Thread regarding Paramount Global layoffs

Because of this jersey train tunnel construction they are alllll staying home. Lol.

@2zt wait until the summer time. We will see everyone after school goes backs in September.

@2zt The ONE time you left early? Come on kid, grab some of your life back. Everyone leave early. By 5pm today it was a ghost town on my floor.

The one time I left early (5) from 1515, I felt like I was part of a fire drill — so many people exiting the building at the same time. On my floor I definitely notice people who don’t come in on Friday (I guess unlimited pto?). I will say the cleaning crew is definitely in the office 5 days a week, watching our pantry tv.

My boss told me to WFH whenever I want and said he doesn’t agree with DE.

@2q1 Good to know. Now I dont feel so alone. The company should start some new ERG (Employee Resource Group) for people pi---d at RTO.

@2nw hmm i'd disagree on this one. i just left and maybe half of the FTE i knew have either left or are actively applying to leave. the other half have been thinking of leaving.

When RTO was announced, there were many people I talked to in the company who were angry and said they'd see how it goes for the first few months and then leave if it didnt work for their work life balance. Now, no one talks about it angrily or openly. Its like theyve all just accepted it and moved on. Scary how easy it was to get the sheep in line.

@2dc Im curious to see how compliance is when the weather starts to improve. Remember, its been a rough winter and people dont have anything better to do than come into the office. But once those 72 degree sky blue low humidity days come rolling around and people can work outside, are they still coming in to sit in the AC all day in an office with no windows? And parents cant make it home in time to watch their kids play in their sports leagues? Whats THAT going to do for morale? Hmmm.

The morale is way down. I have since learned how unhappy my coworkers are as well as other departments. Being back has solidified that the old guard keeps the place stuck in the late 90's with lack of innovation. The office is garbage and needs renovation so bad. Something always leaks, breaks, and dissolves in the office. People's office chairs are broken and do they even clean the office?? Subways are messed up, transit trains in NJ not running, rent is too dam high but we are supposed to act like it's 2019 again and everything is great when the city is letting us down?!? How about the precious managers who don't come in but us minions have to? If I have to be here so do they and they better not send me a zoom invite- BE PRESENT AND BE FACE TO FACE DEAR LEADERS. Leadership blows in this place!

@1tq How do you have time to workout and shower during the day?

It's such a mess. They haven't done anything about the gas smell. We don't have a proper wi-fi network to do our work so we're using our laptops as hot spots. They told us there would be construction on our floor which never happened, but then other people come to the office to find sawdust all over their desks. There are no private spaces. Soda and water machines aren't clean. I do like the Lodge and the Fitness Center, so my productivity has gone down but my physique is improving. And to everyone who says "just pretend like it's pre-covid days when we all used to do this." No one liked those days!!! People were exhausted and burnt out, mothers were leaving the workforce altogether en masse, people muscled through physical disabilities and discomforts just to commute, b/c NYCers are standing on crowded buses or trains and then walking to work, not sitting in their cars. They were NOT the glory days of office life!

@1ac Do you prefer the flavor of snakeskin or leather? Or does David wear something more exotic and tasty like crocodile boots?

@fp what channel is that?

@19p you obviously don't work for the company. The "winter storm guidance" email after the latest storm said employees can continue work remotely that day. They specifically mentioned the words work remotely. I'm not sure what memos you're reading.

@13z Apparently you didn't get the memo. Nobody is allowed to work remotely. In fact, work is completely impossible without "in person collaboration."

RTO means back to the old ways: if you're sick, you don't work. If there's an emergency, you don't work. And work only happens DURING office hours, IN an actual office.

That's what David and Jeff asked for, so that's exactly what they deserve.

@15x I hope they did!

@15s So when you were told to work remotely for the snow day, you just didnt do anything and said ooops, my laptop is in the office?

@13z fu-k that sh-t. I ain’t doing an ounce of work past five. They wanted 9 - 5 in an office 5 days a week, and they got it.

@p2 Of course. Why wouldnt you? If something pops up and you need to work remotely that day, youd be stuck without a laptop and couldnt work. Just because you have it, doesnt mean you need to open it up at home.

Do people still bring their laptops home???

@a6 Su-k LE and DE loser c*ck.

Thus far we are being asked to do the same amount of work with fewer people while having to commute and then expected to check messages after hrs. Lots of business in California now so it su-ks to be in nyc.

@fm I'm Phase 2/fully remote still, and this $hit-$how of an employer tries to do a number on anyone's mental health. Can't imagine what it's like with a useless commute compounded in. Factor in kids/family, and then it's batshit crazy nightmare. DE masterfully played a page from MAGA script: incompetence, chaos, a total disaster.

@fp Which Slack channel?

BTW, whats with the slack channel where they are chasing tails and cracking down on the people who hardly come in? LOL.

@dr You left out the free neck massages the second week we were back.
As far as severe weather, you wont see me on Monday or Tuesday and maybe Wednesday after we get 10 inches (or even 2) this weekend. I have to shovel and the commute will be horrible. I dare them to scold me. They already gave an exemption to the jersey commuters who are dealing with tunnel construction going into Penn Station until March.

Once the newness wears off, this RTO is going to be a beast too big for an HR department who is already running thin to keep constantly chasing people down.

@dq I figured I was the only one. Sitting in 2 hour commutes each way to sit by myself and collaborate with no one the entire day has an interesting effect on your mental health.

@a6 TLO, clean up on isle 4.

@dr It was a honey trap.

I work about 50% less than I did when I was WFH and my loyalty to the company has declined 100%.

@de it’s definitely what most people are doing. Let’s be honest, this was only about dropping headcount.

the snack cart and the one time bagels and cookies were all initial traps, the way they smiled in the first week of Jan, it felt so eerie and creepy like these corporate overlords are celebrating by making sure us commoners were suffering. 5 days is insensitive more than anything in such severe weather conditions with one of the worst winters in many years. no commuting benefits offered like other tech companies, not sure how paramount is gonna be considered a tech media company. its all a big joke.

I've aged 10 years since Jan. 5

What locations got rid of the snack cart?

Forcing RTO without official office hours is beyond re--rded. Stroll in at 1030. Gone by 4. And gone by 3 on Fridays. But hey, we made it to the office!!

@a6 Right, but this post was specifically directed towards employees who have been comfortably and productively working from home for the past 5+ years. We can be grateful for a paycheck and still immensely annoyed by an out of touch decision made by clueless corporate overlords. And honestly, citing that “people have always worked in offices” just makes you sound like a dinosaur. Workplaces evolve.

@a6 happy to commute to work (in fact, i accepted a job offer which requires me to relocate and commute to work!), but not for the same salary that paramount is paying for full remote. an offer for 3 days in office a week is paying me ~2x what paramount is paying me, and this isn't even 5 days in office a week. bigger companies (amazon) lost talent over 5 days RTO.

and you want me to relocate on my own expense? absolutely ridiculous. there were NO metrics used in the decision. the only thing RTO did is force out paramount's best employees. good luck trying to build up your streaming service and become more like a tech company when all of your best engineers left and got snapped up by big companies who can pay much better than paramount!

@a6

Not if the job puts me anywhere in the vicinity of abrasive bootlickers like you.

Someone keeps backing up the toilet on our floor.