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

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531–540 of 559 posts

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

#531
I have realized that office politics bother me less, if at all when I wfh for longer periods.

I have been back in the office for 2 weeks now and I am already emotionally exhausted.

I had forgotten how draining the so called in-person collaboration actually is.

Also I am cold all the time as I am a very thin person surroumded by slightly larger ones that want the window open all the time.

Wfh is completely optional where I work. And I think I will go back to that 100%.

I never realized how soul draining the office environment actually is and how fast I went from calm and content to stressed and miserable.

Same job, same employer, same team. Wfh definetly suits me better.

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

#532

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every job I've had they are one and the same. You just have PTO.

I have unlimited sick days and finite vacation days.

A policy like that would make me sick!

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

#533
post #513
post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Utterly ridiculous. My best friend lives 1600 miles away, and has for 10 years. We chat daily, sharing more details of our lives than I ever thought possible. My mom lives 2000 miles away, I only get to see her once a year. Yet we talk on the phone, write emails, have FaceTime, and yes, like on FB or Instagram. A cousin I haven't seen in a long time will take catching up at meals and activities; that's the role of fa…

>>The idea that you need to be physically close to be emotionally close is just silly. Note this works with one's mom but not wife. Meaning what is the nature of relationship you are pursuing here? Deeper the stake closer you need to be.

This is reductio ad absurdum. I don't need my boss to be an intimate partner.

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

#534

"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…

> "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 i…

> Then it's time to let people go.

Sounds nice until it's your bonus tied to revenues or people start nominating your mini-empire to shrink headcount.

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

#535

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First the companies offshored the jobs, now the employees offshore themselves. At some point, somebody will start asking why the Indian working remotely in India is paid less than the American/European expat working remotely from Bali.

(Bali is not in India.) If you actually tried to hire in the region, you would know. If you find a really good programmer in the region, his pay will approach European pay, and he will escape to Europe/US as soon as he can. Also I cannot imagine US expat working in Bali, as the time difference is 12 hours. That's very impractical for any collaborative work.

I know that Bali is not in India, I never said so. Bali is popular with expats, while India is popular for offshoring.

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

#536

"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…

What company is this? I'm job hunting and want to know who to avoid...

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

#537
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)…

The office is not as bad as people make it out to be. Its commuting that really sucks. I used to hate working in the office and then I moved to an apartment next to work and I decided to walk in even while WFH was an option because I did slightly prefer going to the office and being with everyone.

My office is also a 10 minute bike ride or short bus ride away, and I never minded going in previously.

My company is allowing permanent work from home, however, we are keeping our office, as not everyone has a great home office set up.

However, my company actually expanded during the pandemic, and we don't actually have enough desks for all the employees. Instead of increasing our office space, my company decided to move to an open seating. This makes sense, as people are just now coming and going on their own hours.

I suppose this is fine for some people, but it really isn't ideal for developers.

I have _my_ keyboard and _my_ mouse that I want. I'm not lugging this into the office anytime I come in. I really prefer working on my snappy workstation, with my standing desktop and perching chair.

I don't drink coffee, so the office coffee machine isn't useful to me, but I do like to have cups of my preferred yan cha (loose leaf tea), which means I need a kettle and tea pot (Making tea is part of my ritual that lets me take an important mindfulness break).

I was previously able to mostly accommodate myself, since I had my own permanent desk and storage space. But now that I don't, I rarely come in, and it is usually just for a meeting, lunch, or to have some facetime with colleagues.

I don't see myself wanting to do serious work from the office, as the space is no longer designed for that.

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

#538
post #225

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…

It's almost as if they want hybrid work to fail so they can ask everyone in full-time

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

#539

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was appalled to find our office lease was $20,000 a month. We could hire two FTEs for the price of that office, and we are not even in a premium space. To your point about efficiency: I don't believe our office produces 2 FTE's worth of additional productivity across the whole org. Leadership thinks it does, but assuming we acquire decent talent, that would be a net 10% increase in engineering. I don't believe the…

In the end, someone has to pay for office space: either you as the employer, or your employees in the form of higher rent/mortgage for a larger home with dedicated office areas. (And for employees with families based in urban areas, such a larger home may be entirely unaffordable.)

Larger home with dedicated office areas? How many people are living in homes without computers? People already want homes that support using a computer, WFH status or no.

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

#540

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have unlimited sick days and finite vacation days.

A policy like that would make me sick!

I've never gone on a sickcation but I think well over 40% of my sickdays have been weekend-adjacent. A baffling statistical anomaly to be sure.
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