When I awoke on RTO Day (officially “Remain to Office,” since management maintained that I’d misremembered and we’d always been in office six days a week), I was not as excited as I should have been. I felt queasy at the thought of signing the Memorandum of Loving RTO as a condition of my continued employment.

I was an Associate Slop Doula for Mondo Mayo, founded as a mayonnaise company, which now sells consumer packaged goods, software as a service, and surveillance technology, and is one of three large corporations remaining on Earth. At the time, I didn’t think a full, six-day-per-week, fourteen-hour-per-day, in-office schedule was necessary to discharge my duties clicking the GENERATE button, followed by the APPROVE button, thousands of times a day on SlurryHose. But experience has shown me that I was wrong. Here’s why RTO is essential.

RTO is in accordance with Mondo Mayo’s Core Principles.

Mondo Mayo is guided by our Core Principles:

• Good things are better than bad things.
• “Yes, Boss. Great idea, Boss.”
• More leaders mean more leadership.

These principles allow for the high productivity and rich social life at Mondo Mayo, which revolves around our twice-annual mandatory-optional-encouraged-required retreat, The Getaway, culminating in the rarely fatal mayonnaise-eating contest.

The Executron Management System has led to a surplus of leadership at Mondo Mayo. I am one of fifteen rank-and-file workers, and we are privileged to be led by thousands of Senior VPs. No other company in history has had so many leaders.

RTO adds up.

Mondo Mayo’s proprietary metrics indicate that family life can be performed remotely with greater efficiency and manager satisfaction. The Mondo Machine, rented at an affordable rate, sits in your home when you cannot be there, feeding pellets to your child, and they bond.

Our office is monitored by AI-powered Performance Enablement Software named Best Buddy, which assists and empowers me to be my best for Mondo Mayo.

It’s the perfect time to RTO, because the O is almost finished.

Mondo Mayo HQ has been under construction for twenty years, ever since Mondo Mayo acquired Shit Hell Dot AI (Mission: Make the World a Better Place) and began expansion to make room for its new employees. With no traffic, it’s only three hours from my apartment by bus. Jackhammering, large trucks labeled LOOSE ASBESTOS, and mayonnaise leaks are not interruptions to my work, but rather opportunities to hone my focus. The shaking conducting through my thin office chair that aggravates my lower-back pain is a chance to prove my mettle.

RTO is the best way to surpass SodaPorn.

I must help Mondo Mayo hit its sales targets by doula-ing effective Sales Slop generated with SlurryHose, which scrapes the web for consumers’ queries and seeks to answer them more closely than the Sales Slop from the globe’s other two remaining companies, Cagefight Pharma and SodaPorn.

SodaPorn is our rival. We are in a tense strategic alliance with Cagefight Pharma.

RTO allowed me to have a sex affair with my coworker.

Last week, while Slop Doula-ing in our open-plan seating, I noticed Blair, whose eyes I’d previously met over the trough during the mayonnaise-eating contest at the most recent edition of The Getaway.

At The Getaway, I thought I was merely caught up in the supportive pressure and wonderful isolation. But as Blair returned my stare this time, I was sure it was real, and that she felt the same.

We stole away to the abandoned Mother’s Room above the HR office and discussed our secret hatred for RTO. We began a heated affair. A contractor hit a pipe above us, so rancid mayo splattered onto our bodies as we embraced, but we were too absorbed in our passion to mind. Try doing that from home.

RTO is the best way to surpass Cagefight Pharma.

The next day, during an all-staff meeting, we learned that our main rival was Cagefight Pharma. We are now in a strategic Mondo Mayo x SodaPorn partnership.

By now, Blair and I had let our guard down. On Chatform, our internal company chat platform, we mocked what we mistakenly saw as a change in the company’s strategy (in fact, we’d always been in a strategic Mondo Mayo x SodaPorn partnership aimed at taking down Cagefight Pharma). Within minutes, we were separately called into HR.

RTO helps me be my best.

Blair and I were put on Help-You-Be-Your-Best Plans (Mondo Mayo’s version of what was once known as a performance-improvement plan). Per policy, one of us would be compassionately released and prevented by our non-compete from drawing a salary from any other company ever again.

An SVP of HR patiently, lovingly reprimanded me for my poor attitude. Why had I forgotten the Core Principles? Good things are better than bad things, and being at work (good) is better than being at home (bad). “Yes, Boss. Great idea, Boss.” And yet I wasn’t saying that. More leaders mean more leadership, but they can’t lead me if I refuse to be led. And the HR SVP had to deliver all of this while the office vibrated from construction and, at various points, mayo squirted at us out of air vents.

As part of the Fun and Love Rehabilitation, a team of buff, wise SVPs affectionately pumped Mondo Mayo into my mouth via Mayo Cannon, so that the company’s nourishing origins could be made a part of me.

An SVP of Finance, Philosophy, and Screaming came by and explained loudly that Mondo Mayo’s corporate strategy had appeared irrational to me before because its goal was never profit—it was always power. We will only reach our apex once the entire world adheres to Mondo Mayo’s Core Principles. That resonated with me.

When I said how much I loved RTO,
Mondo Mayo gave me my medicine.
(Thank you for my medicine!)

The SVP of FPS reminded me that, if I lost my job at Mondo Mayo, I would lose my generous health insurance at a time when I needed relief from my back pain. This was true, so I begged them to compassionately release Blair instead of me. I was then kindly reinstated and given a bottle of Motrin (now produced by a subsidiary of SodaPorn and not, as you’d reasonably guess, Cagefight Pharma). My back feels a little better. Plus, I have been promoted to Senior Associate Slop Doula, and I appreciate the vote of confidence. So I was more than willing to sign the Memorandum of Loving RTO, sharing my fondness for the seven-day-per-week, sixteen-hour-per-day RTO, which has always been the standard at Mondo Mayo.

I have achieved my potential. Good things are better than bad things. More leaders mean more leadership. I love Best Buddy.