Going back to the office is trauma for a lot of people.

So this is a rant and I'm going to ramble. If you don't want to read it or engage, or if you want to engage in a negative way, I truly appreciate you just skipping this one. Seriously, if you want to engage in a negative way, pat yourself on the back for skipping this one, it's not necessary, we've all heard your negative judgmental energy. Your comments to this post will contribute nothing except to justify your own need to agitate others as a purpose you've created for your existence. I just feel the need to put this energy into the universe and am exhausted by angry judgmental online (and real world) trolls.

For whatever reason, we in Houston, that have had the privilege of working from home (read: non essential workers) for the entirety of the pandemic, are being asked to come back to the office tomorrow. The business need for this has not been defined clearly. The VOI for bringing us back has not been shared with us. The impact of losing talent and the emotional toll on loyal workers has not been shared us. However, management feels strongly that this is the time (when the omicron wave is starting to, but has not yet subsided) that we bring the nonessential workers back to the office.

We will share elevators with people that have a different risk tolerance than us. We will need to plan ahead for our lives based on this difference in risk tolerance. It will change the way we eat lunch, it will change the way we attend meetings, it will change our time management and our work-life balance based on our commute times, our parking stress, our general disposition in a building we've not been forced to inhabit for almost 2 years. It will affect our mental health and resilience to perform our jobs.

Management has data on this decision. Management feels this is a need and a value-add for the corporation and our shareholders. I (personally, and knowingly to a fault) frequently judge management decisions based on limited data, knowing they have way more data than I do, knowing they know better than I do how this corporation will grow and provide value for shareholders. This may very well be a good decision for the Chevron corporation. However, I have no doubt that this will not be a good decision for many individuals that work for the Chevron corporation.

This IS TRAUMA and a MAJOR ADJUSTMENT for a lot of people. Many peers that I have interacted with have a massively different risk tolerance regarding their own health. Working from home, attending meetings via Teams and sharing all your work over Sharepoint has been effective, has driven value, has contributed to the HIGHEST STOCK PRICE our corporation has ever seen; but management feels that being physically in an office will make it MORE effective. I do not have the data to dispute this claim.

I DO have the data, via personal interactions, to share with anyone that will read this that many (very talented and value-adding) people will experience trauma and a massive shift in work-life balance. Energy will be spent on worrying about commutes, arranging for meeting times in the office, putting effort into lunch planning for the week, SPENDING MORE TIME WORRYING ABOUT PREPARING FOR WORK RATHER THAN WORKING.

Management has all the data that I do not have. They have a much better idea on productivity (surely they know how hard we've worked or not worked from home via spyware), they have a much better idea on how meetings will progress (how many Teams meetings have failed because of our personal internet connections?), management has more data to know how to drive value for the CORPORATION AND SHAREHOLDERS. They surely have the data to suggest that the massive amount of stress and energy we are spending on commute times, parking, lunch planning and stress being around coworkers who do not respect our risk tolerance for a new virus (or for that matter, any other virus or infection; some people have always valued their work over your health) will provide more value to shareholders than working from home. The trauma and loss in workers mental health and talent to the corporation is a savvy sacrifice for the value we will create in coming back to the office.

I want to thank the management for looking at the data I do not have and creating value for shareholders at the cost of my mental health and wellbeing. Your sacrifice will not go unnoticed. All hail the CVX stock price over "human energy".

Comment! It's anonymous!

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OP: I feel for you and can appreciate your concerns. I am very worried about return to the office — but I decided to do what is within my control to manage the risk if contagion (especially being around colleagues with kids). I will continue to participate in meetings via Teams (the only difference is that I will take the Teams call from my desk at work instead of my desk at home). I will bring lunch and avoid the cafeteria and coffee station to the extent possible. I will discourage face-to-face meetings unless absolutely necessary. I will work strictly my 9 hours — no more discretionary effort. I will not travel on company business (I don’t do it for personal reasons either). I will continue to wear a mask. Why all this? Because I need to stay employed, but I have no desire to get a potentially life-ending disease. Everyone needs to look out for themselves. If something happens to me, Chevron isn’t going to give a hoot about me, and the consequences of a COVID infection could be catastrophic for me. Everyone can have their own opinion about this — but that means that I also get to have mine. Ya’ll do you and let me worry about me.

You people do realize that operations and maintenance have never stopped going to work don’t you? So have the people who stock the shelves at Walmart, target, Amazon, Whole Foods and other supermarkets. So what makes you so fragile or special?

Wow, I can’t believe all these t!tty babies who can’t handle going to work. I’m selling all my CVX stock!

Complain about commuting? We didn’t tell you to live so far away. Driving stresses you out? Parking stresses you out? Thinking about what to have for lunch stresses you out? You have some serious problems snowflake! I’m guessing getting dressed, taking a shower, and brushing your teeth stresses you out also.

Can’t go to the office because you might get a cold? How are you able to go to restaurants, the gym, bars, concerts, basketball, football, and baseball games, get on airplanes, and all the other things you do?

I feel sorry for you. We will give you plenty of time to stay home after you are laid off. Like you stated, you are nonessential and this two year experiment proved we don’t need you. Your replacement will be working remotely - from India, for a lot less money and won’t constantly whine.

Your pitiful logic that at the office you get on two calls and then just bs with people the rest of the day does not prove that you can work from home, it is just further proof that we don’t need you.

@2zcl, We get it, you're personally offended. Big surprise. Yawn....................

@2piu+1fjybBJi

Evidently you have not been paying attention. Your use of phrases such as “spoiled brats” suggests your problem is anatomical; get a doctor “pronto”

You want to share the benefits, beyond your CPF, if the company does well but accept no blame if we miss targets. This is the basic Chevron accountability problem.

Agreed, @2xpi. How is it that a health safety response to a temporary pandemic suddenly turns into an assumed permanent benefit for the entitled spoiled brats?

I don't have kids, so I can only imagine the impact it will have on them.

The reality is if you were able to WFH, people would start complaining about the raises those working in the office receive. Reality is reality, it's not so much what you do, it's who knows what you're doing.

Also, if got your shots, then you should have zero fear about catching anything. I mean they work, right? As long as you keep up your subscription plan.

@1oan: If CVX 'disappointed the market' (and for market, read 'analysts') it's not because of anything the rank-and-file did or failed to do. The decisions that affect earnings and spend are layers of corporate bureaucracy above that level. I refuse to take responsibility- negative or positive!- for their results. (Also, why is it that an analyst can blame their poor prediction on the company? I don't blame the rock if I whiff on permeability. Seems like a racket cooked up by Wall St.)

OMG, you have to wake up in the morning and go to work to make a living like the rest of society? My the humanity!

Just hoping for a mass exodus. That’s they only way they will lessen or change anything. Eventually we will be back on mondays too if there is not an exodus.

Our group got a talking to about behaviors/attitudes and we need to shape up. What attitudes? Oh the one you gave me.

Half my floor didn't come back after lunch today. I guess they headed over to the off-campus site?

It will be interesting to see if fewer people bother coming in tomorrow. My group hasn't done a single thing the last two days that couldn't be done via WFH.

Yeah I don't see the point of RTW, nothing I did today couldn't have been virtually and the 1hr commute each way is annoying

The profits are a function of oil price only. We missed the estimated and disappointed the market. Hello?

You can be just as social and get to know your team virtually. I am able to ask people how they are doing and learn about their activities working from home just as well as in the office. We don't live in the old west where you have to ride over to chat with someone miles away. Yes we knew about the issues of bad commutes, bad metro system and generally a bad city with the job but we have been able to work from home just fine with record breaking profits results so there is no need to punish the workforce by sending us back to the office just because management and a few people want us up there. To those with the "if you don't like it leave group", I guess if you don't like working in the field so you want people in the office as misery loves company or if you don't like mask or vaccine mandates you can leave as well.

The commuting and office situation is the same today as it has been for decades. No change. Why the surprise and shock about traffic, buses, lunches, etc.? Unless you were hired in the last two years, you already know all this. You signed up for it and can deal with it no problem. Good news is CVX is hybrid and flexible so you can still do some WFH if you like. Be happy! Make the most of face-to-face time with fellow Chevroids. If you are really smart, you will start posting on Workplace about how great it is to be back and all the synergy and value creation you see in office work.

All I can say is how antisocial people have become. It truly is a shame. Don’t you derive some satisfaction by having a conversation with coworkers about weekend activities, what their kids or parents are doing, or politics?

There is no getting used to being at the office in Houston. We have an awful metro system with busses that don't show up or rarely run ontime so that takes a very long time. If you drive you have the extra stress on your car, gas, parking costs, and the stress of driving in heavy traffic on Houston or dealing with road rage and fast driving pickup trucks. All so we can have some locker room talk with da boys and some meaningless meetings. Spend big money at expensive downtown restaurants or eat a sad sandwich from home. Anyone who gets used to that has truly numbed to corporate life and has forgotten how nice it was to work from home full time.

Nonsense. Chevron likes control in layoffs to make sure the losers are out and the winners stay. They don't like it when people quit who are otherwise productive. It costs nearly as much to recruit and train someone as it does to pay severence. Office work is normal and after a week or two of fussing everyone will just get on with it.

MW is trying to cut costs by making people quit. This is a layoff with extra steps and papa Mikey doesn’t have to pay severance. In my role, I must network with hundreds of people across the company. None of them prefer working in the office. Literally zero people. MW is making everyone miserable to thin the herd. People will quit over this. After CIP, just watch as attrition kicks in because there are lots of companies out there that have realized it’s a win-win to work remotely. Chevron is doing this to morale intentionally. It’s a calculated move.

I was significantly less productive today. I had to endure boring water-cooler talk for an hour. I spent an hour on a bus both ways. I didn’t get to have lunch with my kids. I didn’t get to work out in my home gym or even walk outside. I did the elevator down-and-up to show my face to people who make salary decisions. I felt so dirty doing that, but I knew that I had to play the game. I had one face-to-face meeting with someone who missed her dog and a mom who had to hire a babysitter to put her daughter on the bus. Half the meeting was talking about how much everybody missed working from home and how it could have been done on Teams better because nobody knew how to work the projector or book a room anyway.

Great day, and a day for reflection. Two years of listening and reading how the white collar, highly privileged, office based workforce are being discriminated against, whilst their blue collar brothers and sisters have not missed a beat. How white males have no chance of promotion, yet still make up the vast majority of senior roles and take home significantly more pay than woman and minorities. How they will leave and take their talents elsewhere if a company dares tell them a few simple rules and norms to follow. Where the lazy and anti social somehow found a fleeting voice on social media and tried to convince everyone that they had it bad, that the company was conspiring to put awful managers in place who dont listen to them and dont understand them. This insipid revolution is now thankfully drawing to a close. GBA.

@OP+1fjybBJi

Thank you for your service. Please let the door hit in the behind when you are told to leave. We don’t need people like you.

Everyone has a choice. If you don’t like what you are in now, feel free to leave. TX is employment at will. You don’t really need to give any notice if this is not what you want. It is very simple.

Obviously not enough attrition yet!

Please just grow up. You are being asked to come in so you can do your job in a physical environment. By the way, have you ever had a successful date with a partner over virtual space? Well maybe, depending on what turns you on.

Yep. I went in today. Sat at my desk all day, had 2 meetings over Teams and sent a bunch of emails… same productivity as I’ve had for 2 years at home..

And the same frequent flyers walked circles around the office just to ‘be seen’..

I guess we’re just going to go back to the old ways except, what, you can maybe wear jeans a few more days.. wow thanks.

If Going back to work actually causes you “trauma” then you are incredibly meek of disposition, timid of heart, Poorly informed and victim minded. Please find another job where you can stay at home permanently. I wish you luck.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that MW attends the same global conferences with the elites who have recently been telegraphing that the pandemic is becoming endemic. Thus CVX’s decision to schedule RTO is no coincidence either. Make what you want of that.

As far as why they are pressing so hard for RTO, I had heard in some roundabout way there was a financial consideration involved and some sort of tax implication for not doing so. I’m prob way off on that, but we know senior mgmt aren’t going to take a financial hit they don’t have to.

I agree 100%. I do not want to catch covid by going into the office needlessly with a bunch of un-masked people. There is no point or benefit going into the office. I am able to work well with my team from home as we have for the past two years. The added stress of commuting in a rough city and having a couple meetings face to face adds no value and only makes the staff frustrated. Its truly about control as upper management just wants to be able to look over their employees that help make record breaking returns from home. They aren't thinking of the attrition and loss of productivity due to frustration.

Don't think I'd use trauma, but even before COVID, commute into downtown was always biggest negative to my job. Then, to boot, if you worked at 1400, elevators were often a joke with large packs of folks further adding delay. All that said, hey getting a few days to work at home is still much better than before. In terms of germs, don't get me started as we are talking 99.5% survival rate for virus that doesn't seem to care about shots are not, and most recent dominate strain is common cold type.

It's a big joke to me. My daily schedule is having 1 or 2 Teams calls with people in other locations. Management, for some reason, thinks it's vital that I show up to HOU140 three times a week to take a couple of Teams calls and work alone at my cubicle for 9 hours.

How about the trauma for those that lost their jobs and don’t have the option to experience the trauma of returning to the workplace? It’s all about perspective.

Somehow management got lucky on the timing - today's Chron says omicron cases are way down back to early December levels. That's pretty good news.

Everyone knows returning to the office will be an adjustment, just like working from home was a long adjustment. But we have worked from the office before, so we know it can work. The slow-roll 3-days a week gives everyone time to adjust. If you seriously have health issues and would prefer to WFH another week or two until the tail of the omicron surge passes, talk to your boss.

I can tell you omicron is wildly contagious. If someone has it in the office and you are in proximity for a bit with them you will catch it. So, keep your distance for a few weeks. Bring your lunch and eat in your office. Don't sit close in meetings or call in from your desk. Make it work for you.

@ico+1fjybBJi, I'll say it again: Your comments to this post will contribute nothing except to justify your own need to agitate others as a purpose you've created for your existence.

Your life must be sad that you gain positive experience by trying to give others a negative experience. What a miserable way of life.

It can be treated more or less successfully, most of the time. Definitely not all of the time.
I keep seeing people play it off like its the flu. Technically it is a bit like the flu... but it's also much worse. This is a pandemic and is ki----g 7-8 times the number of people annually than the flu ever did.

just got word uncle mike is working from home today and will not be able to make HOU rounds for nap time milk delivery today.

Have courage. Things are not as dark as you may believe. The virus Can be treated successfully; it is not a death sentence for the overwhelming majority of people who contract it (99%). Try to work on your own health and fitness. Life must go on and unfortunately you work for a corporation as an employee so you do not get to make the rules. There has been a great deal of theater around the pandemic much of which is not to be believed (neither truthful or factual). The data is useful for those who have the power to make policy around it and for those who have the will and ability to resist or reject unfair decisions. You appear to have neither so comply you must.

strawberry mentality

Thread regarding Chevron Corp. layoffs

Going back to the office is trauma for a lot of people.

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