• A British Airways A380 diverted due to a strong smell of laundry detergent.
• The flight from Washington, DC, to London Heathrow made an emergency landing in Boston.
• The scent was later found to have come from five pallets of laundry beads in the cargo hold.

A British Airways Airbus A380 had to turn around after an "overpowering scent" of laundry detergent filled the plane, making people feel sick and dizzy, the Transportation Safety Board of Canada said.

Data from Flightradar24 shows the superjumbo jet was flying from Washington, DC, to London Heathrow on July 7 when it U-turned over Newfoundland before landing at Boston.

According to the TSB's summary of the incident, which Business Insider has seen, the cabin and flight crew reported "dizziness, nausea, and headaches." It added that the pilots then conducted a fumes checklist and declared the urgency signal PAN-PAN.

The Canadian TSB said the plane landed without further incident while the fire service stood by.

"Upon inspection, it was discovered that the smell came from five pallets of fresh-scented laundry beads in the cargo hold," it added.

The aircraft, with the registration G-XLEC, flew back to London two days later, per Flightradar24.

British Airways did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent by Business Insider.

It is unknown how many people were on the plane, but British Airways A380s carry a maximum of 469 passengers.

Since the A380 is so large, only some airports have the facilities for it, which likely played a role in the decision to land in Boston. British Airways uses the double-decker jet on its Boston to London route, so it wouldn't disrupt service as much as landing at a remote airport.

In May, an Air France Boeing 787 was diverted to the remote Canadian territory of Nunavut after a burning smell was detected. The airline had to cancel another flight to reroute a 777 to retrieve the passengers.

• Former president Donald Trump was shot at a campaign rally on Saturday. 
• The next day, Tenacious D's Kyle Gass wished "don't miss Trump next time" on a birthday cake at a show.
• Elon Musk is among those to criticize Gass for his comments. 

Elon Musk is the latest person to call out Tenacious D band member Kyle Gass after he joked about the attempted assassination of Donald Trump on the weekend.

Here's a timeline of the controversy.

July 13: Trump is shot during a campaign rally.

On Saturday, a gunman, later identified as Thomas Matthew Crooks, tried to assassinate Trump as he gave a speech at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania.

Crooks wounded Trump's ear before the Secret Service shielded him. Crooks killed a rally attendee, Corey Comperatore, and critically injured two others. The Secret Service fired back at Crooks, killing him.

The attack was met with criticism from both Republicans and Democrats.

Addressing on Saturday the nation after the shooting, President Joe Biden said "There's no place in America for this kind of violence."

July 14: Kyle Gass says, "Don't miss Trump next time."

On Sunday, Tenacious D's bandmate Jack Black paused their Sydney show so the crowd could sing happy birthday to Gass, who turned 64.

A person in a robot costume presented Gass with a cake, and Black told his bandmate to make a wish.

Gass said, "Don't miss Trump next time," before blowing out the candles.

It is unclear from videos of the concert whether Black was in on the joke, but the actor moves on with the birthday celebration without responding to Gass.

Black is the more successful one of the pair, having spent decades cultivating his goofy image in films including "Kung Fu Panda" and "Rock School." He may fear that being associated with this controversy could dampen his star power.

July 15: Elon Musk and others criticize Tenacious D on social media.

While some fans laughed at Gass' comment, others said it was too soon to joke about the attack and accused Tenacious D of inciting violence against Trump.

One critic, who works for the conservative organization State Freedom Caucus Network, linked Gass' comment to Black endorsing Biden for president at a fundraiser in Los Angeles in June.

Musk responded to this comment with "contemptible."

Contemptible

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 15, 2024

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

Black has repeatedly criticized Trump, including calling him a "piece of shit" when receiving a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2018.

July 15: Australian politician calls for Tenacious D to be deported.

Later that day, Australian senator Ralph Babet of the right-wing populist United Australia Party shared a press release calling for Tenacious D to be deported. Their show on Sunday was the first of the Australia and New Zealand leg of their "Spicy Meatball" tour.

"To advocate and or wish for the assassination of a President is egregious, disgusting, filthy, evil, and not acceptable in any way, shape or form," Babet said. "This was not a joke, he was deadly serious when he wished for the death of the President."

There is no place in Australia for those who wish for the assassination of others. pic.twitter.com/wuvgQxeeDS

— Senator Babet (@senatorbabet) July 16, 2024

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

Babet called on Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese and immigration minister Andrew Giles to denounce the band and revoke their visas. Tenacious D has four more concerts scheduled in Australia.

"Anything less than a deportation is an endorsement of the shooting and the attempted assassination of Donald J. Trump, the 45th and soon-to-be 47th President of the United States," Babbet added.

July 16: Tenacious D's next concert is postponed hours before it was scheduled to begin.

Frontier Touring, Tenacious D's promoters, announced on Tuesday that the band's next Australian show was postponed.

"Ticket holders are asked to hold onto their tickets until further information is available," Frontier Touring wrote on Facebook.

News.com.au reported that Frontier Touring made the announcement at 3:30 p.m. Australian Eastern Standard Time. The show was supposed to begin at 7 p.m. AEST.

There was no indication that the postponement was linked to the Trump controversy.

A representative for Frontier Touring, Trump, and Tenacious D did not immediately respond to a comment request from Business Insider.

• Eric Zhu raised $1 million for Aviato from his high school bathroom aged 15 for his startup Aviato.
• Aviato is a data analysis platform for private markets and has raised $2.3 million to date.
• Zhu leveraged social media popularity and booked cold meetings with potential investors. 

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Eric Zhu, now 17 years old. He cofounded the startup Aviato and raised $1 million while still at high school aged 15. The following has been edited for length and clarity. Business Insider has verified his identity and the funds raised.

I started raising money from my high school bathroom for a startup I cofounded at the age of 14 called Aviato, a data analysis platform for private markets, and launched an investment fund.

My journey as an entrepreneur started during the pandemic after I joined a community on Discord called "Gen Z Mafia."

I was lucky to meet some really smart people at the right time and thought "How can I be like them?" I started networking and worked with a few startups in 2021 to help build landing pages for their websites.

I then joined Stanford's Online High School community and met some impressive people. At the age of 14, I cofounded a nonprofit that taught kids to code for free, and I also learned to code myself in the process.

In 2021, I started raising money from my high school bathroom in Carmel, Indiana for a startup I cofounded called Aviato, and I also launched an investment fund called Bachmanity Capital.

Aviato is like a Bloomberg terminal for private markets, and we provide insights such as the name of a top engineer at an organization, and how many shares an employee has.

Bathroom meetings

When it came to raising money, I didn't know many people in San Francisco. But I realized that the investors I saw on X had usernames that correlated to their Calendly links, a platform that helps schedule meetings. So I wrote a scraper tool that would pull their usernames and find their Calendly link, and I'd use that to book meetings with many different people.

I would attend those cold Zoom meetings from my high school bathroom and pitch to investors. I even bought a green screen and ring light for serious meetings. A lot of people were like "fuck you," but some ended up working out.

I got my first check of $50,000 from Tom Preston-Werner, a cofounder of GitHub. When I got that check, I was like, "holy shit, they're actually giving me money."

I would buy hall passes from other students to get out of class. At one point, I was spending about five hours a day in the bathroom taking meetings. But I ended up getting banned from going to the bathroom without an escort.

Trial and error

But it was worth it, as I raised $1 million in 2022. We've raised a total of $2.3 million and we're about to launch Aviato. Now, we're a team of nine people.

I learned to navigate meetings with potential investors through trial and error. The first few calls were absolutely horrible, but they improved over time. I figured a lot of it out along the way.

My age could be seen as both a negative and a positive factor. Some of the negative feedback was that I was still in school and not working on the startup full-time, so I'd often get asked why they should bet on me.

On the flip side, my willingness to take a risk and hold meetings in my high school bathroom showed that I'm willing to go out of my way to build a company, so I think that was a big factor in winning over some investors.

Going viral

I took a photo of myself taking a meeting in the bathroom and posted it on X, which ended up blowing up and going viral. I learned there are three things that go viral: controversial, funny, and out-of-context.

So we built our startup story around that and shared it through meme accounts, which can be a powerful form way to reach a wide audience. Going viral also helped me to meet new people.

I haven't graduated from high school yet and I started taking online classes instead a few months ago after I got suspended for taking meetings in the bathroom.

I then moved to San Francisco to work on building the company full-time. My parents are pretty chill about it, but for the first two months, they thought it was a little surprising for me to take a risk like this.

I've learned a ton and experienced some highs and lows. It's opened up my world, but it hasn't come without difficulty.

There are a lot of times when it's like, "I don't know what to do," but I've figured it out along the way. Surrounding myself with experienced people like my cofounders and investors has been really helpful.

Got a tech career story to share? Contact this reporter at jmann@businessinsider.com

• I'm proud of my name, but hate the way Americans pronounce it.
• The mispronunciation is subtle, so people usually don't get it right, even when I correct them.
• My name has taught me to advocate for myself from a young age. 

My mom told me that when her sister heard my name for the first time, she thought she'd never be able to get it right. But her husband promptly came up with a helpful metaphor — "Amita is a little bit more than a yard."

My mother is British, and my father is Indian, and their name criteria for my sisters and I included a pleasant meaning and Indian roots to match our last name.

Amita is a Sanskrit name that means "immeasurable" or "boundless." My British family pronounces it "ah-mee-tah," and my Indian family pronounces it "ah-mee-tha." I'm comfortable with either of those pronunciations, but many Americans pronounce it as "uh-mee-duh," which I really dislike.

I wish more people could use my uncle's meter expression to help them, but Americans pronounce their T's differently. Saying my name with the "duh" sound may not sound wrong to some, but I feel that it makes my name sound clunky and old-school.

There are names in many languages that sound similar to or are spelled the same as my name, which often trips people up. One is "Anita," which peaked in its U.S. popularity during the 50's and 60's. I've often wondered if people assume my name is a quirkier version of that, rather than a different name entirely, and therefore pronounce it similarly.

As a kid, my name made me feel defeated

One year in middle school, I was up for a soloist award at a choir competition. It was very low stakes, but the awards ceremony took place in a large arena, and I was so excited about the prospect of having my name called there.

When they announced the award, it went to an "Anita Chattergee," who I assumed was me, but the butchering of my name put a damper on my big moment.

People don't usually botch my name completely, so I often felt it was easier to let people say it incorrectly.

In elementary school, I remember noticing that my teachers and classmates said my name differently than my family. One day after school, I went home and sulked because I didn't understand why everyone kept calling me "uh-mee-duh," and my mom encouraged me to correct people.

But I'd been letting it slide for so long that the whole school was saying it wrong, so as a kid, it felt like a lost cause.

Now that I'm older, I make a stronger effort to correct others from the jump

At one job, my manager constantly called me "Amina," no matter how many times I corrected her. Eventually, all my coworkers started calling me the wrong name, too, so I had to do some damage control. I got through to most of them, but my manager never got it right, so I had to just start responding to "Amina."

When I complained to my parents about this, my dad scolded me for conceding and reminded me that he'd never let anyone say his name incorrectly. But in this case, correcting her was pointless.

Anyone with a unique name knows to be prepared for clarifying questions when making introductions. When I meet people, I introduce myself as "ah-mee-tah," and when they usually respond with "uh-mee-duh?" I've started saying, "no, ah-mee-tah, with a 'T.'"

Sometimes, people don't hear the difference, or even if they do, their accents just take over. But I'm at least making an effort.

It can be frustrating, but I'm grateful for my name. It's helped me learn to advocate for myself and be aware of whether I'm saying other's names correctly. I deeply love the sound, uniqueness, and meaning of my name, and I know my parents put a lot of time and energy into choosing it.

It's taught me that the people in my life who take the time to pronounce it right — and correct others — are the ones who matter most.

• Sen. JD Vance joked about the UK being the first Islamist country with nuclear weapons.
• UK Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner dismissed the comments, stating that the US is a "key ally."
• Vance of Ohio was announced as Trump's vice presidential running mate on Monday.

Just days before Sen. JD Vance was chosen as Donald Trump's vice presidential nominee, the Ohio native took a dig at one of the US's closest allies.

At the National Conservatism Conference in Washington, DC, last week, the Republican joked that the UK is now the first Islamist country that has a nuclear weapon.

"I was talking with a friend recently and we were talking about, you know, one of the big dangers in the world, of course, is nuclear proliferation, though, of course, the Biden administration doesn't care about it," he said.

"And I was talking about, you know, what is the first truly Islamist country that will get a nuclear weapon, and we were like, maybe it's Iran, you know, maybe Pakistan already kind of counts, and then we sort of finally decided maybe it's actually the UK since Labour just took over."

It came after the left-leaning Labour Party won the UK general election earlier this month, ending 14 years of Conservative Party rule.

But that wasn't the only dig he took at the UK at the conference, which was also attended by former UK Home Secretary Suella Braverman.

Vance said: "The Brits, UK leaders should look out for citizens of the UK or subjects or whatever you guys call yourselves," referring to the fact that the country is still a constitutional monarchy.

Despite these comments, Vance is known to have an amicable relationship with David Lammy, the UK's current foreign secretary. Lammy has referred to Vance as "my friend Senator Vance" and has praised his book, Hillbilly Elegy.

When the pair were on a panel together earlier this year at a security conference in Germany, Vance referred to Lammy as "my English friend," according to The Guardian.

The UK's Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner reacted to Vance's "fruity" comments on ITV's Good Morning Britain, saying: "I think political leaders across the world all have different opinions but we govern in the interests of our countries."

"And the US is a key ally of ours and if the American people decide who their president and vice president is, we will work with them, of course, we will."

Andrew Bowie, the Conservative shadow veterans minister in the UK, told Times Radio he "absolutely" disagreed that Labour was creating an "Islamist country."

"I do not agree with that view, quite frankly. I think it's actually quite offensive, frankly, to my colleagues in the Labour party," he said.

On Monday, Trump picked 39-year-old Vance to be the GOP nominee for vice president of the US. It came just days after Trump was shot by a gunman in an assassination attempt.

Vance was previously critical of Trump and has compared him to Hitler. He has since backed Trump's views on everything from free trade to immigration.

• Russia has pulled its last Black Sea Fleet warship from Crimea, a Ukrainian navy spokesperson said.
• Dmitry Pletenchuk said Monday that the Russian patrol ship was "leaving our Crimea right now."
• It would mark the end of the Russian fleet's presence on the peninsula since 2014.

Russia has pulled its last Black Sea Fleet warship out from Crimea, according to a Ukrainian official.

Dmitry Pletenchuk, a spokesperson for the Naval Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, made the statement in a Facebook post on Monday.

"The last patrol ship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet is leaving our Crimea right now. Remember this day," he said, per a translation by the state-affiliated Ukrainian news outlet Militarnyi.

The Naval Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine made a similar comment in a Telegram post on Tuesday, saying there were no longer any Russian naval ships in the Black Sea.

Pletenchuk did not name the ship, but in March he told Ukrainian TV that Russia had only one "loser" missile ship left in the waters.

Pletenchuk and the Naval Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.

If true, it could mark the end of Russia's Black Sea Fleet presence around Crimea.

Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, and has used its Sevastopol Naval Base as the primary headquarters for the Black Sea Fleet.

Ukraine has repeatedly struck back in the region since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, destroying or damaging around half of the Russian fleet's warships, including one submarine, according to publicly available information.

Earlier this year, Ukraine's military claimed to have destroyed a third of Russia's Black Sea Fleet.

It has used aerial drones, sea drones, and anti-ship missiles against the fleet and the Kerch Bridge, to often devastating effect.

In March, the UK's Ministry of Defence declared the Black Sea Fleet "functionally inactive."

Ukraine's campaign pushed Russian warships to withdraw to bases in the port cities of Feodosia, on the far side of Crimea, and Novorossiysk, in Russia.

But even there, Russia's navy has come under attack, with Ukrainian drones targeting the Novorossiysk port in May.

Russia's navy has started using the more protected Sea of Azov to fire missiles at Ukraine, because it considers it "safer" than the Black Sea, Pletenchuk told the Kyiv Independent last month.

According to Basil Germond, an expert in international security at Lancaster University in the UK, Ukraine's recent successes are not "anecdotal."

"Ukraine is slowly but steadily getting the upper hand in the Black Sea," he told BI, adding that Russia's Black Sea Fleet "has lost control of the Black Sea."

This, Germond said, is a "significant" problem for Russia: warships are some of the most expensive military assets in a country's arsenal and can take more than a decade to procure and make operational.

And due to the Montreux Convention — an 87-year-old agreement that limits what Russia and NATO can send into the Black Sea — Russia is not able to reinforce its fleet there with ships from the Baltic or Northern fleets, Germond said, forcing Russia to look at how to better protect its naval assets in the waters.

"It is definitely a key objective now since Russia cannot afford to lose more, which explains the frequent 're-deployment' further away from Crimea," he said.

Politically, Germond said that these setbacks are a "blow" to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"Russia looks weak in Crimea, and that is highly problematic for Putin's regime given the central role that Crimea plays in Putin's imperialist narrative," he said, adding: "The symbolic value of these successes shall not be underestimated."

• Luxury sales in Japan are growing, despite a downturn across Asia.  
• Japan's currency downturn has attracted tourists to the country to take advantage of lower prices.
• Many of these tourists are coming from China, buying their luxury items in Japan instead of back home. 

Burberry reported its Q1 fiscal 2025 earnings results on Monday, and things aren't looking good for the British luxury retailer.

The Asia Pacific area took a strong hit of 23%, with sales in Mainland China dropping by 21%.

The one country to escape the dip was Japan, where sales grew 6%.

But it isn't wealthy Japanese locals that are bucking the trend; it's tourists from China and the rest of Asia.

"The country's luxury industry has benefited from strong tourism from China and other near-shore customers in Asia," Burberry wrote in an earnings release.

Japan is managing to avoid a luxury downturn

Burberry is not the only luxury brand seeing its sales boom in Japan.

Richemont, the conglomerate behind brands like Cartier, and the Swatch Group — the world's biggest watchmaker — both reported strong growth in Japan compared to the rest of Asia in earnings results this week.

LVMH experienced a similar phenomenon in its first-quarter earnings this year. The luxury conglomerate, known for brands like Louis Vuitton and Dior, reported double-digit sales growth in Japan, noting in an earnings release that there had been a "strong growth in spending by Chinese customers in Europe and Japan."

Competing luxury conglomerate Kering, which owns brands like Gucci, Balenciaga, and Saint Laurent, also reported a similar sales trend. In Kering's Q1 2024 results, revenue from Japan grew 16% during the quarter, while Asia Pacific, which excludes Japan but includes China, was down 19%.

Japan's weak currency is attracting tourists from the rest of Asia

The yen has been steadily declining in value for more than three years. That means tourist dollars go further than they have for years, and luxury goods likely cost visitors less in Japan than back home.

This has led foreign tourists to flock to Japan to take advantage of the low prices and snap up cheaper products from premium brands. In March, the country broke its pre-pandemic tourist record with 3.1 million visitors.

"Right now, the devaluation of the yen is driving a lot of tourism to Japan," Amrita Banta, managing director of luxury insights firm Agility Research & Strategy, told Business Insider.

"Koreans, Taiwanese, Chinese, and Singaporeans are all traveling and shopping in Japan," she added, "they are enjoying bargains and shopping in Tokyo, where they know they can buy luxury goods much cheaper.

Many luxury tourists are coming from China

China has been a stronghold for luxury brands. But recently, Chinese consumers have been reluctant to spend their cash domestically.

Weak consumer spending has dragged down China's economic growth. Retail sales of consumer goods expanded just 2% in June from a year ago, according to China's National Bureau of Statistics. In June, domestic sales of cars, cosmetics, and household electronics all slumped despite an increase in household disposable income.

China's economy is facing a bunch of challenges, including a real-estate crisis, stock-market volatility, geopolitical headwinds, and demographic challenges.

The economic uncertainty means domestic consumers are less willing to spend on discretionary goods. Instead, they're opting to buy gold or spend their money on experiences.

Attracted by the cheaper prices of luxury goods, China's luxury consumers are spending their cash in Japan instead.

"Prices of luxury items in China are in many cases significantly more expensive than outside China," Daniel Langer, a professor of luxury at Pepperdine University and CEO of the luxury strategy firm Équité, told BI.

So once lockdown travel restrictions were lifted, "Chinese social media like Xiaohongshu was full of stories about the price differences between items from Hermès, Dior, and others," he added.

Traveling to other destinations to buy luxury goods at lower prices is not new. Langer said that twenty to thirty years ago, Japanese luxury clients would travel to Paris and Rome and take advantage of the then-lower prices of luxury items.

Now, the particularly weak yen has reversed that trend.

On top of that, Japan has an incredible and growing wealth, Langer added. "There is a strong internal demand for luxury, further fueled by an influx of travelers."

• Computer giant Dell carries out an annual employee engagement survey known as "Tell Dell."
• After its strict RTO mandate, workers used the survey as an opportunity to show Dell how they really felt. 
• The survey's results, which BI has seen, showed a big drop in a key metric called the employee net promoter score.

When executives decide on a new direction for a company, there's often little that workers can do about it besides leave. But that doesn't mean they are happy about it.

At computing giant Dell, after a year shaped by layoffs, a strict return-to-office (RTO) mandate, and a new employee monitoring system, workers have taken an opportunity to share their true feelings with the company.

The company runs an annual employee engagement survey called "Tell Dell."

According to internal results seen by Business Insider, this year's employee net promoter score (eNPS), a key measure of the likelihood that employees would recommend Dell as a great place to work, dropped by double digits compared to the previous year.

The score, which is calculated as the percentage of promoters minus the percentage of detractors, dropped from 62 to 48. It is based on responses from around 98,000 employees.

"No matter what, I've never seen a score move that fast in the wrong direction," said one staffer who spoke to BI on condition of anonymity.

"Frankly, most people I work with were expecting a steeper decline," said another Dell employee.

In some departments, the decline was even sharper. In the global marketing team, the rating dropped by 68%, while in some smaller teams, the eNPS was close to or at zero, sources at the company told BI.

"I think the marketing teams feel particularly threatened due to the accelerated adoption of GenAI to streamline marketing processes and reduce cost," one worker told BI.

Others cited the RTO initiative, layoffs, and the way changes at the company have been handled as reasons for the decline.

Listening to employees

According to BI's sources, "Tell Dell" has been conducted annually for at least eight years. Employees completed the survey in May, and results were shared with leaders in late June.

Two Dell HR leaders have previously described the survey as "a key listening tool we use to drive action across the organization."

"In the past, leadership has treated Tell Dell very seriously. The results are covered in detail with every team member along with action plans to address employee concerns," one Dell employee explained.

However, this year, leadership seemed to gloss over the eNPS, multiple workers told BI.

"It's as if every leader was given the OK to ignore it," said one Dell employee.

In an internal email addressing the results, Jenn Saavedra, Dell's Chief HR Officer, noted that the eNPS was dropping across the industry and that Dell was "pleased to exceed the industry benchmark."

"You have 'told Dell,' and we are listening," Saavedra wrote, moving on to highlight positive metrics in leadership, confidence in the company, and connection and culture.

The eNPS is "just one question in a robust survey that gives us a current snapshot of employee sentiment," Dell told BI when asked about the results.

"In the Tell Dell Survey, our team members shared that they believe their leaders treat them with respect, uphold the company's Culture Code values and offer flexibility to balance work/life."

"Our team members also expressed their confidence in the future vision, strategy and leadership of Dell."

However, five workers that BI spoke to about the results said the eNPS was the true measure of worker satisfaction or dissatisfaction.

"C-suite brushes over the real issues to push a positive image of the company,' said one employee.

"I don't think leadership cares about our feedback. They just keep rowing in whatever direction they want," said another.

The focus on employee wellbeing "seems to have been replaced by reducing costs and increasing profitability," a third employee said, adding that they believe Dell's culture has been "significantly compromised" by recent policies.

In February, Dell became one of the many large corporations mandating workers return to the office. The Texas-headquartered company introduced a new hybrid work policy requiring workers to classify themselves as either hybrid or remote.

Those who chose remote are now ineligible for promotion and can't change roles — almost 50% of workers in the US chose that option.

Many say they didn't have a choice, as Dell has built geographically divided teams. They would have had to move state or commute for hours to get to one of the 17 approved offices.

For hybrid workers, in-office culture has also changed.

Dell introduced a new monitoring system for hybrid employees, tracking and rating their attendance with color-coded flags.

Workers have told BI that the shift in culture has felt particularly harsh given Dell's longstanding reputation as an inclusive and encouraging employer. 

Workers reject RTO

Dell is just one of many tech giants, Wall Street banks, and large retailers that have been leading efforts to reverse the work-from-home culture that emerged following the pandemic. But employees have been pushing back.

After Deutsche Bank mandated staff come in for three days a week, the company faced a wave of backlash from staff complaining about the lack of office space and bottlenecks at the company.

And at the German software giant SAP thousands of staff signed an internal letter saying that they felt "betrayed" by the company's "radical" RTO policy.

Though some see in-office work as better for productivity, a recent Deloitte survey found that good work-life balance was the top consideration for both Gen Z and millennials when choosing an employer.

At Dell, some now feel their only solution is to leave the company.

"None of us expect any changes to address the eNPS drop or that they will listen to what comments we provided," said one worker.

Five of BI's sources have found new jobs since the policy was first announced, and others said they and many of their colleagues are actively looking.

Are you a worker at Dell or another company pushing staff back to the office? Contact this reporter at pthompson@businessinsider.com

• I tried the same meal at Cracker Barrel and Waffle House to see which chain had the best breakfast.
• I liked my meal at Cracker Barrel but thought some dishes were overpriced.
• I thought Waffle House was the clear winner in taste and value.

Waffle House has been one of my family's favorite breakfast spots for a long time. But after recently trying and falling in love with Cracker Barrel's family meal deals, I've been curious which chain is actually our top pick.

Both popular breakfast chains have been in the news lately — Waffle House (slightly) raised its notoriously low base pay, and Cracker Barrel recently reported a dip in revenue. With Waffle House's new investments and Cracker Barrel's decrease in earnings, I was curious to see how the two stacked up in the long line of breakfast chains.

To find out, I ordered the same meal — biscuits and gravy, hash-brown bowls, and steak and eggs — at each chain and compared them.

Cracker Barrel, which released several new menu items, has recently seen a dip in revenue.

The first Cracker Barrel opened in Lebanon, Tennessee, in 1969. The restaurant chain serves breakfast, lunch, and dinner and is known for its Southern, country-style menu and gift shop. Today, the chain operates more than 660 locations across 45 states.

Cracker Barrel, which reported a nearly 2% decrease in total revenue from this time last year in its fiscal third quarter, has focused on adding new items to its menu, like cinnamon-bread French toast, green-chile cornbread, and shepherd's pie topped with a hash-brown-casserole crust

On a call with investors in May, Cracker Barrel CEO Julie Masino said the chain is "not as relevant" as it once was, which could explain the company's efforts to attract new customers with menu additions.

Cracker Barrel's menu was a bit overwhelming.

My husband and I visited Cracker Barrel on a Saturday evening around 6 p.m. to take advantage of its all-day breakfast menu.

Though the restaurant didn't seem too busy, we waited about 20 minutes after being seated for a server to visit our table and take our drink order. This wait gave us lots of time to review the menu, which I appreciated since it was pretty long.

As we looked over breakfast and dinner options, desserts, and side dishes, we agreed that the Cracker Barrel menu was too busy.

We ordered the biscuits n' gravy with sausage, bacon n' egg hash-brown casserole, and New-York strip steak n' eggs, which cost about $41.

The biscuits n' gravy with sausage tasted a bit too smoky for me.

Cracker Barrel's biscuits n' gravy cost $7.70 as part of the restaurant's discounted sunrise-specials menu.

The simple meal came with three buttermilk biscuits, a bowl of sawmill gravy (a type of sausage gravy), and two sausage patties. When it arrived at our table, I thought it looked like something out of a Southern-style photo shoot.

Though the sausage patties were well-seasoned and had the perfect amount of salt, the gravy had an overpowering smoky flavor that I wasn't a fan of.

That being said, the flaky, buttery biscuits were delicious and the true star of our meal.

The hash-brown casserole in Cracker Barrel's breakfast bowl felt overcomplicated.

The bacon n' egg hash-brown casserole, served in a blue bowl and topped with crispy onions, looked visually appealing.

The meal contained a piece of Cracker Barrel's famous hash-brown casserole, made with shredded potatoes, cheese, and chopped onions. However, I thought the creamy, cheesy potatoes slightly overpowered the $12.50 breakfast bowl.

The cheese-topped scrambled eggs and crispy, salty bacon on top were really good, but the dense hash-brown casserole felt too heavy to me — especially since this is a breakfast food meant to be consumed before starting your day.

The New-York strip steak n' eggs dish was pretty flavorful.

The New-York strip and eggs at Cracker Barrel came with a piece of hash-brown casserole and scrambled eggs. I added colby-jack cheese to my eggs, which brought the dish (normally $19.50) to about $21. When I ordered, I requested a steak cooked to a medium temperature.

Cracker Barrel's steak was crispy and caramelized. It was perfectly seasoned with salt and very good, though I thought it was cooked to a well-done temperature instead of my requested medium.

The other elements of this dish were very tasty. The eggs were light and fluffy, and the hash-brown casserole was cheesy and dense, pairing well with the entrée.

Still, for $21, the meal didn't feel like a great value, especially since it didn't come with any extras like toast.

Next, I headed to Waffle House, which recently raised its base pay for servers.

Waffle House opened its first diner-style restaurant in 1955 in Avondale Estates, Georgia. Today, all Waffle House locations are open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and there are over 1,900 locations in 25 states.

Waffle House recently raised its server wages to $3 an hour, a change CEO Joe Rodgers III called the chain's "single largest additional investment in our workforce" in its 68-year history. Several Waffle House workers went on strike earlier this year to protest the low wages and the company's meal-credit policy.

Waffle House kept things simple with its menu items.

My two teenagers and I visited Waffle House for a late-morning meal on a Monday around 11 a.m. We immediately grabbed a booth, and a server came to our table once we were seated.

The menu felt simple, with the straightforward breakfast options on one side and the lunch and dinner choices on the other. Getting seated and ordering felt cheerful and efficient, and I was more at ease at Waffle House. However, I might have caught Cracker Barrel on an off day.

I got similar items to what I ordered at Cracker Barrel: the biscuit and gravy with a side of sausage, a bacon-egg-and-cheese hash-brown bowl, and the sirloin and eggs breakfast, which cost about $33.

The biscuit and gravy at Waffle House was very tasty.

For comparison's sake, I ordered two separate dishes to taste test against Cracker Barrel's biscuits and gravy, which came with sausage. I got Waffle House's biscuit and gravy ($4), which included one grilled biscuit split in half and a side of two sausage patties ($4.50).

The sausage gravy had a savory, peppery flavor — with no smokiness and the perfect smooth texture. Though there was only one biscuit, it was flaky and buttery and complemented the sausage gravy perfectly.

The sausage patties were flavorful, with a nice amount of seasoning and salt. My perfect dish would combine Cracker Barrel's biscuits, which were a bit lighter, with Waffle House's gravy.

The sausage patties at both restaurants felt interchangeable — they were delicious but just standard-fare breakfast sausages.

I loved the delicious simplicity of Waffle House's bacon-egg-and-cheese hash-brown bowl.

The Waffle House hash-brown bowls are among my favorite breakfast foods — I especially enjoy the cheesesteak-melt version. I'd never tried the bacon-egg-and-cheese hash-brown bowl, but I enjoyed it as much as the other varieties I've had at the chain.

The $11.30 bowl felt much lighter than the Cracker Barrel version, as the hash browns were primarily made of just shredded potatoes.

The bowl also featured cheese melted between the hot scrambled eggs and the layer of hash browns. The protein-packed bacon and eggs on top were the most filling parts of the dish.

The meat seemed overcooked, but I liked the sirloin-and-eggs breakfast at Waffle House.

The sirloin-and-eggs meal wasn't on Waffle House's physical menu, but I saw it on the chain's website. When I asked about it, our server knew exactly what I meant.

I ordered the sirloin cooked to a medium temperature but found the finished steak to be overcooked.

Cracker Barrel's steak contained more fat than Waffle House's sirloin, which was salty and crisp on the outside and tender when cut. The $13.10 entrée, which came with hash browns, two pieces of toast, and scrambled eggs, felt like a great value for a steak breakfast.

The scrambled eggs were well-cooked, and the hash browns were just salty enough. This is a Waffle House dish I'd order again.

I'd return for breakfast at Cracker Barrel, but Waffle House would be my first choice.

Of the two restaurants, Waffle House was the clear winner for me. Though the meal at Cracker Barrel was much more visually appetizing, I preferred the flavor of the food at Waffle House.

If I return to Cracker Barrel in the future, I'd order different breakfast items. The steak was a bright point in the meal, but I don't think I'd spend $21 on an entrée again. I couldn't help feeling like our $41 breakfast entrées were slightly overpriced.

Waffle House's meal cost about $8 less than the same entrées at Cracker Barrel and tasted much better overall. It hit all the right spots for a satisfying breakfast — heavy on protein with perfectly cooked and salted hash browns.

At just $33 for the same three items, it felt like a no-brainer to deem Waffle House the winner of my breakfast battle. I can't wait to return for another round of steak and eggs.

• "Beverly Hills, 90210" and "Heathers" star Shannen Doherty died on Saturday at age 53.
• She was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2015.
• Doherty's mother and former costars have paid tribute her. 

Shannen Doherty's mother and her "Beverly Hills, 90210" costars are among those to pay tribute to the actor who died from cancer on Saturday, at age 53.

Doherty played Heather Duke in 1989's "Heathers," but was best known as Brenda Walsh in the beloved 1990s Fox teen drama series, "Beverly Hills, 90210." Doherty reprised the role in 2008's "90210," and the 2019 revival, "BH90210."

The series turned Doherty and co-stars including Jason Priestly, Luke Perry, and Jennie Garth into household names.

Doherty was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2015 and said on Instagram in 2017 that she was in remission.

The cancer returned in 2019 while she was filming "BH90210", spreading to her brain and bones.

The actor's publicist, Leslie Sloane, confirmed Doherty's death in a statement to Business Insider.

"The devoted daughter, sister, aunt, and friend was surrounded by her loved ones as well as her dog, Bowie. The family asks for their privacy at this time so they can grieve in peace," she said.

Social media was flooded with tributes to Doherty from her family, fans, and former costars.

Her mother, Rosa Doherty, told People: "She is my beautiful girl and my heart. Our family wants to thank everyone who has shown love and support for our Shannen throughout her life. We are truly appreciative."

Priestly, who played Brenda Walsh's twin brother on "90210," shared photos of the pair on Instagram from the 1990s series.

"Shocked and saddened to hear about the passing of my friend Shannen. She was a force of nature and I will miss her. Sending love and light to her family in this dark time," he wrote.

Garth also posted old photos of herself with Doherty on Instagram and called her "one of the strongest people I have ever known."

She wrote: "She was courageous, passionate, determined and very loving and generous. I will miss her and will always honor her deeply in my heart and in my memories. My heart breaks for her family and Bowie."

Doherty's ex-husband, Ashley Hamilton, told TMZ that his heart "aches" over her passing. The couple were together from 1993 to 1994.

"Shannen was not only my wife, she was my guardian angel. Even though things don't always work out the way we hope they will, she stood by my side during some of my darkest times," he said. "My love and admiration for her lasted far longer than our short-lived marriage."

Hamilton added: "The world lost a free-spirited soul and my heart aches for her and for all those who loved her. May she rest in peace."

"Buffy the Vampire Slayer" star Sarah Michelle Gellar also paid tribute to her friend of 30 years.

They became friends in the 1990s when they both starred on TV shows airing on The WB network — Gellar on "Buffy," while Doherty played young witch Prue Halliwell on "Charmed."

"How do you possibly find the right words to sum up 30 years of friendship? I keep reminding myself it only hurts this much because, there was so much love," she wrote. "Thank you, for all your kind words and support. I love all the messages about how @theshando was important to you. So let's honor her."

Fan favorite director Kevin Smith remembered working with Doherty on his 1995 comedy, "Mallrats," which gained a cult following.

He pointed out that the film would not have been made without the "90210" star.

"Shannen was a true talent and she became a good friend, but lest anyone forget, she was the only reason Mallrats got green-lit in 1995. That's because Shannen was one of the most famous people on the planet – and the fact that she picked Mallrats as her first follow-up to 90210 made that movie happen," Smith explained.

Rose McGowan, who replaced Doherty on "Charmed," said that they "chose" to be friends when Doherty was written out of the series in 2003.

"We laughed at dark forces who wanted us to hate each other, instead we chose love and respect. A soft-hearted badass as there ever was. A force of energy that will live forever in hearts. May angels and God carry her to the holy kingdom where she is healthy, young and wild forever," she said.