Man Says Boss 'Doesn't Believe' in Working From Home, Stirring Debate

As some companies push for employees to return to the office on a part or full-time basis, one employee claimed their boss's edict to work from the office led to mass resignations.

A viral tweet from a user in the United Kingdom with the handle @dontattttme has been liked over 135,000 times and claims that his manager "doesn't believe" in remote work so he is essentially forcing his employees back in office five days per week starting Monday.

"I never seen so many resignation letters in my life," said the individual, who never specified where he worked or what field of work he is employed.

Companies like Tesla are among those aiming to rid themselves of the pandemic-oriented workplace that involved mostly remote work for employees in fields who did not have to be in-person to succeed and contribute.

An email from Elon Musk was leaked earlier this week saying that remote work was no longer acceptable. When Musk was asked about the email by Whole Mars Catalog and whether in-office work was a dated concept, Musk replied, "[Those that want to work from home] should pretend to work somewhere else."

In April, Reuters reported on a survey of about 33,000 employees worldwide that was conducted by payroll provider ADP, which found that two-thirds of them would consider getting a new job if forced to return to the office on a full-time basis.

Simultaneously, while workers' industry security fell 11 percent compared to a similar survey conducted in 2021, more of them are actively looking to change jobs–representing an eight percent increase compared to last year.

In February, Pew Research Center released a study that found that 61 percent of employees were working from home by choice, and not because they didn't have the option to return to an office setting–which has prompted some companies to offer hybrid work options for employee retainment.

That has also led to some employees being duped by their companies, who allegedly promised flexible working conditions.

Forums like Reddit's "Anti-Work," which has over 2 million subscribers and gained notoriety as the pandemic progressed, have advocated for permanently changing the work paradigm to offer workers better salaries and working situations than pre-pandemic.

One user, in reference to the viral tweet about resignations, said managers and higher-ups "just like their control."

"Let workers work where they are most comfortable with," the user said.

One user opined that remote work is less about the employees but rather more about the psyche of managers.

"Remote work is linked to managers feeling useless and as if their work adds no value to the company," the user said. "No wonder it's managers that want people back."

But not everyone is on board with fully remote work.

"I think what many of you are failing to see is that it is significantly harder to produce work in an environment that doesn't exist," one Twitter user said. "It's much harder to correlate with your team, things take longer, and in general it's disorganized in comparison to everything being in one place."

Some also suggested that real estate and rent is playing a role, with one Twitter user mentioning building leases that some companies are locked into for the foreseeable future.

Newsweek reached out to the original Twitter poster for comment.