This exactly the mindset at Barclays in the UK except we are a globally distributed across 5 offices. When they started their back to office nonsense they caused an exodus on our team in Glasgow and now we are all working fully remote for for 50% more money
The worst part of working from home is now haunting reopened offices
131–140 of 559 posts
Re: The worst part of working from home is now haunting reopened offices
#132Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
Welcome to government jobs, where it's way easier to squeeze those who do the work than fire those that won't.
It's actually pretty easy to fire people in government jobs. The problem is its uncomfortable to have hard conversations. Most government jobs are so far away form service delivery that they are very abstract. This makes the impact of lazy people seem insignificant. However, if you look at government with more of a service delivery focus, think FEMA. You wouldn't see many people who just laze about because the work is right there in front of them and they can link their work with outcomes in the real world. When you write policy or work in some meat grinder paperwork mill or even do just regular ICT sys admins corporate services stuff everything starts to get blurry.
Anyway, the rules and processes exists. Essentially PIP someone, explain and document expectations, and follow up. And you know what, most of the time, people can improve.
Re: The worst part of working from home is now haunting reopened offices
#133I don't get why they are not just talking to each other, is it that hard to say "I'll be in on Wednesday, will you? So we can chat about X" and why are so many people living 2 hours away from where they work then complaining about it. Like you chose to live there and work elsewhere.
>'why are so many people living 2 hours away from where they work then complaining about it. Like you chose to live there and work elsewhere.'
For many people this isn't a choice. Specially, if you have a family.
Re: The worst part of working from home is now haunting reopened offices
#134I 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 trave…
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.
Re: The worst part of working from home is now haunting reopened offices
#135"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 al…
> 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?
Re: The worst part of working from home is now haunting reopened offices
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.”
"Nailed" it. Perfect description of my situation. I wish I weren't like this
That said the dog has only one nail to deal with. Adult life means balancing rent / stability / safety / job. It's sad that manager never understand what people want to be happy for their company and so easily find ways to make us go into cynical mode (slow down and cope with side project).
Re: The worst part of working from home is now haunting reopened offices
#137Our 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…
The problem with Zoom calls in the office is that you usually do them at your desk rather than in a meeting room, and when you do that, you are totally destroying the productivity of anyone who happens to be in the room with you. Not to mention what happens if several people in the same room have different calls at the same time...
I now would have to take a plane to go to the office so I am now 100% remote but in my previous company they implemented hybrid for those who wanted and the idea was that the conference rooms were to be used for those being on site and the rest of the team would be remote. All rooms had been equipped with decent audio and camera that made the process seamless. People who wanted to be there 3 days a week or more could have a fixed office and leave belongings, other would have to reserve a shared one and work in a clean desk method.
No company can expect having an hybrid system work without a little bit of investment and some decent guidelines. With so many space gained in the offices there is a lot of space to liberate to build more small conference rooms and some storage area for those who don't have a fixed desk but may wish to keep things on site.
Re: The worst part of working from home is now haunting reopened offices
#138My 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 t…
Why you need to stay home and isolate? Is it required in your country?
"Required" or not, it's called "being a grown-up".
Re: The worst part of working from home is now haunting reopened offices
#139Somebody save me a click, I’m not wading through that.
> 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 was the best possible excerpt you could have chosen.
Thank you.
Re: The worst part of working from home is now haunting reopened offices
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
So all the people in the office on calls are wearing noise cancelling headphones so they can take part in meetings with people who may be in the same office. Even with good noise cancelling they have to be permanently muted if not talking to avoid bleed though noise from the environment. All of the other people around then are forced to wear noise cancelling headphones to cancel out the noise of all the people around…
This was mostly just for company-wide meetings (standups and the like). For smaller meetings people would move to a conference room. >Remind me again which part of this is better than those people just being at home in their own space? I didn't argue against remote, simply that having an online meeting which includes people near you doesn't have to be problematic sound-wise.
It is a massive problem, especially if people don't mute when not speaking, or if people nearby are speaking at the same time (on a different meeting). Nothing to do with noise cancelling headphones