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Ordered back to the office, top tech talent left instead, study finds
(www.washingtonpost.com)
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this post was submitted on 13 May 2024
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My company ordered back to office, and as I was told, I was the only one to say no.
I generate too much value and have tolerated being underpayed enough that they can't justify firing me.
I'm also not some MIT AI machine learning savant. I come from a business analyst/ QA background, and I have made a SQL/Java/VBA system for virtually free that does the work of a team of 10 every day, but it's just my underpaid ass running it.
When I lose this job, honestly, I'm fucked and it will be a nightmare because I'll probably need to go into an office, and I'm in no shape for that.
But for today, I said no and I keep doing my job.
Which is why you should be looking for another job that ticks all your checkboxes while you have this job.
Very sound advice.
You need to demand a raise. And keep working from home.
That's been the tactic.
Baby steps.
Don't think you should listen to the other guy at face value. The market for your skills is very bad right now. Ensure you don't lose your job, but definitely feel comfortable looking around for something better. When the market feels better and you're getting reached out to a lot, then be more assertive at work.
Absolutely.
I dont share my anecdote for the first time.
I have heard in equal parts that I have a rare privilege and also that privilege will not last forever.
I challenge both takes a little, but mostly accept both as true.
I also left after they ordered us back to the office.
The company (mid sized, a few thousand employees) was stagnant for many years and losing employees faster than employing them because of the bad management. Then they fired all the people (around 50) from a specific location that we were working with, very senior and really great, that i learned a lot from. From a team of 15, we were left 3. Then one of the colleagues got promoted to management, the other left, and I was the only one working on that product.
For context, the company had two very similar products, and wanted to migrate users of one to the other. Instead of providing a technical solution, I suppose they decided to simply make the support customers were paying for really awful, so customers wouldn't renew.
Other than the lack of manpower to maintain the product, infrastructure and also deal with all the customer escalations, it was fine as a workplace... My direct managers understood the situation and made a lot of effort to shield workers from the shitty upper management. I wasn't stressed at all, and just doing my job.
Then at the end of the pandemic, the company got bought by another. And things turned to shit... They fired a lot of people, especially management where they kept only the bootlickers of the new executives. I ended up working on 2 understaffed projects instead of 1 - both the product being replaced, and its replacement. And they made us come back to the office.
So I left.