Bonum Certa Men Certa

BTT (Bringing Teams Together) Loathed by Staff of the EPO

New document from the Staff Union of the European Patent Office (SUEPO)

Summary: The sabotage/demolition job of Benoît Battistelli is continued by António Campinos, who is "finishing the job" of Battistelli (the second term, which he bribed all the voters for, started 4 days ago)

LESS THAN A WEEK AGO the staff union of the EPO (SUEPO) published a document about BTT, which was also mentioned here yesterday and covered earlier today as a video.



We intend to record a video about the document below very shortly, but here is the text in isolation without any further commentary from us (except it seems like a big mistake to feed all the messages to Microsoft, in spite of known privacy abuses and ongoing lawsuits):

29 June 2023 su23008hp

Issues with BTT – more than just teething problems



“It is a mess. Somebody will get a bonus for it. Business as usual."1



Dear SUEPO Members, dear colleagues,

BTT (Bringing Teams Together) is now in full swing, with a large majority of our colleagues already in their new (for-a-day) locations, and the echoes we get are not exactly positive. The administration is not planning on asking staff what they think about the entire exercise, so we did a short poll with SUEPO The Hague. Some 350 colleagues responded in short notice and provided a whole host of comments in that survey, and we want to summarise some of its findings here.

ChatGPT’s take on the comments received All strung together, the comments from the survey amount for 21 pages of disheartening reading – the level of disengagement, estrangement and disappointment with the EPO is concerning. We thought of asking ChatGPT to summarise all this text, and after being fed the survey comments as input and being asked to provide a 1-paragraph summary, the result was the following:

The implementation of the "Bringing our Teams Together" (BTT) project has resulted in employees feeling ostracized and undervalued as they are forced out of their offices. The project fails to deliver on its promise of individual accommodation and damages office culture and team cohesion. Communication and implementation are chaotic, leading to a loss of trust and morale. The project promotes a two-class society and remote work, undermining team unity and creating a sense of disconnection from the office. Management's handling of the project is seen as incompetent and lacking consideration for staff well-being. Overall, the BTT project is viewed as a misguided waste of time, impacting attendance and work quality, and failing to achieve its objectives. It fosters division, discrimination, and frustration among


_____ 1 An illustrative one of the many comments received in the survey




employees while sacrificing their well-being and working conditions for cost-saving purposes. The administration's tactics and disregard for employees' interests are condemned, reflecting a negative atmosphere and undermining performance. The project is deemed unnecessary, divisive, and detrimental to the long-term interests of the EPO.


It captures remarkably well the feeling one gets when reading through the comments. We tried to extract some bullet points from the survey comments and boiled it down to 6 pages worth, which (it takes a bit of searching) even hosts some – albeit very few - positive comments.

Some statistics The survey enquired about the room distribution policy, where about 50% of the respondents are now in a ‘Workplace for the day’ setup, with slightly less than 40% reporting a single allocated workplace and some 10% reporting a shared-space allocated workplace.

The room allocation policy gives a very mixed picture. Despite promises to that effect – and several CSC publications reminding the administration2, only 1 in 3 respondents state that their team used the “3 days/week on site” as a rule: in 20% at least 4 or even 5 days on site were required to get an allocated workplace, and more worryingly in close to 30% of the replies it seems that the allocation policy was unknown or seemingly random. 3% of the respondents state that there were no allocated workplaces in their team – and in only 2% of the cases there seems to have been a team discussion, with the team preferences leading the allocation policy. Far away from the stated aims.

Impact on staff: Negative, Positive, Neutral, Don’t know / indifferent, (empty)



When asked whether they intended to work more, or less, from the EPO offices, some 40% indicated their intention was to work less / as little as possible from the EPO, about 30% intended to work more / as much as possible from the office with the remainder not intending to change their habits, or unsure yet (3%).

_____ 2 CSC Publications of 13-03-2023, 13-02-2023, 30-01-2023, 13-01-2023, 08-12-2023, 25-11-2023 on BTT




Remarkably, when asked whether they thought the impact on staff would be positive / negative / neutral – and when asked similarly whether the impact on the EPO (as an organisation) would be positive / negative / neutral, respondents replied strongly in the negative.

Impact on the EPO: Negative, Positive, Neutral, Don’t know / indifferent, (empty)



2 out of 3 respondents feel that the impact of BTT on staff is negative, only 5% sees a positive impact; 3 out of 4 respondents feel that the impact of BTT on the EPO is negative, with only 6% seeing a positive impact. This means that even the people that got an allocated workplace, even the ones that intend to work more from the EPO, see a negative impact on themselves, their colleagues, and this organisation.

It seems the administration could not have been more wrong with the implementation of this project.

Your SUEPO TH Committee


We'll discuss this in an upcoming video.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Computers Got Smaller, So GNU/Linux Got Bigger
Many people here recognise the lack of urgency (or need) to get expensive new laptops
GNU/Linux Grows at Windows' Expense and Microsoft Trolls Infest and Maliciously Target Articles About It
Microsoft is - and has long been - organised crime
They Say I'm Mr. Bombastic
They didn't take good lawyers
 
Links 09/06/2025: Science, Hardware Projects, and Democracy Receding
Links for the day
BetaNews is a Plagiarism and LLM Slop Hub, the Chief Editor Isn't Addressing This Problem Anymore
SS Fagioli is basically a parasite leeching off or exploiting other people's work
Links 09/06/2025: Chaos in Los Angeles and Hurricane Season
Links for the day
Links 09/06/2025: Windows TCO and Many Data Breaches
Links for the day
Abuse Inside the Polish Patent Office (UPRP) - Part VI: Political Stunts by Former President Edyta Demby-Siwek and the Connection to Profound Corruption at EUIPO
it's like a money-laundering operation where one politician rewards another at taxpayers' expense
Gemini Links 09/06/2025: Pipelines and Splitgate
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, June 08, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, June 08, 2025
Links 08/06/2025: Tiananmen Carnage Censorship Persists, North Korean Goes Offline
Links for the day
Gemini Links 08/06/2025: Love as an Ethnographic Method and Monitorix Gemini-Frontend v0.1
Links for the day
Links 08/06/2025: Exposure of More GAFAM Surveillance and Social Security Records Compromised
Links for the day
Linux Foundation is a Mediator for Microsoft et al, Not for Small Companies That Support Rather Than Attack the GPL
Many people still wrongly assume that because it is called "Linux Foundation", then it is pro-Linux and represents the same mindset
This Past Friday, Confirming What We Said All Along About Brett Wilson LLP: It's Shrinking, Has Considerable Debt, Loss of Net Assets Despite the Microsoft SLAPP Money
The documents only became publicly available less than 2 days ago
Some of the Many Reasons We Sued Microsofters for Harassment
perpetrators of harassment
For 20 Years Many People Were Sharecropping for Canonical's Oligarch, Now He's Deleting All Their Contributions
"Ubuntu has erased instead of archiving the trove of material at Ubuntu Forums"
There Was Always Too Much 'Crazy Stuff' Going on Around Freenode
What many IRC users lost sight of
Exposing Crime is Not a Crime (It Never Was)
In the eyes of rich and powerful people, those who speak about their crimes are the "criminals"
GNU/Linux Distros Abandoning Microsoft GitHub
Will curl be next to leave Microsoft GitHub?
Expect More XBox Mass Layoffs Soon If the Rumours Are True
From a Microsoft media operative
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, June 07, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, June 07, 2025
Europe Needs to Move Away From GAFAM; The Sooner, the Better
Europe - not just the EU - must abandon GAFAM as soon as possible
The Issue Isn't GNOME's Promotion of Diversity But GNOME Corruption, Abuse, Censorship, and Worse
So-called "Conservative" (republican, pro-Trump, bigoted) people want you to think the problem with GNOME is politics
When the News Sources Become Scarce and Increasingly Full of Polluted/Contaminated 'Content' (With LLM Slop and Slop Images)
Integrity matters
"Linux" Sites That Spew Out LLM Slop
We're lacking enough material for another "Slopwatch"
Abuse Inside the Polish Patent Office (UPRP) - Part V: Breaking the Law, Just Like EPO
We'll hopefully cover some of the pertinent details later this year
Links 08/06/2025: Security Lapses, CISA Cuts, and More
Links for the day
Gemini Links 07/06/2025: Mime Types and Geminisphere Introduction
Links for the day
Links 07/06/2025: Slop Companies Retain All Private Data, More Books Banned in the US
Links for the day
Gemini Links 07/06/2025: "A Monk's Guide to Happiness" and "Wireless Earbuds"
Links for the day
Links 07/06/2025: More Rumours of Mass Layoffs in Microsoft's XBox Division, New COVID Variant
Links for the day
Drug Addiction is a Real Problem, It Destroys Families
a rather sensitive matter
Abuse Inside the Polish Patent Office (UPRP) - Part IV: Political Scrutiny and Errors/Inconsistencies in Official Documents
When such organisations receive scrutiny they start focusing on cover-up and muzzling of facts (or crushing people who say the truth)
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, June 06, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, June 06, 2025