Posted on 08/13/2025 4:01:56 PM PDT by dennisw
As employers push harder for in-person work, employees are finding new ways to resist — without outright refusing to show up.
Short of simply refusing to turn up office workers are finding new creative solutions to limit their in-person hours.
The most popular trend du jour, driven largely by millennials, is 'coffee badging'. It involves showing up at the office just long enough to grab a coffee, greet the right people, and then quietly leave to finish the day working remotely.
The behavior is now so widespread that executives are seeing it as a threat to their efforts to return workforces to the office.
Three-quarters of companies say they are struggling with employees coffee badging, a recent report found.
At Samsung, the practice got so out of hand that its US semiconductor division has rolled out a return-to-office monitoring tool, Business Insider reported earlier this week.
The 'compliance tool' makes sure staff are turning up as often as expected by their bosses and also prevents 'lunch/coffee badging,' the company wrote in a memo to employees.
Amazon has also cracked down, having one-on-one conversations with repeat offenders, Fortune reported.
Elsewhere 44 percent of hybrid workers admitted to coffee badging, according to a survey conducted by Owl Labs.
According to Bezinga millennials are the demographic most likely to be trying to stretch the limits of hybrid work policies.
Gen Z meanwhile are actually more keen to return to the office after starting their careers remotely during the pandemic.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
When I got my first office job in Manhattan, in the 1980s, there was a time sheet on the reception desk. All office workers had to sign in and sign out, whenever we arrived or left the office.
Talking to people is haaaard.
The workplace has changed a little bit since the 1980s. It’s all computerized and many managers have no personal connection to the people who work for them.
For most everyone going back to the office and ending remote computer work means a massive pay cuts. First comes gasoline expenses, car repairs, wardrobes, eating lunch away from home, not to mention hundreds and hundreds of hours wasted commuting.
Didn’t overnight Town Watchmen have to turn a special key in locks all over town that recorded them turning it and re ords were kept and reviewed? At least that’s what Dr. Lekter told Clarice Starling about her Dad’s occupation in the books.
Then throw all the child care expenses into the loop...
“...job in Manhattan, in the 1980s, there was a time sheet on the reception desk.”
I remember doing that in Chicago. A long time ago.
Until most of these people get fired, and fired with no option to be rehired within the next five years, they will continue playing this game. When certain industries see no other choice but to increase their use of H1B foreign workers, the Game Players will have no room to complain.
More Americans will hopefully get hired too, after a mass firing, but some now flustered employers may wish to avoid another work stoppage by another group of greedy, spoiled American workers, and decide to minimize hiring from our native born.
If you're employed and you prefer a gig where you can work remotely, quit your job until you are able to find an employer who will give you what you want.
If you're talented enough, you'll get it and they'll put up with your "BS".
Only an idiot goes into an office if they don’t have too. Unfortunately I was one of those idiots.
Paying for parking for many, if they work in a downtown office.
These CEOs lost all credibility when they didn't take a stand against those @ssholes back in 2020.
“Elon Musk is against remote work. He wouldn’t tolerate it.”
Elon is a hypocrite. He remote works himself.
So?
The horror.
Angelino97 wrote: “When I got my first office job in Manhattan, in the 1980s, there was a time sheet on the reception desk. All office workers had to sign in and sign out, whenever we arrived or left the office.”
My first office job in the 1970s, they rang a bell to start work and a bell to stop work. All the desks were lined up in rows and the supervisor stood in front of the desks when the bells were rung. If you were not actually seated at your desk, it was a mandatory charge of 15 minutes leave. They also rang a bell to start lunch and a bell to stop lunch. There was a morning and an afternoon break of fifteen minutes. And, yes, they rang a bell for that too. This was a government office of GS-12s and 13s.
Yep. I think it depends what you’re doing and how your company is organized. Some people already work on teams where people are in different parts of the country, and/or world. In that case its not so big a change if all of them work remotely, if they can.
So if you force someone to take a huge pay cut, and do computer work at some distant location from their home, instead of working from home, that will make them more productive?
I was doing most of my work work remotely as a consultant in 2010. I did some discussions with a regulator in the states while I was on a church mission to eSwatini in 2011.
My clients didn’t view it as “putting up with my BS”.
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