‘Don’t Mess With Us’: WebMD Parent Company Demands Return to Office in Bizarre Video

I’m so tired of businesses claiming that the only way for a company to be successful is if everyone is in person for the dear dear meetings. We all know exactly what this is about. 1. It’s more dofficult to micromanage employees when a manger can’t constantly observe them, and 2. All the giant real estate investments companies have made is now coming due and they cant fill up their buildings fast enough to get those tax breaks. Why the hell else are they “tracking” people in the office. Meanwhile senior leadership can come and go whenever they see fit. It’s control. Plain and simple.

Yeah this is bullshit. Just middle and senior management trying to justify their jobs and all the expenses they've made on office real estate. I've worked 100% from home for 3 years now, and not only is my productivity much higher, but the team dynamic is better and the worker output overall is better too.

I get some people do better face to face with colleagues, and are happier and more productive. And to those people I say: Go for it! Go into the office and be at your best!

But companies should not force the rest of us to piss time and money away commuting for zero gain and just extra frustration and unhappiness.

As a consumer, I will now forever remember that WebMD's C Suite is most interested in "crushing their competition" and being heavy handed with their employees. I once thought that they were concerned about the betterment of societal health. This is how you lose your most performant employees.

I can't believe they published this to a publically available platform like Vimeo. Did they already lose their Marketing executive?

Fucking UNIONIZE.

Web MD. The website. The website designed to make visitors feel a false sense of expertise about their health so that they don't leave home to see a doctor about illness, is threatening their workers to leave their homes, to unnecessarily return to work, during a wave of life threatening and easily transmitable illness, that they will have to bring home.

They ALL are on green screen. There isn't anyone int his video present "in person"!

I’m so sick and god damned tired of corporations and governments making sweeping decisions with no evidence base to back them up. I work in a field where there is no option for remote work, but I think it’s pretty clear at this point that most non-service industries can be just as effective via remote options. All of this is just about control and it’s so stupid.

Jesus. What fucking lunatics. That video never needed to exist. Just be like every other corp and send an email. At least that news story would have blended in with all the other RTO trash.

Now I’ll just forever remember that webMDs parent company is operated by unhinged boomers.

I remember WebMD was one of the most chaotic places I worked at. It was 2000-2001 and there was a president Marv Rich and a CEO Marty Wygod. They were both building duplicate ERP systems that basically did the same thing. One day, my boss Al was in a meeting, and they told him that he needed us to move the data center to the East Coast. The most valuable part was a bunch of big EMC Symmetrix arrays with all their data. He was freaking out because he got into an argument about loading all of them into one airplane, and he didn't want to do it. He was telling them that if the airplane goes down, all of WebMD would be gone, and it needed to be loaded onto two airplanes. I don't know why, but for some reason, that story always reminded me of my time at WebMD.

Do you want more unions?

This is how you get more unions.

Fuck around and find out. I'm ok with more unions.

Make all of us mad and put us all in close proximity. Good idea. Not one of us will consider googling "how to form a union" with a few coworkers. It's probably too hard to do anyways (it isn't).

WebMD? They realize we’re in the midst of a Covid resurgence, right? You’d think a company like that would be a bit more understanding of stuff like that, given that they’re supposed to be experts on medicine and all.

Are they in front of green screens? Did he not even bother to come into the office to record this?

I love response to the backlash. It's basically "Sorry our video was cringy and tonedeaf. We have removed the cringe."

Is there a web site out there that can help me determine what kind of cancer that video gave me?

People who haven't come in to the office yet do it for a reason. They like it. They are happier. Happier employees are better employees.

They get more sleep so they are more alert or have more time for hobbies and recreation. They don't have to spend as much on gas or childcare. They don't use the office's electricity, water, facilities, coffee/snacks.

Make it a choice. For the betterment of humanity and the planet.

When someone makes videos like this, you don't get the best people to come work for your company, you get the most desperate.

But then again, maybe that's what they want. Idiots.

Let the corporate whips crack! Let the slaves fall back in line! We want profits!

Because you're awesome, important to us, we care about your well being. We are a big family after all!

My wife is a business analyst and software tester (not for WebMD) and still gets awards and bonuses for excellence, even while she’s worked at home during Covid.

This guy needs to explain to me why she should be forced back into the office to improve her performance.

They run a semi-reputable health website which people use for mostly static information that rarely changes. How many new ideas do they really need?

How does creating a web page take so many people?

This has real Dunder Mifflin Local Ad vibes.

Tech company executives who ignore data need to be held accountable for their actions by their employees. People need to stand up and stop being sheep.

Why does the same company that owns WebMD also own Lawyers.com and a car website?

Get fukt

Lol I used to work for a company that has been bought and renamed several times and now is under the WebMD umbrella. They were trying that "remote work is bad" be a decade ago, and it's funny that now they are part of a larger company that still isn't with the times.

Bullshit to the "We are more productive when together " line.

No, they are not. Commutes eat into productivity big time. It would take my wife sometimes 2+ hours to get into work in Boston. Now, she puts the kids onto the bus and logs in. Last year, they even said they were the most productive they've been in the companies history (200 plus years, mind you).

Now it's "We need to be in person to be more productive" bullshit. These assholes sunk too much money into corporate real estate.

Seriously... This is just far past a breaking point for even reasonable people... We need to organize and remind these people of the size of both sides of this conversation. What the fuck...

Have a read/watch of this other asshole CEO going on an unhinged rant about return to office earlier last year.

I watched the video and I didn't hear any real facts or reasoning, it's just a hype video. Rinse and repeat statements from your favorite gigantic corporations.

"Internet Brands did not respond to a request for comment, except to say that people were busy with meetings. "

Well there's your problem.... Probably having meetings about how they need more meetings.

This is is some Black Mirror shit.

I'm honestly more stunned that this is an internet company. They didn't think this was a bad idea to post to Vimeo?

All of their tech job openings are in India or Vietnam. I’d have assumed a major US health data handler would be developing onshore!

It's great how all the executives recorded their videos not in the actual office.

They were probably concerned that all their employees seem to be getting cancer.

Dude in his boxers is late for the no-pants subway ride, which only people who work in person participate in. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Pants_Subway_Ride

Cringe

Where is the video?

"Don't fuck with us, or we'll rip your nuts off!"

"We're not asking we're informing" lollll

Having said that... People working from home has been the biggest frustration in my work for the past three years. I specifically picked a company where people like to come in, and are required to for at least three days. I want to work with people, not anonymous voices with cameras switched off not responding to calls and messages (I'm sure they're all hard at work lmao)