this post was submitted on 21 Aug 2024
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[–] [email protected] 250 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Ngl, that's a genius headline

[–] [email protected] 101 points 3 months ago

Yeah I was expecting this to be a thought piece in general about companies requiring them be back in office.

[–] [email protected] 66 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I did a double take when I first read it. Then I realized it was, Nothing, the phone company.

[–] [email protected] 39 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (3 children)

I did not even realize until reading this comment that Nothing was a company.

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[–] [email protected] 187 points 3 months ago (11 children)

“this is a company for grown ups.”

That's too bad. I was thinking of getting their phone when I needed a new one, I guess I'll just add them to my mental list of companies to avoid.

[–] [email protected] 76 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I’m a grown up. I’ve been remote for a decade. I’m pretty successful too.

[–] [email protected] 43 points 3 months ago

Right? Imagine thinking that working in a cubicle is something to aspire to as a "grown up." Fuck that. I'll continue working from home, like an adult, thanks.

[–] [email protected] 47 points 3 months ago (1 children)

goddamn i read parts of the article trying to figure out which company... Im not a marketing guy, but nobody can tell me that "nothing" is marketable brand.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Allow me to introduce you to their main competitor, elon musk.

Oh, I don't mean competitor in the business market. I mean their main competitor for worlds least marketable brand identity.

He took twitter, which had it's own global brand awareness, and blundered it so bad that every media company refers to it as "X (formerly twitter)" because they know that if they had just put X, nobody would know what the hell they were talking about.

And his other company is literally named "The Boring Company". Where I assume they make disease, and murderous robots that are somehow racist.

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[–] [email protected] 38 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Clearly it's not a company for grown ups because you think they're all children that won't play together unless you cram them into a classroom and tell them, "Make nice."

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[–] [email protected] 155 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (4 children)

"Remote work is not compatible with a high ambition level plus high speed,” Pei said in the email, telling employees who are worried about flexibility that “this is a company for grown ups.”

Sounds like he actually means it's a company for exploitable young people and socopathic assholes. Grown-ups have other responsibilities and don't want work to commandeer their whole lives.

[–] [email protected] 61 points 3 months ago (3 children)

"This company is for grown ups. Now sit over there where I can check on you constantly and do what I tell you like a child that can't be trusted alone."

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[–] [email protected] 115 points 3 months ago (3 children)

This just means they're a struggling company who needs to cut headcount and want to do it without paying severance

[–] Saledovil 63 points 3 months ago (1 children)

In addition, this tactic will result in the best employees leaving first, because they'll get employed somewhere else.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 3 months ago (6 children)

Cue the pivot to some ridiculous buzz tech like AI in the near future, then being acquired and promptly abandoned by some big corp.

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 3 months ago

Considering this company was founded as a remote work company from the beginning, you're absolutely right.

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[–] [email protected] 75 points 3 months ago (1 children)

The way this usually works out is you loose all the good employees and you’re left with the dregs who were unable to find another remote position in time.

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[–] gravitas_deficiency 67 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (3 children)

And Nothing is going to fire you if you don’t find a creative way to meet their bullshit attendance metrics.

I love being treated like a gradeschooler. Really boosts my morale, especially with nearly two fucking decades of experience and being on the wrong side of 35.

Stop bothering me and let me do my fucking job, for christ’s sake.

Edit: all that said, the company name does make for an amusing headline

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[–] [email protected] 61 points 3 months ago (2 children)

uhhhh...

anyone else totally misinterpret the lede to mean "there's no reason to go to work at an office" lol?

[–] [email protected] 25 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Yep. Pretty sure the editor knew what they were doing 🙂

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[–] [email protected] 57 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

nice, yet another company to avoid as either employee or customer

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[–] [email protected] 56 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I wanna see them pay for office hours AND commute hours. In a big city you easily have 1+ hour a day irrevocably lost to commuting.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 3 months ago (9 children)

Companies don't even have to pay people for the time spent going through their own required security checks... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrity_Staffing_Solutions,_Inc._v._Busk

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[–] [email protected] 51 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Open plan offices fucken suck.

Noise, constant distractions, and that one arsehole who never covers their mouth when they sneeze, sending a wave of infectious germs rolling out across the office floor.

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[–] [email protected] 46 points 3 months ago (4 children)

"this is a company for adults" says the CEO of a company who slaps "Glyph" lights on knockoff iPhones and calls it innovative. I hate when I see Carl Pei's smug face pop up every few months. Hey Carl - put a fucking charger in the box. OnePlus is thriving without you.

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[–] [email protected] 45 points 3 months ago

This headline is true in multiple ways.

[–] [email protected] 44 points 3 months ago (5 children)

We had a tremendous office culture in the 1950s. Since then, we have had numerous -- very numerous -- improvements and innovations in the telecom space, in the office assistant space (think personal digital assistant, or rather all the ubiquitous tools that do what those used to do), and other general improvements which empower significantly enhanced productivity.

To say people still need to be in the office is to say there have been no improvements. The fact is, we can be at home and be more productive than in an office. Anyone who tells you otherwise has ulterior motives.

Company is too invested in real estate? Sounds like an issue that the C-suite caused and that they alone should fix. Middle management needs to feel useful? Maybe they should find a career that actually has a need for their micromanagement instead of forcing other people into an obsolete box to appear useful. Show me a company against remote work, and I'll show you a company with outdated goals, more outdated methods, and leadership which should be replaced en masse with people from 2024.

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[–] [email protected] 44 points 3 months ago (3 children)

Excuse for layoff. What I hear from the article is a CEO, who himself is not a grown up, crying me, me, me, my company, my profit, selfish behavior without any concern for his employees who have largely contributed to his startup success.

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[–] [email protected] 44 points 3 months ago

Every other company:

"Hey, we're hiring..."

[–] [email protected] 44 points 3 months ago (2 children)

I have a hypothesis that anyone who is required to be on site without having to do a hands-on thing (e.g. physical maintenance or repair) is actually a garden hermit, that is, hired to perform as an extra for the pleasure of viewing upper management.

I also have a hypothesis that a lot of company budget and material goes towards handling and pacifying upper management (e.g. the way a binky pacifies an infant) since they are accustomed to being coddled and not accustomed to actually managing.

To be fair, I've only been able to observe the relationships between clerical class and management class in a handful of companies, including a small one-store CD-Rom reseller and Bechtel Corporation circa 1990, but my observations have been consistent between them.

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[–] [email protected] 42 points 3 months ago (4 children)

If they are a company for grown ups why is he acting all controlling like an insecure little child instead of trusting in his employees like a brave adult?

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[–] [email protected] 41 points 3 months ago (3 children)

So this is a company whose foundation was work from home and thus has that as it's background culture? Yeah this is just an excuse for layoffs without paying.

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[–] [email protected] 33 points 3 months ago

So Carl Pei sounds like a real douchebag

[–] [email protected] 29 points 3 months ago (4 children)

r/titlegore the fault of the original article

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[–] [email protected] 28 points 3 months ago

This is called a silent layoff

[–] [email protected] 28 points 3 months ago (7 children)

Just corporate real estate.

That's literally it. The whole reason.

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[–] [email protected] 28 points 3 months ago (5 children)

The grown ups comment makes the CEO sound like a condescending prick. Yeah I’d be looking for another job after that.

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 3 months ago

“This is a company for grown-ups”.

Says man who makes phones that sparkle and a fidget spinner earbud case.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 3 months ago (2 children)

That headline could use some clarification.

At first I thought it was gonna be an opinion piece supporting fully remote work.

Turns out it's abouy a company named "Nothing".

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 3 months ago (2 children)

There's nothing requiring people to work 5 days a week, or 40 hours, or 52 weeks a year. If we worked together we could have way better conditions.

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I'm sure Carl Pei will always be in office. /s

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 3 months ago

Sounds like a great reason to unionize.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 3 months ago

Remind me to check in 6 months, we'll see headlines that "Nothing's" valuation is going to be doing honours to its name

[–] [email protected] 20 points 3 months ago (1 children)

First devouring all of Fantasia, now this.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

I read the title to mean that nobody NEEDS to come into the office lol

I have no intention of buying anything but a fairphone, at least until right-to-repair comes to GrapheneOS pixels

[–] [email protected] 18 points 3 months ago

Ok, good luck with that! Can't wait for this guy to start whining that he can't find employees.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 3 months ago (10 children)

This is a litmus test for who actually reads the article

[–] [email protected] 43 points 3 months ago (24 children)

Since you're being a scold elsewhere in the thread to everyone confused by the headline, I'll just leave this here.

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