06 Jan ‘Leveraging the recession for RTO.’ I warned you!
So… you know how I have warned you repeatedly that bosses would follow Lord Elon and do the “c’mon back or it’s your job” once the peons were allowed to know the economy is in the dumper? I’ve been on this blog, on Medium, and on my podcast telling you this was coming for months.
I yet again feel like the character Jed Hill in Malice: this is the here and the now.
Lord Elon kicked the door open last year with his “RTO or GTFO” proclamations. Then you had Zuck telling people it was OK to “self-select” out the door.
Wishing that companies had learned more lessons from The Great Resignation will not make it so. And that’s why I am telling you that IMO, Corpo America is gonna do what it is gonna do. If that includes things like:
-Hiring freezes, layoffs, and rescinded offers
-Demanding RTO / making it more difficult or costly to WFH
-Cutting their budgets
-Increasing surveillancethen that’s how it’s gonna be. 🤷🏻♀️
I’m not saying it is right and I am not saying I agree with it because I don’t. I’m telling you from my perspective what I see coming down the road and it’s not hearts, flowers, and unicorns.
–https://causeyconsultingllc.com/2022/08/12/yes-agreed-but-theyre-gonna-do-what-theyre-gonna-do/ published on August 12, 2022
I told you so . . . oh, I told you so . . . 🎶
“A Vanguard spokesperson told The Wall Street Journal that working from the office is essential for both the experience of its clients and workers.
‘It’s not going to be so easy to give up your job,’ Kathryn Wylde, chief executive of the Partnership for New York City, a nonprofit collective of nearly 300 CEOs, told Reuters last month. ‘That will probably mean that people are less resistant to the requirement they are back in the office at least three days a week — which is where it feels like it is headed.'” – Business Insider (emphasis mine)
You have too many people living paycheck-to-paycheck to sit at home with 0 income for months on end in order to stick it to Corpo America. Also: do you not think these power brokers and fat cats would find a way to beat the average person? COME ON, MAN. If they have to use robots and AI, exploit immigrant labor, outsource the work overseas, etc., etc., et al., THEY WILL. There are always scabs who will cross a picket line, so imagining some sort of nationwide strike to cripple these companies for weeks or months and really sock it to them is a massive fantasy, IMO. Yeah, it feels good to think about, but is it realistic? I don’t believe so.
🔮 Prediction alert:
We could very well see something as bad or worse as The Great Recession / Global Financial Crisis. Unemployment across sectors could shoot up as it did then. Corporations will snatch up anything they want on the cheap: homes, businesses, land, assets, etc. When people are jobless, scared, and hungry, they will rapidly lose their WFH idealism and go sit in a cubicle just to have work.
I hope none of that will happen. I want to be wrong on this. In the meantime, I’d suggest you watch what the fat cats and power brokers do. Not what the talking heads in the media say to keep you pacified and quiet. Watch what the fat cats do. If they are telling their investors privately that the crap is going to hit the fan and be brutal, I’d pay attention to that much more than someone trying to delude you into thinking 2008 can simply never happen again.
–https://causeyconsultingllc.com/2022/12/29/this-isnt-2008-%f0%9f%98%92/ published on December 29, 2022
Another great song to reference is Don Henley’s “Inside Job”:
“While you were sleeping / They came and took it all away / The lanes and the meadows / The places where you used to play / It was an inside job / By the well-connected / Your little protest / Summarily rejected / It was an inside job / Like it always is / Chalk it up to business as usual”
If you’ve been asleep at the wheel, worrying about celebrity gossip and faux outrage politics, you are gonna be absolutely steamrolled by what’s coming. I hate to be that blunt about it, but it’s true. It most certainly is an inside job, and you and I are not the fat cats involved in the decisions.
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You can find my newest books on Amazon:
Will You Survive a Job Market Crash?: Easy Tools & Strategies You Can Use in an Economic Crisis
https://www.amazon.com/Will-You-Survive-Market-Crash-ebook/dp/B0BRC4C2SQ
Hiring After the Great Resignation: Ways to Improve Your Hiring Process Even in Turbulent Times
https://www.amazon.com/Hiring-After-Great-Resignation-Turbulent-ebook/dp/B0BRM2Y16V
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