With a probability of 100% a number of people who returned to office work after working from home during COVID were going to die at work shortly afterwards. This is pretty much inevitable because tens of millions of people are involved and people die sometimes. What's shocking is the fact it was several days before anyone discovered Denise Prudhomme had died.
However if we consider that this was over a weekend in August when offices are quiet with many people are on holiday, and that she was in an area reserved for people working from home at other times, and that people disproportionately work from home on Friday/Monday, it's clear this won't have been the only office room which was empty over that period of time.
I think it's tragic what happened here and I'm definitely not an apologist for enforced face time in the office, or for banks, banking, or Wells Fargo, which all have real issues. What I'm trying to say is that a sad event which actually says relatively little about whether returning to office is a good idea.
To see this consider that if all employees were asked to be in the office full-time it's much more likely someone would have been in the room to help Denise, or at least notice her death. If she'd been at home then presumably nobody would have noticed (as nobody at home seems to have altered the police or her employer for several days either)
Wells Fargo needs to update its brand from the guarded stagecoaches of the Old West to the masked outlaws who robbed those stagecoaches.
This is the same company involved in the subprime mortgage bailout fiasco as well as cartel money laundering scandals.
I'm kinda sidestepping the actual topic here, admittedly, but:
> It's not like Wells Fargo treats its workers badly but does well by everyone else. Remember, those fake accounts existed as part of a fraud on the company's investors. The company went on to steal $76m from its customers on currency conversions. They also foreclosed on customers who were up to date on their mortgages, seizing and selling off all their possessions. They argued that when bosses pressured tellers into forging customers on fraudulent account-opening paperwork, that those customers had lost their right to sue, since the fraudulent paperwork had a binding arbitration clause. When they finally agreed to pay restitution to their victims, they made the payments opt-in, ensuring that most of the millions of people they stole from would never get their money back. .... They stole millions with fraudulent "home warranties." They stole millions from small businesses with fake credit-card fees. They defrauded 800,000 customers through an insurance scam, and stole 25,000 customers' cars with illegal repos. They led the pre-2008 pack on mis-selling deceptive mortgages that blew up and triggered the foreclosure epidemic. They loaned vast sums to Trump, who slashed their taxes, and then they fired 26.000 workers and did a $40.6B stock buyback. They stole 525 homes from mortgage borrowers and blamed it on a "computer glitch":
In any kind of remotely just and sensible society, this corporation would be shut the fuck down by authorities, have it's assets liquidated, it's leadership imprisoned, and the trademark barred from use for 50 years. The sheer volume of horseshit a company of sufficient size can get away with here bends the mind.
> In any kind of remotely just and sensible society, this corporation would be shut the fuck down by authorities, have it's assets liquidated, it's leadership imprisoned, and the trademark barred from use for 50 years. The sheer volume of horseshit a company of sufficient size can get away with here bends the mind.
Which society would act differently?
China: https://www.barrons.com/news/china-sentences-former-asset-ma...
Vietnam: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-68778636
Now both of those countries have their own issues but they know how to deal with corrupt bankers
It’s hard to know what is really true in those situations. Are those bankers actually corrupt? Or were they victims of political targeting? Or was their corruption authorized by a higher power until they were ready to be disposed of? I personally think rule of law is much greater in the US and most of Europe.
He said, somehow forgetting that the reason we're even discussing this is the heinous and well documented corruption of a US-based bank.
Not really. If a banker in China is taken down for political reasons, it’s not evidence that China is more adept at upholding banking corruption laws than the US.
They could just as easily have trumped up treason charges. Whether the charges are valid or not is irrelevant.
Both of these countries are clearly sending a message. Get too greedy, corrupt, ..etc and we will kill you. Whereas in the US there are 0 real consequences. It is the message that is important here.
The US needs to start putting executives involved in these crimes in federal prison with very long sentences. Fining them doesn’t work they need to lose their freedom.
No, that’s really not clear at all. You are still assuming corruption is the cause of these actions.
China consistently ranks far worse in terms of corruption on pretty much all organizations that do such evaluations.
And you're assuming political backroom antics. Neither assumption is borne out in any way beyond the fact you seem to think China is inherently scary because it's China.
What we do know for certain is that Well Fargo, based in the US, has a long and well documented history of financial tom-fuckery that has been proven, in US courts, to be tom-fuckery that they were given absolute, by any standard you'd care to apply, slap-on-the-wrist punishments for.
In contrast, China sentenced a man to die for his financial tom-fuckery that was proven in their justice system to be tom-fuckery. Whether or not you agree with that being his punishment, it was certainly, IMO, more appropriate to at least punish the person responsible rather than parking liability in an LLC, issueing middling fines, and calling it a fucking day. And considering how many times Wells Fargo (and others!) have had these kinds of cases come up, be proven, be slapped with fines that don't even remotely approach a real consequence, and have gone on to do additional tom-fuckery, I'd say it's well established at this point that the fines aren't doing shit.
Like, to be clear, I'm anti-death penalty and that would include bankers, I don't think Wells Fargo's CEO should be shot for what he did. That being said, if him being shot was a possible outcome, I have a strong feeling he'd be much more hesitant to do financial crimes via his business.
> And you're assuming political backroom antics. Neither assumption is borne out in any way beyond the fact you seem to think China is inherently scary because it's China.
I’m not assuming anything. You’re the one claiming that this factoid means something. The onus is entirely on you. A good way to demonstrate this would be something that shows China is systematically less corrupt.
Russia also has arrested individuals for corruption. is that supposed to be evidence that Russia is less corruption friendly than the US?
By the same token: you are making these statements with the same level of certainty as "water is wet": the US is less corrupt because duh. However, the main reason for your argument is mostly marketing: the US has successfully marketed itself as "free" and "fair" over the years. Whether or not this is factual is very much debatable.
Oh, and don't bother looking up studies by US-based think tanks ranking the US as awesome at fighting corruption. Because duh.
There are many studies that are not run by the US. Even the US based one’s tend to put the US at maybe the bottom of the top quartile. There’s many countries that score significantly better. I think it’s kind of stupid to argue that corruption is more prevalent in the US than China, but mostly I’m just here to shit on the argument that a cherry picked conviction is worth anything as an argument that corruption is less tolerated.
Targeted convictions on charges of corruption are like the hallmark of corrupt governments. It’s not a useful data point at all.
> In any kind of remotely just and sensible society, this corporation would be shut the fuck down by authorities, have it's assets liquidated, it's leadership imprisoned, and the trademark barred from use for 50 years.
But you are living in a democracy (what am i saying, the best democracy, the land of the free, the american dream). Why not let democratic institutions do their job ? /s
> ...and there's no arguing with the idea that spending some time in person with people can help improve working relationships (I attended a week-long, all-hands, staff retreat for EFF earlier this month and it was fantastic, primarily due to its in-person nature).
I would like to argue this.
Okay, go ahead
I'm fat and short and awkward. On camera I come across, with my library in the background, as well educated, seasoned, sometimes even wise. In person I come across as fat and short and awkward.
Since I have worked remotely full time (about 4 years) I have gotten more raises, bonuses, and more advanced title bumps than I had accumulated previously in a 20 year career.
There's less office politics when there's no office. There's less discrimination when we have greater control over our appearance online. For some of us we are finally flourishing WITHOUT the personal connection that has traditionally helped others thrive.
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