"Emergency" WFH at my workplace have been slashed, everyone back in full since the start of the month. No reason publically given, been privately told "not about people like you, but some others have taken a 2 year vacation so management is fed up". I have emails from the CEO personally thanking me for my commitment in going way over what was expected when basically saving the institution during lockdown, so now I also feel kind of personally insulted and victim of ham-handed collective punishment.
I hate being back: My gear at home is better, I have to work in uncomfortable clothes and at a room temperature that makes me sweat within minutes. I have to work in an N95 mask since we are packed in small 4 person cubicles and COVID numbers are still too high in my area. I'm spending more on gas and wasting time in traffic. I'm eating worse quality food. I keep getting interrupted by exactly those sames guys that took the 2 year vacation. I feel hard to concentrate and I'm angry all the time so my output has suffered.
I keep sending IMs to people I work with, we never need to actually meet.
Now you have to apply for a new more restrictive WFH scheme. Those wanting to sign up to it had a meeting with our direct manager where he tried to discourage us with thinly veiled threats about "special performance measuring procedures" and trite arguments about how it is unfair not being here for the people that want to come.
We applied the same, but now HR is telling us that they can't approve our WFH requests since they can't guarantee that our screen setup at home is safe and we haven't completed a "Data Display Device Setup and Handling" course in the last three years. They don't know when the course will be offered again. I've been programming for more than 35 years now, so again I kind of feel doubly insulted, both by the bare faced obstructionism and ridiculous particular hurdle.
I'd leave, I even feel I'm morally in the wrong for not leaving. But the thing is that the pay is good, that I'm of an age prone to experiencing ageism in the job market, and also this is a place where I have ample slack for tuning my output and inmerse myself in side projects or personal improvement, so their loss...
This guy goes into a bar in Mexico and there’s a dog lying in the corner, every so often the dog whimpers and whines a little. The guy asks the barman “what’s up with that dog?” And the barman said “oh, he’s probably lying on a nail.”
After a few more minutes and another set of whines, the guy asks the barman “so why doesn’t he move?” And the barman says “it probably doesn’t hurt enough for him to get up.”
> "not about people like you, but some others have taken a 2 year vacation so management is fed up"
Then it's time to let people go. Early on in COVID leeway definitely needed to be given with daycares closed, people transitioning to WFH, etc... But at this point, if someone can't get their work done remotely, then they should find a non-remote job.
We went fully remote prior to the pandemic, and I remember someone in senior management asking me, 'how will we know people are working at home?' My response was 'how do we know they are working in the office?' If people aren't getting any work done it doesn't matter where they are. Management just feels better about seeing them in the office.
I think it is indefensible to bring people back to work in any workplace where mask wearing is needed at your desk. If you're admitting in that way that there is a risk in being in the office then you shouldn't be requiring them to be there!
My wife, who spent much of her career in corporate HR, would often note:
"People who want to work, will work wherever you put them. People who don't want to work will find a way not to work wherever you put them."
The people who used WFH as a "2 year vacation" are the same people who will wander the office engaging in random conversations and scrolling Facebook the remainder of the day.
I always wondered why we presume traffic and cubicles are a cure for the lack of motivation.
> But the thing is that the pay is good, that I'm of an age prone to experiencing ageism in the job market, and also this is a place where I have ample slack for tuning my output and inmerse myself in side projects or personal improvement, so their loss...
None of those points prevent you from looking to see what other jobs are available and applying for any that look interesting. Who knows, you might find something that is better on all counts. Worst case scenario you don't find anything better, which will mean you're no worse off than you are already, you learned a few things in the interview processes, and maybe the knowledge that your current role is better than various alternatives you looked at makes things seem a bit more tolerable where you are now?
That was me. I worked in a place for 22 years that completely devalued WFH, and cancelled it entirely (pre-pandemic) with the Big Boss stating "We all know a 15 minute face-to-face conversation is better than a multi-day email chain". Then our organization collapsed under the weight of being "Agile" and laid off the entire group.
I'm glad they did...I got a substantial severance package, "retiree" benefits, and a much better fully remote WFH gig that pays better.
I would have stayed at the first place if it was possible to do so, but I'm much happier since they forced my hand. I'm certain I won't have to go back to an office before I retire.
> I have emails from the CEO personally thanking me for my commitment in going way over what was expected when basically saving the institution during lockdown, so now I also feel kind of personally insulted and victim of ham-handed collective punishment.
Have you used these to go to your CEO directly re your WFH request? It's where I'd start.
>I have emails from the CEO personally thanking me for my commitment in going way over what was expected when basically saving the institution during lockdown
It's a business not a skate park, tell your CEO that you appreciate the positive feedback but that if he really means what he is saying: he should put his money where his mouth is and give you a sizable raise or a considerable bonus.
"I'd leave, I even feel I'm morally in the wrong for not leaving. But the thing is that the pay is good, that I'm of an age prone to experiencing ageism in the job market, and also this is a place where I have ample slack for tuning my output and inmerse myself in side projects or personal improvement, so their loss..." - this tells me that you are a very loyal employee and you also find security more important than other aspects of your career. That is certainly your decision, but I suggest you to keep looking at the balance and consider the compromises you are making because of this. Based on my experience there is considerable talent shortage on the job market, and loyalty is seen as a positive by reasonable hiring managers.
I love working from home, and I have a very enlightened employer but I do have some sympathy with the companies that have a chunk of employees who just don't work when they're at home.
The situation in my company is simple to manage - we hire good people who are very capable and then trust them to get on and do the job. That works with the sort of people we hire and the sort of work we ask them to do. If they're at home we'll generally work just the same, because we're pretty well motivated.
Not all companies are like that though. My partner worked for a charity where maybe 2/3 of people worked exactly the same during the pandemic, but a good chunk (mostly of the lower level admin staff) didn't. Some of them were very unsubtle - they'd never answer Teams calls, and would return them half an hour later and never produced any output anyway. Some were more subtle like the colleague who'd log into Teams first thing and then go back to the Playstation for a few hours of the morning before actually starting work. Having these people in the office WOULD result in more work being done.
What we need is for these employers to be focusing on output rather than hours in the office. They are stuck in a mindset and approach that barely worked in the past where if you had someone in an office for 8 hours a day you'd probably get something out of them. If they focused a little more on what they were getting (and I don't just mean some basic metrics with no human insight) then we wouldn't need bums on seats and the people not doing anything at home would be pretty obvious.
As someone who has probably experienced it, I wonder if ageism is more or less prevalent in remote jobs. I suspect, with zero evidence, that it might be diminished a bit, and could even be an asset since you've got a proven track record of being disciplined and productive in a remote environment. Perhaps it's worth testing the job market and finding something that is a better fit.
> No reason publically given, been privately told "not about people like you, but some others have taken a 2 year vacation so management is fed up".
This is exasperating: it’s basically saying managers aren’t doing their jobs and you should pay the consequences. If someone really did goof off that much, their supervisor should be looking for a new job too.
What I suspect is that nobody did this and what you’re really hearing is that senior management are distrustful and don’t believe people are working if they don’t see them. Everywhere I’ve heard that, it’s been pure projection.
Either way, I’d reconsider leaving. You have a stable situation so you can look for a place you really like without time pressure but the respect gradient probably won’t improve unless you have C-level turnover.
> not about people like you, but some others have taken a 2 year vacation so management is fed up
How is it not easier to fire those individuals? And not now, when you can just bring them to the office and have them be productive from day one (unlike new hires who would replace them), but one year ago.
> "I hate being back: My gear at home is better, I have to work in uncomfortable clothes and at a room temperature that makes me sweat within minutes. I have to work in an N95 mask since we are packed in small 4 person cubicles and COVID numbers are still too high in my area. I'm spending more on gas and wasting time in traffic. I'm eating worse quality food. I keep getting interrupted by exactly those sames guys that took the 2 year vacation. I feel hard to concentrate and I'm angry all the time so my output has suffered."
We start back at the office next week and this sums up exactly why I have no interest in going back full time.
I'm similar age. Twice in the last few years I left great jobs due to somewhat similar reasons of misaligned environment and values. I left without having anything new lined up. I also kinda needed the money. But despite my fears I quit. Within days, on both occasions, I got a new higher paying job that aligned better with my preferences and values. But perhaps most valuable was a sense of satisfaction for having integrity.. the old expression "being able to look in the mirror...".
This approach worked well for me, but maybe I was just lucky.
I've found that once you start having thoughts like this, you've left already, if only in spirit, and you remain physically only as a form of self-delusion or rationalization of fear. You can find good pay and slack elsewhere. Your current employer sounds like a nightmare.
> But the thing is that the pay is good, that I'm of an age prone to experiencing ageism in the job market
Your decision to not even try will cost you more jobs than ageism
All your reasons is why I have never had any interest in working in an office, ever. Now that my current company has been remote since the start of the pandemic and I've gotten an exception to be permanently remote, I will never step foot in an office again if there's anything I can do about it. I couldn't care less about supposed career growth impacts, free snacks or food, collaboration, all the other propaganda they put out. You are right to be insulted by not having an option to work remotely and you should just start looking for better jobs
When we returned to the office in 2020 after a few months of WFH at a Chinese megacorp, due to the lack of meeting rooms, everyone just did zoom meetings from their desk. Nobody really needed to be in the office; we never met due to the size of the company.
They could be telling the “not about you” to everyone, though, and that would also act as some kind of free carrot for them, I.e. you feel somehow appreciated in a very abstract way with no cost to the company. I haven’t seen any organisation where one person can keep things running, so hard to believe this as an argument. I assume, like most companies outside segments such as hospitality, yours also did well in the last couple years. In that case, the excuse that people were on leave is insulting and should be insulting to you too.
This. WFH fights this more than anything. When interviews were happening online, i had deliberately set lighting to be low so that my wrinkles are not clear.
"they can't guarantee that our screen setup at home is safe and we haven't completed a "Data Display Device Setup and Handling" course"
- I work for a small company so pardon my ignorance here but...ergonomically safe?? Please god tell me it's something more than that. Like some sort of security measure. What's so hard about flipping open a laptop and using a VPN?
Employees need to be on site, we’re told, because collaborating with one another has been harder to do when everyone is working from separate locations.
I think this is true, but only if the main part of your job is collaborating eg talking to other people to reach a consensus. That is easier face to face. The problem is that only higher up management roles are actually like that. Lower down the tree people are expected to not spend lots of time talking to each other, and instead actually produce things (code, documents, reports, emails, etc).
When higher ups push for a return to offices to make collaborating easier what they actually mean is to make their jobs easier, at the expense of everyone else. When managers say collaboration is better when everyone is in the office, they don't mean those "water cooler moments" we apparently have. They mean those times they can talk to you as they stand by your desk so you can't ignore them.
I do the exact same job in my office than with my laptop anywhere else.
Im in my mid 30s, and most of employees are +45 in my job. They really want to come back, and there are already a few in there, but whats the point?
I guess they feel lonely, bosses too, but my life is so much better with WFH.
Now Im just used to go places with my laptop, my phone as hotspot, and do work somewhere nice and quiet.
I can even travel on workdays. This very week Im heading to Madrid to visit a friend. I don't need to take time off as I'll be capable of working there.
It's usually just around my province, but knowing I can do this if I want is very liberating.
Im not a SWE, I'm aiming to be one, as I currently work for an ISP and get low pay. Getting even a junior job in SW will likely give me a jump in income. I wonder if I will be able to continue with this lifestyle, because I'll probably need more concentration, not sure yet.
Of course the fact that I can do this makes my otherwise boring and alienating job, with low pay, much more attractive. I didn't leave because I was afraid when the pandemic, now I just take it easy while I i study to change career.
Of course I have no kids, no wife, no responsibilities. If I don't do this now...
The same thing for me. I go to another city and pay a visit for a week, but say I need to be available on Teams from 9 to 5 and attend some meetings, and get some work done. Usually it slows me down a little, so I do some extra prep work before the visit and catch up when I return home. It's like a little vacation without taking time off.
It might go either way to be honest.
I'm currently living and working Spain as a SWE (immigrant) for a US company and the amount of useless meetings there is insane. That makes it quite hard to work on-the-go as half of the day is spent in meetings (most of them with camera turned on).
Our return to the office has been back and forth for various reasons, but the ultimate goal is that everyone work in the office every day. But in an effort to make commuting easier, we are opening satellite offices in the metropolitan area...which (when all satellites are open) scatters teams between up to four offices. So nearly all of our meetings will be via Zoom, even if team members are "in the office."
I don't want to criticize too much, because I work for an otherwise great employer, but this decision just has me shaking my head.
The crazy thing is the pandemic still wasn't long enough to teach companies how to work remote or hybrid. I literally forwarded a list of 10 best-reviewed books, articles, etc about remote working to my org's leadership, and I don't think they read any of them. They certainly never changed the way they work. We still spend upwards of 25% of our time in meetings with no agenda to talk about coming up with a plan to start working. We still don't document needed information, we just bug people on Slack for the same information over and over. In-person people are still "huddling" around a laptop that nobody on remote can hear.
I'm not aware of any empirical evidence that working in person is better for productivity. But what it does do is make 50% of the people feel happier - the people who want to escape their home-family to be with their work-family. In this sense I totally understand why management is forcing people to come into the office: it's because management just likes in-person, and they don't want to learn how to work hybrid or remote-first if they keep the office.
I think there continues to be a competitive advantage for remote-first companies. They can be more productive, have a global pool of talent to choose from, and potentially lower overhead. I think we're going to see incumbents remain in-person while disruptive companies will be increasingly remote-first.
> a lot of people who have returned to their offices for some or all of the week have found that they’re the only ones there, or others are staying isolated in their offices, and all communication still happens over email, Slack, or Zoom. As a result, they’re spending time commuting to and from the office and dealing with all the hassles of in-person work but without any of the promised payoff.
This is hardly surprising. At the last few offices I worked in during the Before Times, everyone in the open office crammed a few feet apart was typing away and focused on their monitors, wearing headphones that said "don't interrupt me!" And watching Slack.
Granted, I live a 20 min walk away. The walk in is through a beautiful county park, surrounded by nature.
Most of my colleagues who live further away have stopped coming in. Understandable, I wouldn't want to get in a car to get here, traffic in the UK is horrible.
It's all about personal circumstances, really. Living close to my workplace, having access to a nice office that is (now) mostly quiet, I quiet enjoy the new work culture :).
My workplace requires me to visit the office once every two weeks. And even then I only go for a friendly one-on-one type of lunch with my boss. Nothing we ever discuss justifies the two hour commute, the same things could be discussed in Zoom. And yet, I am supposed to visit every two weeks.
Now it turned out that during my last visit my boss had already been infected with covid. So not only me, but my wife and my two kids will need to stay home, isolate and take days off to look after the kids. WTF is the point of this? I am losing valuable vacation days, my boss also loses an employee for days (and my wife's boss ditto) and the kids will go bat-shit crazy because they will not be allowed to go outside.
Yay. How much fun the office it is.
And this was just one example of how idiotic and unproductive this whole on-site in-person office work arrangement is.
I have a cynical view about this, but also expect it all to come out in the wash over time.
My cynical view is that some older executives are, indeed, not as effective in remote companies and younger ones, because they have no practice running remote companies and haven't adapted. Additionally, many senior and middle managers never figured out how to assess and reward actual productivity on their teams, so relied on their ability to schmooze to create a veneer of contributing, and schmoozing is easier to do in person. Finally, managing facilities is a big job, especially at bigger companies, and few executives are going to point out that their main job functions are now outdated and the company should de-invest. Imagine being an executive who is overseeing the capital costs of real estate development for a very large tech campus as an extreme example.
However, it is also my view that remote work-forces are inherently more efficient in multiple ways for many industries. I have been working from home and managing remote teams since 2008. Every time I go to an office I am absolutely shocked by how much time is wasted in an office. Time that could be spent exercising, doing laundry, gardening, so many things that are beneficial to someone's health and work productivity. I believe that market forces will solve these problems of ineffective execs and managers. I could imagine some specific companies making a co-located office their competitive advantage by appealing to the minority of knowledge workers who prefer working that way, though.
I love being back. The office is quite empty, but after two years of not being around 500 people every day I think it would be overwhelming to all be back together in one instant. I'm happy to be in that first wave of those returning. It's not just the office, it's the area I work in. I work downtown, I've forgotten how much I missed all of my favorite cafes, coffee shops, casual lunch places. They remember me too, it really made my day when one of my favorite lunch places recognized me and we had a great chat for 10 minutes. I'd forgotten how much of that life is missed. I live alone, I'm a fairly solitary person, I don't get out much. I always said work from home would suit me as long as I still did a few things in the week (go to a bar once a week, have lunch out a couple of times) but I didn't do any of these things, my friends have become hermits and we hardly see each other even at weekends. The last two years have been hell frankly. I've come to realise my work is my social life. Call that if you like but it's the reality and I actually enjoy spending time with people that share interests with me. Since I've been back in the office I've been to a bar and had a nice relaxing conversation over a beer for the first time in 2 years. Not all of us are lucky enough to have that opportunity to have amazing social lives away from work. I wouldn't go back to working from home if you doubled my salary.
A ton of businesses are dealing with a bad hand right now. They know they cant successfully force everyone back to the office. If news goes out about X entity is going back to the office. Recruiters go to linkedin and reach out to all of those people and offer them work from home and a raise.
Flipside, if you dont go back to the office. What are going doing holding so much $ and costs for nothing? Everyone who realizes this also cant rush out to sell. There's already loads of empty buildings and who is buying? Nobody, you'll get wrecked.
Then add on top, even if you decide to force everyone back into the office and accept the losses. How long until climate change or expensive gasoline forces people to just stay home??
I don't understand the headline. What's the 'worst part of working from home' in this context?
In my case, my employer isn't forcing anyone to come back to the office, but there's definitely an unspoken understanding that 'collaboration' and 'team feeling' will improve if we're at the office more often.
But when I go to the office it perfectly reflects the experiences described in the article: I'm almost always the only person from my team in the office at the time, or otherwise the only other team-member has their work to do, and I have mine, so we sit next to each other on the considerably less comfortable office chairs than I have at home, and work 'side-by-side' with our headphones on, and pretty much don't speak to each other any more than we usually do in Meet or on Slack.
I tend to use the days for wondering around and chatting randomly with other people at the office: hang with the Sales people, mosey past the Support team, spend half an hour in the office kitchen.
I guess this is ok if the idea is to be a more socially cohesive group, but it's disastrous for my productivity, and I always have to work twice as hard for the following days at home - even though it takes a while to regain my focus afterwards, so the rest of the week is often a little bit disrupted by the wasted day at the office.
I don't want to only work at home for the rest of my life though - but it feels like we haven't worked-out what the new situation should be just yet. And in the meantime, managers are just thinking in outdated terms of getting everything back to 'normal'.
Same experience as me, went in nobody was there. Spent day doing the exact same thing as at home with a different view and extra 50 minutes of driving. Did not go in again.
I don't think there is anything else more illogical in modern society than waking up in building A, hopping in a car and fighting traffic for an hour to get to building B just to sit in front of a computer for 8 hours (perhaps with a few minimally productive meetings here and there), then commute back to building A 8 hours later.
Building B sits empty for 16 hours a day while Building A sits empty for 10 with both being heated/cooled for 24 hours. The employee wastes 2 of their 16 available waking hours in the non-productive commute while incurring significant financial costs (lease/insurance/fuel/energy) in order to support this patently absurd activity. Similarly the employer wastes time and energy negotiating leases, re-arranging offices, purchasing AV equipment for meeting rooms in building B, etc.,etc., in addition to paying the likely enormously expensive lease itself.
The impacts on the environment, the number of hours of human life wasted in commute, the pointless buildings and associated costs to employers as well as the public infrastructure to support it (roads, trains, busses, etc.) are all incredibly wasteful. Surely, all of this could only be justified if physical presence had a dramatic impact on productivity. Yet, we cannot tell one way or the other if it actually improves outcomes.
Looking at the comments and article, I almost feel like a freak for actually not minding going back to the office.
My commute to the office is about a 10 mins walk - maybe that’s the difference with many others here. Either way, I like the separation between work and home. I also believe that online meetings and chat are not a great substitute for actually talking to people, especially when you are building something together.
The other thing this article does not mention is that with many open office floor plans, the amount of conference rooms was never enough to satisfy meeting demand. So even though I might have coworkers on my team with me in my same location that needed to meet with others in another location, we could never just grab a conference room at the last minute and all sit together there. Instead, we would all have to dial in from our desks (often back-to-back in the open office) and manage mute/unmute there to prevent echo.
I'm glad people are seeing how ridiculous this was.
I think that people coming in and being alone or not talking whole day are things that will solve themselves over time. People/management will start to coordinate when who comes. People will start to socialize again.
But, omg, I really don't want to go back to office. I like not having to travel there. I like breakfast in peace taking my sweet time for it and lunch at home. I like extra sleep I am getting in the morning. I like extra exercise I am getting. I like being at home when kids come, have quick chat with them before returning to work.
[+] [-] fcatalan|4 years ago|reply
I hate being back: My gear at home is better, I have to work in uncomfortable clothes and at a room temperature that makes me sweat within minutes. I have to work in an N95 mask since we are packed in small 4 person cubicles and COVID numbers are still too high in my area. I'm spending more on gas and wasting time in traffic. I'm eating worse quality food. I keep getting interrupted by exactly those sames guys that took the 2 year vacation. I feel hard to concentrate and I'm angry all the time so my output has suffered.
I keep sending IMs to people I work with, we never need to actually meet.
Now you have to apply for a new more restrictive WFH scheme. Those wanting to sign up to it had a meeting with our direct manager where he tried to discourage us with thinly veiled threats about "special performance measuring procedures" and trite arguments about how it is unfair not being here for the people that want to come.
We applied the same, but now HR is telling us that they can't approve our WFH requests since they can't guarantee that our screen setup at home is safe and we haven't completed a "Data Display Device Setup and Handling" course in the last three years. They don't know when the course will be offered again. I've been programming for more than 35 years now, so again I kind of feel doubly insulted, both by the bare faced obstructionism and ridiculous particular hurdle.
I'd leave, I even feel I'm morally in the wrong for not leaving. But the thing is that the pay is good, that I'm of an age prone to experiencing ageism in the job market, and also this is a place where I have ample slack for tuning my output and inmerse myself in side projects or personal improvement, so their loss...
[+] [-] ajdegol|4 years ago|reply
After a few more minutes and another set of whines, the guy asks the barman “so why doesn’t he move?” And the barman says “it probably doesn’t hurt enough for him to get up.”
[+] [-] matwood|4 years ago|reply
Then it's time to let people go. Early on in COVID leeway definitely needed to be given with daycares closed, people transitioning to WFH, etc... But at this point, if someone can't get their work done remotely, then they should find a non-remote job.
We went fully remote prior to the pandemic, and I remember someone in senior management asking me, 'how will we know people are working at home?' My response was 'how do we know they are working in the office?' If people aren't getting any work done it doesn't matter where they are. Management just feels better about seeing them in the office.
[+] [-] rkangel|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] evancoop|4 years ago|reply
My wife, who spent much of her career in corporate HR, would often note: "People who want to work, will work wherever you put them. People who don't want to work will find a way not to work wherever you put them."
The people who used WFH as a "2 year vacation" are the same people who will wander the office engaging in random conversations and scrolling Facebook the remainder of the day.
I always wondered why we presume traffic and cubicles are a cure for the lack of motivation.
[+] [-] chris_overseas|4 years ago|reply
None of those points prevent you from looking to see what other jobs are available and applying for any that look interesting. Who knows, you might find something that is better on all counts. Worst case scenario you don't find anything better, which will mean you're no worse off than you are already, you learned a few things in the interview processes, and maybe the knowledge that your current role is better than various alternatives you looked at makes things seem a bit more tolerable where you are now?
[+] [-] g051051|4 years ago|reply
I'm glad they did...I got a substantial severance package, "retiree" benefits, and a much better fully remote WFH gig that pays better.
I would have stayed at the first place if it was possible to do so, but I'm much happier since they forced my hand. I'm certain I won't have to go back to an office before I retire.
[+] [-] minimaul|4 years ago|reply
Have you used these to go to your CEO directly re your WFH request? It's where I'd start.
[+] [-] rosmax_1337|4 years ago|reply
It's a business not a skate park, tell your CEO that you appreciate the positive feedback but that if he really means what he is saying: he should put his money where his mouth is and give you a sizable raise or a considerable bonus.
[+] [-] pzs|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rkangel|4 years ago|reply
The situation in my company is simple to manage - we hire good people who are very capable and then trust them to get on and do the job. That works with the sort of people we hire and the sort of work we ask them to do. If they're at home we'll generally work just the same, because we're pretty well motivated.
Not all companies are like that though. My partner worked for a charity where maybe 2/3 of people worked exactly the same during the pandemic, but a good chunk (mostly of the lower level admin staff) didn't. Some of them were very unsubtle - they'd never answer Teams calls, and would return them half an hour later and never produced any output anyway. Some were more subtle like the colleague who'd log into Teams first thing and then go back to the Playstation for a few hours of the morning before actually starting work. Having these people in the office WOULD result in more work being done.
What we need is for these employers to be focusing on output rather than hours in the office. They are stuck in a mindset and approach that barely worked in the past where if you had someone in an office for 8 hours a day you'd probably get something out of them. If they focused a little more on what they were getting (and I don't just mean some basic metrics with no human insight) then we wouldn't need bums on seats and the people not doing anything at home would be pretty obvious.
[+] [-] efsavage|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] acdha|4 years ago|reply
This is exasperating: it’s basically saying managers aren’t doing their jobs and you should pay the consequences. If someone really did goof off that much, their supervisor should be looking for a new job too.
What I suspect is that nobody did this and what you’re really hearing is that senior management are distrustful and don’t believe people are working if they don’t see them. Everywhere I’ve heard that, it’s been pure projection.
Either way, I’d reconsider leaving. You have a stable situation so you can look for a place you really like without time pressure but the respect gradient probably won’t improve unless you have C-level turnover.
[+] [-] xenocratus|4 years ago|reply
How is it not easier to fire those individuals? And not now, when you can just bring them to the office and have them be productive from day one (unlike new hires who would replace them), but one year ago.
[+] [-] nesky|4 years ago|reply
We start back at the office next week and this sums up exactly why I have no interest in going back full time.
[+] [-] detaro|4 years ago|reply
so you also have time to go hunt for another job before quitting at least, if that's where you want to go.
[+] [-] thelittleone|4 years ago|reply
This approach worked well for me, but maybe I was just lucky.
[+] [-] quotemstr|4 years ago|reply
I've found that once you start having thoughts like this, you've left already, if only in spirit, and you remain physically only as a form of self-delusion or rationalization of fear. You can find good pay and slack elsewhere. Your current employer sounds like a nightmare.
[+] [-] silicon2401|4 years ago|reply
Your decision to not even try will cost you more jobs than ageism
All your reasons is why I have never had any interest in working in an office, ever. Now that my current company has been remote since the start of the pandemic and I've gotten an exception to be permanently remote, I will never step foot in an office again if there's anything I can do about it. I couldn't care less about supposed career growth impacts, free snacks or food, collaboration, all the other propaganda they put out. You are right to be insulted by not having an option to work remotely and you should just start looking for better jobs
[+] [-] user_named|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cgio|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] throwaway46ty|3 years ago|reply
This. WFH fights this more than anything. When interviews were happening online, i had deliberately set lighting to be low so that my wrinkles are not clear.
[+] [-] mekal|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sodapopcan|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] verve_rat|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] imchillyb|4 years ago|reply
If your company won't play ball, it's time to find another field to play in.
[+] [-] blaser-waffle|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] la64710|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] onion2k|4 years ago|reply
I think this is true, but only if the main part of your job is collaborating eg talking to other people to reach a consensus. That is easier face to face. The problem is that only higher up management roles are actually like that. Lower down the tree people are expected to not spend lots of time talking to each other, and instead actually produce things (code, documents, reports, emails, etc).
When higher ups push for a return to offices to make collaborating easier what they actually mean is to make their jobs easier, at the expense of everyone else. When managers say collaboration is better when everyone is in the office, they don't mean those "water cooler moments" we apparently have. They mean those times they can talk to you as they stand by your desk so you can't ignore them.
[+] [-] spaniard89277|4 years ago|reply
Im in my mid 30s, and most of employees are +45 in my job. They really want to come back, and there are already a few in there, but whats the point?
I guess they feel lonely, bosses too, but my life is so much better with WFH.
Now Im just used to go places with my laptop, my phone as hotspot, and do work somewhere nice and quiet.
I can even travel on workdays. This very week Im heading to Madrid to visit a friend. I don't need to take time off as I'll be capable of working there.
It's usually just around my province, but knowing I can do this if I want is very liberating.
Im not a SWE, I'm aiming to be one, as I currently work for an ISP and get low pay. Getting even a junior job in SW will likely give me a jump in income. I wonder if I will be able to continue with this lifestyle, because I'll probably need more concentration, not sure yet.
Of course the fact that I can do this makes my otherwise boring and alienating job, with low pay, much more attractive. I didn't leave because I was afraid when the pandemic, now I just take it easy while I i study to change career.
Of course I have no kids, no wife, no responsibilities. If I don't do this now...
[+] [-] Mc91|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] showsover|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ptman|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] themadturk|4 years ago|reply
I don't want to criticize too much, because I work for an otherwise great employer, but this decision just has me shaking my head.
[+] [-] 0xbadcafebee|4 years ago|reply
I'm not aware of any empirical evidence that working in person is better for productivity. But what it does do is make 50% of the people feel happier - the people who want to escape their home-family to be with their work-family. In this sense I totally understand why management is forcing people to come into the office: it's because management just likes in-person, and they don't want to learn how to work hybrid or remote-first if they keep the office.
I think there continues to be a competitive advantage for remote-first companies. They can be more productive, have a global pool of talent to choose from, and potentially lower overhead. I think we're going to see incumbents remain in-person while disruptive companies will be increasingly remote-first.
[+] [-] Stratoscope|4 years ago|reply
This is hardly surprising. At the last few offices I worked in during the Before Times, everyone in the open office crammed a few feet apart was typing away and focused on their monitors, wearing headphones that said "don't interrupt me!" And watching Slack.
[+] [-] joaodlf|4 years ago|reply
Granted, I live a 20 min walk away. The walk in is through a beautiful county park, surrounded by nature.
Most of my colleagues who live further away have stopped coming in. Understandable, I wouldn't want to get in a car to get here, traffic in the UK is horrible.
It's all about personal circumstances, really. Living close to my workplace, having access to a nice office that is (now) mostly quiet, I quiet enjoy the new work culture :).
[+] [-] feq543ni0g|4 years ago|reply
Now it turned out that during my last visit my boss had already been infected with covid. So not only me, but my wife and my two kids will need to stay home, isolate and take days off to look after the kids. WTF is the point of this? I am losing valuable vacation days, my boss also loses an employee for days (and my wife's boss ditto) and the kids will go bat-shit crazy because they will not be allowed to go outside.
Yay. How much fun the office it is.
And this was just one example of how idiotic and unproductive this whole on-site in-person office work arrangement is.
[+] [-] rickspencer3|4 years ago|reply
My cynical view is that some older executives are, indeed, not as effective in remote companies and younger ones, because they have no practice running remote companies and haven't adapted. Additionally, many senior and middle managers never figured out how to assess and reward actual productivity on their teams, so relied on their ability to schmooze to create a veneer of contributing, and schmoozing is easier to do in person. Finally, managing facilities is a big job, especially at bigger companies, and few executives are going to point out that their main job functions are now outdated and the company should de-invest. Imagine being an executive who is overseeing the capital costs of real estate development for a very large tech campus as an extreme example.
However, it is also my view that remote work-forces are inherently more efficient in multiple ways for many industries. I have been working from home and managing remote teams since 2008. Every time I go to an office I am absolutely shocked by how much time is wasted in an office. Time that could be spent exercising, doing laundry, gardening, so many things that are beneficial to someone's health and work productivity. I believe that market forces will solve these problems of ineffective execs and managers. I could imagine some specific companies making a co-located office their competitive advantage by appealing to the minority of knowledge workers who prefer working that way, though.
[+] [-] 0xRusty|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] incomingpain|4 years ago|reply
Flipside, if you dont go back to the office. What are going doing holding so much $ and costs for nothing? Everyone who realizes this also cant rush out to sell. There's already loads of empty buildings and who is buying? Nobody, you'll get wrecked.
Then add on top, even if you decide to force everyone back into the office and accept the losses. How long until climate change or expensive gasoline forces people to just stay home??
[+] [-] null_object|4 years ago|reply
In my case, my employer isn't forcing anyone to come back to the office, but there's definitely an unspoken understanding that 'collaboration' and 'team feeling' will improve if we're at the office more often.
But when I go to the office it perfectly reflects the experiences described in the article: I'm almost always the only person from my team in the office at the time, or otherwise the only other team-member has their work to do, and I have mine, so we sit next to each other on the considerably less comfortable office chairs than I have at home, and work 'side-by-side' with our headphones on, and pretty much don't speak to each other any more than we usually do in Meet or on Slack.
I tend to use the days for wondering around and chatting randomly with other people at the office: hang with the Sales people, mosey past the Support team, spend half an hour in the office kitchen.
I guess this is ok if the idea is to be a more socially cohesive group, but it's disastrous for my productivity, and I always have to work twice as hard for the following days at home - even though it takes a while to regain my focus afterwards, so the rest of the week is often a little bit disrupted by the wasted day at the office.
I don't want to only work at home for the rest of my life though - but it feels like we haven't worked-out what the new situation should be just yet. And in the meantime, managers are just thinking in outdated terms of getting everything back to 'normal'.
[+] [-] ravedave5|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] osigurdson|4 years ago|reply
Building B sits empty for 16 hours a day while Building A sits empty for 10 with both being heated/cooled for 24 hours. The employee wastes 2 of their 16 available waking hours in the non-productive commute while incurring significant financial costs (lease/insurance/fuel/energy) in order to support this patently absurd activity. Similarly the employer wastes time and energy negotiating leases, re-arranging offices, purchasing AV equipment for meeting rooms in building B, etc.,etc., in addition to paying the likely enormously expensive lease itself.
The impacts on the environment, the number of hours of human life wasted in commute, the pointless buildings and associated costs to employers as well as the public infrastructure to support it (roads, trains, busses, etc.) are all incredibly wasteful. Surely, all of this could only be justified if physical presence had a dramatic impact on productivity. Yet, we cannot tell one way or the other if it actually improves outcomes.
Let's face it, it's dumb.
[+] [-] wmkn|4 years ago|reply
My commute to the office is about a 10 mins walk - maybe that’s the difference with many others here. Either way, I like the separation between work and home. I also believe that online meetings and chat are not a great substitute for actually talking to people, especially when you are building something together.
[+] [-] rspeele|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sylens|4 years ago|reply
I'm glad people are seeing how ridiculous this was.
[+] [-] watwut|4 years ago|reply
But, omg, I really don't want to go back to office. I like not having to travel there. I like breakfast in peace taking my sweet time for it and lunch at home. I like extra sleep I am getting in the morning. I like extra exercise I am getting. I like being at home when kids come, have quick chat with them before returning to work.
[+] [-] stn_za|4 years ago|reply
You are still required to live/reside near the office.
Fully remote allows me to live in a very affordable area while still earning a great salary
[+] [-] 1over137|4 years ago|reply
My bike ride to my office is 10 minutes. I miss my commute.