Though Willett Advisors exec Steven Ratner may have attempted to make a rousing argument advocating returning to in-person work in his recent New York Times OpEd, his actions managed to send a different message when he called in remotely for a television interview.


Despite Rattner’s very Boomer-y musings on how remote work is destroying the workforce — “Has America gone soft?” he asked at one point in the piece – it seems he couldn’t possibly be bothered to take his own advice.



On March 21, just one day before his OpEd hit the New York Times’ website, Rattner appeared as a guest on notable Map Mangler CNBC’s Last Call, where he discussed the Fed with host Brian Sullivan. Yet instead of heading towards the financial network’s headquarters in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, a reasonable commute from his home in New York City, per his socials, he decided to call in instead.



Though it’s unclear where, exactly Rattner called in from, the irony of his TV interview was not lost on the fine people of Twitter – namely, reporter Matt Binder.


“Where were you Zooming from yesterday when you were on CNBC,” Binder quote tweeted one of Rattner’s promo posts, attaching a screengrab from his Last Call stint. Though Rattner ignored Binder’s post, which garnered upwards of 1.5 million views, his radio silence sparked a whole host of questions surrounding his TV appearance.


“Wonder if he even bothered to put on real pants or just went with the standard business on top/sweats and slippers on the bottom look,” one user commented on the post.



Beyond noting his uncanny resemblance to former SNL weirdo Fred Armisen, others grappled with Binder’s inquiry, suggesting Ratner was calling in from the Times Square M&M store, the Flatiron Lego store, or his very down-to-earth “Mattise room,” as one user dubbed it. 


So when it comes to WFH life, the answer is, do as Rattner says, not as he does.