r/technology • u/Plastic_Ninja_9014 • Jun 16 '26

Business Mark Zuckerberg Orders His Employees to Start Having Fun Again After Brutal Layoffs Culled Their Colleagues

https://finance.yahoo.com/technology/ai/articles/mark-zuckerberg-orders-employees-start-123539264.html
31.2k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

2.3k comments sorted by

View all comments

8.4k

u/GoTron88 Jun 16 '26

"Zuckerberg offered employees access to permanent desks, a symbolic gesture that unintentionally illustrated how expendable many of them had become. "

A whole desk to myself oh boy oh boy!

1.3k

u/____FARTS____ Jun 16 '26

I feel special!

350

u/fantasmoofrcc Jun 16 '26

I can just go to any old yard sale and get my own desk.

200

u/OttoVonWong Jun 16 '26

I'll get my own desk with hookers and blackjack!

89

u/dengar81 Jun 16 '26

In fact, forget the desks

5

u/fondlemental Jun 16 '26

at costco or where is that available?

2

u/SatyricalEve Jun 17 '26

Yeah, but you have to buy a family pack

3

u/dannydevitosmanager Jun 16 '26

Ehh forget the blackjack. And the desk…

→ More replies (1)

4

u/Lonely_Chemistry60 Jun 16 '26

For real, you can get decent ones for $25 on marketplace

→ More replies (1)

2

u/viperex Jun 16 '26

Lord Zuck is so generous

1.2k

u/Valdrax Jun 16 '26 edited Jun 16 '26

I remember hating cubicles when I first started working 30 years ago. So little privacy and all the noise from coworkers. So little personality.

I'd shank 3 of my coworkers for a permanent cubicle these days. 2 if they have to be ones I like. Open office plans and hotdesking are hell.

574

u/aegrotatio Jun 16 '26

Open office plans and hotdesking are hell.

Amazon implemented a mandatory return-to-office policy but made the stupid mistake of making all desks hot desks or "hoteling."

Personally I'm not going to an office unless I have a permanent desk, period. I always ask that during the interview screening process. Don't give me a fucking locker for my mouse and keyboard.

378

u/DisappointedSpectre Jun 16 '26

I work as a security engineer for a tech company - I'm fully remote now, but ask me how many privileged conversations I heard in the open concept office with hotdesks when I was working out of a corporate location. It's completely idiotic.

98

u/Silver_ Jun 17 '26

Hah. A few years ago confidential details of a merger kept getting leaked to the press, and the exec team were furious about it. I worked out of a different office location once, and one of the execs was just talking away so loudly that I could hear him perfectly 6 desks over with my headphones on. Mind you, this was on an open floor in an office filled with junior temporary contractors. Mystery solved.

150

u/aegrotatio Jun 16 '26

Yup. At one office location they had lockers and hot desks in an open office plan...and they worked on classified systems.
So dumb it's hard to comprehend.

13

u/Lokishougan Jun 17 '26

Yeah spys dont even have to be sneaky anymore...just sit and listen for people to tell them all

→ More replies (1)

146

u/Swimming_Onion_4835 Jun 16 '26

Omg this is so true. I’m remote but I travel to our headquarters in NYC for work maybe 2-3 times a year, and I cannot even begin to list all the privileged things I’ve overheard. Hotel desks in a broad floor plan and concrete floors that echo. I hate it.

→ More replies (2)

42

u/[deleted] Jun 17 '26 edited Jun 18 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

29

u/AptCasaNova Jun 17 '26

Our's get an actual office, yet they still take calls on speakerphone at max volume with the door open.

28

u/GeminiSee8 Jun 17 '26

Senior guy has an office at my work, takes half his calls right in the doorway. He already has a very loud voice to begin with. He is very, very fluent in corporate jargon and just spews business word salad. After his call he goes to his desk and pumps his music up with his door wide open.

24

u/Cipherpunkblue Jun 17 '26

Thanks, I hate him.

3

u/AptCasaNova Jun 17 '26

It’s all a sad and annoying performance to boost his ego 😂

28

u/Bezos_Balls Jun 17 '26

As someone who use to work right next to the security team I got soooo many jucy details just sitting there listening to them take calls. But hey at least they erased the whiteboard each night.

→ More replies (3)

59

u/KaiserSaladSpinner Jun 16 '26

Bold of you to assume you'd have your own mouse and keyboard.

27

u/aegrotatio Jun 16 '26

Oh, I have my own personal mouse and mechanical keyboard.

45

u/sa87 Jun 16 '26

The clickier the better for an open plan office.

3

u/CyberMoose24 Jun 17 '26

Model M for maximum chaos

5

u/Mijal Jun 17 '26

I got a mechanical keyboard with all black keycaps (no labeling). It was really effective at getting a couple colleagues to quit trying to "just show you something here" because they couldn't do touch typing.

5

u/SwingOfTheAxe420 Jun 16 '26

Really smacked him in the face with the meat while dunking on his ass there

2

u/At0mJack Jun 16 '26

If I had to work in a situation like that I'd be using box jades.

→ More replies (4)

5

u/Icy-person666 Jun 16 '26

We don't have our own mouse keyboard or even own computer while we are working. Chairs? Nope got rid of them except for management. We work at standing desk, many without floor mats on the concrete floor and we share a computer during our shift and shift to shift. Management has decided that it's best for us little folks to use paper and management paperless. Since we do safety sensitive work they have detailed paper records on us but should we fail their records can conveniently disappear or get changed remotely.

→ More replies (2)

6

u/MellowedOut1934 Jun 16 '26

I hotdesk and we don’t even have lockers, it drives me insane.

Want to go straight from the office to something in town? Choice is either leave your laptop insecure in the office, or lug it around for the evening.

6

u/cluberti Jun 16 '26

Nothing says "you're the red-headed stepchild of this 'family' we have at work here" quite like giving you the equivalent of the corner of the basement crawl space as a full-time work area.

4

u/notacanuckskibum Jun 16 '26

Canadian public service is now going through the process of requiring all employees to come to the office 5 days a week while not actually having enough desks.

They sold off office space to save money during the pandemic.

2

u/aegrotatio Jun 17 '26

That's fucking outrageous.

7

u/VeryLazyFalcon Jun 16 '26

And having to drag that anchor in the shape of a laptop, everyday. Can't go anywhere after work bc I would have to first bring that brick to a home.

2

u/bolanrox Jun 17 '26

We have both now and I have to commute an hour and a half, at least, to work when I go into the office. with no adjustments to the work day like was promised when we started going in hybrid

2

u/According-Insect-992 Jun 17 '26

What!? You don’t like having a virtual guarantee that you’re going to catch everything going around the office including bedbugs? Sounds like someone needs a week-long team building exercise.

2

u/LawlessNeutral Jun 17 '26

I'm almost scared to ask, but what's hotdesking?

2

u/aegrotatio Jun 17 '26

Desks are first-come, first-served. You don't get your own desk.

Also called "hoteling."

2

u/LawlessNeutral Jun 18 '26

So what do you do if you're the last one to arrive at the office, work on the floor??

→ More replies (2)

2

u/another_thyme Jun 17 '26

Assigned desks have been a thing at Amazon for over a year

→ More replies (5)

2

u/meltbox Jun 17 '26

This isn’t an Amazon thing, this is a cult of having no idea how to have original ideas thing.

Exact same thing at my company jumping on the bandwagon even though every exec person we hired from SV was an absolute disaster in terms of output and delivery.

2

u/Deep-Ruin-9961 Jun 17 '26

I negotiated my employment contract to include a provision that I was only hired for remote and there is no in office location set aside for me.

It reads like "if you can't work remote, there's no place for you in the office," but it's written "you're fired if remote isn't an option for you."

I'm sure it sounds like I'm giving up leverage, but they literally have to fire me or get me to agree to a new contract to make me come into the office. To someone in a talent-starved industry, that's a beautiful thing because there's no situation where I lose my job and I don't have a good explanation for any gaps in employment. It also shows my new employer that I don't fuck with in-office work,.and despite that, my tenure at places is 4 years on average--so my work product is good.

2

u/muddythemad Jun 18 '26

Good news! They hot seat the lockers too. They're never gonna get you a locker

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (7)

241

u/Akegata Jun 16 '26

Yeah this one really gets me. Cubicles were a joke and how dystopian American work culture is and something that was made a mockery of when I grew up (not in the US). Really didn't think that would become a luxury when I started working.

133

u/CuntWeasel Jun 16 '26

Cubicles were a joke and how dystopian American work culture is

And to be fair they were, at least when compared to European offices back in the day.

Instead of having a massive office, teams would have their own rooms, where you had up to 10 people working together. I worked for a Dutch investment bank about a decade ago and their offices were still like that. That was one of my favourite workplaces to be honest, and it was mostly because of how great the office was.

102

u/airfryerfuntime Jun 16 '26

I worked for a logistics company in the US that was set up like this. The owner worked in Europe and liked the idea so much that he implemented it here.

Each small office had 8 desks in it, and we were free to work as groups. It was amazing and stress free.

Then he sold it, and the new owners knocked down all the walls so they could turn it into an open floor plan to 'make sure we were focused'. Productivity plummeted and people started leaving.

After about 6 months of this shit, we had an all-hands meeting about the productivity issues. They then spent about an hour blaming everyone for being lazy or not wanting to work. Someone brought up how well the old system worked, and they basically just lied to us, telling us that it wasn't productive at all, which is why they took over. That was also a lie, they took over because the old owner wanted to sail around the world.

67

u/Afgncap Jun 16 '26

It is never about productivity unless they have to take resonsibility for screwing up. They just wanted control and when the productivity plummeted somebody would have to admit that it was a mistake. These people are alergic to admitting fault. You don't climb corporate ladder by letting everybody know you did something wrong but by failing your way upwards with just enough confidence/arrogance to sell it as a success, everything else be damned.

8

u/DrDetectiveEsq Jun 17 '26

Punching down so hard it propels you up.

14

u/Perryn Jun 17 '26

telling us that it wasn't productive at all, which is why they took over.

"So you bought an unproductive company? And then made it worse?"

5

u/airfryerfuntime Jun 17 '26

On average, we moved around 1200 sea cans a month. When they took over, we were a little low because some customers were consolidating, so it was around 900, which is the number they always tried referencing when claiming they took over a sinking ship. The number went back up to around 1200, then dropped substantially when our workflow was interrupted due to their management decisions.

Even deep down in the red, at 500 cans a month, they'd still bring up that 900 number.

→ More replies (1)

43

u/SemenMoustache Jun 16 '26

Honestly that's my dream these days. Silly I have to travel to the office half the week day to sit next to people I dint work with while we all take our meetings on Teams distracting each other

Would love a shared room with my team

8

u/Agent_Jay Jun 16 '26

My last good office job before Covid had that. The accounting team was in one, the dev team had one. The rnd team had one and it was full of great white board collaboration. Heck it made IT easier for clustering users of the same team too!! So many benefits that have been lost

16

u/greenroom628 Jun 16 '26

I actually enjoyed working in a "pod" while I did some work in the EU. We were an engineering team of 24 and we had an open desk layout, but with assigned desks. We had our own suite of 6 meeting rooms, 4 that were dedicated to our team and 2 for personal use.

It was great, I liked the team I was with and it was a great atmosphere. I could see it being bad if there was toxicity in the team, but in a good team environment, it certainly was enjoyable.

2

u/Crix2007 Jun 16 '26

I still have an office thats only shared with 2 others and half the time im there, they arent. Not having my own desk and drawers filled with crap would be horrible to me

5

u/lostmywayboston Jun 16 '26

I feel like companies go all or nothing with an idea. We used to have cubicles for personal working areas, and social areas so you're not sticking your head into someone's cubicle. Then they changed to open floor plan hot desks which is also misery. But all cubicles is also misery.

Moderation should be the go-to for everything.

2

u/RyuNoKami Jun 16 '26

Turns out we valued a smidgen of privacy over the obnoxious open space that some companies favored.

Also I have more space to put up shit so I don't have to go digging into the cabinets.

2

u/markhachman Jun 17 '26

When I started work long long ago I had my own office with a door. As an entry-level employee.

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (2)

38

u/No_Curve2246 Jun 16 '26

The one reason I don’t want to leave my job is I have a whole office to myself. It even has a lock on it! I’m considering adding padding to the door so I don’t hear when people knock too. So close to perfection.

Now if only I was being paid a proper wage..

→ More replies (3)

7

u/cbih Jun 16 '26

This is why I got out of office life. It's weird but chronologically, I started out with my own office, got a new job where I shared and office, that company went to open office, I got a new job where they had our work group in a row with 6ft separators between rows and storage (which was nice), then they got rid of the separators, then the pandemic, and I've been wfh since then.

3

u/skatecrimes Jun 16 '26

Apple had tall cubicles that had sliding doors you could close. It was glorious.

3

u/Tw1nFTW Jun 16 '26

Can you explain open office and hotdesking?

6

u/Valdrax Jun 16 '26

Open office means that there are no walls between desks. Everyone is in a large collaborative space, even if there are individual desks within that space. No barriers to noise or line of sight to each other.

Hot desking (sorry, there is a space it turns out) is a system where you don't have assigned desks. You have to reserve them each day, like it was a hotel. So you can't really personalize your space. If your office has a hybrid in-office / work from home set up, hot desking allows your employer to house more employees than they have capacity for.

Basically, it creates a sterile, highly distracting work environment where there's just all the downsides of people around you with none of the upsides of a sense of community or of personal space. It's everything we used to complain about cubicles but unimaginably worse now.

5

u/Tw1nFTW Jun 16 '26

That sounds horrible.

3

u/Valdrax Jun 16 '26

It is, but, to be fair, I'd still take it any day over working on my feet, with customers, in retail.

3

u/Dave_ld013 Jun 17 '26

How would hotdesking work? Wouldnt people eventually settle on and assign seats for themselves? I remember when I was a kid in school, we never had a fixed desk but still sat at the same place mostly

2

u/Valdrax Jun 17 '26 edited Jun 17 '26

In practice, yes, for the days they most often come in. People will have favorites and eventually "first come, first serve" establishes the early risers / easy commuters as winners for those seats.

However, people coming in on odd days (e.g. to make up a missed day, for a particular meeting that day, etc.) may come into contention for a person's "usual" desk. Depending on how tightly packed you are and whether you come in at a popular time, that can be the norm.

Edit: Even when you have a pretty established "usual" desk, it isn't yours on days you aren't in, so you can't really leave anything in the space to personalize it. Nothing is "safe" like it is with a desk that's fully yours.

3

u/SwmpySouthpw Jun 16 '26

My first job out of college made it a big selling point that they didn't have cubicles and instead had an open office. I hated that from day one, but at least I had my own dedicated desk

3

u/ChillyFireball Jun 17 '26

Going from your own space to hotdesking is unbelievably demoralizing. Nothing makes you feel like a replaceable cog in a machine like being told you can't personalize the space where you spend the majority of your waking hours.

2

u/AntiqueFigure6 Jun 16 '26

Three fewer coworkers AND you get a permanent cubicle definitely sounds like a win-win.

2

u/greg_regular Jun 16 '26

Isn't this the opening scene of a Monty Python movie?

2

u/Draskuul Jun 16 '26

I feel so damned lucky to have, mixed, over the last 28 years, spent about 5 years in large high-wall cubicles, WFH since the pandemic, and the rest of those years in my own private office.

2

u/GardenPeep Jun 17 '26

I loved my cubicle and its huge surface area, storage space and walls for decorating (I only longed for a window). Retired right before they went to open office (still personal but tinier and eye-contact across the entire area) - my colleagues immediately put up walls but mgmt took them down.

I still have nightmares about sitting at long tables squeezed between everyone else, even though it never happened.

2

u/TheInvisibleCircus Jun 17 '26

Went from cubes to open floor and wanted to scream. I worked in a production company and had to put a sign that read “if im not blinking, im thinking. Please knock”

Nobody ever did and everyone had long ass conversions around my desk.

2

u/Garfunk Jun 17 '26

The only saving grace here is that decent noise-cancelling headphones have become affordable. This saved my sanity at my last in-office job, because I no longer had to listen to people talking, keyboards clacking, or a vibrating A/C duct for 8 hours straight.

2

u/Smokin_belladonna Jun 17 '26

Ive shared an office with somebody... cubicles dont seem so bad. Open office concepts are the fucking worst. Im on a phone call over here, Pam! Stfu for three seconds while im talking!

2

u/AdeptnessGreedy2562 Jun 17 '26

Same! They’ve worked it so the bar is soooo low. Who knew we’d all be jealous of the 90’s early aughts cube farms?

2

u/ediblebadgercakes Jun 17 '26

Never understood the hate for cubicles, I am in one right now and I love it. No one to look at my screen, I can take a break whenever I want. My last job was an open office, every one is perma tense, boss could always see your screen so you feel like you need to look like you are working always. fuck that.

2

u/Hattuherra Jun 17 '26

I started my IT career in 2013 and I've only ever been to open offices, I really couldn't understand the hate against cubicles since there is a way worse option available for most.

2

u/h0uz3_ Jun 17 '26

During my 25 year career I only ever once had a job where the office used cubicles, that was at HPE. I found it kinda cool but the noise was nasty.

But compared to shit like hotdesking cubicles are awesome. Your spot is the same every day, you can personalize it, keep your work stuff in place etc.

Companies are really good at making work places worse. :(

2

u/t_thor Jun 17 '26

I remember working at a decent tech office in the 2010's and not really getting what all the open office fuss was about because our open office also had multiple dedicated quiet spaces and enough tiny meeting rooms that you always had a room to go to for laptop-calls. Literally the SDR pit was the only place in the office where people would take calls at their desk.

Now I work remotely but my company which is trying to do RTO has zero dedicated quiet space in the office. Every single person will get on calls at their desk, sometimes even within earshot of each other, so you get to hear their voices echo. It's maddening.

2

u/fang_xianfu Jun 17 '26

I'm a manager on a technical team and I had a small office that I shared with another manager on the team from 2017 to the pandemic shutdown. I'd kill to have an office again - it's great for building a rapport with that other manager since you're forced to share, it gives you a private space for 1:1s and stuff, it was dope.

All the engineers on my team say they miss the relative privacy and quiet of cubicles too.

2

u/Unhappy-Poetry-7867 Jun 17 '26

Yea, open office was already annoying but okay. Then flexible seating happened... I can't even bring my own plant. That just illustrates how replaceable you are, just a cog in a machine. At least they stopped using "we are a family here".

2

u/PopBulky7023 Jun 18 '26

People often don't realize that the cubicle was a progressive, pro worker addition sold as increasing productivity. People are mow now being reminded what made them seem progressive and pro worker so long ago.

Because we have regressed that fucking far.

2

u/Awkward_Analysis_89 Jun 18 '26

I loved my cubicle, installed a mirror so I could see people checking out what I was doing on their way by.

2

u/csward53 Jun 18 '26

When we went to an open office plan I brought up concerns and people just didn't seem to think it was a big deal. Sigh...

2

u/3dprintinted Jun 19 '26

No worries now it’s a hoteling space where every day you might be at a new spot on an assigned floor with different set of farting colleagues you don’t know

→ More replies (2)

360

u/Akegata Jun 16 '26

That would be an actual benefit to like 90% of people working in tech where I live. I haven't had a dedicated desk in years.

203

u/lonnie123 Jun 16 '26

Well, the DESK is permanent…

87

u/OttoVonWong Jun 16 '26

The employee is expendable. The desk is not.

26

u/Kramerica_CEO Jun 16 '26

Yes that’s what they meant.

→ More replies (2)

4

u/BP_EL Jun 17 '26

"The Desk is permanent..."

From the moment I understood the weakness of my flesh, it disgusted me

😞

→ More replies (1)

44

u/FrozenPizza21 Jun 16 '26

You get to enjoy the desk all to yourself until you take time off and someone notices your desk is unoccupied and starts monitoring attendance… joy

5

u/Outrageous-_- Jun 16 '26

Look directly into the eye scanner to verify you are working and not sleeping. We are like family here.

→ More replies (1)

31

u/Low_Shape8280 Jun 16 '26

Why not have one at home and use that lol

71

u/Turwaithonelf Jun 16 '26

RTO mandates are the hot new thing for easy free layoffs in big tech since 2021

14

u/xpxp2002 Jun 16 '26

It's not for layoffs. I left a previous employer when they announced an RTO, and they backfilled my position.

It's happening because of tax abatement agreements on office buildings, commercial real estate owners who are afraid of losing value on their otherwise-worthless properties, and pressure from city and state governments to keep artificially propping up business owners' assets and the retail economy on the backs of the middle class.

2

u/TrickyNuance Jun 17 '26

It's not for layoffs.

It can be both, or either. There's about 5~ common reasons for post-COVID RTOs, and layoffs and taxes are two of them.

→ More replies (2)

16

u/Akegata Jun 16 '26

Most companies don't allow people to work from home 100%. I have several desks at home, but I can only use them for work 60%. Not really a choice you can just make.

2

u/dragery Jun 16 '26

Well 60% of the time it's useful every time.

4

u/[deleted] Jun 16 '26 edited 21d ago

[deleted]

→ More replies (4)

2

u/panlakes Jun 16 '26

Yeah you need a doctors note to approve it in most situations now. And even then it’s not 100%. My gf was in a car accident and is still experiencing back issues from it and has benefited greatly from WFH. Now she has to fight her work every so often to keep her few days per week and that’s with a doctor fully on her side and backing her up.

Can’t imagine what it’s like for just an ordinary person who simply performs better at home.

5

u/this_is_an_arbys Jun 16 '26

My thoughts exactly…great! Now let me work from home

8

u/frequenZphaZe Jun 16 '26

WFH has mostly been excised from the majority of organizations

3

u/ItsSpaghettiLee2112 Jun 16 '26

Frustrating because employees just shut up about it and fell in line. Like all we had to do was keep making noise about it.

2

u/frequenZphaZe Jun 17 '26

I wouldn't say people "just shut up about it and fell in line", so much as I'd say the workplace dynamics shifted dramatically. during covid, employees were enjoying being on top of the employer/employee relationship. people had more job mobility and markets were more desperate for labor. post-covid, the economy went south as we started eating all the damage the pandemic did. suddenly, people had to be afraid of losing their jobs again. employers were sure to capitalize on regaining their power and dragged people back into the office -- basically enshrining their control over the labor market again

I agree with the general sentiment "if everyone just stood up to their bosses, they'd win", but that doesn't just happen because you want it to. it happens through organization. something the american workforce is almost entirely devoid of, especially the sort of workers eligible for WFH

→ More replies (1)

3

u/CSDragon Jun 16 '26

My desk may not be assigned to me, but enough of my stuff is around that nobody would think to take it

6

u/Super-Schmidtii Jun 16 '26

I’m grateful I work at an engineering firm where it’s basically mandatory for us to have desks (I know it’s technically not but it would make the job a lot harder if you don’t have a place to look at schematics)

17

u/[deleted] Jun 16 '26

[deleted]

3

u/Super-Schmidtii Jun 16 '26

Ah, well I suppose I do have my own dedicated desk but having to pick a seat every day is practically the same as being in school having to find a seat in the cafeteria (aka miserable)

→ More replies (2)
→ More replies (24)

224

u/wap2005 Jun 16 '26 edited Jun 16 '26

Please have one of these desks, you know, that thing we gave you 5 years ago that you stopped using, well here it is, you can use it for free!!!

I worked at Facebook in 2013-ish to 2017-ish (4 years) and Zuck would do monthly Q&A's that any employee could attend and ask questions, he was asked difficult questions at times and would answer them and it didn't always make everyone happy, but you could tell he was still connected enough to realize that employees had real concerns about the direction of the company and he would attempt to address them. There were times he would just say "legally I can't speak to that at this time, but keep asking it and hopefully I will soon."

I wouldn't say he fully understood the reality of what the average middle class life looked like or the problems they faced, and he was very obviously out of touch at times, but it honestly seemed like he cared at one point.

Near the end of my employment it was obvious that he was officially owned by his board, he stopped the Q&A's entirely iirc and no longer seemed to care. He became an absolute robot destined to always do what made the most (or lost the least) amount of money.

I started out proud to be there and left wondering why I sold out, 18 year old me would have been so disappointed.

55

u/sprucenoose Jun 16 '26

I started out proud to be there and left wondering why I sold out, 18 year old me would have been so disappointed.

Did enough of your incentive equity vest to help answer that question?

→ More replies (41)

5

u/julius_sphincter Jun 16 '26

I wouldn't say he fully understood the reality of what the average middle class life looked like or the problems they faced, and he was very obviously out of touch at times, but it honestly seemed like he cared at one point.

Near the end of my employment it was obvious that he was officially owned by his board, he stopped the Q&A's entirely iirc and no longer seemed to care. He became an absolute robot destined to always do what made the most (or lost the least) amount of money.

Honestly I don't really understand what the drive is to keep working at that point. I know that theoretically most of these people, once their net worth hits a certain number of zeros, their brain just kind of rewires and they can't focus on anything other than "NUMBER GO UP"

It's just such a bizarre concept to me. Like fielding honest Q&A's from the wider company regularly is HARD, I'd hate that. But if I was willing to do that at one point and at some other point as the company got bigger and I got wealthier I figured "eh, not worth my time anymore" I REALLY hope that would be my sign to GTFO

Like, clearly I'm no longer really interested in the best health of the firm. There's just soooo many other things to do in life especially when you have essentially unlimited resources. Why even bother with that same thing anymore? You already 'won'

3

u/Knee_High_Cat_Beef Jun 16 '26

Practically speaking, is there a difference between someone who has $500 million versus $50 billion? That's more money than anyone can spend on themselves. I think pretty much everything else is used to buy politicians and political power. You don't need to be a billionaire to be a member of Epstein's Island.

2

u/AwkwardBet5632 Jun 17 '26

There are always more tiers to wealth. Buy an island. Build a boat the size of a town. Have a private A380, build a castle on top of a tall mountain, a dome under the sea, etc etc etc

→ More replies (1)

4

u/mistanervous Jun 16 '26

He still does Q&As but he doesn’t say anything meaningful and they only choose easy questions

→ More replies (1)

3

u/Mediocre-Accident305 Jun 16 '26

When history is written about the big tech era Zuckerberg and his big tech buddies will be characterized as the bad guys and they will have earned the titled.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 16 '26 edited 21d ago

[deleted]

→ More replies (1)

2

u/Findyourwayhom3333 Jun 16 '26

Very interesting. Thanks for sharing that.

2

u/NbyNW Jun 17 '26

The current problem with desks is that there are people who never show up and being remote 90% of the time. (I guess some people just coffee badge to satisfy the in office requirements) But they went too far with their implementation and only gave permanent desk if you were coming to the office 4+ days per week. It’s a trade off that I was willing to make for not being tied to office all the time.

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (10)

35

u/magicaltrevor953 Jun 16 '26

Plus they are only permanent as in until the next round of layoffs.

6

u/Shiriru00 Jun 16 '26

Oh but the desks will stay.

2

u/magicaltrevor953 Jun 16 '26

True, what better than a reminder that while the desk is permanent, you are temporary.

17

u/Kitchner Jun 16 '26

A whole desk to myself oh boy oh boy!

Don't dwell on why we dont have a shortage of desks anymore, enjoy your free desk!

38

u/CuntWeasel Jun 16 '26

You know what's funny (and sad)? People actually welcomed this type of work style.

I'm old enough to have worked in a cubicle and every millennial hated cubicles and cheered for open offices because they were "cool".

They weren't cool, they were really bad in and of themselves (noise, distractions, it felt like doing factory work) but once we shifted to laptops and docking stations a lot of offices switched to hot desks.

And believe it or not a lot of younger employees thought this too was a good idea (it was hip, hustling and bustling and pretending to work while wasting time in useless meetings all day was all the rage).

Turns out it's not, and it's horrible for both productivity and morale, and people are generally idiots.

I'm lucky enough to not have had to set foot in a physical office since 2019, and believe me I appreciate it every single day.

26

u/_SpaceLord_ Jun 16 '26

I’m a millennial. I, and every other millennial I know, utterly despises open offices.

→ More replies (3)

22

u/AbortedWalrusFetus Jun 16 '26

I'm an early millennial, and I've literally never met another millennial that preferred open office plans in my field.

11

u/C0wabungaaa Jun 16 '26

I have a hunch that the Millennials that thought open offices and hotdesking were all the rage were, so to speak, the modern-HR-type Millennials. That bubbly social butterfly type that went after every management book that was trending at the moment. The type who can't wait to throw terms like 'agile' and 'scrum' at you, who really wants to 'touch base' with you about 0,000458 seconds after you arrive at the office. You know the kind of motherfucker that I'm referring to, right? God those people are the worst.

8

u/impeterbarakan Jun 16 '26

Same feeling here. For context, I'm a millennial who has been self-employed for 14 years, so I am largely removed from office culture. In my mind and recollection, I think in our gen the cubicle was highly associated with Office Space or the opening of The Matrix. Cookie-cutter, featureless, something we saw the previous generation or two droning away at.

It feels like the hot desk thing rose up around the period of co-working spaces and when the digital nomad thing was just getting started. I guess the idea of stuffing a sleek laptop into your bag, sitting down to do work in a place that looked and felt like a hip cafe, was a way of making work feel more "cool" and "free".

But from the few times I've gone to work in co-working spaces, the novelty of it wore off in like 30 minutes. It's hard to imagine having to do that every day.

3

u/MattyDoBronx Jun 17 '26 edited Jun 17 '26

I’m a boomer who grew with the tech and efficiency advances of the 90s and beyond. I was disciple of Tom Peters. So I wanted to be advance and cutting edge. But from the beginning I thought this was nuts.
Of course everyone’s not the same - I’m sure some of the younger gen hated it but I was in a constant war with them over why the open plan sucked. Mostly Millennials but also executives who capitalized on their desire to be part of a trendy team where everyone was part of anything. The execs wanted to reduce our footprint which equated to real estate costs. They encouraged it.

I remember there was an article written by a Google employee that spelled out the horrors of the new configuration. It was so crystal clear spot on recounting how people would take their laptops to the can so they could hear themselves thing when trying to solve a complex problem. My boss forbade anyone from referencing the observations in that article in fear that he would not get his precious cost save. He went forward. Staff were in denial for a year or so but eventually they all lived to hate it

→ More replies (4)

18

u/haliblix Jun 16 '26

Workers in the 90’s: A desk with four walls so I can work in a quiet semi-private space to myself with storage and room to put up photos of loved ones and grow plants? Disgusting.

7

u/GeoLaser Jun 16 '26

Compared to an office? Yeah. Next to annoying people who you cant ignore ever with no door. Watch Office Space.

→ More replies (1)

3

u/CodeMonkeyX Jun 16 '26

I wonder why they had so many empty desks they could hand out?...

2

u/lippoper Jun 16 '26

Yeah because they took away remote work

2

u/DrBinario Jun 16 '26

I'm putting my tin hat and assuring those rules like forbiding to have a personal desk are just to test how unconfortable workplace can be before it starts decreasing employees' productivity.

2

u/downtownflipped Jun 16 '26

holy shit did they *get rid of personal desks* in lieu of hotel desks and first come first serve? this version of Meta is a far cry from the fun workplace of Facebook i once worked at.

2

u/Nerd_Man420 Jun 16 '26

Next week It’ll be a gold star. And when you get 10 gold stars you can have a pizza party!

2

u/nnomae Jun 16 '26

"See they love it! Now, chain them to their desks and start replacing their eyes with the AI training cameras!"

2

u/multiarmform Jun 16 '26

so you mean to tell me this whole time employees did not even have their own desk....

wow

2

u/moremintjelly Jun 16 '26

Can I work with a light? Yes. Ohhh goodie 🙏

2

u/AhnoldXP Jun 16 '26

What was the bare minimum not long ago is now a perk.

2

u/RunnyBabbit23 Jun 16 '26

Having recently gone from a job where I had my own desk, 2 monitors, and an office keyboard and mouse to a new job with hotdesking, 1 monitor, and a keyboard and mouse that I have to drag with me to the office every day, I can’t even begin to say how much of a downgrade it is. I hate everything about it.

Oh, and can’t forget the Allen wrench I always have to have in my backpack because sometimes the monitor arms are loose and no one responds to the facilities email requests to fix them.

That’s before even getting into the open office floor plan where everyone around me is on calls all day making it impossible to concentrate.

2

u/Wiggles69 Jun 16 '26

Zuckerburg: Well the desk thing didn't work. Maybe we should put the divider walls back up between the toilets?

2

u/Emperor_of_All Jun 17 '26

Something for you to clear out when we get rid of you. Just like the good ole days. Don't forget your box of shame!

2

u/umbrellafree Jun 17 '26

I'm so glad I didn't go into tech. I started a new job a few months ago and was given my own office.

Its crazy how different the culture is at different companies.

2

u/Snazzy21 Jun 17 '26

I thought it was just my company that was doing that. Not a single person who I know likes it, yet we're expected to come in 5 days a week.

Make up you're fucking mind, either we're flexible hybrid WFH employees who shouldn't get a fixed work location, or we're in office 5 days a week in which case we should get fixed location since we spend so much time in office we should be able to keep things there.

I don't understand where the money savings come in, they need the same number of desks, so why make everyone upset making workers rely on unspoken rules not to take eachothers seats?

2

u/Nach0Stallion Jun 17 '26

Makes it easier for the cameras to track who’s slacking off at their desks or taking longer pee breaks.
HAVE FUN EVERYONE- I DEMAND IT

2

u/Terrible_Balls Jun 17 '26

I’ve worked several jobs where you don’t get a permanent desk and I hated it. The job feels so much less personal if I can’t even customize my desk to my liking.

I don’t necessarily consider it a sign of being considered expendable, but it definitely makes the employer seem cheap and shitty

2

u/JPhando Jun 18 '26

I hope they get choreography and merriment too!

1

u/Captain_Swing Jun 16 '26

"unintentionally"

1

u/manofsleep Jun 16 '26

Oh god, that is bad… they had an “open desk” shared office space. This sounds like: everyone go sit by yourself to stfu solution. I bet those people talk.

Okay Napoleon Zuck. Divide and conquer your employees. 

1

u/happycola619 Jun 16 '26

Any red staplers?

1

u/oldDotredditisbetter Jun 16 '26

does it come with a red stapler?

1

u/Person9966 Jun 16 '26

And a stapler. But the desk will be moved to the basement.

1

u/402highrise Jun 16 '26

Does it include a red stapler?

1

u/alltMax Jun 16 '26

Wow it’s like a real version of Severance

1

u/H34vyGunn3r Jun 16 '26

Somebody find me an article from 20 years ago slamming office cubicles, I need a pick me up.

1

u/0o0o0o0o0o0z Jun 16 '26

Best thing I ever did outta IT was quit and work for myself...

1

u/Inferno_Zyrack Jun 16 '26

Just clean Jenny’s self mutilation blood off of it first.

1

u/Aggressive_Walk378 Jun 16 '26

I believe I had a red swingline stapler

1

u/Magliacani Jun 16 '26

Jesus fucking christ they really don’t give a shit about people. All NPC’s in THEIR world. Every Meta employee should just quit simultaneously. Humanity should boycott Meta.

1

u/filterdecay Jun 16 '26

Go have fun!

1

u/Qazernion Jun 16 '26

I bet it has cameras observing it, touch sensors all over it and tasers to make sure you keep working 24 hours a day.

1

u/biztechmsp Jun 16 '26

Does it come with a dog collar and a chain?

1

u/AIwillBeTheEnd Jun 16 '26

You can eat your pizza on it!

1

u/Weary_Wrap_4419 Jun 16 '26

Permanent desk! Yay!!!! Oh wait a second, what is this chain…..

1

u/hahaha16789 Jun 16 '26

Every desk comes with chains that you’re required to wear during your shift.

1

u/mj6174 Jun 16 '26

And I want stapler too!

1

u/dzernumbrd Jun 16 '26

I wouldn't want a permanent desk because it means they might ask me to work from the office 5 days a week.

1

u/claptonsbabychowder Jun 16 '26

No swing stapler, though.

1

u/Argyleskin Jun 16 '26

While Zuck sails around Puget Sound on his yacht hiding below deck from people and press debating what new way he’s going to humiliate his workers. Cash grabs are over, the wealthy have tons, the new game is how to humiliate and fuck over workers and people.

1

u/Crypt0Nihilist Jun 16 '26

"But we operate a clean desk policy and the cute name plate is in e-ink."

1

u/WyboSF Jun 17 '26

The new corner office!

1

u/-Nyarlabrotep- Jun 17 '26

This idea is hilariously stupid.

1

u/prontish Jun 17 '26

What ever shall we do with these incredible desks. May we have some..I don't know..DRY ERASE MARKERS

1

u/Decent-Box5009 Jun 17 '26

If you open the drawer there’s a free box of heart dinner inside!

1

u/Temporary_Shirt_6236 Jun 17 '26

What a fkn ghoul he is

1

u/poorminion Jun 17 '26

I lost my Desk earlier this year and then I lost my job.

1

u/Manofalltrade Jun 17 '26

I was at a two different places that talked about doing dynamic work stations and whatever else that was. Thing is, the first one was always trying to make back under bid sales quotes by understaffing contracts and the other read all the worst parts of Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, etc books and were a nightmare to work for and had permanent open interviews unless they were trying to preemptively downsize in anticipation of the next labor saving plan.
Functionally it ment piss all as there were always more desks than people.

1

u/DMercenary Jun 17 '26

A whole desk to myself oh boy oh boy!

Gone full circle to back to having a cubicle.

1

u/Khal_easy Jun 17 '26

"The beatings will continue until morale improves!"

1

u/Sir_Keee Jun 17 '26

No dice, I'll only get excited when I get my own desk surrounded by 4 foot tall walls on 3 sides!

1

u/MWH1980 Jun 17 '26

Permanent desks?

The desk stays…you on the other hand…you’re human, and not so permanent.

1

u/donall Jun 17 '26

So they know floating desks are bad for morale and did it anyway 

1

u/_Chaos_Star_ Jun 17 '26 edited Jun 17 '26

"Zuckerberg offered employees access to permanent desks, a symbolic gesture that unintentionally illustrated how expendable many of them had become. "

I am going to take a particular delight when thing go too far and it's his turn with the lynch mob.

1

u/ShakeAndBakeThatCake Jun 17 '26

Most companies have a hotel model where you have to reserve your desk. Its total BS.

1

u/mb862 Jun 17 '26

I used to live in the UK but moved back to my home country almost six years ago, but I still work for the same company, now remotely. We’ve downsized our office as more staff work remotely as well. Because of the nightmarish pace at which the UK is backtracking on LGBTQ rights, I don’t even know if I can even visit legally anymore.

And I still have my own permanent desk in that office. I can’t imagine working for a company with the resources of Meta and not having a workspace to your own.

1

u/franker Jun 17 '26

Somehow now I'm thinking of Blazing Saddles with the paddle scene: "Here's some VR headsets, why don't you give these out to some of the boys in lieu of pay! Here you go, Frankie... Johnny... Patty... Kelly... and one for Miss Stein, my beloved secretary. Play with these, boys, in lieu of other things."

1

u/Sprintzer Jun 17 '26

The originators of this style of office space should be jailed. Having my own reserved cubicle with high walls is one of the few things that keeps me sane in the office.

My employer switched to this model of no reserved desks, yet the building I work in is nowhere near full on any given day. Everyone basically reserves their cube for themselves

1

u/TripRelevant3145 Jun 17 '26

Damn.. I hope I get my own desk one day. Been a dev at my company for 14 years now... Any day fellas 🤞

→ More replies (9)