We’ve entered the gamesmanship phase of the return-to-office battle between bosses and their subordinates.
Instead of ignoring in-person mandates, as many people did when enforcement was lax, some are finding ways to follow the letter, but not the spirit. They’re going in on days when most co-workers don’t, taking off early and creating afternoon dead zones or, in the extreme, barely clocking in at all.
Many companies’ policies require employees to work a certain number of days in person without specifying the hours. People can make brief appearances, long enough to be seen by execs and satisfy heightened monitoring, then bolt. It’s the grown-up version of signing a professor’s attendance sheet before ducking out of the lecture hall (not that I ever did that).
Coffee badging seems like a way to hack the RTO system but there are flaws, not the least of which is the term’s fuzzy etymology. Urban Dictionary says the badge in the name is the building-access card that a worker uses to swipe into the office just long enough to sip a mug of joe; others say that’s too literal and claim the badge is actually an imaginary award for showing face—like a Boy Scout merit badge pinned in the boss’s mind instead of on a sash.
Never trust your professional fate to a buzzword. Remember how quiet quitting soon became quiet firing? Just because everybody else is doing it doesn’t mean there won’t be consequences down the line.
“It’s highly likely that you’re headed for a mediocre career,” warns Keith Styrcula, founder and chief executive of Glasstower Digital, a financial technology firm in Greenwich, Conn. “Face time and playing the political games are sometimes as important as merit. That’s just the way American corporate culture works.”
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