Annoying Employers: Commission-Only Pay, Demands for In-Office Presence and Daily Huddles

I initially named this story “Asshole Employers…” but it wouldn’t be fair to the ones I worked with. After all, they were mostly nice to me. However, some of their approaches to work and management were highly annoying.

Let’s start with the least controversial trait on the list — demanding in-office presence. It’s only in the last three years that remote work has become a norm in many workplaces. Or hybrid, or distributed — most of these formats would have been exotic in previous decades.

But we are where we are. The pandemic acted as an accelerator and even in the absence of it, the current state of technology makes most collaboration between team members seamless, irrespective of location.

If you have a qualified candidate or an existing employee who prefers remote work for whatever reason, why would you insist on in-office work? Several weeks ago I interviewed for an interesting opportunity. At the end of the chat, the recruiter said that the principal demanded office presence. It was a strict requirement. I was immediately put off by this and imagined the guy being a self-important jerk. By the way, I didn’t mind relocating, other things equal. I was even ready to offer it. It’s not that I am strongly against working in the office. It’s when it’s a strict requirement, that I get suspicious — suspicious of my future boss lacking empathy. There could be many reasons why an employee would prefer hybrid or…