Nationwide tells 13,000 staff to 'work anywhere' • Hacker News Board

Re: Nationwide tells 13,000 staff to 'work anywhere'

#51

Post by dx034 » Thu, Mar 25, 2021, 8:48 AM UTC

sago wrote: post #24

sn_master wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People with friends and family can't gauge how bad of a toll this has taken on lonely single guys like me. For most of them WFH been a Godsend. I really wish this ends or at least there remains enough places which require working from the office.

I'm wondering to what extent social working has to be within a company. A fitness club I was part of a decade ago had this amazing 'cafe' space that was often used by folks with laptops and the odd bit of chat. It felt social. If work anywhere becomes the thing, is there is scope for work 'clubs'? Or without the fitness reason to be there at all, is it a nonstarter?

If you work at a bank that's basically impossible. Most people will deal with data to some degree, anyone else in the room needs to be cleared for that data (i.e. employee of the same company).

And banks aren't the only companies where that applies, anyone dealing with customer data cannot just use a shared office with people of other companies. If you deal with code that can also apply to some degree.

I've often enough seen confidential data on trains/planes because people were working on the go and not using proper screen protectors (in the past those were mostly consultants). Luckily that never included sensitive customer data. The more people work in public places, the higher the risk for data breaches.

I love working from home but I think it has to be either home or office for many, cafes or co-working spaces aren't a viable solution and a nightmare for anyone in IT security.

Re: Nationwide tells 13,000 staff to 'work anywhere'

#52

Post by glemmaPaul » Thu, Mar 25, 2021, 8:48 AM UTC

krageon wrote: post #47

sn_master wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People with friends and family can't gauge how bad of a toll this has taken on lonely single guys like me. For most of them WFH been a Godsend. I really wish this ends or at least there remains enough places which require working from the office.

> lonely single guys like me Just like every other human being you can socialise with the people around you (unless you live in the middle of the desert with nobody around, in which case I apologise). If that's pathologically impossible due to fear or something along those lines, you need therapy. Working from home isn't taking a toll on you, it's the problems that already existed but that you have ignored.

I'm close to 100% disagreeing with you

Re: Nationwide tells 13,000 staff to 'work anywhere'

#53

Post by endymi0n » Thu, Mar 25, 2021, 8:48 AM UTC

el_benhameen wrote: post #27

dkarp wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is all of that loneliness from WFH or can some be attributed to National lockdowns and limits on social interaction outside your household? In a post Covid world, WFH could involve coworking spaces and cafes. I expect that industry will grow massively over the coming years as we migrate into a more distributed working style. It’s a new way of doing things things and it’s going to take time to adapt and replace the so…

Exactly. I “worked from home” for several years before covid, but I never worked exclusively at home until covid. I’d usually spend a few hours of a few days a week at a coffee shop, library or park, and not being able to do that during covid has definitely made remote work feel more isolating.

While there‘s truth to that, it doesn‘t bring home my own issue with WFH: It might be okay to much better for individual contributors, but it‘s harsh for me as a manager.

Zoom (fatigue) meetings all day, staring at the screen instead of real people and any form of "managing by walking around" and watercooler chats are gone.

This might not make a difference if my job was a corporate mess and sucked before already, but for people like me who actually enjoy their peers, it‘s a net negative.

I feel completely out of touch with what happens in the company and everything feels super transactional.

I mean, nobody opens a Zoom call to just chit-chat about mundane stuff. Well, some do but I‘m sick of taking any additional video call beyond the 4h I’m enduring every day.

Sure, we could adjust to an even more asynchronous workflow like the poster child remote companies, but to me it would make this issue even worse.

I can see how this benefits introverts and people with social anxiety, but as for extroverts me, I‘m getting more depressed every day.

Re: Nationwide tells 13,000 staff to 'work anywhere'

#54

Post by coddle-hark » Thu, Mar 25, 2021, 8:49 AM UTC

krageon wrote: post #47

sn_master wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People with friends and family can't gauge how bad of a toll this has taken on lonely single guys like me. For most of them WFH been a Godsend. I really wish this ends or at least there remains enough places which require working from the office.

> lonely single guys like me Just like every other human being you can socialise with the people around you (unless you live in the middle of the desert with nobody around, in which case I apologise). If that's pathologically impossible due to fear or something along those lines, you need therapy. Working from home isn't taking a toll on you, it's the problems that already existed but that you have ignored.

> Just like every other human being you can socialise with the people around you (unless you live in the middle of the desert with nobody around, in which case I apologise)

Or, you know, if we’re in the middle of a global pandemic.

Re: Nationwide tells 13,000 staff to 'work anywhere'

#55

Post by geden » Thu, Mar 25, 2021, 8:50 AM UTC

quickthrower2 wrote: post #32

scandox wrote: post #23

Flexibility sounds good but what I have seen over the last year is that all boundaries in terms of when and where work begins and ends are being eroded. This started accidentally but it is now being actively exploited on an unprecedented scale.

At will employment is the problem. You should be able to switch off at a certain time and ignore work comms. But I think in US you’d be scared of being fired. In other countries like UK this has never been a concern, and WFH doesn’t change that.

Yeah tell that to my teaching assistant wife who works at a Lincolnshire village primary school and is now 'always on' to the whims of the go getting headmistress 24/7.

She feels she can't practically ignore out of hours requests and she doesn't want to challenge the practice for fear of rocking the boat.

Re: Nationwide tells 13,000 staff to 'work anywhere'

#56

Post by meheleventyone » Thu, Mar 25, 2021, 8:50 AM UTC

sn_master wrote: post #6

Hendrikto wrote: post #3

I really much appreciate this aspect of the pandemic. The "home office revolution" has long been possible, but still would not have happened for a long time without COVID.

People with friends and family can't gauge how bad of a toll this has taken on lonely single guys like me. For most of them WFH been a Godsend. I really wish this ends or at least there remains enough places which require working from the office.

I don't think WFH during a pandemic is a good point of comparison to regular WFH. It'd be like me judging it by my current situation where we just upgraded our lockdown again very severely. I've got a 7 year old and a 4 year old playing Twister next to my desk right now at 0842! All the things I like doing during the day are closed or extremely restricted. I know this is going to suck! Some of my friends have been stuck at home trying to keep kids on remote learning going whilst working in open plan houses for over a year. This is just not a normal situation.

Re: Nationwide tells 13,000 staff to 'work anywhere'

#57

Post by dx034 » Thu, Mar 25, 2021, 8:50 AM UTC

Jonnax wrote: post #30

This will be great for those smaller towns which have been suffering a drain to the cities for decades.

Only mid-sized towns, really. At least currently, very rural areas often lack the infrastructure to allow several people in the household to use video streaming (calls for the parents, youtube etc for kids) simultaneously. Starlink could change that, let's see. But unless you get at least 50mbit/s to every household, remote work won't really be possible for many. And sadly, many countries are far from having 50mbit/s available in rural areas.

I personally love the Scottish Highlands but internet is unbearably slow anywhere but in a few major cities. Let's hope Starlink can meet demand of those areas.

Re: Nationwide tells 13,000 staff to 'work anywhere'

#58

Post by dijit » Thu, Mar 25, 2021, 8:53 AM UTC

kzzzznot wrote: post #31

I expect employers should offer an additional allowance for extra space to work in at home or (post lockdown) coffee shop/coworking space fees.

In Sweden (and I suspect the UK) there are tax exemptions for home offices.

There are some requirements, you can't use the room for anything except work, it must have a lockable door, etc;

There's some consideration too for broadband, though I don't speak Swedish well enough to be able to file this for myself.

Re: Nationwide tells 13,000 staff to 'work anywhere'

#59

Post by beforeolives » Thu, Mar 25, 2021, 8:53 AM UTC

cletus wrote: post #8

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #2

at some hazily defined point work anywhere, anytime becomes work everywhere, all the time.

This reminds me of companies who have “unlimited” vacation days. If I can’t take the next 40 years off at full pay it’s not “unlimited”. A more accurate description is probably “vacation days determined by whether your manager likes you”.

Unlimited vacation is such an obvious lie, I'm surprised so many people see it as a perk.

It's like claiming to have flat structure. Nope, there is still a hierarchy, just like there is still a limit to the "unlimited" vacation days you can take. You just took something explicit and made it implicit to the detriment of your company.

It's a red flag when I see either of these advertised as perks and it makes me less likely to work for the company.

Re: Nationwide tells 13,000 staff to 'work anywhere'

#60

Post by carmen_sandiego » Thu, Mar 25, 2021, 8:54 AM UTC

quickthrower2 wrote: post #32

scandox wrote: post #23

Flexibility sounds good but what I have seen over the last year is that all boundaries in terms of when and where work begins and ends are being eroded. This started accidentally but it is now being actively exploited on an unprecedented scale.

At will employment is the problem. You should be able to switch off at a certain time and ignore work comms. But I think in US you’d be scared of being fired. In other countries like UK this has never been a concern, and WFH doesn’t change that.

The UK is basically 'at will' for the first two years. I've never worried about getting fired in that period. Just pick who you work for carefully and make yourself valuable.