I work in a state owned company in Brazil that provides IT services to the federal government. About 90% of our workforce is currently fully or partially remote and we’re happy about that.

Now, some capital-funded MPs are looking for something to strike back at the government since they had to swallow a highly popular bill that creates an income tax exemption for anyone earning less than about 12,200 usd per year, and greatly reduces it for those earning about 18,000 usd. It was passed unanimously much to the chagrin of the opposition since they couldn’t simply tell their voters “we’re not gonna do it”.

So they’ve chosen an administrative reform, and their evil package includes restricting the rules to achieve job stability (right now, 3 years after being admitted you cannot be fired without an internal inquiry), restricting the rules for admission but flexing rules for subcontracting (right now public employees can only be admitted through a public test), and of course restricting remote work to a single day per week. It’s not approved right now but the report on the bill is already transiting through some commissions in the chamber of deputies, the federal lower house.

It’s not clear if this will affect state owned companies, but of course this fell like a bomb among me and my fellow workers. At least most of them. We were discussing this development in the union’s Whatsapp group, and some clown came with these ideas that “regular presential work is not that bad, there’s nothing we can do about it, remote jobs reduce efficiency”. And then came the cherry on top of the shit sundae: “anyone that campaigns for the maintenance of remote jobs is a corrupt”.

Now this guy has been saying shit for some time, and I told him: “Well, easy to say that on a Whatsapp group, would like to see you telling that to someone in person, about a meter from you”. The cunt completely lost it and challenged me for a fistfight on our office’s premises.

Sorry about the rant, just wanted to share that.