The latest get your ass back in the office story: AT&T

[52-80 19128]

6 hours ago, Brew said:

I thought surly was overrun with lawyers, but this thread makes it look it’s IT rather than attorneys.

 

[Macanudo 12945]

On 5/19/2023 at 4:40 PM, HamsterHookah said:

It sounds like you had a pretty bad experience. Care to share?

Not ''had".  Having.   We're currently working with them to offshore jobs.   

They are completely siloed in their approach and no one seems to know what is going on outside of their little fiefdom.   Our trainers are told information about extended timelines before our management is.   We find out from them that ACCN has made a change to timelines without consultation from us, especially our trainers who in some cases have 5-7 years experience in their jpob as a trainer.   When creating the timelines, we had to constantly remind them that Widget Processes #1, #2 and #2 can not be trained at the same time because in order to learn Widget Process #3, you have to be trained on #1 and #2.   This happened repeatedly in multiple areas.  

They have waited to identify who managers and trainers will be.   I can understand this to some degree but their requirements for doing both are basically "be a good trainee with good quality" not necesarilly "have you managed people before" or "do you know how to train."

They view quality as a premium to quantity.  So the person who processes 10 items a day at 98% accuracy is seen as more proficient than the one who does 40 items at 97.5%.   When someone does not "get it" they have a team lead/management candidate work with the struggling employee without the trainer when the TL/manager has the same level of experience as the struggling person.   When we meet to discuss QA errors, their answer to what remedies they took is usually "we told the trainees to re-read the SOPs and to keep them open on their desktop."   Did they specifically tell John that he needs to complete the item in the workflow system and add a comment?   Nope.   They don't discuss specifically what needs to be addressed for each person.   Refresher training is not targeted or specfic.   It's "don't do that again."

They work our hours so it's overnight for them.  A huge problem we're having is that employees in Delhi have not been made to understand that when it's 5:00 here (3:30 am in Delhi), they aren't done.   We work up until 8:00 pm or 9:00 pm some days.  We are supposed to be same day processing and many of our Service Level Agreements state that we will complete items recieved that day (by market close.)   An item received at 2:45 should be completed.    We gets thousands of items per day to process.

It's been a beating.

[HamsterHookah 112]

14 hours ago, Macanudo said:

Not ''had".  Having.   We're currently working with them to offshore jobs.   

They are completely siloed in their approach and no one seems to know what is going on outside of their little fiefdom.   Our trainers are told information about extended timelines before our management is.   We find out from them that ACCN has made a change to timelines without consultation from us, especially our trainers who in some cases have 5-7 years experience in their jpob as a trainer.   When creating the timelines, we had to constantly remind them that Widget Processes #1, #2 and #2 can not be trained at the same time because in order to learn Widget Process #3, you have to be trained on #1 and #2.   This happened repeatedly in multiple areas.  

They have waited to identify who managers and trainers will be.   I can understand this to some degree but their requirements for doing both are basically "be a good trainee with good quality" not necesarilly "have you managed people before" or "do you know how to train."

They view quality as a premium to quantity.  So the person who processes 10 items a day at 98% accuracy is seen as more proficient than the one who does 40 items at 97.5%.   When someone does not "get it" they have a team lead/management candidate work with the struggling employee without the trainer when the TL/manager has the same level of experience as the struggling person.   When we meet to discuss QA errors, their answer to what remedies they took is usually "we told the trainees to re-read the SOPs and to keep them open on their desktop."   Did they specifically tell John that he needs to complete the item in the workflow system and add a comment?   Nope.   They don't discuss specifically what needs to be addressed for each person.   Refresher training is not targeted or specfic.   It's "don't do that again."

They work our hours so it's overnight for them.  A huge problem we're having is that employees in Delhi have not been made to understand that when it's 5:00 here (3:30 am in Delhi), they aren't done.   We work up until 8:00 pm or 9:00 pm some days.  We are supposed to be same day processing and many of our Service Level Agreements state that we will complete items recieved that day (by market close.)   An item received at 2:45 should be completed.    We gets thousands of items per day to process.

It's been a beating.

You might be glad to hear that Accenture is laying off thousands and around 500 of them are in Austin.

[Captainant 27519]

10 minutes ago, HamsterHookah said:

You might be glad to hear that Accenture is laying off thousands and around 500 of them are in Austin.

Of course they're laying people off, ACN can't rely on producing a better product or engagement to drive more business and more profit. Lay people off, take more projects, burn people out, enshittify the product, get your bonus, move on to a new victim company before the chickens come home to roost. Those profit margins aren't gonna grow themselves! Didn't you learn that in your MBA program?

[TKthunder2 4981]

11 minutes ago, Captainant said:

Of course they're laying people off, ACN can't rely on producing a better product or engagement to drive more business and more profit. Lay people off, take more projects, burn people out, enshittify the product, get your bonus, move on to a new victim company before the chickens come home to roost. Those profit margins aren't gonna grow themselves! Didn't you learn that in your MBA program?

I don’t normally see eye to eye with you, but this is pretty spot on.

[Macanudo 12945]

29 minutes ago, HamsterHookah said:

You might be glad to hear that Accenture is laying off thousands and around 500 of them are in Austin.

I'm not glad to hear that for the people losing their jobs.   I am losing mine so whatever shakes out for both ACCN and my current company won't have much of an impact to me later this year after I leave.   That doesn't mean I want people to lose jobs or companies to fail.   

And Captainant gets it.   Churn and burn.  Make money in the near term without concern for a few years down the road.   Screw everbody else, get yours now.

[DaysOff 7916]

Of course they're laying people off, ACN can't rely on producing a better product or engagement to drive more business and more profit. Lay people off, take more projects, burn people out, enshittify the product, get your bonus, move on to a new victim company before the chickens come home to roost. Those profit margins aren't gonna grow themselves! Didn't you learn that in your MBA program?

Next stop. The Airlines!

[Buzzrock 14883]

If you are someone who never needs to come to the office and works heads down with little human interaction on a daily basis: AI is coming for you.

I would come into the office a lot more if traffic wasn’t so bad. I would love a world where personal drones take us everywhere.

[Pato del Muerto 52397]

1 minute ago, Buzzrock said:

If you are someone who never needs to come to the office and works heads down with little human interaction on a daily basis: AI is coming for you.

I would come into the office a lot more if traffic wasn’t so bad. I would love a world where personal drones take us everywhere.

I find it interesting that for movies where flying cars are a thing, they still seem to be in lanes and full of traffic until they peel off as they reach their destination.  Makes you ponder how structured it would need to be in order to be safe, and if it would solve traffic at all. 

[Macanudo 12945]

45 minutes ago, Buzzrock said:

If you are someone who never needs to come to the office and works heads down with little human interaction on a daily basis: AI is coming for you.

 

That has not been my world for 6 years now.   I have been in 3 meetings this morning to discuss planning or prior outcomes.    20-30 minute meetings with 3-5 people.   I do this 6-8 times a day and the participants are all over the globe.   WFH can be incredibly interactive.

[Cheeseweasel 26438]

6 minutes ago, Macanudo said:

I have been in 3 meetings this morning to discuss planning or prior outcomes. 

Meeting breeding. Meetings to discuss meetings and the results of those meetings.

[Macanudo 12945]

9 minutes ago, Cheeseweasel said:

Meeting breeding. Meetings to discuss meetings and the results of those meetings.

Not true.    The 1st two were to discuss when we could shoe horn in some needed training and what the trainer needs to do so.   The 3rd was to figure out how to fix a lingering problem.   Actionable steps for multiple people in each meeting were documented.   And no, these couldn't have just been emails.

[MissingInAction 24870]

When I'm helping C level people I always schedule a teams meeting for that personal touch. Everyone else gets a link to the SOPs I wrote for dipshits. 

As far as MBAs are concerned, if your company starts hiring them and you never actually see them interact with people then you are about to get turbo fucked.

Edited May 22, 2023 by MissingInAction

[Cheeseweasel 26438]

1 minute ago, Macanudo said:

Actionable steps

You are in the matrix and you don't even realize it.

[fattyflattie 4637]

12 minutes ago, Cheeseweasel said:

Meeting breeding. Meetings to discuss meetings and the results of those meetings.

This is what we get a lot of. But there’s great news!  Around 1830 you can start your deliverables, and since you’re already at home, you can eat your supper and kiss the kids before bed in about 15 mins. Back to work until midnight, have that daily 0630 ops meeting you need to prepare for. 

[Handcruser 2805]

Not true.    The 1st two were to discuss when we could shoe horn in some needed training and what the trainer needs to do so.   The 3rd was to figure out how to fix a lingering problem.   Actionable steps for multiple people in each meeting were documented.   And no, these couldn't have just been emails.

Wait - you got a job?

[hookemATL 11619]

2 hours ago, Buzzrock said:

If you are someone who never needs to come to the office and works heads down with little human interaction on a daily basis: AI is coming for you.

I would come into the office a lot more if traffic wasn’t so bad. I would love a world where personal drones take us everywhere.

You act like ATL traffic is terrible.  I was only about to get through half of Crime and Punishment during a typical commute when I lived there.  Thats not that bad!!!

[Fudge Nuggets 19165]

19 hours ago, Macanudo said:

We're currently working with them to offshore jobs.   

Our trainers are told information about extended timelines before our management is.

If you aren’t being filled in about changes then it might be a good time to polish up the resume.

[fattyflattie 4637]

20 minutes ago, Fudge Nuggets said:

If you aren’t being filled in about changes then it might be a good time to polish up the resume.

I’m pretty sure he’s on a scheduled layoff, or something of the sort. I know he’s been job hunting for awhile in the other thread. 

[Helobious 9503]

5 hours ago, Buzzrock said:

If you are someone who never needs to come to the office and works heads down with little human interaction on a daily basis: AI is coming for you.

I would come into the office a lot more if traffic wasn’t so bad. I would love a world where personal drones take us everywhere.

What? AI is coming for everyone. I’d be shocked if unemployment was anything less than 70% in 5 years. 

[Sbbruin 21785]

On 5/17/2023 at 5:14 PM, MissingInAction said:

I've been trying to train a guy for 4 months who has never worked remote before. I have to be on his ass constantly or he won't do a damn thing.

Unable to contact him for hours at a time and it's always some excuse about a child this or that

This is his last week. Would have happened sooner but it takes a ton of documentation.

The other 3 I trained remotely have no issues. 

It's not for everyone.

Exactly.  Lotta goldbrickers out there.  
 

 

[Sbbruin 21785]

7 minutes ago, Helobious said:

What? AI is coming for everyone. I’d be shocked if unemployment was anything less than 70% in 5 years. 

70%?  Helobious, you are a treasure.

[Helobious 9503]

8 minutes ago, Sbbruin said:

70%?  Helobious, you are a treasure.

I think there’s another 2-3 years of relative normalcy but this technology moves fast and will really get rolled out massively after that.

[Sbbruin 21785]

2 minutes ago, Helobious said:

I think there’s another 2-3 years of relative normalcy but this technology moves fast and will really get rolled out massively after that.

fortunately I need about 8-9 yrs of employment and I’m out.  Young bucks like you have to fight off your future robot overlords while I’m fishing 

[MissingInAction 24870]

12 minutes ago, Sbbruin said:

fortunately I need about 8-9 yrs of employment and I’m out.  Young bucks like you have to fight off your future robot overlords while I’m fishing 

Same. My retirement and sexbot investments mature around the same time. Not an accident.

[Wally Fairway 5532]

40 minutes ago, Helobious said:

What? AI is coming for everyone. I’d be shocked if unemployment was anything less than 70% in 5 years. 

 

32 minutes ago, Sbbruin said:

70%?  Helobious, you are a treasure.

Just wait until you can program your own AI-bot, and my Surly bot can post 24/7, give rep, and send out random PM's.
I, personally, am hoping that I can win an NS-5 in the USR drawing

We must be getting close - because we all know that science fiction of the past is tomorrows reality (case & point - 20,000 leagues under the sea, Man in the Moon, 1984, etc)

 

[Macanudo 12945]

2 hours ago, fattyflattie said:

I’m pretty sure he’s on a scheduled layoff, or something of the sort. I know he’s been job hunting for awhile in the other thread. 

Yep.   Originally was supposed to be out on 4/28.   Got extended to 9/15.  

[Captainant 27519]

20 minutes ago, Wally Fairway said:

 

Just wait until you can program your own AI-bot, and my Surly bot can post 24/7, give rep, and send out random PM's.
I, personally, am hoping that I can win an NS-5 in the USR drawing

We must be getting close - because we all know that science fiction of the past is tomorrows reality (case & point - 20,000 leagues under the sea, Man in the Moon, 1984, etc)

TBH if you could define the action space of your bot - rep, shitpost, qualitypost, PM derka, etc - it wouldn't be that hard to connect each action to an input mapping that you'd throw at chatGPT (or pretty much any other Large Language Model/Generative Pretrained Transformer). Hell, I'm looking forward to throwing some of the more colorful curses and taunts that I see on Surly game threads at my local install of stable diffusion! It's crazy how portable and easy to run these modern ML models and frameworks are. Docker and WSL2 ftmfw

[Sbbruin 21785]

1 hour ago, Wally Fairway said:

 

Just wait until you can program your own AI-bot, and my Surly bot can post 24/7, give rep, and send out random PM's.
I, personally, am hoping that I can win an NS-5 in the USR drawing

We must be getting close - because we all know that science fiction of the past is tomorrows reality (case & point - 20,000 leagues under the sea, Man in the Moon, 1984, etc)

 

So in programming my surly AI bot, does he need to go back a peruse all of my posts?  And can he (or she, or they) gain access to shaggy?  Probably best to leave some of my psychosis in the past where it belongs.

[Snake Diggity 4614]

4 hours ago, Helobious said:

What? AI is coming for everyone. I’d be shocked if unemployment was anything less than 70% in 5 years. 

Not sure if serious but I do think most people are dramatically underestimating the kinds of jobs that will be replaced and how quickly the change will occur.  That said, I think society will adapt to keep unemployed low, between reduction in working hours per person, demographic trends, and newly created jobs.

I would bet that my white collar professional services job will 80% replaced by AI within the next decade.  

Edited May 22, 2023 by Snake Diggity

[MissingInAction 24870]

Sure but who is going to talk to the people? 

[Patricio Swayze 17058]

I have more connectivity issues with Citrix at the office than I do at home. Fuck my life.

[Pato del Muerto 52397]

I work in a laboratory. So I don’t think wfh will become available nor will AI replace me. However, I may end up reporting to a wfh employee or AI.  Shit, if the AI can interpret data well then let’s have the instrumentation feed the AI directly and take that off my plate. It’ll be a while before robotics can replace me. 
 

Maybe some group of lucky people will fall right in the sweet spot of robots and AI doing all of the work while they get a nice stipend for being alive and before the machines take over and exterminate or subjugate humanity. 

[Homercles 10205]

Somebody needs to be there to reboot the system when it crashes 

[MissingInAction 24870]

As much of a failure humanity is, we keep trying to literally fuck it away.

 

[CooterBrown 17950]

15 hours ago, Patricio Swayze said:

I have more connectivity issues with Citrix at the office than I do at home. Fuck my life.

Internet is always better at home. You are alone on your 1GB fiber line instead of hundreds of people sharing a single pipeline at the office.

 

[rage-a-holic 4312]

Here's a decent explanation for the idiots that think this is all about lazy employees fucking around at home.

My company just announced a RTO program that has literally pissed off 99% of their employees. Only 20% of the drones will be allowed FT remote. We've already lost one guy from my team who found a better FT remote job in a week. My boss may have to quit, since he bought a house 6 hours away from the nearest office during COVID, after he was assured remote work was here to stay and there were no plans for mandatory RTO.

 

 

[Biff Tannen 45575]

CNN headline that just came through.  I'm 100% convinced there was a meeting of the corporate minds in the past year or so and they made a pact to rat fuck us.

 

Quote

Even Zoom is making its staff return to the office

Updated 11:55 AM EDT August 7, 2023
New York

In a statement, Zoom said it's now enforcing a "structured hybrid approach," meaning that employees who live near an office "need to be onsite two days a week" because it's "most effective" for the video-conferencing service.

 

[Captainant 27519]

2 minutes ago, Biff Tannen said:

CNN headline that just came through.  I'm 100% convinced there was a meeting of the corporate minds in the past year or so and they made a pact to rat fuck us.

It's not really some grand conspiracy, it's just that corporate executive and board types are prone to lazily and uncritically copy each other. See: reddit blindly following twitters move to hamfistedly monetize basic user interaction with the site and dialogue, or the never ending barrage of "here's our crypto strategy" in 2020-2022, etc etc

[Hefeweizen 5307]

God I’ve been begging for my company to FAFO with this so I can just retire with no guilt at all.  But so far no dice.

[Biff Tannen 45575]

1 hour ago, Captainant said:

It's not really some grand conspiracy, it's just that corporate executive and board types are prone to lazily and uncritically copy each other. See: reddit blindly following twitters move to hamfistedly monetize basic user interaction with the site and dialogue, or the never ending barrage of "here's our crypto strategy" in 2020-2022, etc etc

And they consistently prove they don't really know what the fuck they are doing and only give a fuck about shareholders.  Fuck em all.

[Updawg 2262]

New shitty manager tactic is to threaten return to work 5 days a week whenever they freak out over a situation.

Won’t be good for them

[Deej 76641]

God forbid people actually have to pretend to work from the office. 

[choripan 790]

On 7/5/2023 at 7:39 PM, rage-a-holic said:

Here's a decent explanation for the idiots that think this is all about lazy employees fucking around at home.

My company just announced a RTO program that has literally pissed off 99% of their employees. Only 20% of the drones will be allowed FT remote. We've already lost one guy from my team who found a better FT remote job in a week. My boss may have to quit, since he bought a house 6 hours away from the nearest office during COVID, after he was assured remote work was here to stay and there were no plans for mandatory RTO.

 

 

Not a real lawyer, just a transactional guy here, but maybe a real lawyer can chime in...

Do people like the manager/boss have a claim for promissory estoppel,depending on facts?  If I remember the elements correctly, (I) you have a promise from the company to have permanent WFH in place and, (II) especially if contemporaneously documented, say in emails to the realtor or between spouses, you also have the boss guy relying on the rep from the company to buy a house far away.

Or, perhaps you'd need more favorable facts? I'd love to see some enterprising lawyers take companies that are welching to task.

[RDCanecutter 26348]

On 5/22/2023 at 2:45 PM, Sbbruin said:

fortunately I need about 8-9 yrs of employment and I’m out.  Young bucks like you have to fight off your future robot overlords while I’m fishing 

The AI will be in the fish. And by the time you happen to have any grandchildren, people will think it socially normal to ignore everybody and just hunch over their fish all day long.

[Wally Fairway 5532]

9 hours ago, Deej said:

God forbid people actually have to pretend to work from the office. 

Hey - let's not get personal in here. Okay?

[CHIEF 5072]

I've WFH going on 12 or so years now. Mrs. CHIEF worked from home, but now drives the 20 minutes into the office, a day or two per week, to train new employees, fresh out of college that she says, "lack the discipline," to work from home. She says she is twice as productive when working at home, as there are far fewer interruptions.

You would think there will be coming government incentives to have as many people work from home as possible, the environmental impact alone is staggering. Tens of millions of fewer cars on the road, reducing emissions, stuck in rush hour traffic. Less need for suburban sprawl to be near work. No need to keep building out commercial property.

The hidden economic benefit to employees. Cars will last longer with the reduced mileage requirements. Extra money in their pockets with lower fuel bills, savings from eating at home. Cheaper clothing bills. Longer work hours, or productivity from not having to sit in traffic a couple of hours daily. Not having to pay for child care for children that are self sufficient, but too young to stay at home by themselves over summer.

If I were to start a business that required no onsite production facilities, just an office with desks, I would plan for the whole business to be ran as WFH.

CHIEF

[MonkeyDoughnut 10185]

9 minutes ago, CHIEF said:

I've WFH going on 12 or so years now. Mrs. CHIEF worked from home, but now drives the 20 minutes into the office, a day or two per week, to train new employees, fresh out of college that she says, "lack the discipline," to work from home. She says she is twice as productive when working at home, as there are far fewer interruptions.

You would think there will be coming government incentives to have as many people work from home as possible, the environmental impact alone is staggering. Tens of millions of fewer cars on the road, reducing emissions, stuck in rush hour traffic. Less need for suburban sprawl to be near work. No need to keep building out commercial property.

The hidden economic benefit to employees. Cars will last longer with the reduced mileage requirements. Extra money in their pockets with lower fuel bills, savings from eating at home. Cheaper clothing bills. Longer work hours, or productivity from not having to sit in traffic a couple of hours daily. Not having to pay for child care for children that are self sufficient, but too young to stay at home by themselves over summer.

If I were to start a business that required no onsite production facilities, just an office with desks, I would plan for the whole business to be ran as WFH.

CHIEF

It's true but it would result in ...

less airplane travel

less vehicles

less restaurants

less clothing retailer/producers

less oil/gas demands

less service industries

less construction

less employees

less money

 

All we would have is some incredibly productive people doing all the work from their houses to support everyone else who isn't. For the highly educated/experienced WFH can be great, but what about all the people who don't have that education/experience, everything you are targeting is where they tend to work or get experience.

[Neonmoon 38127]

This has nothing to do with "productivity" and all to do with Commercial Real Estate leases. 

[Guest]

12 hours ago, Updawg said:

New shitty manager tactic is to threaten return to work 5 days a week whenever they freak out over a situation.

Won’t be good for them

yeah, that's weak AF.

Seems like a great way to get steamrolled by your workforce...or have no workforce.