Bonum Certa Men Certa

Working From Home When the Rich and Powerful Corporations (or Governments) Make All the Important Decisions and Rules

Video download link | md5sum 93a0419b4767b7f430378580a700f1b3



Summary: A video and further thoughts about the situation at the EPO, where working outside the Office became somewhat 'normal', albeit seemingly to the detriment of workers

LAST night I responded to a new publication from EPO staff representatives. I was a little apprehensive at first because it might come across as dissenting or combative. I was surprised to see (in my opinion or based on my interpretation) insufficient opposition or weak push-back. I speak from experience here, as one who has worked from home for nearly 15 years. They say that sometimes you need to be a "techie" to understand why lots of technology should be rejected (e.g. electronic voting) because "techies" better understand the downsides and the gory technical issues (paper trail is better and usually highly essential). In the case of home-working, by sheer coincidence only hours after last night's article my audio system broke down. It had wires all over the place (almost 10 wires in total); so it took hours to remove it (rearranging lots of things) after about an hour of investigation into what was going on (testing with instruments and spares to confirm its death; it seems impossible to repair), so there won't be many articles today. It's a really frustrating experience as I'd rather get work done than deal with defects, then clean up the place (lots of that remains to be done, still).



Working from home isn't Disneyland. It's not like "being on holiday while doing work on the side..." (I say this not as one who rejected it or never experienced it)

"Working from home isn't Disneyland."You inevitably begin to associate being at your own home with being at the workplace, which you cannot escape (you even literally sleep there). There's extensive amount of text (articles) we've already published about this topic, especially in the middle of last year. We'd rather now repeat much of what was said back then. There's also ample literature and punditry on this topic out there on the Web and in libraries.

Lowering of expenses associated with offices and maintenance (food, rent, travel, cleaning and so on) might lead one to think that the employers will raise the salary or improve working conditions, but that almost never happens because what the employer is compelled (by law) to do during a pandemic gets spun/framed as a gift or an act of generosity. António Campinos already did this last year; he reportedly claimed that staff was ever so lucky because workers elsewhere were worse off. Relativism of this kind should be condemned. He keeps pretending the Office is poor, but they could very well afford to let all the staff be on paid leave until the end of the year.

There may be a false perception of improvement, but it's only veiled and temporary. Instead of privacy (and personal dignity) improving it typically gets a lot worse, digitally, albeit covertly (things like malicious "apps" being required; some run in a Web browser).

"There may be a false perception of improvement, but it's only veiled and temporary."Today I spent 2-3 hours (and I'm not even done yet) rearranging my 'home office' due to faulty hardware, which nobody will pay to replace (I'll just use headphones instead). In the process I broke a few things and had extensive cleanup work to do. When you work for an employer in some office all that hassle is spared (delegated to other staff, specialised staff with proper equipment and experience); it's out of one's hands and head. In my 'daytime' job (it's always nighttime, not daytime) I've received no pay increase for over a decade and last July we shut down our physical office due to the pandemic (that office was barely used anymore, so not much was lost). A similar scenario can easily be drafted at the EPO; the staff won't be privy to or told all the details, but of course the managers will pretend that "spoiled" examiners just moan about their "holiday" (in some apartment in a country foreign to them, bought or rented without foresight of it becoming a de facto workplace some time in 2020).

We call ourselves "tech rights" because this is the kind of stuff we wish to speak about and many in what's left of the media fail to speak of. Like cars that spy, home offices that send keystrokes to one's boss, and Web 'pages' that run programs on the users' machines as if it's some bizarre exchange like, "I let you read one article, but in exchange I want to hijack your machine and use up your power for a bit..." (we recommend Gemini instead)

"The future of the EPO only looks grimmer if offices are being emptied while salaries decrease, head count goes down, and patent scope gets broadened like banks give out loads of mortgages until a debt crisis."Spyware is only advancing and getting worse over time; it's never letting go. What's here today will get worse tomorrow. The only solution is to reject it outright from the get-go.

Home working might be a thing of the future, it might even be good for the environment (an upside, sure), but it's not made to work for 'low-level' workers. Instead, it's used as a pretext to take away many things workers fought for and have come to expect (like refectory/cafeteria/canteen/coffee machines at work). By perpetuating the narrative that this is all so great we devalue and diminish rights of workers. The decision makers don't render themselves obsolete but instead pass the savings to themselves while depriving/robbing staff below them.

The future of the EPO only looks grimmer if offices are being emptied while salaries decrease, head count goes down, and patent scope gets broadened like banks give out loads of mortgages until a debt crisis.

Recent Techrights' Posts

EPO Workers Point Out that the EPO is Destroying the Planet Under the Guise of "Hey Hi" (It Also Grants Many Invalid Patents Illegally
On 12 March and 16 June 2025, staff representation met with the administration in the Local Occupational Health, Safety and Ergonomics Committee (LOHSEC) in Munich
How the European Union (EU) Fell Out of Love With Free/Libre Software
Lots of bribery
 
The Register MS (Situation Publishing) is Paid to Spread Mindless Hype for the "Hey Hi" Ponzi Scheme and That's a Serious Problem
"Sponsored by Zoom."
Links 08/09/2025: Burger King Cracked, Cox v. Sony Analysed
Links for the day
Gemini Links 08/09/2025: Socialist Computer Museum and GAFAM/ByteDance/TikTok-Dominated Net
Links for the day
Links 08/09/2025: Tim Crook Disappoints Apple Faithfuls and Zuckerberg Lies (Financial Fraud) for Cheeto King
Links for the day
Turn Off Microsoft's Restricted Boot ("Secure Boot")
We're still running a series on this issue
Social Control Media Sites Have Become Bot Farms (Not Limited to LLMs and Automation)
linkedin.com was nothing but trouble and losses for Microsoft
Deep in Debt With the Magnitude of Losses Quickly Growing, Microsoft "Open" "Hey Hi" Now Uses Broadcom for Vapourware, Pretending It'll Do OK Next Year
At some stage it'll collapse
You Can Tell Microsoft is in Trouble When Its Own Fans and Staff Blast it
"Microsoft sinks billions into chasing artificial intelligence fads to hype up its share price."
Multiple Undersea Cable Cuts and We're Still OK
Microsoft customers experience problems
Lawyers Who Think They Are Online Assassins Don't Deserve a Licence to Operate
they've become a laughing stock in their "sector"
Microsoft Windows Fell to 3.9% "Market Share" in Bahamas
Based on statCounter
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, September 07, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, September 07, 2025
Gemini Links 07/09/2025: Scanner, Slop, and Chadobear
Links for the day
The UEFI 9/11 is 3 Days Away
Nobody denies that bad things will happen
Google Versus Journalism
Google played a big role in the demise of news sites
Gemini Links 07/09/2025: Advertising, Decentralized Archival, and Outsourcing to Bezos
Links for the day
Certificate Authority Let's Encrypt Has Almost Gone Down to Zero, Nearly Totally Extinct in Geminispace, the Few Capsules Still Using It Are Spam/Dead/Stagnant
This represents another decrease for Let's Encrypt; the last decrease was last week
Not Much Left in News Cycles
To be very clear, this does not describe "Linux" anything; it's true in just about every facet of news, except the paid-for fake "journalism" about "hey hi" (sites getting paid explicitly to maintain or rekindle hype)
Trying to Silence Techrights Was a Huge Mistake
Peter Thiel attacked a publisher for asserting, correctly, that he was gay. Now everyone knows it.
Throwing Away "Old" Computers (Mozilla and Other Climate Deniers)
Mozilla is not leftist
The UEFI 9/11 - Part VIII - Denial of Service and Selling Us WSL (Windows) Instead of "Risky" (Prone by Breakage by Microsoft) GNU/Linux
Restricted Boot (so-called 'SecureBoot') does not improve security. It is nothing but trouble. It's meant to trouble non-Windows users. In dual-boot setups, SecureBoot is a recipe for disaster because Microsoft keeps erasing or tampering with the boot sector, to paraphrase an associate
Slop is Extremely Rare in Geminispace, Slop Images Are Unheard Of (Despite Images Being Supported)
As long as Geminispace grows in terms of domains it's safe to predict the protocol will still be used in 2029 and hence Geminispace will turn 10
Links 07/09/2025: Robodebt Class Action, Fines, and Copyright Settlement
Links for the day
Links 07/09/2025: Yle Impersonated in Social Control Media, Boat-Attacking Orcas, Midjourney Sued Again
Links for the day
Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, Linux Journal, and the Serial Slopper
Google won't tackle the issue because Google participates not only in relaying slop but also in generating lots of it
Links 07/09/2025: Google Fines in EU and "Your Internet Access Is at Risk"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 07/09/2025: Little Brother and Corporate Theatre
Links for the day
Links 07/09/2025: More Harms of Slop and Anthropic's Nightmare Scenario (Huge Legal Liabilities for Slop)
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, September 06, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, September 06, 2025
Microsoft Sites Now Talking About September's Mass Layoffs at Microsoft
It's noteworthy that even Microsoft's MSN now covers the latest revelations about mass layoffs
Gemini Links 06/09/2025: SpellBinding Moving and "The Cloud" Ridiculed
Links for the day
Slopwatch: On "the Apology Industry", Chatbots (Punchbag for Customers), and Fake Articles About "Linux"
"news reporting priorities changed"
Links 06/09/2025: "Covid Incidence on the Rise" and Many Attacks on the Press Worldwide
Links for the day
The Register Bill
The Register MS - putting the "MS" in your centre of the universe
Analogies for "Memory Safety" in Rust
Don't worry, it's Rust! It can do anything!
Nobody Denies That SecureBoot Will Cause Problems After September 11
Not even Microsoft
Gemini Links 06/09/2025: Infinite Scrolling and Posting from Emacs
Links for the day
Links 06/09/2025: GitHub Meltdown Over Slop, "U.S. Jury Says Google Should Pay $425 Million in Privacy Lawsuit"
Links for the day
Despite Its Severe Financial Problems Gnome Foundation Inc Paid Rosanna Yuen Over 100,000 Dollars Last Year
maybe relocation should be considered
The "Left" and the Right"
It poisons everything
Mozilla and Rust Are Not Leftists
they're part of the mass consumerism machine
Disposable to Microsoft
There is an extensive set of people who got used by Microsoft, only to be thrown away a month later or a year later or a decade later
The UEFI 9/11 - Part VII - This Coming Week Many PCs Will Refuse to Boot "Linux" (Because of Microsoft's Expired Certificate)
The real solution is, disable "secure boot" or "SecureBoot" while it's still possible. [...] Just like submarine patents, a lot of this problem was "hibernating" for a while
The Thing Nobody in Red Hat Wants to Talk About Openly
There is a real sentiment or worry among Red Hatters, Europeans and Americans in particulars (because of higher salary expectations)
Slopwatch: Small Parade of Fake News About "Linux" and Scams Borrowing the Name (or Word) "Linux"
In practice, LLMs are a risk
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, September 05, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, September 05, 2025