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Comment by paxys | Hacker News Reader

I get that companies have the right to dictate location policies, but I wish they'd grow a spine and actually say it up front rather than play games like these to force employees to resign. But I guess then they'd have to follow the rules and offer stuff like unemployment benefits and severance where required.

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In most US jurisdictions a material change to employment conditions is grounds for an unemployment claim even if the employee voluntarily resigns. I'm not a lawyer, but I'm guessing requiring in office for a remote job, or what Dell did would constitute this.

This also removes the loophole of a company reducing an employee's salary to minimum wage rather than laying them off. They could still quit and get unemployment.

Same, it also lines up culture internally. If you say you’re an in-office company up front, you know the people you hire can at least tolerate (even enjoy!) in-person work. I don’t think people realize how the minority of people that enjoy office work, sudden RTO policies also suck. Maybe 80% of people that come in are unhappy, don’t want to be there, and don’t want to participate in any of the office stuff some people like.

It sucks all around.

I don't get the "force employees to resign" meme. I resigned from my last job because aspects of it were shitty. But my employer wanted me to continue working there. We could negotiate some things but not others and eventually the incompatibility became too much.

I think I'm more effective at my job in certain conditions, they disagree. I don't get the histrionics and accusations about an employer's intentions. At a certain point it's an important adult thing to be able to recognize you're just in disagreement with another party over something subjective, and you're not being victimized.

It's the other way around: Dell is making public a policy that's unwritten at tons of companies.

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