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The worst part of working from home is now haunting reopened offices

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Re: The worst part of working from home is now haunting reopened offices

#221

Post by chrisjc »

tapanjk wrote: post #81
joaodlf wrote: post #51

I love coming in to the office. 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)…

> Granted, I live a 20 min walk away. The walk in is through a beautiful county park, surrounded by nature. This is likely the reason you love coming into the office. The fresh air, greenery in the park, and the walk that gets your blood flowing ... emotionally you _should_ be in a better place. Compare this with someone who commutes 30 minutes in traffic, and they will arrive at the office in a worse emotional state…

More of a reason for those that used to commute to take some of their reclaimed time to take a stroll/exercise during their normal commute hours... maybe even doing some of the things they would have done in the car or on the train like making calls or listening to podcasts.

Of course I'm a hypocrite for not exactly doing this myself... instead I take a short drive to pick up coffee in the morning. There's no traffic (esp at 5am) and it's quite a beautiful location. It at least helps define somewhat of a boundary between work and home life for me.

Re: The worst part of working from home is now haunting reopened offices

#222

Post by Dave3of5 »

onion2k wrote: post #75

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 expec…

What's even weirder is that is the low level employees that are being told to go back. The execs probably never worked fully in office even before the pandemic.

This should tell you exactly why they are asking you back and it's not "collaborating". That's an excuse. It's because they don't trust you and think you're goofing off at home.

Re: The worst part of working from home is now haunting reopened offices

#223

Post by prepend »

ptman wrote: post #191
spaniard89277 wrote: post #46

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 trave…

+45 is a temperature, or something else on a scale that goes below zero. >45 can be written as 45+, not +45.

I understood what they meant.

Re: The worst part of working from home is now haunting reopened offices

#224

Post by SilasX »

ajdegol wrote: post #79
fcatalan wrote: post #70

"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…

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.”

Or, it’s that the dog does tell all his doggie friends about his predicament, but any time they’re about to give him actionable advice for solving the core problem, he cuts them off, more interested in emotional catharsis.

“It’s not about the nail.” https://youtube.com/watch?v=-4EDhdAHrOg

Re: The worst part of working from home is now haunting reopened offices

#225

Post by dade_ »

The return to office has generally been an awful failure. Business owners and management have broadly failed onto address employee experience, and generally have done nothing to support hybrid working. For example, there are simple tools and practices that help teams coordinate their schedules to be in the office at the same time, while not overbooking space (which has often been reduced). Bad management is basically being exposed as inept with high turnover. They can get away with it for a while as a good portion of the cost isn't directly reflected by a line item in the balances sheet, but either their days are numbered or the days of the company will be.

Re: The worst part of working from home is now haunting reopened offices

#226

Post by wussboy »

ptman wrote: post #191
spaniard89277 wrote: post #46

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 trave…

+45 is a temperature, or something else on a scale that goes below zero. >45 can be written as 45+, not +45.

For real?

Re: The worst part of working from home is now haunting reopened offices

#227

Post by chrisjc »

tokai wrote: post #168
iso1210 wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My office is between my kitchen and the bathroom so the commute isn't exactly onerous However when the sun is shining I'll take a 20 minute walk a few times a day through the country, or I'll take an 40 minute long walk to a nice cafe for lunch. If it's pissing it down then I won't. Working from home doesn't stop me from choosing to go for a walk, or run, or bike ride, or horse ride, before starting work.

Is it not possible for you to go for a walk from the office?

Probably, but part of the point they're probably making is that they can spend the time normally used for the commute to take the walk.

Re: The worst part of working from home is now haunting reopened offices

#228

Post by Dave3of5 »

0xbadcafebee wrote: post #194

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 st…

The head of HR at my last job actually took a paid course (I think it's free now) by gitlab based upon a convo I had with her.

The company ignored it all and said "back in the office".

I suspect that it was because of the CEO who was saying throughout the pandemic that he wasn't a fan of remote work. That's how the decision was made, based on one old guys feelings.

They don't care about you as an employee, remember that.

Re: The worst part of working from home is now haunting reopened offices

#229

Post by incomingpain »

lukebuehler wrote: post #200
incomingpain wrote: post #186

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 realiz…

> How long until climate change or expensive gasoline forces people to just stay home?? Yes, this is just the beginning of the end. I would even say this is the beginning of the end for cities as we know them. I think 80-90% of all white collar jobs will leave cities and suburbia. This will really change the dynamics.

>Yes, this is just the beginning of the end. I would even say this is the beginning of the end for cities as we know them. I think 80-90% of all white collar jobs will leave cities and suburbia. This will really change the dynamics.

This is actually a super interesting subject I haven't considered. What is the tenability of cities without fossil fuels? I think we do know, it's really the cities that collapse.

Farmers might emit lots of CO2 and carbon taxes directly attack them, but ultimately they cant go anywhere. The cities need to eat. So those carbon taxes don't harm them at all.

How does public transit work? Generally speaking they are all diesel. Do we have a plan to spend a trillion $ converting this all to electric?

What's even the point of giant office buildings anymore? Downtown cores are dying if not dead as it is. When people stay home, the sharwarma spot downtown wont be able to afford to stay.

It's obvious what will eventually happen. These office buildings convert to high density residential. However, what happens after that?

If I am 100% remote, why even be in the expensive high tax city? I could go buy 10 acres and pay $100/year in nonsense taxes. Do my own utilities. never again worry about nuclear war because nobody will be nuking rural areas.

I really dont think we have quite thought out the consequences of our actions.

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