[00:00:00] Welcome back to Corporate Fuckery, stories of Survival, psychological Warfare, and choosing What's best for you. I'm Lauren Delia, certified success coach, subconscious strategist, technologist astrologer, and former corporate insider turned truthteller. Let's get something straight. They're calling this the return to normal, but for who? Because for the high achieving women I work with and have been normal, looks like holding 17 flaming swords in the air while balancing on one toe, smiling through the pain, and somehow apologizing for not doing more.
This isn't just a women's issue. These mandates impact everyone, men, non-parents, caregivers, anyone with a life, health needs or priorities outside of the office. I speak from the lens of working with ambitious women, but the corporate fuckery here is bigger and more pervasive.
You've likely been sold. The idea that keeping it all going is proof of your worth. And [00:01:00] if you're not careful, this return to office mandate, or as I like to call it, rigged to overwork, is just another plate.
You'll keep spinning until it crashes. Right on top of you. This episode is your reminder to pay attention now before you find yourself quiet, quitting six months from now, or fantasizing about blowing it all up in the name of not totally losing yourself.
A recent time article, which I've linked below, laid out the hard truth. 212,000 women over the age of 20 have left the workforce since January 20, 25. By contrast, 44,000 men entered it. The shift, the very thing that boosted women's participation during the pandemic flexibility is being stripped away. President Donald Trump ordered all federal employees back to the office five days a week in January, reversing years of negotiated remote arrangements, [00:02:00] even for those who had relocated.
The corporate dominoes fell. Amazon, JP Morgan, at and t, according to the Flex Index, full-time in-office requirements among Fortune 500 companies jumped from 13% at the end of 2024 to 20. 4% by Q2 of 2025. Here's the Kicker Time sites, multiple studies showing no proven productivity benefit for RTO mandates.
In fact, a 2024 study of resumes from Microsoft, SpaceX and Apple found these policies triggered an exodus of senior employees threatening long-term competitiveness. So if it's not about productivity. What is it? It's optics, it's control. Misty Hagens, associate Professor of Economics and public Affairs at the University of Kansas names it, the most normal situation is it's being ordered by some old white male [00:03:00] person with what I call care privilege.
Someone who has someone who cooks all of their meals, irons their clothes, or picks their kids up from daycare. Olivia Howell, founder of Fresh Starts Registry Ads. The RTO mandate creates a potential for financial insecurity for women who may be considering divorce. Or who have lost a partner. So this isn't just a commute issue or an in-office issue, it's an economic, emotional and power issue.
And let me tell you about my neighbor. Two kids, ages five and seven. She commutes into downtown Seattle every day from Bainbridge Island, and I'm guessing from door to door.
She's looking at about an hour and 15 minute commute each way if she walks on the ferry boat. Don't get me wrong, it's a lovely commute. The kind highlighted in Grey's Anatomy a million years ago. But by the time she leaves work and gets home, she's likely been away from her family for at least 12 hours.
Now, layer on the mom guilt, the constant [00:04:00] second guessing, the guilt of missing moments, the exhaustion of trying to be fully present after a day that's already rung you dry. I know this grind because I used to live it.
Back in my early Nordstrom days, I was lucky enough to have my mom as my son's primary caregiver.
She would drop my then 3-year-old off at work in the evenings. I would wrap up my day with my toddler in the office, sometimes playing mini golf between my last few emails, and we'd ride the bus home to West Seattle about an hour long commute. Some days. That was my only quality time with him. Sounds charming, right? It was actually survival, and that's what high achievers do. We normalize the impossible and we keep performing without stopping to ask why. This system demands so much from us in the first place.
But here's what the corporate talking points won't say and what HR doesn't plan for, even after you've swiped your badge out for the day. Yes, time reports. [00:05:00] Some companies are now requiring a badge in badge out tracking to ensure that you're there the full eight hours, you're still working, you're scrolling Slack over your first coffee, answering emails while stirring dinner, responding to messages at bedtime.
RTO isn't making people more on in the office. It's making people more on everywhere. That's not productivity, that's theft of presence, of rest, and of the life you built outside of your job. And this, this is how your identity becomes your work and why when things get bad, you feel like your only options are to, A, blow it up and walk away, or B, stay and absorb the toxicity.
But there are three reasons I believe these mandates are corporate fuckery at scale. Obviously there are more, but these are three that I think are important to consider when you're looking at your RTO mandate number one. They're weaponizing productivity myths. The [00:06:00] proximity equals performance narrative has been disproven time and time again, yet it's still used to justify control.
Number two, the idea of care privilege. Policy decisions are made by those insulated from caregiving demands with no grasp of real. Logistics. And number three, and I personally experienced this, the bait and switch flexibility, many women took or kept jobs based on remote arrangements.
Pulling that back is psychological whiplash. This isn't just poor leadership. It's structural disregard for realities most employees live with every single day. But here's what that time article didn't cover. For many high achieving women, this is actually the beginning of, if not fully fledged identity crisis because the life you built inside the system may no longer be compatible with the life you [00:07:00] actually want.
It's also post pandemic grief because for a brief moment work worked for women . You could lead at a high level and handle the caregiving Without constant sacrifice, that door is being slammed shut for most of us. And the revocation feels like betrayal.
Then there's the invisible load, the midlife exec juggling perimenopause, a teen and an aging parent, or the leader recovering from burnout and finally finding her footing. And last but not least, and of course there are more. The professional navigating grief or divorce now told to add a 90 minute commute and make it to practice on time.
This isn't about preference, it's about survival. Mental. Emotional and physical. And while I'm talking about the invisible load many women carry, the truth is the strain is not gender exclusive. Most people at a certain level of their career are navigating elder care, health issues, [00:08:00] or even just the desire for a sane life are feeling the squeeze too. Remember, the corporate structure wasn't built for humans. It was built for output, and that affects all of us.
Next, let's talk about how we go from survival mode to self authority. And this is where my work comes in, because an RTO mandate isn't just a scheduling change, it's an energy change. When you're forced into rigid surveilled systems, your nervous system shifts into high alert. You scan for what could go wrong instead of imagining what could go right.
That by definition is survival mode. And while it's brilliant for short-term danger, it's brutal for a long-term career because you can't build sustainability from a place of constant reactivity. E
You are probably thinking by now. That's great, Lauren. But how do we find our way out of this? And I have four points and five questions that you can [00:09:00] ask yourself. We'll start with the points. Number one, I invite you to learn how to regulate your nervous system so that you can learn how to respond instead of react.
Number two, with your energy so that you can see what's draining you and where you can refill. This usually requires a lot of simplification, especially for the high achievers who are committed to complexity and being superhuman. Next up, do the identity work to remember who you are outside of your role and job description and who your coworkers know you to be. And the last point, reprogram your subconscious so that you can stop reinforcing the same patterns that keep you in the make it work mode.
Here are five questions to ask yourself as you're contemplating the impact of RTO on your life, career, and long-term vision. Number one, what feels heaviest in my day, and if nothing changes, what will this cost me in three months or in 12 months? Number two, what's one thing I can stop doing [00:10:00] this week that frees energy without sacrificing the quality of my work?
And if you're like, nothing, Lauren, I challenge you to go back and look at your calendar to see what meeting can turn into an email.
Number three, if I believed I had nothing to prove and nothing to lose, what's the first change I'd make today? Not someday? Number four, which version of me has outlived her purpose? And who am I ready to become instead? And number five, what would I need to believe deep in my bones to consistently choose what's best for me, even when it's inconvenient or uncomfortable for someone else?
I've included all of these questions down in the show notes for you to marinate on when you have a hot second.
This isn't about blowing it all up unless you really want to. This is about rewiring the way you relate to work so you're no longer running on fumes, whether you stay, go, or reinvent entirely, whether you're a woman [00:11:00] redefining success, a dad trying to be present at home, or someone who simply knows life's too short to spend in traffic five days a week.
The real power move here is the same. Regulate your nervous system, protect your energy. Remember who you are outside the role, and make choices from a place of self authority, not fear. That's a tall order for some people who have been good girls, good boys, good people in their environment, and are struggling to find a grasp for air
Here's my call to action for the leaders listening. Be leaders. I know these conversations are hard to navigate, especially when the pressure is coming from above, but moments like this are where you earn your credibility, speaking up and advocating for what's best for your employees, their energy, their humanity, their sustainability.
It's what will set you apart. And for everyone navigating this right now, remember, it feels like you only have two choices. That is facade [00:12:00] thinking. That's the illusion of the system. There are always more than two options, but you can't see them when you're stuck in survival mode.
If you're ready to shift at the identity level to normalize your next level of success without sacrificing more of yourself, I invite you to book a complimentary consult with me.
This is where you find your third option, your better option, where we rebuild from the intersection of power. And freedom, because that's what I do. I guide powerhouse people out of survival, fueled success into unshakeable leadership, limitless impact, and a legacy that finally feels like theirs. The truth is the cost of staying in a life or career structure that no longer fits you is your peace, your presence, and your power, but the opportunity, that's everything.
When you choose what's best for you, not what makes people clap, not what looks good on LinkedIn, not what earns the bonus or the gold star that costs you parts of your soul, but [00:13:00] what's actually true for you.
You don't just change your life, you change your legacy, you change this system, and you start to change the whole. Damn universe. And we're just getting started.
