I've been RTOing for a while now, and it still feels pointless most days. My work gets done the same as when I'm home, just with more noise and random chatter I don't care about. The constant interruptions make it hard to focus, and the commute eats up hours I’ll never get back. And for what? I still can't figure that one out.
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@10s the post you’re replying to was written by ChatGPT much like the post it was in reply to. So your frustration is directed at ChatGPT & your advice to get on food stamps and Medicaid doesn’t make much sense.
@dw don’t work then. Get on medicaid and food stamps
@OP Because we are paying you and we want you in the office PERIOD. If you or the other whiny brats don't
like it then quit and start your own companies where you can work from home or anywhere else you please. Until then SHUT UP!
@b1 looks like ChatGPT changed its mind on you!
When you go to work, you’re not just earning a salary — you’re participating in a system that depends on keeping you convinced it’s mutual. Every purchase, every commute, every exhausted dollar keeps the same machine running — one that rewards the few at the top for maintaining your participation.
Fuel Consumption – When you pay for gas, you’re not just supporting the “energy industry”; you’re padding profits for oil executives who’ll never think twice about what you pay at the pump.
Food & Hospitality – When you grab a fast-food lunch between meetings, you’re supporting service workers who earn barely enough to survive while their CEOs cash out stock options.
Healthcare – When stress or burnout finally catch up to you, your medical bills help boost the same healthcare conglomerates that lobby against affordable coverage.
Transportation & Insurance – When you pay to insure your car so you can get to work, you’re funding the same corporations that raise premiums, lobby for deregulation, and call it “market growth.”
All these “connections” — this supposed interdependence — flow in one direction: upward. You generate profit; they collect it. You fund their bonuses, their buybacks, their “record quarters.
In other words: the system doesn’t “support” you — it depends on you not questioning it. Your salary isn’t a return on participation; it’s the minimum payment required to keep you fueling the very machine that keeps you in place. The real return flows upward — to the people who designed the system, own the outcomes, and call that dependency “balance”.
@b1 chat gpt
@a5 Sounds like one particular party. Lol Control.
@b1 WTH? If we don't participate in RTO those industries can evolve and move into industries that WFH does promote, grocery stores, Door Dash, Home Improvement (we'll have more time and money to invest in our greatest asset), etc etc. Just like phone operators are defunct, and many adjusting to AI replacement. Let the market decide, not force it with force. THINK!
Road work on your commute? Check
Parking garage issues and construction? Check
Parking LOT issues and construction? Check
Floor construction? Check
Limited space? Check
Not to mention elevator or stairwell or lunchroom or breakroom issues... Check
Delays, noise, distraction, uncertainty, anxiety? Check 'em all.
Can you name the location? I bet you can't; this is the norm everywhere, from what I hear.
Return to Office has been seamless and a benefit to us all, right?
@b1 Thoughtful outline. But it crafts poor arguments for business as usual when it is clear, just as with typing pools and gas station attendants, we can evolve and improve.
@b3 No b1, but a century ago workers had to be in the factory, store or other location. There was virtually no virtual work. Commutes were part of the needs, but they were short and incidental to the work.
Today? 40% of all jobs can be remote. And commutes are hours long costing roughly 1/8th of your wages on average. The corporate elite simply took advantage of a false foundation and continued it.
That's the difference.
You do have the option to go work somewhere else. There is no one forcing you to work here. If it bothers you that much then leave.
@b1 cool cool now please explain how the corporate elite convinced so many that exploitation is just “the system,” and inequality means it’s working as intended?
When you go to work, you’re not just earning a salary—you’re participating in a complex economic ecosystem where your actions support various industries, and in turn, they sustain the system that compensates you. Consider the following:
Fuel Consumption – When you pay for gas, you support the oil and energy industries, which play a critical role in strengthening the national economy and currency.
Food & Hospitality – When you eat at fast food chains or buy from cafeterias, you're supporting essential workers and service-sector businesses.
Healthcare – If you experience health issues such as anxiety or diabetes, your engagement with the medical system sustains the healthcare and pharmaceutical industries.
Transportation & Insurance – When you drive and pay for car insurance, you're supporting the insurance sector and broader transportation infrastructure.
These activities, while seemingly personal or routine, feed into larger economic structures. These structures, in turn, generate profits, drive market growth, and fund employment—including your own salary.
In other words: if you don’t participate in and support this system, the system has less reason—and less capacity—to support you. Your salary is not just a reward for individual effort; it’s a return on your participation in a larger cycle of economic interdependence.
Exactly. We incur 100% of the costs and receive 0% of the benefits, which allows other entities to reap 100% of the benefits while absorbing 0% of the costs.
Donating your time and money to the system. The system increases commercial real estate values, adds air pollution and stress, literally drives car sales, makes you poorer and prevents you from having time to look for another job or participate in your community politically. It is about control and money transfer. It costs a lot for nothing gained.
it's all a part of the facade. Get people in the office = look good to shareholders. Look at our amazing campus! Filled with people. We're collaborating every day and loving it! It literally doesn't matter if you do any work or not when you come into the office. Productivity is literally not important. It's all about how we LOOK to the public.
Bro it IS pointless. I go in 4x a week. Nothing is gained by it, except almost getting rear ended all the time by multitasking soccer moms on the commute.