@p2 I don't know people personally, but headsets do pick up the kids in the background on meetings. Unprofessional and unacceptable.
28 replies (most recent on top)
High horses and low morals? You have one assignment get your a$$ to the office 4x a week. Bar is low for you laptop elitists, time to fish or cut bait.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/elon-musk-says-laptop-class-093309660.html
@1zs all employees who were coded as "hybrid" in the system in the Twin Cities and in DC are part of this RTO wave requiring 4 days a week in the office.
Can someone advise where you are in the country and what business segment is requiring RTO?
@163 YES! 100% This. We are in the exact same situation...yet working parents are getting the blame for "sc--wing the golden goose" or taking advantage of the system or not being team players. All 100% false. The world is not set up anymore to actively support households with two working parents and there are childcare gaps everywhere - often for very minimal time disruptions and exactly the scenarios you are describing. I feel you completely.
For in office, security lines were relatively minimal, today I had to wait in line but it only took an extra minute. The biggest struggle has been the tech and I had 5 hours of lost productivity last week for tech issues, additional commute times in order to be home for that last hour when my elementary aged child is home and we didn't have care for the last 45 min of the day...collectively when that continues to add up, my output at work will be significantly less and it is what it is based on this RTO mandate. We'll do our best to comply, but life will happen, weather will happen, kids will get sick or school won't be in session and because the childcare offerings are so competitive in the twin cities, you can do everything right and still not get a spot. Optum and other companies will need to be understanding and flexible on their end and our performance shouldn't take a hit just because we had to flex on our end - just as people without children have to flex for a variety of different reasons...and parents of children aren't targeting them the way they are targeting us.
@17n It's still rather empty. Only issue is tech and facilities. Security was fine to get through, parking ramp seems fuller than the actual reflection of people on each floor. It's distracting with foot more traffic and people in general, but a lot of floors are still very quiet. Those who have been hybrid were already going into the office weekly anyway, so really no difference.
could someone answer the question that the OP asked? i don' t have kids at home but all my co-workers are in india except for one. the one co-worker isn't in mn or dc and doesn't have kids at home and is online maybe 4 hours a day. so i don't think kids are the issue here. anyway, how was the office for those that went? crowded? loud? slow to get past security?
Some of these comments are ridiculous. Some of us who work remotely have children who are school aged and get home about 3:30/45pm. That means there is maybe an hour and a half of my work day I have a child home with me while I’m working. They’re if an age they’re otherwise self sufficient but not of an age where they can legally be home alone. When we had to look into before and after care for them, there were no openings and we had to join a waitlist. A spot didn’t open up until the second half of the year, just before end of school, and by that point, why bother? If I suddenly need to commute into the office, yes, there would be some panic, because there are often massive waitlists for childcare and having my older child home for 1.5hrs of my day and not needing to worry about commute time is NOT a burden whatsoever. Not everyone is being irresponsible, some of us are just doing the best we can to get by with the options we have while still working our as--s off.
@143 Right you have a SAHW who the majority of the time is watching the child. Her having to n-p out for an appt once in a blue moon is not impacting your job performance. There are others though who work but do not have someone there to watch the child they foolishly think they can do both full time not for a short time while someone has an appt but the whole day. These are the ones that are failing in job performance.
@10f I have a 1 year old. My wife is a full time SAHM. If she has an appt, I can watch the monitor while the kiddo naps. Does that mean the 60 hrs I put in a week from 8-5 and after 11pm are “not working”?
If your directs are remote and not delivering quality, that’s on you and them to figure out. We are not all the same. I know tons of people who work in office that don’t get anything done except drink coffee and talk to each other about the nfl.
@wr Kudos to you but there are others as you can read on this thread that worry about coming into the office as they do not know what they will do with their children. This shows they are only half working if that. Next to impossible to have a child under the age of 5 at home and be able to work.
No one cares. Stop projecting your misery onto others. You chose to be a parent and work stop whining because you can’t have it your way.
My kids are older now and I do indeed “have a spouse” lol people are weird as sh-t on here. My children stay home during the summer. So many miserable people jealous of others not having to work 60 hours a week. I log out at my time and that’s that. Not a second more does this sh-t company get more from me and never will.
@w6 RTO is here for me. I'm back in the office. Kids at home during the week is not and never has been my experience, nor the majority. My kids are in daycare full time and have been since I was forced back to work 10 weeks postpartum. I take my job and career seriously, have professional integrity, and I WORK HARD, whether home or in the office -- as most my peers do.
@w6 people were working from home long before COVID
@vd Covid provided the option and created work from home but now Covid is long over. It appears the RTO will happen not tomorrow but eventually. I also do believe with a young child or 2 at home that work cannot be done as efficiently as it would be in an office setting with no distractions. I do know there are employees that have their young children at home and do not use childcare as they need to.
The difference is that now working from home IS an option, HAS BEEN an option, we're all equipped to do it, and there is research to prove that it has helped with burnout, work-life balance, and in some cases efficiency + productivity. I guarantee if you had had the opportunity during those pivotal years as a parent to young children, you would have welcomed the flexibility. Or is it just because you had to suffer through it now you think others are required to as well? I'm of the camp where I want future generations to have it better than I did, especially as a mother. But hey, I realize that's not the majority in America's 2025.
@q9 - how do you swipe out on a door with no card reader?
@p2 It is tied to performance because those with young children at home while they only half working are simply not performing.
@q9 I totally agree with you. I did the same thing 5 says a week with 3 kids and we managed. No such thing as work from home back then. If you need to return to the office and look for daycare that's what you have to do.
Hey I used to get up crack of dawn shower makeup nylons (yup) suit skirt, take a toddler and baby to daycare drive 45 in traffic to work be there by 8 then bust out at 5 reverse it all race across town to get kids outta jail before 6 or they would charge you, get dinner baths bed and do it 5 days a week - we all did it. We all survived. At least UHC doesn’t monitor swiping out. Elevance does. They monitor swipe in and out. Although I agree ppl can be quite fine remotely- I think there are ways to make the RTO work out if you want it to. Just swipe in 4 days a week.
@k8 Perhaps you should consider being a stay at home mom but you probably don't even have a spouse. People with their YOUNG children at home are not actually working to their full potential. Use daycare and actually work! People like you are what ruins the work from home for the rest of us that actually do work.
@j8 I don't know anyone who is working and having their babies or toddlers at home at the same time. It's so unfair to push that judgment on working parents who are keeping 100 ba--s in the air with 2 fingers. This RTO mandate is one more thing to push us over the edge - esp with it being "tied to performance"
@j8 You are just jealous you cant sit at home and do what you want. Stop following every policy to the T. also, mind your fcking business.
I have always found it crazy that people think they can have a baby/toddler at home and actually be productive.
@hm not sure we even have an option! With the caveat that this RTO mandate is tied to your performance...that's literally giving them an out to let you go at anytime due to our "at will" employment agreements - and now they can tie anything back to "doesn't meet job expectations" when the expectation is 4 days in the office. I really don't know what all of us working parents can and could do with the limited childcare and crazy summer camp hours available to begin with. But ignore RTO and loose your job without severance...su-k it up and "play the game" negatively impacting quality of life (i.e., exhaustion from additional commute times, lost productivity, not enough hours in the day to exercise or do any sort of self care if you have the rat race of children in the evening), but it seems it will always come back to "not meeting job expectations...see ya".
And to think 3 weeks ago everything was fine, employees were thriving in flexible work arrangements, etc. If there were problem employees, those should have been addressed. But a blanketed policy that is so out of touch with reality - no thanks!
dude that sounds MISERABLE no thanks
@ Post ID: @f6+1jzkhbdbw
Tech didn’t work, wasted over an hour setting up a mobile desk that I claimed as my own - if we are coming in 4 days a week, we should get assigned desks. Sat on some teams calls comprised entirely of remote team members…except me in the office. There are 2 of us on a direct team of 35 who were hybrid and now in while everyone else (who primarily live in MN with us and are CLOSER to the office than we are), are able to stay remote at home.
…they did have complimentary tiny pastries as some sort of messed up bribe for you know…collaboration.
Been praying for you all day.