Work officially re-opened last week. I retired my bra-free denim shirt to conform to the revived dress code.
You wouldn't think they would care what I wear on a Zoom call, but they say they do.
And then I steeled myself for the phone calls. "Ellen, where are you, it's a party and everyone's here and we're having a pot-luck breakfast." But the big reunion day came, and the single report from the office was that no one else was there.
Since then, some leaders have attended planning meetings in person, and my guess is that next month there's going to be a push to get everyone back into the expensive, recently re-designed buildings.
I think of Mom saying "If you're too sick for school then you're too sick to play." Well, if I'm too vulnerable for a concert then I'm too vulnerable for work.
I'm just rehearsing for a fight no one will have with me. It seems as if we'll all just stay propped up in our beds in pajama bottoms and fancy shirts.
The thing is, it doesn't matter if they've got an expense: if using the expensive item doesn't 1. make things work better or 2. reduce other expenses, then there's no actual gain from using the expensive item.
And in this case, it'd be more likely to increase expenses (hiring, etc.). So. I hope they don't push back-to-office. Because auuugh.
Posted by: KC | May 03, 2022 at 10:20 AM
KC - had a huge meeting today and 2/3rds of the people were staying at home, though they were encouraged to come in. Much care was taken to make the people staying at home still feel like we were part of the experience. I don't know why, we were in the majority. We should have told the in-office people to take off their pants to feel part of our experience.
Posted by: TheQueen | May 04, 2022 at 08:17 PM
I'm glad the majority is still going "uh... no."
Mixed in-person and online things can be managed very poorly, such that those who are online miss a lot of what's going on even when they are the majority, so I'm glad they had an eye to that, although odds seem good that some of their concepts for how to make you feel participatory were slightly awry, given companies/management/meeting concepts in general...
Posted by: KC | May 05, 2022 at 12:02 PM
KC - everyone did go out to dinner after, so that was a little sad. But not devastating.
Posted by: TheQueen | May 05, 2022 at 06:41 PM