gives about $150k in total compensation for the average developper.
Also, what makes you think WFH is a "startup" thing? You seem to be a bit disconnected from observable reality.
Of course, if you make the numbers up (as you obviously did), you can draw support any arbitrary statement with them.
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Here's the problem with your bullshit: you seem to think that everyone at Facebook makes half a million a year in total compensation, which is obviously a stupid assertion on it's face.
The support idiots don't make $500k/yr.
The junior devs don't make $500k/yr.
The front-line managers don't make $500k/yr.
The accountants and HR droids don't make $500k/yr.
The marketing weasels don't make $500k/yr.
The janitors, admin assistants, and other ancillary support staff (telephone sanitizers) don't make $500k/yr.
That's
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I guess you are one of the people that go to the office not to produce results but to socialize. I can understand you feel very threatened by WFH. With more WFH, it will become very obvious who is what.
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What techbros on here don't get is that ALL human activity is social.
Nope, it is not. Seriously. It may seem to _you_ like that, and it will seem like that to many other people, but not everybody is that limited.
They bribe the key players (Score:2)
Because that will be happening. Anybody competent can get an online or at least mostly WFH job these days, and the employers offering that are the only ones that get enough applications from competent people. The competent people that want to work in an office will leave soon after, because the whole work environment will go to hell.
I've been a part of this at a few companies before. When they do these stunts, they give the key players lots of non-vested options, promotions, stock grants, bonuses, raises, etc. So your star team keeping your cash-maker running? Their managers already met with them and told them about their new promotion and asked them what it would take to retain them. If they are trying to stimulate attrition, they've bribed the recognized contributors and are hoping the others voluntarily leave to cut costs.
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Well, then they keep the Rock-Stars and the dross. Does not strike me as a good strategy either. For many things it is those with more average skills that keep things running.
How to move forward steady-state (Score:2)
Don't like it? (Score:2)
haha metaverse (Score:2)
Why doesn't meta walk the walk and just make its employees come to work in the metaverse?