What bunch of !diot managers are running this place?! There is literally NO benefit for sales to be in the office. NONE.
A 50 mile radius is easily a 3hr addition to the work day based on nearly every location where Zoom holds offices.
Zoom....adios! It was nice while it lasted. I'm out.
Writing as someone who doesn't work for Zoom, but is at another tech company that's recently started RTO, I agree with all your observations on the utter absurdity of forcing folks back to office. However, making sense to us mere mortals has nothing to do with it. Methinks it's simply a CEO "group think" issue - Sales are down, Wall Street hates us, What-shall-I-do?!? I know - RTO! All the other CEOs are doing it, it's easier to go RTO (which I never liked anyway) than explain to our investors we we are still WFH. Besides, RTO (especially at Zoom) will create some buzz that will tide me over another quarter. I'm such a No-Nonsense CEO, and The Street will respond to that! Yup, mission accomplished and I'm off to go golfing (in Sun Valley, with the other cool CEOs) for the rest of the week. Later!
Agreed... bad change.
One possibility I've seen suggested on reddit is that this is a cover to get rid of headcount (through attrition) without a layoff. If so, it seems like a terrible idea. The people that leave will be the ones most able to get other jobs... aka, the best ones.
The optics around it just so... bonkers. Zoom, a video conferencing company, forcing its remote employees to come into the office.
Is their own software not good enough to support remote work? Then why should any other company buy it?
Does Zoom not "get" remote work enough to support it? Then why would any customer believe Zoom capable of writing software to support a working model they themselves can't figure out?
Or does Zoom believe the very concept of remote work is not sustainable? Then why should Zoom exist? What's the point if not to support communication between people in different places?
I don't see any way to look at this that doesn't look terrible for Zoom.