Thread regarding AT&T layoffs

I have never met anyone in person on the team I’ve been on for 3 years or my Director or any of the clients I lead projects for.

They would love to have you believe it’s about real estate.
IMO it is about prying as many jobs away from incumbents as they can with out of state RTO and replacing them with hand picked DEI candidates.

Wait for the next town hall when the DEI Officer provides an update on the great strides we have made with our diversity goals and shows you the fancy slides and graphs. Just remember that for every DEI hire there first had to be an opening. People that lost their jobs because they were hand picked to be moved out of state were sacrificial lambs.

They destroyed the lives of so many families and yet their thirst and hunger grows stronger.

The real real answer is that corporate real estate is a huge huge part of Wall Street, and big investors need companies to have their workers on prem or else their corp real estate values plummet.

I have made it a point to not purchase a single item in the city that my office is in. And I stock my house up with TP and office supplies from the office. Thats why there's no TP all the time.

I encourage everyone to bring your own lunches.

Getting employees to Return To Work.

Dallas and Atlanta tax breaks for AT&T are MASSIVE. If AT&T does not produce evidence of employees in office (and the correct office, not a suburban drop in cube), the impact would be significant. Like stock price drop, sell corporate jets, no bonuses and more layoffs. The presence reports are being produced for local government. Dallas needs people to frequent restaurants, shopping, parking and salons to maintain city employment and their tax base.

“ There’s an extremely small minority of people who enjoy living in cities, most people can’t stand them.”

Bingo! I abhor big cities & am not a fan of “suburbia” either.

The ultimate goal is to push toward reducing locations by forcing people out of undesirable locations via firings, forced attrition, etc. This will allow them to offer jobs only in the demographic they want. This slims down the real estate and concentrates all management employees into a very small footprint. In the case of ATT, the end goal is to have all management in Dallas or Atlanta. Problem is the talent pool will be slim. But they don't care because ATT has no vision or innovative spirit, and is perfectly ok with mediocrity, so they will have mostly mediocre employees.

Until contractors are required to RTO also - the collaboration and tax break reasons are blatant lies

Power grab, plain and simple.

Maybe cities should reinvent themselves as places people actually want to be instead of places people are forced to be then?

There’s an extremely small minority of people who enjoy living in cities, most people can’t stand them.

“Right, cause we can all WFH, and we only need cell phones for that. So F- the techs in cities, too.”

If the only thing propping them up is an artificial push to get people to return to them, then it’s a house of cards that’s bound to collapse anyways.
Times change, technology will evolve further, cities have only become worse and worse places to live, not better.

If cities are so bad that and such a house of cards that they’re entirely dependent on high income earners commuting to prop up the system, then it’s a system that probably needs to be reworked anyways.

Remote work technology will only get better, despite RTO or any push for in-person work it’s going to become dominant as time goes on - the writing is on the wall.

As boomers die off, and younger people take over in leadership roles knowing for a fact that remote work does work, it will become even more prominent.

You can only push against progress for so long.

Fu-k cities.

Right, cause we can all WFH, and we only need cell phones for that. So F- the techs in cities, too.

There are only two forces great enough to make all CEOs do patently irrational things like this. Wall Street or the US Government. My money is on the former. The advent of companies like Blackrock that control trillions in stocks via retirement systems means they can exercise undue influence on the entire business sector. It is time for them to be broken up. Companies deserve to have the freedom to do the right thing and get rid of real estate they don't need.

“Yes, commercial real estate will sink further without RTO. This article discusses a midtown Manhattan building that sold for $332M in 2006 that just got auctioned for $8.5M. https://nypost.com/2024/08/02/real-estate/huge-midtown-office-building-sells-for-a-97-discount/“

Good, let it all burn.
Fu-k cities.

Yes, commercial real estate will sink further without RTO. This article discusses a midtown Manhattan building that sold for $332M in 2006 that just got auctioned for $8.5M.

https://nypost.com/2024/08/02/real-estate/huge-midtown-office-building-sells-for-a-97-discount/

T wants to help employees live their true designations and be their best selves.

“If city officials pushed it I wouldn’t be surprised given the revenue loss from the lack of commerce however most local, city, state and fed employees are still enjoying working the majority of their time remotely….”

A lot of cities have been pushing RTO initiatives on their own due to these same reasons.
Obviously they’re not worried about commercial real estate as much, but they are trying to push people back into cities so they can collect taxes.
I just refuse to spend anything while I’m forced into the city. I don’t get lunch, I show up get my badge stay a couple hours, drink the free coffee, go home.

If city officials pushed it I wouldn’t be surprised given the revenue loss from the lack of commerce however most local, city, state and fed employees are still enjoying working the majority of their time remotely….

“So the corporate real estate market is similar to the Ukraine war in which Blackrock dumped a ton of money into and now the government must keep the debt fire burning printing more dollars that at some point you and your next generations will have to pay for to save Blackrock”

Basically.
A lot of these loans for commercial real-estate are coming due in 2024 and beyond and WFH has lowered the overall value of the real-estate as well as increased interest rates, this would mean that many owners would realize there’s no value in these buildings and increase the chance of default.

It’s near $1T in garbage CRE.
These people are fighting against the winds of change and progress, they want you stuffed in these sardine cans to prop up their portfolios and keep banks that made bad investments propped up.

So the corporate real estate market is similar to the Ukraine war in which Blackrock dumped a ton of money into and now the government must keep the debt fire burning printing more dollars that at some point you and your next generations will have to pay for to save Blackrock

Even if everyone co-located you really only need 1 day a week, at most, in-office for most teams.

“The people pushing for this stuff are so out of touch with how work actually gets done.”

https://thehill.com/opinion/technology/4869666-office-death-wells-fargo/

This is a very good summary of what we experien vs what the leaders assume.

It says people spend about 80 minutes a day on in-person collaboration. I never come close to that and I think that’s the case for a lot of us.

I would feel a little different about this BS if any effort was made to actually make coming in more than just sittting on calls and sending emails from a different desk + a time and money wasting commute. The stealth layoff aspect and the lies make it even worse.

Futile attempt to prevent a depression when the corporate real estate market tanks and it doesn't matter because when your country is 30-50T in debt you are sc--wed anyway.

“I have never met my manager in person (we’re talking years now) and I have never had an in-person working meeting with about 95% of key stakeholders on my projects so I am collaborating my a-s off.”

Same hahahaha.
True.

The people pushing for this stuff are so out of touch with how work actually gets done.

“Maybe, possibly get a little collaboration, but really with no assigned seats and groups still in separate locations, we all know how important that is.”
“No one collaborates in my building because no one can find seating to be near one another so we just do everything on teams.
D-mb.”

I have never met my manager in person (we’re talking years now) and I have never had an in-person working meeting with about 95% of key stakeholders on my projects so I am collaborating my a-s off.

“Maybe, possibly get a little collaboration, but really with no assigned seats and groups still in separate locations, we all know how important that is.”

No one collaborates in my building because no one can find seating to be near one another so we just do everything on teams.
D-mb.

People are still asking this? Ok here goes.

1. Most important by far. Do a mass layoff but make it look like people ‘chose’ to leave so you avoid the bad press and media scrutiny especially after the DTV and Warner debacles. Compare the coverage of AT&T layoffs vs companies like Google, Meta, etc. There basically is none.
2. Cut real estate expense via Pack Up or Get Out and justify the remaining space by forcing people into the office. Tax breaks and the like may be a factor here too.
3. Boost leadership egos by letting them ‘walk the floor’ and survey everyone in their domain
4. Reassert control over the plebes. Corporate leaders can’t stand when peons have any real power and control and this a way for execs to get the upper hand back. This has been all over the media.
5. Maybe, possibly get a little collaboration, but really with no assigned seats and groups still in separate locations, we all know how important that is.

Short quick answer - to save commercial real estate
Who owns the biggest CE portfolio? Blackrock
Who is on our board and most every other big company board? Blackrock

So in short, they did it to save wall st commercial real estate portfolios. Nothing more.

There will also be hall monitors checking to see if you have a bathroom pass.

It’s all juvenile bullsh-t

“Because stank said so. Thats the only reason. Keep asking and forcing an answer. It’s funny to watch the leaders squirm and struggle trying to come up with justifications.”

With no data to justify it either.
They don’t want to admit “because we were told to by local governments and because some of our largest shareholders own commercial real estate and tasked us with keeping cash flowing so prices stay high”

Amazon CEO was put in the same situation and let it slip that he “doesn’t care what the data says” because he knows he’s right.
Why?
Just because.

It’s literally an organized conspiracy to keep real estate prices high, and keep the cash flowing.

Imagine being a tech company and having your CEO say on the record that they “don’t care what the data says”
Pretty wild.

Because stank said so. Thats the only reason. Keep asking and forcing an answer. It’s funny to watch the leaders squirm and struggle trying to come up with justifications.

Keep asking until you get your answer.

Getting rid of expensive dead weight.

“Right after Covid the city of Dallas had a meeting with top executives of every company that has real estate and employees downtown and city wide to address a real estate crisis they were seeing due to Covid and empty building. They basically told these execs if you don’t get everybody back into the office not only will your real estate be worth pennies compared to what they paid but also this would further plunge the economy into a depression and lead to more and more companies going out of business.”

Change is hard, I say let the cities fail.
Everyone will be better off in the end when we don’t all have to crowd into overpopulated, dirty, dangerous, expensive cities.

• Commercial real estate.
• Tax breaks.
• Soft layoffs.
• Outdated hierarchical management.
• Making job hoping harder. It is harder to take interviews if you are always in the office.
• Managers, CEO’s, and bosses in general like to feel important, tons of peons being in the office strokes their ego.
• Boomer legacy managers mostly just did their job by walking around the office and seeing who was there and bothering people. WFH doesn’t allow them to do this and forces individual contributors to be self-starters largely removing the need for middle management. They want butts in seats so they can fall back on their outdated management styles.

Right after Covid the city of Dallas had a meeting with top executives of every company that has real estate and employees downtown and city wide to address a real estate crisis they were seeing due to Covid and empty building. They basically told these execs if you don’t get everybody back into the office not only will your real estate be worth pennies compared to what they paid but also this would further plunge the economy into a depression and lead to more and more companies going out of business. I believe this is reason number 1 for RTO. there’s also subsequent reasons like eyes on employees and I don’t doubt it’s being used as a tool to get people to quit on their own

Yes, there could be some tax implications if companies have gotten tax breaks or incentives tied to on-site work. Those agreements usually take into account workers being in the area going out to lunch/dinner, and living nearby. There was some grace during and after the pandemic, but those governments are now looking for that revenue now that they are also feeling an economic pinch. Note: Not all agreements may include such language, but in a large corporation, it may be easier to apply RTO across the board. Here's an article regarding; it's CA specific, but would apply to any city/state.

https://www.callaborlaw.com/entry/could-states-and-municipalities-in-california-use-taxes-to-limit-remote-work-in-the-future