• @[email protected]
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    3910 months ago

    Quite right too. The most important factor for me when buying a computer is that the sales droid is in an office. All those CPU, RAM and disk numbers are secondary to that.

  • Venicone
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    210 months ago

    It’s creeping back in the UK here too. I think hybrid works best for me, can collaborate 2 or 3 times a week and stay at home and be more productive to actually DO the work.

    • @[email protected]
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      10 months ago

      I question those studies. It’s way easier to get someone’s attention in office than emailing them 3-4x. Additionally teamwork definitely increases when you work face to face at least sometimes.

      • Franklin
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        710 months ago

        There has been enough study on the subject that for jobs that lend themselves to the work from home model, it absolutely does increase productivity.

        I do think there should be an option to work in office for those who can’t work from home for personal reasons.

        • @[email protected]
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          310 months ago

          While that’s currently true, I’m extremely curious to see the trends after 10-20 years. Does it stay productive or do problems start cropping up. My current job is strongly requested to be in-person once per week, but otherwise WFH. The occasional in-office definitely helps new hires and such, and I would not be surprised if jobs start moving towards a “wfh except once per week (or two weeks)” ordeal.

      • @[email protected]
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        810 months ago

        Don’t email 3-4x. Just write a chat message and send ab VC invite. Works immediately in 90% of all cases and allows direct communication without disturbing all the coworkers around you in an office.

      • @[email protected]
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        210 months ago

        E-mail is not, nor was it ever, something for immediate response. Don’t e-mail people if you want one, you’re doing it wrong.

      • @[email protected]
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        610 months ago

        I agree but only if your team is in the same office. Nowadays people are working with teams based around the world and if your entire team is working remotely then there’s not much point to being in the office.

      • @[email protected]
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        610 months ago

        I agree to an extent, but while I’m not going to speak for everyone as my situation is unique, my role is as an individual contributor, and my role requires absolutely 0 teamwork. I have a set of tasks that need to be done by EOD, and so does the rest of my team. We don’t collaborate at all. When we were in office, the only benefit was we all sat together, so you could ask a team member for assistance if you got stuck on a unique issue.

        During Covid, they redid our office. There are no assigned seats anymore. So when they do ask us to come in, I work at a random desk by myself. It’s absolutely stupid. I’m wasting gas and time driving to the office just to make an appearance to stroke management’s ego so they can physically see me in person.

      • JWBananas
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        310 months ago

        It’s way easier to get someone’s attention in office

        Exactly. Most employees aren’t just sitting around waiting for someone to get their attention. They’re already actively working. And when that work is interrupted, it’s a distraction, and productivity goes down.

        Even the mental context switching between the tasks is costly in terms of time lost. Most people can’t just instantly jump back to the original task at the same level of productivity.

  • @[email protected]
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    10 months ago

    The most important lesson I have learned throughout my career is that large corporations are not worth working for. Too much “HR” interference.

    The best work environments I have ever been a part of is when I worked for smaller businesses that were still made up of actual people and not nameless/faceless/soulless “corporate HR departments”, who’s sole purpose is to “make corpo more money no matter the means”.

    • FenrirIIIOP
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      310 months ago

      I’d say it depends on what you want from a job. I’ve mostly been able to do nothing 90% of the time and still make good money. That 10% earns my share because it’s often brutally stressful. But I can hide amongst the bureaucracy.

  • @[email protected]
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    4610 months ago

    So Dell wants to do a layoff of sales staff, and is going to lose their best performers first.

    • @[email protected]
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      710 months ago

      i hate how this “best performers” rhetoric always comes out in WFH discussion. everyone should be able to work from home if it’s better for them regardless of if they’re The Best at their dunder-mifflin ass job

      • @[email protected]
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        1210 months ago

        Sure, everyone that has a job that can be done from home should be permitted to do it from home if they want to.

        What the best performers rhetoric is about is that these companies are harming their long term prospects by doing things like this, since the personnel that make the most money for the company are generally the ones that can easily leave for another company that will not treat them like a child that needs to be directly monitored.

      • @[email protected]
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        510 months ago

        They are saying the return to office mandate will cause the best performers (who are likely more confident in securing another job) to quit first, not that everyone shouldn’t be WFH.

      • @[email protected]
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        710 months ago

        That’s not the argument. The argument is rather that good employees can easily find new and better jobs. So the remaining people are on average worse.

        It’s also called Dead Sea Effect. The good ones evaporate, only salt remains.

    • @[email protected]
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      10 months ago

      Dell’s inside sales team probably has a much flatter bell curve, performance wise, then their outside (traveling) reps.

      So yes, they are looking to do a layoff without the headlines, or severance, but probably aren’t as concerned where on the bell curve those employees rank.

      Middle and lower management of those teams is absolutely sweating bullets about their teams getting wrecked, but big picture, whatever impact the C Suite is expecting, clearly isn’t enough to outweigh whatever net outcome they’re hoping for here.

      Edit: also, I pretty much guarantee that any of their far high-end outliers on the inside sales team bell curve, will be given an exemption by whoever is 2 or 3 levels above their direct manager.

  • GHiLA
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    1010 months ago

    Time to fire half the workforce.

    Before you do that… I have a better idea

    This is how they cull us now. Make us quit.

  • @[email protected]
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    910 months ago

    I quit answering my dell sales buy. His quotes have been above what I can get buying right off the website. Their premier login must tack on a 25% charge.

      • @[email protected]
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        810 months ago

        We just test piloted a few for the first time since IBM stopped making them. I was really disappointed when one had a fan problem just outside of warranty, I went ahead and cracked it open. It was all Phillips screws which was kind of nice. They weren’t all the same which kind of sucks but not that bad. I went to pull the fan out to get a replacement, found out I had to replace the entire fan assembly heat pipes heat sinks everything. I was super pissed off until I found out I could buy the part off their website and it was 80 bucks. Dell won’t even sell me parts. 80 boxes a lot to pay for a fan, But when replacing it replaces both the CPU and the GPU fan and gives me fresh radiators, It could be worse.

        From a corporate standpoint I’m a fan.

        • @[email protected]
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          110 months ago

          This is where I am coming from. I buy computers buy the hundreds and really suffered what Dell offered and really loved what Lenovo offered.

      • @[email protected]
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        410 months ago

        Working at a computer shop, Lenovo ThinkPads are usually pretty fine, but the main fault we’ve seen with them is lack or completely missing thermal compound. On one occasion I saw my colleague’s machine not post, and IIRC we had to reset the CMOS to get it back up.

  • Boozilla
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    8510 months ago

    Alternative headlines:

    • Dell wants to contribute to global warming for no good reason.
    • Dell wants to expose workers to death by automobile for no real reason.
    • @[email protected]
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      210 months ago

      global warming

      When WFH began, I stopped taking the subway into the city every day and instead spent a lot more time driving around the suburbs. My car’s mileage and my ecological footprint went way up. You can’t just make up a statement and have it be true.

      • @[email protected]
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        2610 months ago

        Interesting, for me it was the opposite.

        When I had to go back to the office, I started burning cooking oil and truck tires in my backyard every weekend, so my ecological footprint increased significantly

        • @[email protected]
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          1410 months ago

          For me, working from home meant eating endangered species for lunch seven days a week instead of just two. Checkmate, liberals.

      • @[email protected]
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        1010 months ago

        Did the people collating stats forget to take into account your hobbies? I feel like there was nothing forcing you to drive aimlessly around the burbs more than you would have normally outside of work, shopping and errands taking the same time as normal.

      • @[email protected]
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        3510 months ago

        Lol, “my personal anecdotal story, means someone else is crazy and wrong, despite me having no other evidence either.”

        • This person
  • Tygr
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    310 months ago

    Damn, you know it’s bad when Dell is laying off a ton of people through policy.

  • PhobosAnomaly
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    210 months ago

    Unless it’s the initial outreach team or on-premises staff, sales would be one of the few roles totally suited to remote working.

    Some of the more creative or collaborative roles I can see the argument for hybrid working - even if it’s just one day a week or month in the office - but sales, customer service, or first line support seems to be the last area you’d impose a return to work mandate on.

    That said, I haven’t got extortionate office rents to justify 😂

  • @[email protected]
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    310 months ago

    Is there a way to rank tech companies on how shitty they are? I’d love some kind of directory of companies and all the cunty things they have done in the last few years - like uncov but for established companies.

    • @[email protected]
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      10 months ago

      I totally get it. Good luck though, make sure you find a landing space first. WFH jobs are decreasing and are getting much more competitive. They’re also, unfortunately, prone to be suddenly or slowly shifted to in-office positions. Trying to work a mandatory period of WFH into your contract might be useful, but that’ll be pretty difficult.

      As long as you are very employable and in the right field you should be fine. Using “transitional WFH” as a way to entice workers is becoming more commonplace and employers are often not transparent about it.

      A friend works in HR at a place that hires as “WFH” and doesn’t mention at any point that there is already a timeline in place for two days in office after six weeks and then full time in office after three months. It’s not stipulated anywhere, it’s a “new policy” that comes down… on the same timeline… for every new employee. Lol