Ford IT Systems Tampered With To Display Vulgar Anti-RTO Message Across Office Screens

Ford's push for a four-day in-office workweek hit turbulence when someone hijacked meeting room screens to display an anti-RTO protest image targeting CEO Jim Farley. The company quickly removed it and is investigating. The Detroit Free Press reports: According to photos employees took of the image, which were posted on social media and sent to the Detroit Free Press, it contained an image of CEO Jim Farley along with a big red circle with a slash through it over his face and the words "(Expletive) RTO."

"We're aware of an inappropriate use of Ford's IT technology and we're investigating it," Dave Tovar, Ford spokesman, told the Detroit Free Press. Tovar said the image was up for "a short amount of time" and Ford was able to quickly remove it. He said the company is investigating whether the image appeared only in Dearborn offices or globally.

Farley mandated that employees return to the office four days a week earlier this year and it has been in place since Sept. 1, with no fallout such as people quitting over it, Tovar said. Therefore, Tovar said, "I wouldn't be able to speculate on it, as to why someone would do this."

Fcuk yeah! Americans alive and kicking

[butt0nm4n]

RTO Bullshit. Working at home works, covid proved it. It's better for everyone if it's viable. Evolve ffs. We are not in the 1800's anymore!

This drunk rant is over.

Re:

[Moryath]

Ford should just fucking fire Jim Farley. He's been an absolute disaster for the company because he's a fucking incompetent inbred.

Re:

[Fly Swatter]

Remind me again, who works for who?

If the job changes and you don't like it, there used to be the ability to work somewhere else - unless you are worried you can't get another job that allows working from home...

Re:

[r1348]

With this line of reasoning, we would still be chained to treadmills.

Re:

[rta]

Remind me again, who works for who?

Actually, they all work for the shareholders. The CEO and the janitor are both equally prostituting themselves, but the CEO just marketed himself better and charges higher rates.

In public companies (well, all companies in the US at least) everyone works for the shareholders, collectively. And they are represented by The Board of Directors who then hire a CEO and (generally) empower him to make other decisions.

Re:

[butt0nm4n]

The chains you willingly picked up and put on.

Wise companies look after their people, because without them, they cant function. Makes me laugh to hear capitalists say they own their companies, they don't own their workers, until they replace them with robots. Similarly workers are unwise to take the piss and bite the hand that feeds them.

Everything is give and take, negotiation, be too greedy and we'll bite you. Worker management tension is healthy, keeps us all straight and level.

oops

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I guess committing a couple felonies and sitting in jail for a few months waiting for your trial is certainly is one way to not return to the office.

They should probably have protested to work from home instead.

Re:

[UnknowingFool]

Felonies would only apply if it was someone from the outside. If it was an inside job, I doubt anyone could be successfully prosecuted. Yes that person would be fired but the law would most likely treat it as a civil matter.

Re:

[sconeu]

Nope, technically under CFAA that's exceeding authorization (unless it was an IT insider, in which case it MIGHT be civil).

Disclaimer: IANAL. If you need legal advice please consult an attorney licensed to practice in your jurisdiction.

No speculation at all?

[skogs]

Tovar said, "I wouldn't be able to speculate on it, as to why someone would do this."

Really? No speculation at all? A complete mystery you say? Why indeed.

Re: No speculation at all?

[kenh]

Tovar's point was "we're a month into an unenforced mandate, why lash out against it? What's the provocation? Are you upset they might enforce it in the future, so to save time you'll protest against it now?

Re:

[pjt33]

Is it a "mandate" or an expressed preference. If people have actually been ordered to RTO then it's reasonable to expect that failure to comply may lead to retrospective punishment even if it's not being punished immediately.

Re: No speculation at all?

[heptapod]

> retrospective punishment

Hahahah, remember being covered with fire ants and honey? Good times!

Man, I miss being broken on the rack. Now it feels like I'm always stiff in the morning.

Fuck PWDEA

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

People Who Don't Explain Acronyms

What's RTO?

Re: Fuck PWDEA

[bartoku]

"RTO" stands for Recovery Time Objective, which is the maximum amount of time a system or business process can be offline after a disruption before causing significant negative consequences. It's a crucial metric in disaster recovery planning that defines the target time for restoring critical functions after an incident.

Re:

[Chris Mattern]

That is, of course, incorrect. It stands for the Really Terrible Orchestra, a British amateur orchestra.

Re:Fuck PWDEA

[Tschaine]

RTO = Return To Office

A lot of people got used to working from home during the pandemic (myself included). Now that the economy is tanking and jobs are scarce, companies that let people work from home (WFH) are demanding that those same employees return to office (RTO).

Personally I'm still WFHing after my employer demanded RTO, then loosened the demand after attrition became a problem. The whole RTO / WFH thing has pretty clearly just been a function of which side (management vs labor) has a stronger negotiating position.

Re:

[UnknowingFool]

Personally I have seen the blanket RTO mandate makes little sense for some employees. If an employee’s coworkers are not geographically located anywhere near them, then RTO means they have to fight traffic to drive into work for an online meeting. During the pandemic one thing that happened was team members were not organized by location as much.

Re:

[tlhIngan]

Personally I have seen the blanket RTO mandate makes little sense for some employees. If an employeeâ(TM)s coworkers are not geographically located anywhere near them, then RTO means they have to fight traffic to drive into work for an online meeting. During the pandemic one thing that happened was team members were not organized by location as much.

Yeah, lots of employees are just commuting so they can do meetings on Zoom all day, rather than being able to do the exact same thing remotely.

Of course, o

Re: Fuck PWDEA

[kenh]

Return To Office

Re:

[thegarbz]

Not all acronyms need to be explained. At some point we simply rely on Slashdotters having read Slashdot in the past, given how a story related to RTO seems to come up here about every two weeks. I know I know, you're new here.

Re:

[drinkypoo]

What's RTO?

If you cannot figure this out by reading the summary, which makes it obvious, you should try learning to read.

If you cannot be bothered to read the whole summary, you have a lot of company here, but your attention span is still post-millennial and you should go back to TikTok.

\o/

[easyTree]

Vulgar is coercing someone to do something against the interests of themselves, their family and their employer simply because <generalised fear>

Why pay more?

[Inglix the Mad]

You'll have to pay more for office space, furniture, coffee, water, building maintenance, and so on.

You'll have to pay me a LOT more if you want me driving into an office. You'd also better bet it's 45 (assuming no pay for 1 hour lunch) and done. 7AM to 4PM and my phone is turned off at 4:01PM if I'm not on-call that week. Obvious exception if I'm running an install or similar upgrade, but that's comp timed out later.

Or we can leave things as they are now and Jamie Dimon can continue to lose his marbl

Oh, no!

[ecnal]

...anyways.