Butts in Seats Part 2: Generational Attitudes; Lost Momentum; and, Restitution
Sonya Shaykhoun, Esq., LL.M.
Founder | Technology, Media, Telecommunications Law
News from corporate America has recently been focused on companies' struggle to get reticent employees back to the office after the years-long COVID-19 global lockdowns. The struggle is real. Frustrated employers demand that reluctant employees return to the five-day workweek.
I am a Generation X-er who grew up in NYC in the 80s and 90s and was raised by highly driven and ambitious immigrant parents. I attended private schools in Manhattan and Rome that hot-housed me and my classmates, training us for the demands of professional life. The momentum of the "Wall Street" era was and still is ingrained in me.
The COVID-19 global lockdowns interrupted that momentum globally. It broke many people. Many people "on the hamster wheel" were relieved to get off of it and loathe to get back on. Many people lost their minds and some even lost their moral compasses - like the handful of teachers who taught classes on Zoom while having sex (and forgetting to turn off the video) or CNN's legal analyst caught pleasuring himself on a Zoom call in front of his colleagues. Some people did not bother to work at all, rather, they took their salaries and worked on their businesses and projects (like the Israeli employee of Microsoft Israel who was forced to repay $800,000 in restitution because she built her own business during Covid instead of working on Microsoft's work - this story seems to have been scrubbed off the internet).
Last year, I watched a video of President Donald Trump talking about how his friend, Harry Macklowe, the real estate developer, who lost everything upon returning to real estate development after a near-twenty-year hiatus enjoying his wealth. When Trump asked Macklowe how he lost his fortune, apparently Macklowe told Trump that he had "lost my momentum". I looked for the video but could not find it again. Regardless, the sentiment stayed with me since I heard it.
Now, in 2025, employers are fighting to reactivate that momentum and get employees back in their seats in the office. Reigniting that momentum has been the struggle of the decade. The latest voice of the movement to get employees back to the office is Jamie Dimon. This issue is undoubtedly a nut that many CEOs across America, if not the world, are trying to crack with varying degrees of success.
In my first article on this topic, I talked about how I spent a few months at a blue-chip American company in Midtown Manhattan. It is an extremely prestigious company; many people would give their left arm to work there. Yet, the floor I worked on - which covered a good half New York City block, was largely filled with empty desks.
In my last few weeks at this company, I had a conversation with a young long-term temp who was also a Gen Z college student. She was also hardly ever in the office. I know because I was always in the office. Somehow, we landed on the subject of "butts in seats". I tried to speak in general terms - that before Covid, no one would think of not coming to the office. Attendance and punctuality were important parts of student and work life in America pre-2020. Now, not so much.
My conversation with Miss Gen Z got a bit heated - not because of me, but because Miss Gen Z got very hostile and defensive. Even speaking in general terms, I could tell I had hit a nerve (because she was guilty of not coming to work but was taking her full salary presumably). The conversation went a bit like this:
I asked, "How do you think this company - or even America - was built? It was built by people who came to the office."
She retorted (a bit snottily if I remember correctly), "Well if I have nothing to do, why should I come to the office?"
To which I said, "Because you're being paid to be in the office. If you don't want to work full time, then you should collect a part-time salary." (This also made me think of my first job at Orbit in Bahrain - we were mandated to work a full 48 hours per week - our set hours were 9:00 am to 7 pm with an hour for lunch! How would Miss Gen Z cope with that?!)
My last comment did not go down so well. Miss Gen Z mentioned our private conversation to the boss who raised it, in quite a prickly fashion, with me in our last one-on-one before I was released for a bullshit reason. Had Miss Gen Z negatively spun our conversation? Maybe - the boss seemed to want to keep the status quo of looking the other way while her staff set their hours and barely came to the office instead of laying down the law (which is what the executive management seemed to want to do).
It wasn't everyone in that office though - just that small team. The VP I worked under came in only a few hours a week and worked remotely (apparently) for the rest of the week. OK, he had a new baby at home - but what did our parents do before there was maternity/paternity leave? And why should he be allowed to slack off while others - who are mothers and fathers with kids at home - be expected to be on time, stay at their desks, and leave on time (or after hours)?
Which leads me to possible solutions.
We read that Jamie Dimon told his staff that, if they don't want to come to work, they can leave. If they have savings, another job lined up, or a trust fund - that will work out fine for them. But those who think that good, stable jobs grow on trees are in for a shock. Wait till it comes time to pay your bills, rent/mortgage/car payment, and you have to pay your health insurance out of your pocket - your emergency fund will only last you so long.
Why is going to work such a big ask? Before Covid, I would regularly meet people who would commute to NYC from as far away as Pennsylvania - I remember meeting one lady on the Subway who told me she commuted two and half hours each way from the horse farm she and her husband live on in Pennsylvania and work in the City so that they could live their dream life. The man who bought our house in Southampton so many years ago commutes 90 miles each way to NYC where he works as an electrician. And he probably still does that.
Has society fallen into a collective malaise? OK, the pandemic may have forced many to look at their priorities again. Maybe family is more important than being in work 9 to 5, Monday through Friday. If, as Jamie Dimon complained in one of the many news articles about the problem, you are supposed to be working at home but you cannot be found on a Friday afternoon when you're supposed to be at your desk, and this is a common occurrence - this hinders efficiency. If employees working remotely cannot be found when they are supposed to be accessible during office hours, it follows that they should not get their full-time salary but a salary pro-rated on the hours they work. But what if the company requires employees to have their butts in seats for the full 40 hours? And what if the forward movement of the company and the American economy depend on butts being in seats (on the threat of being replaced by robots!)? We all learned how the Japanese and Germans rebuilt their respective post-World War II economies by directing the national effort into rebuilding their nations.
Call me old-fashioned, but when you get a job, you make a deal with the employer - your time (including punctuality and attendance), skill set, and effort for a salary. It is generally not possible to cherry-pick which of those contractual obligations you will fulfill or not.
This leads me to possible solutions to correct the absenteeism and what Mr. Harrison, my Russian history teacher at Dalton called "Oblomovism" (the idea that it doesn't matter how much or how little one works, the salary is always the same so why bother?) America is not Communist, though, but malaise seems to have gained a foothold here - this is not just a risk to our economy, but to our national security ultimately.
Perhaps it is time for employers to get tough. Here are some possible solutions that I promised above:
The bottom line is that this is a corporate culture issue. If all the perks that the blue chip companies offer their employees (fully stocked snack rooms, paid lunches, gym memberships, etc.) to come to work do not work, maybe the problem is hiring the wrong people. Maybe the fundamental culture is toxic and management looks the other way at obvious problems (bullying, sabotage, hiring assholes) that are creating a toxic work culture? Maybe once they realize they have hired assholes, they are ill-equipped to deal with the asshole problem they now have? How can you test for assholes in the first place?
Or, is this a generational immaturity and spoiledness? The likes of Jamie Dimon are showing up to work daily and set an example. Countless other CEOs, like Elon Musk, will go the extra mile to create camaraderie and show his commitment to the work and the team. Even Pete Hegseth worked out with his troops (in the snow!) the other day to show his solidarity with them. These are leaders - showing the way. What is wrong with the followers that they, like stubborn mules, have to be dragged kicking and screaming back to work? Who do they think will pay their bills? Mommy and Daddy? What about their sense of pride in their work and purpose? Where is their professional integrity?
There are a myriad of ways that a culture can be toxic. So toxic that people are reluctant to come to work. There is always a minimum level of asshole-ery in any company, it is unavoidable and part of adulting to deal with it. It is up to each individual how much s/he is willing to put up with. That said when a gig is cushy and you have reaped the rewards, when the gravy train of remote work ends, surely you had to know it was not going to last forever? You, lounging at home in your PJs eating "bonbons" while doing work intermittently and collecting a full-time salary?!
If a company puts a carrot (all the perks) in front of the employees and the carrot fails to yield the anticipated results, maybe the stick will work better.