I wouldn’t mind going to the office if everyone else was also in that same office. I honestly don’t like working remote with people all around the world. Different time zones, people are always out for various holidays, and it’s impossibly hard to coordinate anything significant unless you make sacrifices in your personal life. And everyone is then in that same boat and it sucks equally for everyone involved.
This is a non-issue if proper processes are in place. You mentioning issues with 'people are always out for various holidays' is a huge red flag. This is where strict processes and respect for other's time comes into place. It can be done. You just landed at a place that doesn't give a damn.
I’m sorry I’m pretty pro WFH but AirBnB directly benefits from remote workers setting up seasonal offices from vacation destinations. Part of why their business dropped is they went from nearly seasonal residence rentals for digital nomads to mostly vacation bookings.
They were worth the trouble during the thick of the pandemic when people preferred homes with kitchens. There they could minimize their contact with other people. Now people are traveling differently.
And it could also be that people are realizing that AirBnBs are not worth their inconsistency, dark patterns around fees, and the hassle of dealing with a problematic stay or host.
I have had those. Worse is that everyone has different work from home days and on Thursdays I'm the only person on my team in the office - so I get up early, make the commute into the office, talk to no one face to face, attend meetings remotely (but have to book a meeting room for privacy), then commute back home. It's a giant waste of time.
Pointing this out and complaining about it isn't going to make the office disappear its just going to make forced in office days appear.
I don't point it out at work. I sit quietly doing work with noise cancelling earbuds in and think about finding a job that doesn't make me come into the office 3 days a week.
I've had days where I come to the office, go on a bunch of zoom meetings, and leave. At that point why force in-person attendance??
I'm sure you know the answer to your question is "because they can". All the current layoffs and rollback of WFH are directly related to power gained by employees during the COVID emergency. These useless stuffed shirts want to return to the good ol' days, when they barked and we jumped. No more. The jig is up fellas. The banks are broke, the workers are pissed, and this attempt at rolling back worker power will fail…
I have had those. Worse is that everyone has different work from home days and on Thursdays I'm the only person on my team in the office - so I get up early, make the commute into the office, talk to no one face to face, attend meetings remotely (but have to book a meeting room for privacy), then commute back home. It's a giant waste of time.
Our team has specific days we are all in the office (and we all get lunch together that day) which helps. The commute to an empty office does really suck. All the energy and value of being in-person around your peers is lost...
I get that...and honestly thats why I do still look forward to going into the office once a week, but thats only when I know I can have real interactions with great people :)
I have had those. Worse is that everyone has different work from home days and on Thursdays I'm the only person on my team in the office - so I get up early, make the commute into the office, talk to no one face to face, attend meetings remotely (but have to book a meeting room for privacy), then commute back home. It's a giant waste of time.
RTO is never going to work with my team. More than half of my teammates are remote, and unlikely to move if asked. We’ve already lost one person that way. I used to have a private office, but when I came back they moved me to an open floorplan seating arrangement. I now don’t sit next to anyone I work with who are local, nor do I know what the people next to me even do. No conference rooms are ever available for meet…
I feel you. I did a somewhat controversial thing when I was in a similar situation (I had to attend an online meeting and actually present something but all meeting rooms were usually occupied by people who wanted to work in peace). So I made the effort to be anti-social and spoke quite loud in the open space to make sure everyone left, including the CEO heard me well. Nobody dared to approach me and discuss my behavior because, well, they understood the idiocy of the situation. I left the company a few months later anyway as nothing changed and they insisted on hybrid work with no private offices.
I've had days where I come to the office, go on a bunch of zoom meetings, and leave. At that point why force in-person attendance??
I had a job where I was the only person on my team in the office location, but I was expected to work in the office. All of my teammates were in other states.
I don’t completely agree that it is a waste. Yes that one person might be less involved but thats the price. The goal is to move forward, have an interactive session etc. so coming together once a month for example is great. And if someone can’t make it, then so be it.
I'll try to give sort of another analogy. With everyone at home on an individual laptop there is essentially one channel of communication. A single audio and video channel showing the presentation, or someones face talking, or whatever. The entire group is focusing all attention and communication in the same place, sure some may be zoning out, but its consistent. Now take the example of a room of six people, a whiteb…
Yes I think we are saying the same thing. However I thought you said that, „companies with hybrid setup do not work, so all should be on-site“.
I‘d love to find exactly this where people commit let’s say 1x-2x a month where we meet onsite for these discussions where we need physical presence. And the rest of the time is done via async communication, notion, written notes and adhoc meetings (few recurring ones).