update: our CEO is demanding we return to the office but people don’t want to — and I’m a manager stuck in the middle

It’s “where are you now?” month at Ask a Manager, and all December I’m running updates from people who had their letters here answered in the past.

There will be more posts than usual this week, so keep checking back throughout the day.

Remember the letter-writer whose CEO was demanding everyone return to the office but people didn’t want to — and they were a manager stuck in the middle? Here’s the update.

Just a few months after my letter was published … my team imploded. My boss decided after 10 years of service to leave the company to focus on his family, and due to the terrible state my industry is in right now, my team of 12 is now just three, including me. Losing the head of the department in the way it all happened was such a massive blow. Not his fault, he sacrificed a lot for us already, and overall, he’s a close friend of mine so I wish him nothing but the best.

As of right now, one of my colleagues is on paternity leave, so it’s just two of us during the busiest time in our field. So, we’re currently about three levels underwater. I’m over 200% capacity; I’ve never been so stressed with work before. I felt like quitting and even told my new boss that recently!

(Many, many people in the same field I’m in have struggled to find work for 1 – 1.5 years after a layoff … so quitting isn’t really wise right now. LinkedIn is depressing).

For the subject I wrote in about: Prior to the blow-up, the team started to abide by the mandate after a resync on expectations with everyone , so we were doing okay for a while. The three of us left keep to the three days in office pretty regularly because our new supervisor is old school like the CEO in favor of in-person interactions over remote. But he’s flexible if we ask him to only come in two days instead of three because of the workload. We don’t even have HR anymore, so no one is checking keycard entries (people stroll in and out at random times), and the CEO is concentrated on AI now.

Alison, your advice was thoughtful and balanced. If my CEO was, let’s say, a normal processing person, what you laid out would make sense. Unfortunately, he’s a very self-focused, verbose individual. I had my first 1:1 with him a few weeks ago, an out of the blue lunch mandate he just decided, and he spoke for the entire hour. I maybe got in 20 words. He rambles and it’s hard to understand him. The company runs around him, not due to him, heh. Just once in a while, he decides a new directive we all have to follow. In the case of the in-office mandate, he seems to have forgotten how important it was to stick to it for all employees, as it hasn’t come up as a thing in months. Despite being a contentious topic for years.

A few things I’ve learned from this experience: There is a lot of merit to in-person interactions that can get missed if you’re always remote that I’ve come to value, so I wouldn’t say to get rid of it entirely. I agree with Alison’s take when speaking about employees learning in-person through osmosis — there is really something special to that. Also, it really can help with morale, as there are more moments of levity that can naturally arise in person. I just did my 1:1 with my remaining coworker as a boba walk, which was nice for us both in this terrible chaos. Though I’m still of the mindset that just one to two days a week is enough. I get that people want different things from work, but human connection is the only thing that really keeps me going these past years.

Empathetic leadership also really matters. My old boss had some faults, but he was always looking out for me, and I miss that. My new supervisor is giving me a lot of grace as the new department head and is honoring a lot of what I got used to under my old leadership, so that’s also super appreciated. The politics at this level is really hard, and every day I’m learning. I have a lot to learn.

(As a tiny glimmer of hope for those worried: I’m also in grad school now to change careers, so I am trying to get out of this! I started this at the worst possible time. My second year requires me to take on an unpaid internship for hour accrual during regular business hours though, so I’m not sure what I’m gonna do. Tomorrow’s problem.)

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