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Nationwide tells 13,000 staff to 'work anywhere'

bbc.co.uk

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

#161

Post by UncleMeat »

nicoburns wrote: post #132
TeMPOraL wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Some indeed do, but for some reason it requires more effort than meeting physically did. I never did that, but I had co-workers who did it regularly even pre-pandemic. What more people do, though, is chit-chat about mundane stuff on IMs . Depend…

> What more people do, though, is chit-chat about mundane stuff on IMs. Depending on the company, your subordinates may already have their own #random / #offtopic channel. Of course, as a manager, you need to stay away from it and pretend you don't know it exists :). Why is that? At all the companies I have worked at the managers would join in with these kind of things same as everyone else (not all of them, but then…

There's pros and cons. But I've seen it be useful for teams to have a "manager-free" space where they can shoot the breeze and complain about stuff without feeling like they are being watched or judged or that their complaints will be taken too urgently.

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

#162

Post by raesene9 »

dx034 wrote: post #142
raesene9 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So Anecdata for me. I live in the rural west highlands in a village of 200 people. I have 900/100 FTTP and 4G connectivity is available anywhere in the village on EE. With lack of contention you can get 100Mbps down stream over 4G I did have to pay for the FTTP install (FTTPoD) but when compared to the reduction in property prices it was easily offset. Even without extra money for FTTPoD, the village has FTTC and a c…

Ok maybe I should reconsider moving there, last time I visited (just before Covid hit) I had the impression that most smaller settlements have very poor connectivity (both mobile and from talks with people living there).

yeah it's definitely still worth checking where the local cabinets are and distance to any property, but it's possible to get good Internet in most areas, and property (outside of places like Skye that are super-popular with tourists) are a lot lower than cities like Edinburgh.

I've lived here 7 years and gone from using 3 Bonded DSL lines to get 12Mb/s to where I am now over that period.

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

#163

Post by oblio »

BlargMcLarg wrote: post #157
TeMPOraL wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Optimizing your lifelong estate purchase for a style of life that won't always be there seems crazy to me. Why?! Because you get to buy a cheaper estate -- is that the main reason? But you will not always work 9-5. You actually get to retire one day. Also there are the occasional long vacations when everybody is at home. Etc. For most 20-30yo, the 9-5 lifestyle is absolutely expected to be there for the next 30 yea…

>For most 20-30yo, the 9-5 lifestyle is absolutely expected to be there for the next 30 years. I would be very careful making any claim going as far as the next 30 years, given what has happened in the last 2 years, let alone in the last century. If that wasn't enough to convince my fellow 20-30yos, nothing's going to shake them awake to how volatile life can be.

And it's going to shake them in the direction of not-9-5 or even overtime? I highly doubt that for most people the future holds

A) less work hours per day

B) fewer years of work per lifetime

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

#164

Post by oblio »

pdimitar wrote: post #133
TeMPOraL wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a mixed blessing. On the one hand, you're always with your family. On the other hand, you're always with your family . Fact of life is, many relationships have trouble finding balance between "me time" and "us time". Going to work is, for many, a way to catch a break from their home - with perfect plausible deniability, since it's socially approved and demanded externally. Some people don't need it. I had a co-w…

Optimizing your lifelong estate purchase for a style of life that won't always be there seems crazy to me. Why?! Because you get to buy a cheaper estate -- is that the main reason? But you will not always work 9-5. You actually get to retire one day. Also there are the occasional long vacations when everybody is at home. Etc. The elephant in the room: if you can't tolerate your partner in the same flat/house for long…

> But you will not always work 9-5. You actually get to retire one day.

I think most people around my age in Europe (in their thirties) started working around 25, at the latest, and will work until they're at least 65. Probably later, since in many countries the retirement age is starting to be indexed with life expectancy. It's quite realistic that by the time I retire I will have worked 50+ years.

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

#165

Post by oblio »

hnedeotes wrote: post #107
kmlx wrote: post #94

i read a lot of studies about how productivity increases when working from home. so i decided to superficially calculate this after a year of working from home for all of my very diverse clientele (fortune 500, small agencies, etc). i felt that a lot less work was being done, but i didn’t know how much. or why. since i’m a coder at heart i looked at tickets/features and commits. something easy to measure. what i foun…

you should add number of lines written for it to be scientific.

Let me introduce you to my friend, --funroll-loop: https://www.shlomifish.org/humour/by-others/funroll-loops/Ge...

Well, that's just a fun detour, I meant manual loop unrolling: https://thedailywtf.com/articles/for-gotten-about-loops

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

#166

Post by flyingfences »

marviel wrote: post #153
epage wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are good small towns to work remote from? I consider "good to work remote from" to mean - High speed internet - Somewhat reasonable way to get to airport for office time (e.g. Michigan Flyer has bus service from East Landsing to the Detroit airport. Personal bonuses - Mountains, trees, and winter - Low cost of living

Chattanooga, TN, but don't tell too many people :)

I wouldn't call a population of 170k people a "small town" but it does look nice.

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

#168

Post by xtracto »

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.

Agreed. Sone time ago I was in a meeting where my Head of HR was (US) talking with an auditor (US) about how amused the workers in Mexico are of the "at will" language of the US contract. Laughing because we do not have that here in Mecico. They had a good laugh about it.

I was silently thought it was very interesting how they have been convinced that at will employment is a good thing... and thanking my government work laws which require any company to pay for 3 months compensation if they desire to fire me.

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

#169

Post by nicoburns »

UncleMeat wrote: post #161
nicoburns wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What more people do, though, is chit-chat about mundane stuff on IMs. Depending on the company, your subordinates may already have their own #random / #offtopic channel. Of course, as a manager, you need to stay away from it and pretend you don't know it exists :). Why is that? At all the companies I have worked at the managers would join in with these kind of things same as everyone else (not all of them, but then…

There's pros and cons. But I've seen it be useful for teams to have a "manager-free" space where they can shoot the breeze and complain about stuff without feeling like they are being watched or judged or that their complaints will be taken too urgently.

> without feeling like they are being watched or judged or that their complaints will be taken too urgently.

I guess my feeling is that if your manager is doing that then they aren't a good manager (of course there are plenty of not-good managers, but it's not part and parcel of being a manager)

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

#170

Post by cassianoleal »

midasuni wrote: post #75
the-dude wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are you not able to spend time at a park?

Sitting in a park alone was illegal for a couple of months in the U.K. In other countries it got even more strict - 1 hour exercise and you had to pre register on a form.

It's been very cold to be tryping in the park as well! It's getting better now, but is still not ideal. I have particularly cold extremities so it's very painful to type in that weather.
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