Washington Post Employees Ordered Back To the Office (washingtonian.com)
- Reference: 0175444987
- News link: https://it.slashdot.org/story/24/11/10/193236/washington-post-employees-ordered-back-to-the-office
- Source link: https://www.washingtonian.com/2024/11/07/washington-post-tells-employees-its-time-to-return-to-the-office/
> The Washingtonian magazine reports that yet another company is ending most remote work for its employees. The Post's previous policy from 2022 until now had been 3 days in office, 2 days remote. The employee union for the paper, the Washington Post Guild, will oppose the mandate.
The union sent members a defiant email, according to the article. "Guild leadership sees this for what it is: a change that stands to further disrupt our work than to improve our productivity or collaboration."
> Managers will have to return beginning February 3, 2025, and all other employees will be expected in the office beginning June 2 [according to a memo from publisher Will Lewis]. "I want that great office energy for us every day," Lewis writes. "I am reliably informed that is how it used to be here before Covid, and it's important we get this back."
[1] https://slashdot.org/~DesScorp
I am reliably informed (Score:3)
"I am reliably informed by Our Lord Bezos that is how it used to be in the office before Covid, and I want my paycheck to continue arriving at my bank. May he live forever!"
Re: (Score:3)
> I am reliably informed...
Not if you are only reading The Washington Post.
And If They Don't Return? (Score:2)
Will The Washington Post replace that human-created content with AI-created content?
Honestly, it is sometimes difficult to tell the difference between the two.
Translation (Score:2)
Our overlord has a bunch of real estate that is sitting idle, and he wants it used. He's willing to take a major productivity loss in order to make that happen, so hop to it!
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> Our overlord has a bunch of real estate that is sitting idle
WaPo rents office space at One Franklin Square in DC.
Neither WaPo nor Bezos owns the premises.
So your conspiracy theory that employees are being ordered back to the office to support real estate prices is nonsense.
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So your conspiracy theory that employees are being ordered back to the office to support real estate prices is nonsense.
Not necessarily. There's a distinct possibility the building owners have been in consoltation with the businesses that rent from them (or used to rent) explaining how they'll lower rent costs if businesses fill the space because they're losing money with people working from home.
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That's not how rents work.
The space was rented out. The whole thing being paid for on a multi year contract. Having fewer staff present does not reduce the rent.
The only way rent was lower is if wapo gave up one or more floors which is unlikely.
Re: (Score:2)
> So your conspiracy theory that employees are being ordered back to the office to support real estate prices is nonsense.
It's a big club, and you aren't in it.
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You can't on one hand accuse businesses of being only mindlessly in pursuit of their bottom line, but on the other proclaim that they'll take actions that do nothing to further that with just the merest suggestion and no further evidence to support that claim. It's just that usual conspiracy claptrap that paints the government (or some other entity) as simultaneously all powerful and hopelessly incompetent as convenient for whatever fantasy is being constructed in the mind of the theorist.
There are far m
or... (Score:2)
they could go and get a job elsewhere (like MSNBC)
Re: (Score:1)
Microsoft seems to understand telecommuting better than most big co's. MS sucks in general, but give them kudos when they are accidentally right.
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Is msnbc looking for hundreds of new employees who work in a vaguely related but different field? Who says that's an option or that even if they got an msnbc job it would be for the same company and still provide wfh?
Re: Do what you're told (Score:2)
Because its all about me
Re: Do what you're told (Score:2)
The whole point of a union is to complicate that equation!
Re: (Score:2)
Many people called this after Covid was officially over, that wfh was not going to be the new forever thing for most workers. We got modded troll.
As if modding us down would preserve wfh.
Water cooler talk (Score:2)
Will be ALL ABOUT how Jeff Bezos has ruined the paper and how that helped Trump. This will be self-reinforcing negativism. It's a terrible human factors/sociology call by the Post's management.
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Most of the time, there’s no such thing as coincidence. Last week, Bezos bowed and kissed Trump’s feet, and 10% of the newspaper staff resigned in response. Trump won the election, and 24 hours later, Bezos just happens to call an end to WFH?
This isn’t a coincidence. The clear message to the remaining staff is “we will bow to the new leader, and if you don’t like it, you can leave anytime you want”. Others will leave, and Bezos will replace them with more pliable peopl
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Didn't a bunch of them who don't believe in journalism already quit? Maybe that's good for the long term health of the company.
Everyone can be replaced. No one is special. But anyone who doesn't like their work conditions absolutely should go see what else is out there and quit if they can find something more appropriate.
When I was new to managing and lost someone I tried really hard to save them but it rarely worked. Later on, I only asked the reasoning behind the decision, wished them all the best and
Bezos is gonna do a purge (Score:2)
or try to. It's his paper, he's not going to let it argue against his interests.
Letting 0.1% of the voting public buy 99% of the media is not going to end well for any of us. Doesn't matter how informed you are if your neighbors are all guzzing down billionaire backed propaganda.
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Go start your own paper then. It's never been easier to get your message out to the world and if you can find an audience receptive to what you say, you'll certainly be successful. Every other successful business started that way and only reached their present level of success by providing a useful good or service to their customers.
If you think he's purging talented writers, that just means that their labor is now available for hire. It sounds like a perfect opportunity for you and any number of like mi
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> is not going to end well
It's already ended well. These people and their reporting is effectively useless and if they vanished tomorrow, we would notice, but nothing of value would have been lost.
It sounds like Will Lewis (Score:2)
...wants to bring back the “great office energy” that was apparently bouncing off the walls pre-Covid. But nothing says “great energy” quite like employees reluctantly dragging themselves into the office like they're at a corporate re-enactment of The Walking Dead.
Use Bezos as a signal (Score:2)
of what the future brings. There was a lot of noise about his refusal to allow WP to endorse Kamala. Turned out his bet was the right one.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
of what the future brings.
You mean higher prices due to tariffs and a return to rising inflation?
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Funny that after 4 years of Trump's presidency you still don't understand his approach to negotiation.
Leaving that aside, globalization in the name of cheaper consumer prices have cost Americans jobs in multiple industries. Get ready for a quite a few economic dogmas to be proven wrong.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, that bet actually turned out wrong since Trump filed a FEC complaint against WaPo, ie Bezo's nixxing of the endorsement didn't help in the least to get him into Trump's good graces.
FEC Complaint: [1]https://s3.documentcloud.org/d... [documentcloud.org]
[1] https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/25263302/djtfp_complaint_10-31-24_wapo_corporate_contribution_1730472578.pdf
Re: (Score:3)
> employees reluctantly dragging themselves into the office like they're at a corporate re-enactment of The Walking Dead.
That's every job I've ever had, with varying degrees of soul-sucking powers.