"Telemigration," Bad Journalism, and Scare Tactics

Key topics:

✔️Making a blanket statement that remote work is "bad" and "everyone knows it" is absurd. This type of thing is opinion masquerading as fact. And it's a lousy opinion in my opinion! 
✔️However: scare tactics and corporate-shill-esque op-ed pieces are pretty irrelevant because, as I've said before, I do not think most people will sit at home unpaid to have a quixotic battle against RTO.
✔️Conformity is so important to the system. Believe what you are told. Sit down, shut up, and go with it.


Links:

https://medium.com/illumination/working-from-home-is-bad-48ad0cdc3196


Links where I can be found: https://causeyconsultingllc.com/2023/01/30/updates-housekeeping/

Need more? Email me: https://causeyconsultingllc.com/contact-causey/

Transcript

Unknown: 0:15

Welcome to the Causey Consulting Podcast. You can find us online anytime at CauseyConsultingLLC.com. And now, here's your host, Sara Causey. Hello, Hello, and thanks for tuning in. In today's episode, I want to talk about the continuation of work from home hit pieces slash RTO fluff pieces. And why I think this point, they're totally unnecessary. If someone is using scare tactics in the vein of naughty naughty, if you're still working from home, you're in a heap of trouble. You should be scared. You should be quaking in your boots. If, if someone's doing that, like, first of all, aren't you way behind the eight ball? And secondly, if people working from home haven't at least stopped to consider that they might have some issues moving forward and this push for RTO? How are you really going to reach them? I mean, seriously, what what is it going to take? And in fairness to the argument, I know, believe me, I know that I could be accused of the same crime. Because I talk about the importance of an RTO survival plan of a job loss, survival plan, and Wargaming those things out ahead of time, you pray, and you hope that you don't need any of those tools in your toolbox. But you're sure glad that you have them if you do need them. I think it's a good strategy to take some of the same processes that are used in emergency preparedness or disaster preparedness, and apply that to your career, apply that to your job search. Don't wait to get blindsided by a pink slip. Don't sit in ignorance of what the market is doing, or what your industry is doing. I've told the story on the air before about a friend of mine who was in print journalism. And he told me, I saw it coming and I chose to ignore it. I wanted to believe it wouldn't happen to me wouldn't happen at my newspaper, I would somehow be spared from this tidal wave of layoffs in print journalism. So when it did happen, I was turned out on the job market with a lot of other journalists at the same time. And it really took some effort, and some sweating, and some sleepless nights before I got hired to do something else. And in hindsight, I wish that I had gone ahead and made changes instead of just waiting for the inevitable. But see, I think you have people that will wait for the inevitable. It's almost like being in a car and playing chicken. I'm going to see who swerves first. I don't think that's a great idea. But I am not going to get on here and do Madmax the Thunderdome zombies eating your brains, all of society is going to collapse tomorrow, blah, blah, blah. Cleaning up my feed and getting rid of those people has done me so much good. It's so nice to not get on social media or YouTube and just see that junk people actively trying to foment panic for their own personal gain. Now, as I've said before, I do think some of those people are true believers. Some of those folks are in weird I mean a weird religious cults. I'm not talking about a garden variety church that you can find on any street corner I'm talking about some weird, freaky for Riga, Delic religious cults that have some very bizarre beliefs and deed. Some of those people are true believers in whatever religious or political cult they bought into. Some of them aren't. Some of them are just straight up bullshit artists who are telling you all of these things Mad Max, we're all gonna die. Get to your bunker, get where you're gonna get for Armageddon. It's time for you to come out and be separate from all of society, you better find another place to live as though we can all just pick up and go to Mars or something. No, just just No, I, I don't want to have anything to do with that kind of messaging. And I mean, no disrespect. If you are in a cult of that flavor. You do you we have a right to freedom of religion, you can believe whatever you want to believe. For me. I don't want to hear that. I'm not interested in that. I don't want to promote that kind of message I think is dangerous and scary. And that's the thing why why resort to scare tactics. If somebody still doesn't get it, they don't want to accept the fact that their employer very well may call them back to the office. And they should probably have a game plan in place to deal with that, if they still haven't gotten that by now, they're not going to get it. And they're probably not going to make it. They're going to be like my friend, I saw that this was coming, I could see that print journalism was on a downhill slide, I was probably going to get laid off, and I just ignored it. By the time somebody gets handed a pink slip, or they're told RTO by x date, or it's your job, we will assume that you have decided to tender your resignation, and you will be an employee here no more. By the time that happens, it's too late, your window of prepping has closed. And if you don't have any money in your savings account, you don't have any idea of where you would go to find another job. How are you going to handle that? just food for thought. So continuing to make these work from home hit pieces. Oh, remote work is bullshit. It's so bad. Everybody knows it getting super hyperbolic. I'm going to use personal stories and anecdotes as quote, evidence of how bad it is. Oh, but then RTO is great. Look, it's the joy of being together. Look at how much more productive people are in the office when when they can sit in the digital panopticon. And listen to Susie talk about her weekend and get invited to Billy Bob's barbecue on the weekend and all that drag. If you're still doing that, I have to assume you're doing that because you just want to hear yourself talk or you just want to read your own words. But you're not really doing it to try to reach somebody and help them. You're not doing it to try to get the word out and say please, I don't tell you what to do. I don't give you any kind of official advice. I would just say if it were me, I'd want to have a game plan. I would want to know those first five phone calls that I would make if I got laid off. And I want to be in close contact with those people. I wouldn't want to blindside them. Oh, hi, Sally. I know that we haven't talked in about six years. But I just got laid off today. And I was wondering if you could bend over backwards to help me in my job search. And no, I would want to have my shit Tight, tight and right before it happened. I'm not saying this to scare you. There's no Mad Max Thunderdome. There's no end of the world zombies eating your brains, leave society and prepare for Armageddon down in the bunker. I'm not saying that. What I am saying is that when you get blindsided by a job loss, you're already in a tender, delicate situation. You feel like crap. Do you really want at that point to just then think about where you might go next? Or how you might handle it. If it were me, no, I wouldn't want to get blindsided in that way. So I'm gonna go back to an individual. His material pops up from time to time on medium and it always gives me a headache. I mean, give you my speech again, my Michael Corleone speech from the Godfather Part Two. I don't know this Merle. I don't know who he is. I don't know what he does. I don't know what he lives on. I don't know this guy. It's not my place to have an opinion about him. Personally, I don't know him and don't care to know. And in looking at his content, it's just like, oh, Lord, the title of this article. I'm not kidding. Title of this article is if you can do your job from home be scared be very scared. This is not even like a covert scare tactic is just right up there on Front Street. Be very scared. And the byline reads put on a shirt and get into the office. Go on. So here we go. remote work is a polarizing topic. Well, I agree with that. It is because it seems to me that people who really enjoy remote work enjoy it. And people who really don't the highly extroverted people that have a garbage can home life that want to live in the office, they really don't enjoy it. So perhaps this is true. remote work is a polarizing topic. Recently, someone asked me, Why aren't you afraid to talk about remote work? My response was simple, because I'm not a coward. And because it's misspelled, by the way. Yeah. I'm reminded of a scene in Billy Madison, where Adam Sandler and Chris Farley are standing there and Chris Farley is like we got it on. And Adam Sandler is like, No, you didn't. I highly, highly doubt that anyone walked up to this guy and asked him why aren't you Read to talk about remote work. Who would even do that? This is such a ubiquitous topic. Everybody is talking about remote work, work from home slash work from anywhere are to. I mean, yeah, I'm sorry, I just don't believe it. I think that that's just, in my opinion, I don't believe that that's true. I think that's made up for this article. It seems that most people added remote work to a long list of topics that no one should discuss it work topics like religion, politics, sports, Donald Trump, medical issues, et cetera. However, medium is not your office, so let's discuss it. Most people added remote work to a long list of topics that no one should discuss at work. That also doesn't comport with what I've seen. I mean, maybe. But I would think even if you're doing it in a hushed voice, it's like, you know, hey, I'm so tired of being here. Wasn't it great. When we were at home, I miss remote work. If I could find something else remote, I leave in a heartbeat. I find it extremely difficult to believe that those types of conversations are not taking place amongst co workers that have a good relationship with one another. I mean, if I were in a situation, working for someone else, and we had been commanded to come on back, that would be a hot, hot topic of daily conversation between me and my work homies. Just it just would this idea that oh, it's the same thing as religion and politics. No, it isn't. How absurd. Most people know that remote work is a horrible idea for big organizations. And he's bold typed that most people know that feels to me before I even read anything else. That feels to me like NLP programming, doesn't it? Like, I'm going to make this claim that's unfounded. It's an opinion masquerading as fact. But I'm going to say most people know, because I'm prodding you in a very particular direction. Most people know that remote work is a horrible idea for big organizations, but they are afraid to criticize remote work, because they don't want others to think they're out of touch with the needs of their employees. Others are afraid to be viewed as hostile figures and want to create tension with employees or be perceived as a manager who doesn't trust their employees. So employers stay silent. And now everyone thinks remote work is the best business idea of the last 200 years and quote, I'm sorry, but that doesn't even make any sense to me. What employers are staying silent, look at all the big names that have come out flagrantly in favor of our to the CEOs and the videos that have been leaked, where people are like, hey, we need to be together. Come on back, or it's your job. So who who are the employers that are staying silent? I also disagree that everyone thinks remote work is the best business idea of the last 200 years. No, they don't. They don't, you've got plenty of fat cats. And managers that want to surveil their employees all the time, they want them to come back to the cube farm so that they know where they are. And they can easily be observed at a moment's notice. You've got the highly extroverted and people who have terrible home lives that don't want to be at the house. They want to go back to the office because they don't want to be at home. It's not fair to say that everyone thinks that remote work is the best business idea of the last 200 years. That's pretty hyperbolic. These people are wrong because they rely on personal anecdotes to defend the benefit of remote work. They say they are more productive at home with fewer distractions and more time for daily personal chores and quote, okay, so then, after this particular writer who seems to me to be highly reliant on personal anecdotes in his writings, goes into personal anecdotes. You talks about booking a virtual medical appointment for his son, but the doctor wouldn't actually prescribe any medication. So it was a waste of time. He then tells a story about needing to change the carpets at his house, but the carpet companies that their estimator worked from home so they wanted him to do all of the measurements himself, and they said they would bring extra carpet just in case he made a mistake with his measuring. So it pissed him off and he decided that he wanted to just call a different company that would send somebody out to do the measurements and give the estimates in person. So because this guy had two negative experiences that I mean, I'm not saying that they're fake. These things totally could have happened. I don't know versus you down. Oh, nine. No, I was not there. I was not there. I don't know if these things happened or not, they're plausible they could have happened. Some doctors are hesitant to prescribe medication on a virtual visit. However, there's an entire industry now of telehealth, I've used telehealth to get prescriptions that I needed, and I've not encountered difficulties. As far as carpet estimation goes, I mean, is that really the best example of white collar knowledge work? A carpet estimator? Because I got pissed off that the carpet estimator didn't want to come in person. Therefore, all white collar knowledge workers need to go back to the cube farm. I mean, that's the thing. All you have to do is barely scratch the surface on this crap. And it starts to fall apart. If remote work was better, why are all companies relying on remote workers laying off people? I wouldn't say that all companies relying on remote workers are having layoffs. But I do think that we're getting more into a valid line of questioning here. To me, it's more useful to ask the question, if you're working remotely in the age of RTO, are you going to be perceived as a problem? I've told you many, many times before this is about compliance, obedience, conformity? Are you going to go along to get along? Or are you going to be a problem, pal? That's what so much of it boils down to. And there are times when I feel like a broken record, going over this information again, and again. But God bless America, there are still times where somebody just doesn't get it. They just don't get it. They want to LARP that corporate America is going to listen to John and Jane Q Public, that there will somehow be a revival of remote work. If enough people go out like Don Quixote to fight the windmills and they say I will sit at home, I will effectively have a hunger strike. I will sit at home unpaid, I will burn up my savings burn through my credit cards in order to protest or to and I'm sitting here telling you I don't effing believe that. I don't believe it. I don't believe it. And also, let's say for argument's sake, that they did, let's say there was a nationwide strike, not one single solitary scab, was willing to cross the picket line and go in. What do you think what happened? Now maybe I am just one colossal pessimist, but I tend to think that as many jobs as could be outsourced would be, I think, as many jobs that could be done through automation would be I think some companies would cave. And I think some companies would not. I think that would be an excuse to usher in AI and robotics and outsourcing to developing nations that much faster. I guess I just don't have any delusions of grandeur. There's that old old phrase he who makes the He who has the gold makes the rules. These Wall Street fat cats and their politician buddies, these CEOs that rake in millions with a B billions of dollars, they have a hell of a lot more money and power than we do. And I know I'm ready for it. I'm braced for impact here. So I'm wise and Heimer, who still believes in the system, God help him because it'll be a him. God help him he'll write me and say, no, no, no, no. Think about that cartoon where there's a politician over a cliff. And the people are standing on the block of wood and if they all just left the block of wood, the politician would fall down in the cavern. Yeah, okay. How's that worked so far? From a unionizing perspective. I do believe in solidarity. I do believe in United part in the dryer. There's so there's so much laundry on a farm, or evey. Anyway, I do believe in this concept of United we bargained divided. We beg, I'm there. When we're talking about a company. We're talking about unionizing. We're trying to unionize within a particular company. But when we start talking about a nationwide strike, all of these people living paycheck to paycheck and drowning in personal debt, people not even having 500 or $1,000 in savings to cover an emergency. And you expect me to believe that all of these people are going to say screw it, I'll stay home. I'll let my kids starve. I'll go without my creature comforts, I am that idealistically committed to working from home, that I'll do whatever it takes, I will draw the firmest boundary. And I will not cross it until I get what I want. I just don't think so. I don't think so. Now, I could be wrong, I hope, quite frankly, I am. I hope I am. But when you think about how bad unemployment was, during Oh 809 during the Great Recession slash global financial crisis, and that's only what we were allowed to know about the unemployment rate. When you look at how high it was. And you look at how long people just festered on the job market with no leads, and no hope. If we have another environment like that, you expect me to believe that people will just starve. I can't get there. That is some hopium, some teddy bear hugs and some unicorn Toots that I just cannot get behind. I can't get there. I can't do it. So let's revisit this medium article. In 2023, more than 170,611 employees were laid off by tech companies. And 164,411 were laid off in 2022. Most of these employees work remotely. Okay, fair enough. But we're talking about tech companies. Some of those companies, there's more to the story. They over hired, they hoarded labor. They took part in the FOMO and the YOLO, and the artificially manipulated markets and the Omni bubble. It's not fair to pin all of those layoffs on remote work, and feel like we're putting the cart before the horse. In my mind, it would be a more accurate statement to say, the employees that got laid off were employees that were working remotely, it wasn't because they were working remotely. That's not what triggered the layoff. However, some companies may have looked at the people working remotely and said, they're not going along to get along, they're not willing to sell their soul and come back in person. Therefore, they're going to be on the chopping block. See, now I think we're getting into territory that's closer to the mark. I think this author wants to blame everything on remote work and remote workers. Whereas what I'm trying to do is tell you corporate America prizes, obedience, and conformity. And if you don't tow that line and go along to get along, then you're a problem now. I am trying, as best I can to communicate that to you. I've lived it. Why the hell do you think I left? Do I strike you as being a wallflower? Who goes along to get along? You don't have to know me in person. All you have to do is listen to like one single solitary episode of this podcast or read a couple of my blog posts if you're gonna know better than that. Richard Baldwin is correct. If you can do your job from home, be scared, be very scared. Before you discredit Mr. Baldwin, you should know that he is an economics professor at the Graduate Institute in Geneva, Switzerland. And he understands the economy and the future of work more than most people out there and quote as we used to say back in the day gag me with a smurf. Right. He's an economics professor. He understands the economy and the future of work more than most people out there. Why? Because He's an economist. I've told you before, in my opinion, some of y'all are going to listen to these economists and follow them right off a damn cliff. You're gonna listen to them like the Pied Piper of Hamlet and go right off a cliff. You can buy an economist to say anything? Yeah, I said, I'll put it out there. There are plenty of these so called journalists and so called experts and so called economists out in the media that can get paid to say anything. Do you say anything, you wave enough money, where you give enough leverage enough incentive to somebody and you tell them this is the narrative we're pushing? Are you going to go along to get along or are you going to be a problem Powell? And watch how quickly they fall in stuff? This is the world we live in. I'm sorry, if that is really offensive to you. Frankly, it should be offensive to you because this is stuff is rigged. Just don't shoot the messenger, I guess is what I'm saying. Yeah, no, I'm not trying to discredit Mr. Baldwin. Just simply to say, this feels very scare tactic gate to me. If you can do your job from home be scared, be very scared. Baldwin believes that if workers want to work from home, they need to be able to compete with workers in different countries who are willing to work for less money, do more work, and bring more value to the marketplace. He calls this phenomenon tele migration, really, I call it exploitation of people in developing nations. Companies are finally realizing that if a job can be done from home, it can be done in a different country for 10% of the cost. And that's why Baldwin says if you can do your job from home, most likely you will have to compete with employees in different countries. And most of you are not ready to make 10% of your current salaries. I know that you think that hiring workers from faraway countries poses real challenges such as language and cultural differences, education level and team integration. However, companies are willing to deal with these challenges, as long as they can save 90% of the cost of hiring someone locally in San Francisco and quote. I think that depends a lot on the position. It does. I also think that a lot of this is a scare tactic. If you can do your job from home, it's not even to say that you are doing your job from home, if you can do if you could theoretically you could do your job from home, then you need to be scared because of tele migration. It also feels xenophobic to me, because it's like, be scared of this other be scared of these other people from other countries. I don't like that, that makes me feel gross. I don't I don't like that, that has some bad energy to it bad xenophobic energy. And I also don't like this idea of exploiting somebody. Well, I would pay $50 an hour if this were an American worker, but since I'm hiring someone in a developing nation on another continent, then I only want to pay them $5 an hour. Because you know, like, that's a lot for them. How gross like, I mean, that's like some Karen or Darren who's also a total racist. That's like a lot of money for them. They should just be glad to have that. I'm just gonna throw my sweaty American dollars at them and they should be like, so happy for that. So much of this is gross to me. Under the heading, put on a shirt and get in the office, we find Scott Galloway, a professor of marketing at NYU Stern School of Business agrees that working from home is dangerous. Dangerous. Wow. Especially for young workers. Okay, I'm just gonna stop right there, we get a twofer. It's dangerous. So we're not even talking now about the scare tactic of if you don't come back and see, we're going to outsource your job to an impoverished person in a developing country. We also get young workers won't someone think of the children? Won't someone think of these Gen Z years who are out in the street clamoring for a return to the office? Oh, offices are where young professionals establish relationships with mentors, colleagues and mates. So in some put on a shirt and get into the office. Now the way ads if you're young and ambitious, get to the office. But even if you are productive at home, you will only be promoted if you learn how to build relationships with your suit supervisors and clients. And if you don't like this fact, the corporate world is not for you. tuck into Raisa okay, we've had some bullshit. But now we're getting into something that I think has merit. If you were young and ambitious, get to the office. Let's just have a good little handy dandy translation here. We need to know that you're serious. You're committed and you're obedient. If we tell you to RTO because that's what we want you to do. Whether it makes logical sense or not. That's beside the point. You do what you're told. So if you want to show us that you're willing to play bud Fox to Gordon Gekko, then you get your ass in this office. Now if you don't live to work, if you want to just quiet quit, then that's okay. You can stay at home and wait for your job to be stolen. I'm using air quotes here stolen by someone in a foreign country. But if you're sick He is. And you're ambitious, you get your butt in the office. Okay? This is just more of what I have told you about conformity, obedience compliance. Here's where I think we're really getting into something that has merit. You will only be promoted if you learn how to build relationships with your supervisors and clients. And if you don't like this fact, the corporate world is not for you. I would retool the language there a bit. And say, if you are like me, the type of person that would rather go vomit, than be compliant, obedient, conformist. You don't really want to lick the boots. You paid you paid your dues, so to speak you you licked those boots when you were younger, but good God and heaven, you don't want to do it anymore. The corporate world is not for you. Because guess what? I'm about to lose my voice. It's about conformity, obedience, compliance. If you can't hack that the corporate world is probably not for you. Now, do you absolutely have to be in person to build relationships with supervisors and clients? No, no, you don't absolutely have to be face to face. For some people who are highly extroverted, I think that they really expect that. But for most of the population, I mean, if we're thinking about introverts, ambiverts, and more tolerant extroverts, probably not. Probably not, I've had clients that I have never met in person, and probably will never meet them in person. But we get along just fine. They've never kicked me to the curb and said, Well, if you're not willing to get on an airplane and fly all the way out here just to shake our hands, and have a cup of coffee with us, and we're going to fire you. You don't, you don't have to absolutely be in an office to build a relationship with somebody. That part I think is also hyperbolic. Where I think that we're really getting into something that's important and worth taking note of is this idea of the corporate world is not for you. He cites a good study that found that people who work from home are 38% less likely to receive a bonus. There are usually several people qualified for each promotion, the job will typically go to the person with the best relationship with the decider. And relationships are a function of proximity. If the sounds unfair, and just bullshit, FaceTime, trust your instincts, the corporate world and small injustices will be synonyms for a long time and quote, same thing in this paragraph, we get a mixture of bullshit, combined with reality. I don't think that relationships are always or solely a function of proximity. I don't think so. I do think that the corporate world and small injustice as well, probably not small injustice is the corporate world and injustice will be synonyms for a long time. That's for damn sure. One of the passages here that's been highlighted by quite a few medium readers is the job will typically go to the person with the best relationship with the decider. Yes. Yes. Are you going to go along to get along? Or are you going to be a problem? How are you going to go to Billy Bob's barbecue on Saturday? Because it would really look good if you did. Or you're going to be a problem. Are you going to schmooze your boss and do everything that they tell you to do? If they say jump, you say how high? Are you going to do that? Are you going to be a problem pal? Because the job will typically go to the person with the best relationship with the decider. Under the heading, it's not in your best interest to work at home. If you don't agree with Galloway, what about Malcolm Gladwell, one of the most successful authors of the last 100 years God, what is he Malcolm's publicists jeez, one of the most successful authors of the last 100 years believes that it is not in your best interest to work from home. But yet Malcolm Gladwell works from home. Let's don't forget that. When remote employees criticized him he doubled down saying offices really matter for employees who engage in collaborative creative work. Sarah hatch Content Director for meetings net believes that Gladwell is correct. She says if you want people to be more creative, bring them together for an in person brainstorming discussion rather than a virtual one and quote, right so we can all get in a room together. And groupthink can take place instead of brainstorming individually. And then coming back, and hearing ideas. Let's get everybody herded into a room to have an in person brainstorming session where the loudest extrovert who's usually allowed extroverted male in my experience is going to win the day. Right? Because that's somehow supposed to make us more collaborative and creative. Really, you should just, when you in my opinion, when you see the word collaborative, you should just automatically go conformity, compliance, cult like behavior, one of us, you must be one of us. I just think that word has been so used, abused and misused that it's it doesn't even have any significance toward actual collaboration anymore. It's just like cold speak. Ryan Jenkins, the Wall Street Journal best selling leadership author also says that Gladwell is correct. I can confidently say that, as someone who has spent over three years researching connections that work, no research shows that our social connections improve while working in virtual environments. This alone should cause us to pause and be much more thoughtful about how we approach work moving forward. Many people are unwilling to sit down and consider the negative side effects of remote work. He goes on to have a list of about seven things even though he says he could add 15 More but needed to stop. And the span from if you work at a crap company with a bad boss, go find a better job. Don't just focus on working remotely, go find a better job. That's not terrible advice, per se. But what are you going to do in a time of high unemployment? That's like the things that are your priorities, the things that you can do during a boom cycle are not the same things as they are doing during a bus cycle. I don't understand why this is so difficult to comprehend. Organizations should have better policies for remote work and create a system that clarifies how their promotion works, right? Because I'm sure that companies are going to come right out and say you can work from home if you want to, but you're never gonna get promoted, and you're not gonna get any pay bumps. Like they're just gonna come right out and say that working from home only works if you work for a manager who respects you and has clear boundaries. Yeah. The same is true working in an office. Do you think just because you are to it doesn't mean that your boss is not going to have your cell phone number. Thus far, the US has not passed any kind of law saying that after 6pm Your boss can't bother you. I doubt that they ever will. But that's the thing. Like what you're gonna get home and be at the dinner table with the family and your boss is not going to bother you at the house just because you came into the office that day. Give me a break. It wasn't that way. Pre pandemic, I don't think it's going to be that way. So called post pandemic either. No company can create a healthy culture by allowing employees to work on 100% remotely. Same thing with collaboration. Whenever you see culture, you can just in my opinion, automatically think compliance, obedience conformity one of us, one of us. And finally he wraps it up with if your company let you go in an email, don't be mad. real relationships don't exist, virtually. remote employees are just a number. Wow. That's one final middle finger, right? If you weren't already feeling terrible, let me go ahead and tell you that you're just a Bellbird because real relationships don't exist virtually. Don't get your knickers in a twist. Because I mean, hey, you know, they have the right to treat you like the gum on the bottom of their shoe that they're scraping off. Because I mean, you're just a number you were working remotely anyway. Here's the big Gaff. Here's the big non secret there. You're just a number, period. It doesn't matter. If you're showing up every day in person. It doesn't matter if you're showing up every day virtually. You're just a number. You can form you comply, you will obey you toe the line. Because that's what it boils down to in corporate America. I'm not telling you I agree with it. And I am definitely not telling you it's right. I'm telling you this. This is reality. These are the rules of the road. Are you going to go along to get along? Or are you going to be a problem pal? Stay safe, stay sane. And I will see you in the next episode. Thanks for tuning in. If you enjoyed this episode, please take a quick second to subscribe to this podcast and share it with your friends. We'll see you next time.