Worker Gave Mixed Feedback on a Return-to-Office Pilot and Got Called Into a Meeting About Being Too Negative

This week, a Reddit post described the unexpected repercussions of a workplace survey, which has led to the question of whether corporate feedback warrants any real honesty at all. The post on r/remotework described a scenario many employees will recognize — being asked for honest feedback and then being told the response was too negative.

According to the poster, they had been working on an eight-person remote team spanning three time zones since 2021. In January, the leadership began a "collaboration experiment" that required employees to engage for one week each month at a co-working space that, in this case, can hold about six people. As a result, two coworkers were left to work from a couch near an elevator waiting area.

After the first such week ended, management sent out a survey via email asking employees to rate the experiment using text fields and a 1–5 scale. The employee gave their honest opinion that the results were "mixed" and offered reasons. They admitted that they had at least one valuable in-person conversation throughout the week that most likely would not have happened via video call, but they also said that it added four hours of commuting time that could have been spent on business or for fun.

"I thought that was the point of the survey," the employee wrote.

The following week, their manager raised these survey responses during a one-on-one and noted that leadership found some replies "a bit negative." They hoped employees would "approach the next pilot with more openness" and scheduled one three weeks after that.

As of publication, the post has more than 3,000 upvotes with workers sharing similar experiences in the comments. "Ask for feedback and then call it negative […] That's precious," wrote one. The original poster replied that "mixed results" was "too spicy" and that they should have "just put 5 stars and a smiley face." Another commenter echoed, "They always only want you to tell them what they want to hear."

Another commenter described a firm that stopped sending quarterly surveys after consistently receiving low scores — saying management "doesn't want to collect bad responses."

Another described a workplace where survey results below a score of 7 out of 10 were classified as "concerning," and scores below 5 as indicators of employees who might "actively want to harm the firm." The low scores continued for three years regardless — "Maybe consider listening to the feedback," the commenter wrote.

The original poster said they have been "approaching this very carefully" since the manager spoke to them. Some other commenters, as a result, asked the poster to start looking for another job. Others recommended submitting positive responses after this, no matter what they really feel. A smaller number of comments suggested they should push back.

The post also had multiple commenters questioning how a team spread across three time zones could all report to the same physical office location. Some also flagged the account that posted it as being less than two weeks old.

The details above reflect the original poster's account as shared on r/remotework. Several commenters noted the posting account was created less than two weeks before the post was shared.