Zoom has “Zoom fatigue,” requires workers to return to the office

“With more people in the office, we are in a better position to use our own technologies”??? What? Do they actually know what their product is?
- When you don't have a good reason for something but you also don't have to justify your actions, this is the kind of dumb shit you throw at the wall to just make the conversation end.
  "Middle management are feeling fragile and insecure and solving that matters more than actual productivity, especially for a company who has a share price history that you could ride a sled down". There's a real reason if you want one.
- Classic corporate doublespeak, IMO.
  "This is bad, but bad is good."
- Previously, they can't test in production because if it cause an outage, zoom employees must use Google Meets to coordinate a fix. If their employees are all in the office, they can push directly to production without fear of being locked out, therefore increasing productivity. /s
- Execs are no doubt panicking because the infinite growth they've promised as a result of their 2020 finances is starting to look unlikely and they need excuses to cut down on employees
  
  fuck infinite growth

Management doesn't know how to deal with it. And instead of research something that would indubitably benefit everyone else, and in this case it includes not only workers, but also customers and even their fucking business model... They go back to a place of false comfort for themselves. That's the sign of a sinking ship if I ever saw one.
- This is what I don't get, it took a while to get into place after Covid forced WFH, but my office, in the UK public sector, managed to implement a decent monitoring system to allow managers to make sure home workers aren't taking the mick. How is it all these huge tech companies with infinitly more money and talent at their disposal can't?
  
  I don't understand why managers or anybody really, would care what the fuck I'm doing as long as the work is getting done.
  
  Can you provide any additional information on the "monitoring system". Is it simple "check-ins" with your managers, or more technology dependent where everything is tracked as if someone is standing over your shoulder.
  
  A lot of them (Alphabet in particular) overinvested in commercial real estate and are now sitting on a huge sunk cost.

Maybe the world"s remote workers should avoid Zoom since it isn't even good enough for Zoom to use.
- I suspect that's actually part of the problem. Zoom is being ditched for teams left and right - so many enterprise companies already have Office on all their machines on the network. Why would they continue to pay for zoom (who I believe jacked up their prices to capitalize on the COVID influx) when teams is included in their software suite and serves the exact same function, with additional functionality? Not saying teams is as good/better/worse than zoom, but it serves the same purpose. There are also concerns over zooms security, which isn't helped by a huge inrease in cyber attacks just about everywhere - that's also very problematic for zoom since Teams already requires MFA through authenticator to help prevent the latter.
  The Zoom peak declining combined with a competitor rapidly growing means they're losing money, and of course the only solution to that is to force employees back into the office. I mean what else could you possibly do? There's simply no other solution to this problem. They've tried nothing so far and it hasn't worked so, really theor hand has been forced.
  
  Lol it's funny how you compare the safety of Teams vs Zoom when there is currently a targeted cyber attack of like 50 different US agencies using Teams as the vector.

Wow that's not a good look tbh. Pretty shitty leadership if they can't even spin it.

That's a good way to lose all your top talent.
- Don't let it fool you, they'll make exceptions to the rule for the ones they want to keep. This is just a way to make their "worst" performers miserable so they quit instead of laying them off. All the ~~shit~~ tech companies are doing it.
  
  As a datapoint from the other side, my company (big tech) is holding the party line no matter what. Lower level engineer or director - if you don't come in the requisite number of days a week, you're out. It's a bafflingly short-sighted move, but company culture is more important than anything apparently.

This is the best summary I could come up with:
At that time, Zoom chief financial officer Kelly Steckelberg cited an internal survey showing that about 85 percent of employees who work remotely "want it to stay that way."
It's still unclear why Zoom settled on a 50-mile radius as its requirement for returning to the office, whether employees can seek exemptions, or if performance reviews will depend on in-office attendance, ComputerWorld reported.
But Business Insider reported that market value has since dropped by at least $100 billion, mostly because so many companies over the past two years began requiring workers to return to the office.
Zoom's spokesperson said that with more workers in the office, "as a company, we are in a better position to use our own technologies, continue to innovate, and support our global customers."
Yuan said on an earnings call that building up Zoom's AI capability is a priority, ComputerWorld reported, and it's possible it has become an all-hands-on-deck situation.
The future will tell if pivoting to AI and requiring the majority of employees to return to the office are other mistakes for Zoom or necessary business moves.
I'm a bot and I'm open source!

The same BS my last employer was droning on and on about when he forced us all back because “collaboration”!
He spoke about “zoom fatigue”, which isn’t a real thing btw but that’s another matter entirely, and how being in the same building was better for us as a team.
The amount of collaboration it spark was exactly how many fucks I give about Zoom.

They want that 50 mile radius salary market. Competing with the entire country is expensive.
- Please explain. My intuition suggests the opposite. The company's office is in San Jose. Presumably they have to pay high local market wages to retain workers. If they could hire remote workers willing to accept Peoria lL market wages they could conceivably get the same value of labor at lower cost.
  20 years ago companies didn't demand local workers to staff their call centers to avoid competing with the entire world. They did the opposite, contracting out to the lowest bidders overseas and firing staff in the global north.
- My orgs secret is being based in Seattle

Microsoft took a lot from them IMO. I use Zoom or Teams even when I'm in the office. I don't like being hindered by meetings.
- Why even be in the office then? All this does is contribute pointlessly to burn out and invested carbon emission. I'd rather starve at this point than ever have to work in an office again.

They're just all going to be in the office and attending zoom meetings.

To be replaced by commute fatigue

I think they are just looking to reduce their headcount

Just before the new covid wave nobody is vaccinated against. Nice.
- Is this news I've missed?
  
  EG.5, variant of omicron

Zoom leadership and executives do not trust their own product.

Most companies were going to at least return to a hybrid model. To think all companies would be 100% remote work is insane
- So many roles can be fully remote. My job requires me I’m the office maybe 3 times a year. Why does that need to be hybrid?
  The only ones pushing for this are the corporation’s bleeding out money in real estate rental costs.
  When COVID hit and the lockdowns followed, I began working from home. They’ve asked for people to return to their offices and I’ve refused. I’m more productive at home and have a better work/life balance.
  
  If it’s all about real estate costs, we’ll return to remote when leases are up. Do you think that’ll happen? Not a chance.
- It's insane to think the loss of remote work is inevitable. My current job is in the beginnings of turning us hybrid and it's causing talent loss. Our jobs are functionally the same even when sitting in a cubicle because everything we do is still done "remotely". We still have to login to the VPN, access remote desktops, use browser based systems, communicate via email, etc. Even meetings with upper management are done through teams, because it's just EASIER to do.
  The only thing we gain from going in is the occasional donut.
- Booooo!