Overworked employee overhears bosses gossip about remote workers, sparking office discourse: 'They're the ones actually doing the work'

Ben Weiss • Writer and Editor

Nov 5, 2025 2:00 PM EST

The age-old disagreements about who works harder in an office environment will never cease.

The criteria with which folks measure productivity and work ethic seem to be tied to various biases. Some folks are informed by generational values. Others have a bias toward the work format that they personally prefer. More often than not, there is a perception bias as well.

Managers may feel that employees who physically come into the office regularly are more "present' and "hard-working," even though this may not necessarily be the case. On the other hand, certain fully remote employees may have certain skills and abilities that have made them indispensable and immune to those kinds of optical measures.

In this instance, a fully remote employee went into the office for an all-hands-on-deck meeting. During a break, he overheard two folks at the managerial level gossiping about who works harder, claiming that the folks who are fully remote are not pulling their weight, despite all evidence to the contrary. The notion that it's difficult to want to promote someone whom you never see is understandable from an old-fashioned perspective, but it ignores the fact that there are ways in this day and age to ensure that your work speaks for itself.

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Several members of this online community are split as to how the issues of promotions for fully remote employees and in-person employees should be handled. Some folks feel that there is no escaping the internal bias many managers of a certain generation feel about in-person work. To that end, one has to wonder if it's more important to show face and do less or never show face and do more…
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"I accidentally overheard what the execs say about remote workers."

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_{Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.}
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via Unsplash+ (Kübra Arslaner)

_{Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.}

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Overworked employee overhears bosses gossip about remote workers, sparking office discourse: 'They're the ones actually doing the work'

"I accidentally overheard what the execs say about remote workers."

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