Patch 10.0.5 Hotfixes - February 15, 2023, Activision Blizzard Ends Work-From-Home

[ablib]

A bit early? So companies are supposed to just let their employees lazily work at home putting in half the amount of effort because they aren't being supervised... forever?
I PROMISE you, all those people working at home for safety reasons cause of covid...actively go out EVERY weekend to the bar and party without a face mask. If you are so afraid of covid you can't go INTO work to work, then you shouldn't be allowed to have a social life because both are the exact same thing. If you aren't afraid to hang out with your friends or go to a bar then you can go into work.

Just typical liberal americans trying to take advantage of the system just like food stamps.

Regardless Blizzard could care less this has nothing to do with Covid, this is about Blizzard wanting to lay people off without having to pay for it...or be seen as the villain for it.

Tell me you work in a non-professional capacity, without telling me you work in a non-professional capacity.

What a limited view you have of the world around you. WFH has nothing to do with COVID anymore.

I assure you, in the world of business, where people are actually educated, and have a skill, life is not as you currently see it.

[fwc577]

A bit early? So companies are supposed to just let their employees lazily work at home putting in half the amount of effort because they aren't being supervised... forever?
I PROMISE you, all those people working at home for safety reasons cause of covid...actively go out EVERY weekend to the bar and party without a face mask. If you are so afraid of covid you can't go INTO work to work, then you shouldn't be allowed to have a social life because both are the exact same thing. If you aren't afraid to hang out with your friends or go to a bar then you can go into work.

Just typical liberal americans trying to take advantage of the system just like food stamps.

Regardless Blizzard could care less this has nothing to do with Covid, this is about Blizzard wanting to lay people off without having to pay for it...or be seen as the villain for it.

What a zug zug low IQ take.

I work in highly skilled IT work. My previous company got absorbed by a larger company and we just shuttered our local offices and are now fully WFH.

I do the exact same work at home that I did in the office but my work->life balance is WAY better.

• Regained 5-6 hours per week in commute time
• Don't have to spend time meal-prepping lunches or going out to lunch and can eat at home

Overall, this has helped me regain an extra 10+ hours per week, 40 hours per month. That's like gaining 12 extra weeks of vacation per year.

In addition, I have tasks that need to be completed. This task list doesn't change whether I work in the office or work from home. There isn't anything "done lazily". If I don't get the task list completed, whether I'm in the office or wfh, I need to justify it to management.

You come off as someone who is bitter and working in a trade or some shitty blue collar job because you ignored schooling and are simply mad other people have it better than you.

[Zulggun]

A bit early? So companies are supposed to just let their employees lazily work at home putting in half the amount of effort because they aren't being supervised... forever?
I PROMISE you, all those people working at home for safety reasons cause of covid...actively go out EVERY weekend to the bar and party without a face mask. If you are so afraid of covid you can't go INTO work to work, then you shouldn't be allowed to have a social life because both are the exact same thing. If you aren't afraid to hang out with your friends or go to a bar then you can go into work.

Just typical liberal americans trying to take advantage of the system just like food stamps.

Regardless Blizzard could care less this has nothing to do with Covid, this is about Blizzard wanting to lay people off without having to pay for it...or be seen as the villain for it.

Mate, I work at the warehouse, I NEVER had wfh, NEVER was on any "time off" because of covid. But even I can see and umderstand how much better is wfh for office workers. You cannot compare.

[Greyvax]

Most traditional in-office workplaces have compromised on a hybrid schedule, so this seems pretty in line with most other industries.

[Zalraki]

Ahhhh corporate control freaks strike again. WFH people are guilty of slacking until proven innocent, and the only way to prove that is to work at the office.

[themortalgod]

Working from home still? I went back to the office june 2020. Working from home was a curse

How is it a curse? I know lots of people like working in the office and there is nothing wrong with that but it also is a huge increase in quality of life for many others. For my part, work from home means I am no longer spending ~2.5 hours per day commuting, which costs thousands of dollars per year and eats up my time for no reason. It also means I am rarely ill as compared to being frequently sick. I have also eliminated nearly all my chronic pain and issues because I have crafted a work environment that perfectly fits my body. I'm far healthier because instead of constantly being pressured to eat out at lunch I am cooking my lunches at home. I don't think I'd be willing to go back, I'd take a pay cut first.

[readicculus]

Just typical liberal americans trying to take advantage of the system just like food stamps.

making it political...lol

my republican and democrat friends/coworkers enjoy WFH, equally, I assure you

[Spikeychris]

A bit early? So companies are supposed to just let their employees lazily work at home putting in half the amount of effort because they aren't being supervised... forever?
I PROMISE you, all those people working at home for safety reasons cause of covid...actively go out EVERY weekend to the bar and party without a face mask. If you are so afraid of covid you can't go INTO work to work, then you shouldn't be allowed to have a social life because both are the exact same thing. If you aren't afraid to hang out with your friends or go to a bar then you can go into work.

Just typical liberal americans trying to take advantage of the system just like food stamps.

Regardless Blizzard could care less this has nothing to do with Covid, this is about Blizzard wanting to lay people off without having to pay for it...or be seen as the villain for it.

So what exactly is your job? Because it sounds like if you actually have one you are fairly bad at it if you need a supervisor to hold your hand through your whole work day?

I'm not sure you can promise that? Particularly during COVID when in a lot of places the bars weren't even open so that would have been a little bit hard to do there wouldn't it? Working from home now has very little to do with Covid and existed in a lot of professions before it. You should only go into a physical office if you actually need to. If your work can be done from home it saves you the commute and it saves your company on the space/stuff you use while in the office.

[yeahibeatmymeat]

A bit early? So companies are supposed to just let their employees lazily work at home putting in half the amount of effort because they aren't being supervised... forever?
I PROMISE you, all those people working at home for safety reasons cause of covid...actively go out EVERY weekend to the bar and party without a face mask. If you are so afraid of covid you can't go INTO work to work, then you shouldn't be allowed to have a social life because both are the exact same thing. If you aren't afraid to hang out with your friends or go to a bar then you can go into work.

Just typical liberal americans trying to take advantage of the system just like food stamps.

Regardless Blizzard could care less this has nothing to do with Covid, this is about Blizzard wanting to lay people off without having to pay for it...or be seen as the villain for it.

My company brings in over $30B in revenue and at least 20% of our workforce is dedicated to virtual work only. Another 60-70% has the choice of going into the office but largely opts for WFH, but go off with your terrible takes indicative of a very miserable life...

Regardless Blizzard could care less....

Wish you led your post with this misused idiom instead, would have shown me that you sniff glue and I would have stopped reading sooner.

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You should only go into a physical office if you actually need to. If your work can be done from home it saves you the commute and it saves your company on the space/stuff you use while in the office.

Agreed, but unfortunately the perspective someone takes on this is largely cultural is driving the insane tug of war we are currently at regarding remote work. It should be here to stay, but dinosaurs and other generational fossils are aggressively pushing for an in-person-only work model with little to no understanding, valid reasoning, or basis to their agenda. It really is frustrating. Activision is really starting to infuriate me beyond their games and the lack of quality they pump into it.

[Locruid]

Great news.....take your lazy ass back to work.

Why should someone who WFH make almost as much as a Truck Driver who sees home once every 3-4 weeks for 3-4 days?

[tomten]

Agreed, but unfortunately the perspective someone takes on this is largely cultural is driving the insane tug of war we are currently at regarding remote work. It should be here to stay, but dinosaurs and other generational fossils are aggressively pushing for an in-person-only work model with little to no understanding, valid reasoning, or basis to their agenda. It really is frustrating. Activision is really starting to infuriate me beyond their games and the lack of quality they pump into it.

Companies are generally pretty good at crunching the math, specially ones doing 30b in revenue.
Now take blizz who does far FAR more lol.
You dont think they have done the math what is the most profitable, efficient and most optimal outcome?
Apparently that is requiring 3 days office work, you think this is some fossil demanding random things, throwing shit at the wall?
Who is sniffing glue now?

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Great news.....take your lazy ass back to work.

Why should someone who WFH make almost as much as a Truck Driver who sees home once every 3-4 weeks for 3-4 days?

They should make more generally? Driving a truck doesn't exactly take an education, its something you learn in a couple weeks, at most. As a paid apprentice.
Society pays based on marketable skills, not who works mindless jobs longer.

[fwc577]

You dont think they have done the math what is the most profitable, efficient and most optimal outcome?

If you've paid attention to the news lately. The answer is no. Whoever is at the top of the food chain is the driving force for policy. A few weeks ago someone left Blizzard because they have an employee ranking system and he refused to rank employees and punish a "good employee" because he was forced to rank them badly due to an antiquated system that became popular, briefly, 10-20 years ago.

The people still driving this policy at the top of the food chain like the idea of this policy so it stays despite the fact that industries have largely shifted away from it. Here is an article on Indeed regarding stack ranking: https://www.indeed.com/hire/c/info/stack-ranking

Some of the negatives of Stack Ranking, listed by Indeed, include less innovation and creativity as well as a decrease in productivity. Does that sound most profitable to you? It's efficient? Sure, when your focus is to not give out merit-based raises. Is it the most optimal outcome? No.

A few years back, my managers installed software that measured productivity based on computer activity. I was privy to the results week in and out

Almost all the "high productivity" people are no longer with the company for various reasons but the biggest one is they were inefficient. If I have a developer go and talk to other developers or have a discussion with QA or QA has internal discussions, that is productivity lost on their keyboard times. If I have a developer who never seeks peer assistance within our workplace and instead relies on Google which gives him a high productivity score per that software, then it seems like he's the best worker. But that just wasn't the reality.


TLDR: A lot of analysis on methods for measuring employee performance are not only flawed, but they're also easily over ridden by what management ultimately wants to do.

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Now take blizz who does far FAR more lol.

One thing I want to add to this. The person you quoted said he works for a company that brings in $30 Billion.

Activision-Blizzard brand only brings in $7.3 Billion.

Stop sniffing glue.

[Schintus]

Being able to stay home and have nice coffee, relaxed breaks without so many ppl talking louder than the other guy and nice lunch that I can fully control... I don't even see what "benefits" I get from working in the office.

People who claim WFH is a lazy take on work should grow up and acknownledge that the best work-cultures are the ones with absolute freedom (with responsibilities), because setting people free will make them enjoy their job.

[Varitok]

Great news.....take your lazy ass back to work.

Why should someone who WFH make almost as much as a Truck Driver who sees home once every 3-4 weeks for 3-4 days?

Can a person drive truck from his house? No? Maybe switch industries. They chose to drive truck, they choose to work away from home the same as these devs will choose to quit instead of moving to a city that is unlivable with the shit wages they offer.

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Being able to stay home and have nice coffee, relaxed breaks without so many ppl talking louder than the other guy and nice lunch that I can fully control... I don't even see what "benefits" I get from working in the office.

People who claim WFH is a lazy take on work should grow up and acknownledge that the best work-cultures are the ones with absolute freedom (with responsibilities), because setting people free will make them enjoy their job.

People who claim WFH are lazy are just purely American's who are either Jealous, brainwashed or just uninformed. Just let Blizzard flounder already, Hybrid schedules are absolutely worthless. To live in Irvine costs more than what they pay to entry level devs, so those devs will just seek out greener pastures. This is on top of the fact that Acti-Bllizz pays peanuts to its devs.

This whole anti WFH scheme is thought up by real estate interests in Major cities and middle managers who see their days of being worthless micromanagers at an end. Manhattan alone is losing out on 12 billion a year because people wanted to live somewhere affordable.

Europe is already embracing it, most every industry has seen more productivity from their employees because they don't commute 2 hours a day to work in a depressing cube.

It's unfortunate because America is a brainwashed, captive state. It's one giant race to the bottom, If Johnny wants WFH, Ted will talk about how he worked bad jobs so therefore, everyone should have a bad job. Brainwashed by corporate overlords or their political lackeys, it would be funny if it wasn't so sad.

[Amerissis]

Working from home still? I went back to the office june 2020. Working from home was a curse

Why’s that? No proper place to work, little kids, nagging husband?

I’ve gone back to the office 2 weeks ago and will now go in 1 day (minus a few hours commute) every 2 weeks. Still too often for my taste, but we have an extrovert coworker who needs social interaction to thrive. It’s really sad, but sometimes you have to take the poor extroverts by the hand and guide them a bit.

[Ludek]

I've been fully remote since 2015. I could understand the WFH scare in the beginning of the pandemic when everyone had to just switch and many would not know how to work that way. But you want to tell me after 3 years people still are using the "remote work is less productive argument?

That would assume if I'm an employee returning to the office I should be paid more since I'll be more productive.

[kranur]

Ahhhh corporate control freaks strike again. WFH people are guilty of slacking until proven innocent, and the only way to prove that is to work at the office.

Just because someone shows up at the office doesn't mean they actually work all that time. Especially in game development.

[Frozenbeef]

I've never actually met my boss in person, the joy of being treated as an adult. :P

[Trunksee]

Personally from an industry (construction) we need people to return to the office as it means more work for us if people need new spaces built. The more work from ome the less commercial construction work. My industry relies on building spaces so people ave a place to work so nice for me sucks to be you.

[Deferionus]

A bit early? So companies are supposed to just let their employees lazily work at home putting in half the amount of effort because they aren't being supervised... forever?
I PROMISE you, all those people working at home for safety reasons cause of covid...actively go out EVERY weekend to the bar and party without a face mask. If you are so afraid of covid you can't go INTO work to work, then you shouldn't be allowed to have a social life because both are the exact same thing. If you aren't afraid to hang out with your friends or go to a bar then you can go into work.

Just typical liberal americans trying to take advantage of the system just like food stamps.

Regardless Blizzard could care less this has nothing to do with Covid, this is about Blizzard wanting to lay people off without having to pay for it...or be seen as the villain for it.

Data suggests employees are just as productive if not more productive at home. I report directly to our CTO in the tech industry and have personally viewed large amounts of our company's data around productivity of end users. Reported information from other companies in various industries have largely reported the same. Likewise, your viewpoint on food stamps is largely misguided - that's okay, I used to think the same before I looked at data on who gets them. Same with data around drug testing of people who gets welfare.

In both cases, you will have some bad apples, but the majority of people are just going to do what they need to do. The key is to invest appropriately in technology so you can have metrics by which to view outliers and then work to understand why the individual is an outlier. If what you find is just the person not doing their job, then you let them go, not instead punish everyone else who is doing what they need to. To simply end WFH is lazy management.