#rto

To all the people on here complaining about RTO—you are wasting precious time and energy. Don’t waste your efforts whining on here to a group of people who, to be honest, 90 percent don’t give a damn about your problems and the other 10 percent is glad you got you got ‘em. Don't live with the dogma of other people's thinking. You decide what your limits are, or if you have any limits at all.

My cousin’s company issued an RTO mandate a while back. Do you think he took to an internet message board to complain and seek pity? Nope. Not a chance.

He mocked up a concept for a small mechanism for his desk. I think it was a printed circuit board with a slot for his work access badge, connected to a small remote radio unit (it was a cheap RRU from the web) and some kind of signal repeater with a diffuser which made the system think he was on site 24/7.

When they asked him about it, he played d-mb. Then instead of complaining, again he went and improved it with an integrated I/O switch, a battery backup unit with uninterrupted power supply (BBU/UPS), and a linear encoder so the signal output run time was limited to a max of ~65 hours weekly. He tweaked the battery size and a few other design features so that he only has to go into the office once a month for routine maintenance.

My point is sometimes it is better to tap into your creative side than it is to moan and whine on the internet. With the time and effort some of you guys have invested complaining and ruminating here, you could have had 2 or 3 prototypes assembled and tested.

Update: They made him a partner/principal at the firm about 2 years later.

"The issue isnt the RTO. Its the inconsistency of the how it's applied. Some entire teams and some teammates remain remote despite the mandate. Others have assigned desks and don't show up at all? Yes this is still happening. Others coffee-swipe and are back at home by 9:00. Some leave (they don't even sneak out) at noon. MEANWHILE other teammates are required to RTO 5 full 8-5 days"

All the silly posts in this site talking about "staging a protest" with picket signs and masks and cr-p is honestly so cringe and stupid.

In years past when they attempted to enforce a RTO policy, everyone just collectively ignored it, and it went away. That's it. That's all everyone had to do, and it required absolutely no extra effort. Whether that happens again this time around or not, I really don't even care, but I'm not complying regardless.

They can go ahead and fire me, I am not at all worried about it. Ya have until May to have a different option lined up anyways. I'm sure they already expect 10% of the workforce to quit and/or be fired, but probably not 25-50%.

Either way, I'm going to do what I've always done and just ignore it. Not really a big deal.

Because RTO just put 100,000 extra cars back on the road every single day. That’s millions of unnecessary commute miles, burned fuel, congestion, and emissions just so we can sit in offices on Teams calls. For a company that loves to talk about sustainability, this might be one of the most environmentally irresponsible decisions imaginable.

Five-day RTO didn’t improve collaboration, but it did massively increase AT&T’s carbon footprint for no measurable business benefit. If leadership wants to posture about ESG and climate responsibility, they should be prepared to answer for policies that directly contradict it.

When the protest happens, I imagine the signs would write themselves:

Chants:
• “What do we want? REMOTE WORK! When do we want it? NOW!”
• “No more traffic, no more gas — stop the fossil-fuel farce!”
• “Hey hey, ho ho, RTO has got to go!”
• “You said climate, you said care — why are we driving everywhere?”

Signs:
• ‘RTO: Return To Oil’
• ‘More Commutes ≠ More Collaboration’
• ‘Teams Calls, Tailpipes, Hypocrisy’
• ‘Climate Pledges Don’t Count If They’re Emails’
• ‘This Could’ve Been an email’

You can’t claim climate leadership while forcing mass commuting for optics. If culture is about values, this policy says exactly what leadership values and it’s not people, productivity, or the planet.

Atlanta is in the beginning phases of planning mass relocation letters to Plano once the new campus is open. It may make sense to start looking for a house ahead of the forced relocation!

Let us get some idea about how many people got discouraged and have left the company. Only like the post if you left the company or are in process of leaving because of OPO closure.

Has anyone thought about the increase of expenses with having all these people in the office? Everyone washing their hands and using the restrooms all day (I drink a lot of water and use the restroom at least seven times a day), using tons of toilet paper and paper towels, drinking lots of water, coffee and tea, keeping the building warm enough or cool enough for everyone in the office… needing more supplies like copy paper, pencils, pens, notebooks…. I’d imagine the water and sewage bills would increase significantly. Thoughts?

I received a warning because the only place to park at 10 AM is designated as a fire lane. It's well over 100 ft from any structure. There were 9 other vehicles parked in the same area but only 2 of us were tagged. Too many people assigned here. How difficult is it only assign as many people as there are parking and workspaces available?

I've never been more productive in my entire career than while working from home. That's about to change. I have no intention of answering any more mails after working hours once RTO starts. Something urgent needs to be addressed as I'm about to leave? It can wait for the next day, I have to go home. And so on.

I've read several articles last year in which executives from companies that instituted RTO admitted that was their way of getting rid of people without having to pay them severance. They know we don't want RTO. They know that full well. That's not a bug, that's a feature. They're hoping we'll quit. Please don't do them any favors.

I doubt there will an abundance of employees wanting to engage/volunteer in PNC Grow Up Great activities going forward due to the announcement today. I will no longer offer my personal time. It must be on company time, if I even decide to continue to do it. Who has time to volunteer when you’re spending hours during a 5 day work week just to commute to work!? I will no longer contribute to the United Way either. Why should PNC get the recognition for my donation? I hope you all will stand with me on these topics.

Will this apply to all teams, or will some remain fully remote? I’ve heard it applies across all departments.

Procurement employees I know are being asked if they live within 50 miles of L3Harris location. It won't be long now.

Time to make our voices heard folks. Let's pick day(s) to gather outside The Tower at 5pm. Wear a mask, bring your signs. Let's let the a--holes know.

Let’s stop pretending this five days a week RTO mandate is about collaboration, culture, or productivity. We already proved, clearly and measurably, that productivity increased while working remotely. During the pandemic, employees kept PNC stable, profitable, and operational under extraordinary circumstances. That wasn’t leadership from the top, that was workers carrying the bank on their backs.

Now the “reward” is being forced back into offices to sit on Teams calls all day, while absorbing thousands of dollars a year in new costs - gas, parking, commuting time, childcare, daily life friction - in an economy that’s already on fire. Wages haven’t kept up with the cost of living in years, people are stressed across the board, and somehow the solution is to make life harder for the people doing the actual work.

Let’s be honest about what this really is: empty buildings, tax incentives, sunk real-estate costs, and executive optics. Cities are upset. Balance sheets are uncomfortable. And instead of adapting to a proven, modern way of working, PNC chose to protect assets and executive compensation - at employees’ expense.

This decision makes one thing painfully clear: PNC doesn’t care about its people, its so-called “family,” or the reality employees are currently living in. It cares about making top tier executives even richer, no matter the cost. That isn’t leadership. It’s greed wrapped in a RTO memo. 🖕🏻

There it is folks.. May the 4th be with you!!

Question in title

Yep. turn ur camera on Folks!!

There is no reason in the world that a full 5 day in office, no exceptions, for every employee mandate needs to be made. Much less so quickly AND during a bank merger. With all the money baby billy dimon is making he just wants more. mgmt likes to make it about collaboration and culture, but really they are just further ruining PNC's culture by forcing this on everyone. PNC already doesnt pay well and is now making everyone incur costs they werent before. PNC had a ton of remote workforce before covid and is now going back on all of that. A lot of people were hired as remote or worked as remote for years before all of this and they are told to go in.... for what? to make sad little billy happy to see people in his offices. The offices su-k! have you been to any of them? what is the incentive for anyone to come in? There is none! pay for parking, additional childcare, food, travel, vehicle maintenance, etc. PNC cant even bump pay a little to compensate when they are making billions each quarter.

Bumping this up for visibility. OP: @ea+1kes6rfnt

I expect conditions and requirements to get worse over time. It was never about productivity, in-person cooperation for efficiency, or god forbid the benefits of thriving office culture. It was always meant to push as many people out as possible on the cheap, making compliance so irrational, inconvenient, or impossible that we'd just quit.

If it's not going as planned, meaning not enough people are leaving on their own (which is understandable in this job market and economy), it will just become more inconvenient and unbearable. That's the playbook.

So, I drag my a-s into the office every day since Jan 5. Yet since last Wednesday, the building has been pretty much dead. Yeah, there were people on every floor, but it's not full. I was on 27 today, and I spotted 4 people. 4!!

So, where are u and how busy is it? Has your boss told you to work from home again?

holy cow.

i thought the missing vending machines posts were a joke. you should be ashamed if you removed food and drinks and slapped up a sign that says it saves energy.

you should be ashamed that none of your ev chargers work. you should be ashamed that none of your monitors is our disgusting open concept zero privacy dynamic desks work. you should be ashamed at shrinking cafe hours and saying it’s to “better serve us”. you should be ashamed at having only one way in and out of multiple building towers and the rest roped off. you should be ashamed that lights don’t come on or stay in large areas of all floors. what is wrong with you? why are you such cheap skates?

have you no shame woodcreek decision makers? i hope i never meet you, i am truly repulsed. you call for RTO and can’t handle things like lights parking and food. you better be the next cuts.

After giving the return-to-office mandate several months to be fair and well-intentioned, it’s clear this policy creates significant friction without delivering any meaningful benefit—particularly for employees who were hired explicitly as full-time telecommuters. We are now expected to spend personal time getting ready in office attire, commuting, badging in, navigating parking ramps, security checkpoints, and elevators, only to sit alone in a cubicle all day with no teammates in the same state, let alone the same office.

On top of that, there are no assigned desks. Employees routinely arrive to find reserved desks already taken, workstations missing basic equipment, and time wasted simply trying to locate a place where they can do their jobs. This is not collaborative or productive.

Requiring people to sacrifice hours of personal time and incur additional costs to sit alone on video calls all day is not improving productivity, engagement, or morale. It is creating widespread frustration and disengagement. Employees are openly unhappy with this change, and when asked by peers about the policy, they are candid in sharing how illogical and counterproductive it feels. This approach adds inconvenience and resentment while delivering no measurable value.

Is Houston completely unassigned seating now in both towers? If so, brutal to absorb that and RTO 4 days all at once. How is it going for everyone? Strong reactions?

stock is in a free fall again, and they are awarding stocks as retention to their 40k employees. what does it mean? buy backs?
also they are asking people in BH to be in the office all 5 days again, what a joke!

So how is the new RTO 'mandate' going for everybody ?
So far nothing has changed at our office and management seems to not enforce it either.

Also what is the RTO announced for Canada and Ottawa in specific? Are we required to go in anytime soon?

So I left the company last year, but am now considering returning due to pay. But I want to know the exact in-office requirements I would be committing to. I left for remote but I want to consider if the pay raise to return is worth being hybrid.

Can you WFH for now until you wait and start reporting to the new location? Is there any chances you will get terminated since you answer “YES”

Anyone noticed there hasn’t been much more talk about this? Has this stopped? Also any word on why they closed the Middletown NY office?

Well the long awaited 5-day RTO announcement finally came and in PNC fashion it was an email instead of being covered by the executives at their all hands. Obviously they didn’t want the questions or responses. Demchak is so disconnected from reality it’s comical. Good luck to folks that have been hybrid remote since well before the pandemic, a detail most in leadership seem to forget. Can’t wait for the talent to leave in troves to get paid what they’re worth.

Company wide email to come later this week. Only managers received the communication for now.

50 weeks left. Hang in there.

Is the week of the RTO memo drop supposedly?? Wonder how it impacts people who have been in a virtual job for. Few years.

Knowing I have to go to the dell office tomorrow in Round Rock

Manila, Argentina, engine don’t have RTO: they are still hybrid. Why?
What’s the point in the US to have a free for all “find a place” seating?
New spaces are GREAT if you do not care about any ergonomics whatsoever.
When are 1500 office workers moving to 1400 so they can spend $100k+ building floors with glass and non adjustable chairs?

When are the packages coming again?
Makes me so sad - you?

I wonder how many can't or won't comply. RTO is here for attrition purposes, after all.

This question was asked a few times in this forum.

• Yes, companies have started tracking "how long" instead of just "if" people badged in.
• The sensors were there, but aggregation was not so common .. till now.
• https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-flags-employees-rto-office-2026-1

We work for one company, Retail can't function without IT yet every year they get 30% - 50% more bonus payout. This year will be an even bigger slap in the face with IT getting less than half of Retail along with a measly 2% merit increase, promotions canceled, American IT jobs displaced to India, and layoffs in Q1. Why pretend RTO is for collaboration? It just makes leadership look dishonest.