TORONTO – Maybe they just wanted to be nice and affectionately greet the employees’ return to the office after months and months of smart working. But the workers didn’t like those signs that appeared in a building in downtown Toronto and the company was forced to remove them. “Oxford Properties” had placed signs in the lobby of the building, located at 20 Bay Street, with the words “Seriously, we missed you”, “Miss your sweatpants yet?”, “Bet your dog’s missing you” (in the pic above).
“I thought the signs were not very nice to those people who were starting to go back to the office” wrote Audra Williams who shared the images of the signs on Twitter told CTV News. Her post went viral: more than 7 millions of views (here below).
Other social media users expressed disappointment and anger: “The dog’s one would make me turn around and go home” a Twitter user wrote.
When contacted for a comment, a spokesperson for “Oxford Properties” told CTV News that the signage was displayed to “welcome customers back into [the] building. Unfortunately, in an attempt to be lighthearted the signage came off as uncaring, which was never our intention. The signage clearly missed the mark and was removed last week as a result” the spokesperson said in a statement. “The campaign should have not made it into production and we sincerely apologize to any customers, colleagues and members of the public that were offended.”
According to the Business Development Bank of Canada, 55% of employees would like to continue working from home even after the pandemic is over. But “the party” is probably over. And maybe this was the real message on those signs …
