Proving that he has his finger on the pulse when it comes to his employees, 55-year-old CEO Peter Harkins just sent a company-wide email in which he blamed remote work for “hurting company culture.” This comes after the third consecutive round of layoffs he just authorized.
“I’m sure we are all confused as to why morale has been so low these last few weeks,” Peter said, although everyone else seems to agree that the layoffs are to blame. “It’s about time we got to the bottom of this mystery. I’ve conducted a thorough search and determined that remote work is to blame.”
According to every single employee, no, it’s not.
“As we step into Q1 stronger than ever, it is essential every employee comes back into the office, because they clearly hate it at home,” Peter continued, appearing to make a generalization that really only applies to him. “It seems like the employees need some time away from their nagging wives and annoying kids and would love to be back in the office with their real family.”
Sources confirm most “real families” do not leave their “real family members” high and dry after one unmet quarterly goal, but Peter does not seem to understand this.
“We pride ourselves on a strong company culture where everyone is valued, where we all speak face to face every day in the comfort of this beautiful office,” Peter continued. “I can tell everyone is sad because they haven’t been able to enjoy all that our office has to offer. It’s a perfect wonderland!”
This appears to be one of Peter’s self-assigned catchphrases. He is also famous for saying things like, “we’re going to have to let you go,” and “no, you will not be receiving significant severance benefits,” to one third of the company’s employees over the last calendar year.
Through all of this, employees maintain they’re just sad that most of their friends have been laid off.
“Remote work not only made me more productive but actually made me feel closer to my coworkers,” said marketing associate Dana Troutman. “We started hanging out outside of work if you would believe it! That is, until 40% of them lost their jobs with no notice. That really put a damper on morale.”
At the end of his email, Peter made one last attempt to get the remainder of his employees excited about returning to the office, writing, “Yes, you will be required to come in every day from now on, but you’ll be thrilled to hear we plan to provide pizza lunch once a month. Probably. Results-dependent.”
