Dell risks employee retention by forcing all teams back into offices full-time
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It's a bit more than that. They design and build their own cases, for example, which is fairly non-trivial. And they do have a small suite of Dell software tools - although that may be subcontracted. But mostly you're right - Dell is almost entirely a marketing and support service company, with a bunch of mid- to low-skill employees that are easily replaced if needed.
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You can negotiate for a 6 hour workday, more vacation days, more pay or whatever. Whether you and a potential employer can come to an agreement is another question.
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I've been working from home for 10+ years. First in big corp, now as part of a team of 10 (that's the WHOLE company).
When I was in big corp, I hardly ever went to the office. Once or twice per quarter. But it was nice to have the option.
Now, after two years at the new job, I still haven't met anyone in person. My girlfriend also works from home full time and also does not have the option of going to an office.
My personal preference would be for companies to keep a small meeting place for people who need a bit of quiet and to give colleagues a chance to meet.
100% from home without the option to ever meet your colleagues is very different from 100% from home. =(
When I was in big corp, I hardly ever went to the office. Once or twice per quarter. But it was nice to have the option.
Now, after two years at the new job, I still haven't met anyone in person. My girlfriend also works from home full time and also does not have the option of going to an office.
My personal preference would be for companies to keep a small meeting place for people who need a bit of quiet and to give colleagues a chance to meet.
100% from home without the option to ever meet your colleagues is very different from 100% from home. =(
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It's not about productivity. It's not about conversations, or innovation, or leveraging synergies. It's about control. It's about "fuck you, you do what I tell you to." It's about "you get what we hand you, you don't ask for more, and don't dare question that." And, mostly, it's about "maybe if I make this as arduous as possible for you, you'll quit so I don't have to pay you severance."
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"What we're finding is that for all the technology in the world, nothing is faster than the speed of human interaction,”
Hey Dell - please provide me with this report and the details behind what you “found”
Hey Dell - please provide me with this report and the details behind what you “found”
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Well, honestly, it's Dell. F@#ing Dell. They're not getting the best people no matter what, because nobody wants to work for Dell. I have never had a Dell in my hands (or on my desk) and thought 'wow, what a fantastic piece of kit this is, I wish I could work for them.' My reaction is always 'sigh, well, it's cheap and will probably work middling well, even if it's shit for expandability, and at least it's not an HP or (recently) Lenovo.' So they probably don't mind having mediocre employees, because they're a very mediocre company from the very top down.
And then their stock is in (slow) free-fall, so this is layoffs to appease the stockholders like everyone else has said, but honestly I think 'But then they won't get the best people!' doesn't even matter to or matter for Dell.
And then their stock is in (slow) free-fall, so this is layoffs to appease the stockholders like everyone else has said, but honestly I think 'But then they won't get the best people!' doesn't even matter to or matter for Dell.
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I'm not talking about interpersonal dynamics, I'm talking about history. Women haven't been allowed to occupy 99% of the positions of power capable of fucking things up for everyone, because insecure men wouldn't let them.
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Unions have not had much attraction for tech workers but I think that may be starting to change. As an individual you can only knuckle under to whatever your boss demands or you can walk out the door, but as a group you can negotiate.
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Ah, so your entire objection to WFH is just sour grapes because you, personally, cannot?
Grow up.
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Put a whiteboard behind your chair in whatever space of your house you are sitting in using your computer.
Don't use the excuse that you don't have a space to put a whiteboard hanging from a wall to back a MANDATE to RTO. If you can't WFH, fine, you go to the office, if a coworker can WFH, then he should be able to WFH.
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Gern Blaanston
Ars Scholae Palatinae
It doesn't take "great talent" to sell cheap, low quality computers that are made in China.
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The new XPS at my job now is trash compared to an older HP 360 I used at the previous job.
Dell's computers suck full stop.
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I make good coffee and my wife is a five star cook. Sadly my job is mostly physical tech so I can only WFH one day a week. I love those days. No commute, better food and the pets come by to cheer me up
A place that I worked at a few years ago did one better on the RTO front , they would force us to commute to an office in the US once a week to listen at meetings. I spoke up that I was losing at least half a day working but got told. So until my time was done there once I week I spent hours commuting and listening to a meeting that I could have listened to on the phone. To add salt to it their teams meeting usually had super little to do with me or vice versa unless one of us had solved a technical issue another person was having trouble with. Different clients and different suppliers. There was very very little crossover.
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The company I work for started a full RTO this month, and surprisingly nothing really changed. Even though the directive came from the CEO with multiple emails, most managers aren't requiring people to come in because they are worried if they enforce the RTO people will quit and they just can't afford that.
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I worked for years at a cheap Ikea table crammed into the corner of my studio apartment's kitchen. I still did good work. I'm sure you can figure something out.
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And sales, right? Did they sell more? Cause that's the job? Always Be Closing?
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Because in 2020-2021 everyone (including legislators) was busy dealing with COVID; and then voters gave the notoriously anti-worker Republican party a majority in the House in 2022. At which point any pro-worker legislation was dead in the water.
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A lot of people got that "home office" by moving out of their small one bedroom city apartment to a larger house in small town far from work. Though when the pandemic struck, my wife and I both managed to work from home comfortably in our 1 bedroom condo, her at the kitchen table, me in the bedroom. We upgraded me from using the dresser as a desk to a sit-stand desk (work paid half the price), but my wife preferred to use the kitchen table and couch.
You may prefer to stay in your small city apartment, and may even prefer to go to the office, and that's fine. But don't make me drive an hour to go to the office because you prefer it, especially when half my team is in another office, so almost all of my meetings are zoom meetings anyway. And personal interaction in the office are rare because everyone's on their headphones to block out the noise of the other half of the office doing meetings from their desk (because no one thought that we'd need more conference rooms and phone rooms after RTO)
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I'm uncertain whether this is necessarily a positive or a negative... but that's not entirely true. I work in a standard office cubicle, because my work requires me to be on-site. I did exactly as you described, for about an hour today. The only meaningful difference is, I had to leave the house and commute to an office in order to attend that meeting, instead of attending it in my pajamas.
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Thankfully I've always worked in smaller companies where that's not a problem, but my wife recently retired from a Fortune 100 and was telling me about some of the meetings. The group would gather in the conference room with the big screen of the presentation, but they'd keep the camera pointed somewhere 'safe' and the microphones off. And then everyone would get out their "Buzzword Bingo" cards, and sit back to enjoy the show, competing to see who would win. She had a stack printed out to distribute whenever they got called into a BS meeting.
https://www.businessbuzzwordbingo.com/
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Why are we going backwards? Why are we trying to force everyone back into offices "just because"? Because we want more pollution and traffic? Because the stuffy old white men who run the country can't fathom that you can get your job done just as well in the comfort of your own home/office as you can physically located in a building with a bunch of other people?
My job was remote prior to the pandemic and even we got caught up in this nonsense. We had to justify our remote existence all over again because the business world is so monkey see, monkey do. It's like the worst kind of copying. "Hey, business XYZ is making everyone go back to the office, so we should too!".
It's like we went back in time and lost all of the progress we were making on the work/life balance front. I will never spend two hours/day sitting in traffic again. I'd rather live under a bridge.
My job was remote prior to the pandemic and even we got caught up in this nonsense. We had to justify our remote existence all over again because the business world is so monkey see, monkey do. It's like the worst kind of copying. "Hey, business XYZ is making everyone go back to the office, so we should too!".
It's like we went back in time and lost all of the progress we were making on the work/life balance front. I will never spend two hours/day sitting in traffic again. I'd rather live under a bridge.
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I have been working for more than 40 years now and the only time I had a better computer at the office was (checks notes) 1998 when I had nice new workstation that ran Windows NT.
Oh, wait I forgot that I also had a dual CPU Windows NT server at home at time. So I have never had a better computer at the office.
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I actually don't.
If I'm scheduled for a meeting, then I'm expected to be there 100% and participate, so I shouldn't be multi-tasking.*
Perhaps we shouldn't have so many meetings if you wish me to actually get my work done? Because my day ends at the same time regardless of the number of meetings I attend.
* HUGE pet peeve: "Was that question for me? Sorry, I was reading/typing an email. Could you repeat?" Fuuuuuck off.
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Tech workers are starting to unionize - and have been successful for all of the reasons you have specified
https://www.theverge.com/2024/7/19/24202271/bethesda-game-studios-workers-unionize-cwa
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This is my messaging to my company also. I am absolutely not against office work when it is needed. I do still go into the office for the occasional thing. Meetings with trusted vendors, physical equipment needs, product demos (both consumption and presentation), large department conferences, all-company meetings, in-depth and timely troubleshooting/development, sure, in person makes sense in many of those scenarios (but not all, and it certainly doesn't mean a remote person can't be effective in them).
Joining my weekly change management call or talking with counterparts in AsiaPac? Yeah, no. I don't need to drive to the internet.
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Move? That's crazy. Just find the cheapest apartment you can and just rent it and give them that as your home address! LOL
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It's just a way for companies to reduce headcount without the cost of severance/UI or the PR of a mass layoff. That said, I wouldn't be surprised if some more recent RTO mandates were somewhat politically charged, given that a lot of WFH advocates tend to lean left.
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Dell consumer stuff, sure.
Their enterprise gear is fantastic. There's a lot of engineering and expertise that goes into building the PowerEdge lines.
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"What we're finding is that for all the technology in the world, nothing is faster than the speed of human interaction,” Dell wrote, per Business Insider. "A thirty-second conversation can replace an email back-and-forth that goes on for hours or even days."
Are these people too damned stupid to simply make a call on Teams? Whenever I need to talk to someone from Dell I’m magically able to do so that way.
Are these people too damned stupid to simply make a call on Teams? Whenever I need to talk to someone from Dell I’m magically able to do so that way.
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The funny thing to me is... I generally prefer to work in the office. Except when I have a lot of meetings -- then I greatly prefer to work from home where my home office is set up much better for this purpose.
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