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Comment by smitelli | Hacker News Reader

Question for the group here: Has anyone ever flatly said “no” to their manager re: an RTO mandate? Did it work?

My guess is that, at companies where there really is a from-the-top mandate, the manager probably has very little flexibility. That said, even pre-COVID, I'm aware of companies that really didn't want even very senior (and well-known) folks to work remotely and eventually parted ways whereas they seemed to be OK with others who didn't work out of an office.

It’s not a low level management decision. I am all for remote work. But I won’t work for a company remotely if it isn’t a “remote first” culture where everyone is remote. It puts you at a real disadvantage.

>It’s not a low level management decision

wait, what?

In bigger companies teams are autonomous, they arent asking CEO if they can use Java or if they can work remotely.

I have worked for the second largest employer in the US until late 2023. RTO five days a week was a top down mandate and managers had no say so.

I was there during the first mandate. But I had a “field by design” role that was exempted. Those roles lost that exemption this year according to some of my old coworkers.

Autonomous to a certain degree. When a mandate comes down from above you have the autonomy to figure out how to comply; which depending on the mandate may leave little wiggle room.

So, if a CEO mandates everybody get off the Oracle JVM then you have some discretion on moving to OpenJDK or say re-writing things in C#.

Also, managers often have a lot of discretion is reporting problems. If somebody you supervise doesn't ever show up in the office but is still getting their work done then you have little reason to inform HR. However, if HR is monitoring badge data on their own then your discretion is irrelevant.

I have seen this work. You just work it out with your manager directly and don’t involve HR or leadership and it’s fine.

That works till management n layers up starts tracking office entry badge taps or wifi access

Yes, twice. I did it and it did work, but I was on a shitlist because of it. Excluded from higher level meetings/information, given menial/impossible tasks, etc. They hired someone else in my area pretty quickly to replace me. If you do this, you're going to have to start looking for a job immediately. Telling management to fuck off is a job ender even if it doesn't happen immediately. The second time I did it, I already had another job lined up for leverage. I worked for two more weeks until my paperwork was done at the new gig and then bailed.

I did, but I was already looking for work as I saw the levels of inflexibility not experienced before so I lucked out and was able to say no with near zero repercussions. I am saying near zero, because I am kinda looking again and long story short, the VP I said no to is still there and clearly seething over me leaving, because of the RTO mandate. Long story short, I was told in no uncertain way that I can't come back there..

Moral of the story is: thread carefully.

Yep; my own management chain even suggested it! "You're good, it won't be enforced." Implying something. Not sure what.

Knowing this proposition had the longevity of a housefly, I found remote-friendly work. In writing.

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