181–190 of 273 posts
Under-appreciated: not wearing shoes all day. Anytime I need to spend a day in an office now, when I finally get home and pull off my shoes and sweat soaked shoes I'm so glad I don't have to do this on a regular basis anymore.
I feel these discussions always go the same way. Working at an office sucks because of some combination of {long commute, open office plan, team not being there}. I quite like going to the office myself because my situation is the opposite: I bike to work, where I have my own office, and my team likes to come in too. Hating the office is totally justifiable given that my setup isn't common; most people are forced to…
> Working at an office sucks because of some combination of {long commute, open office plan, team not being there} Working at an office sucks because it is a massive constraint on where you can live, even if you can tolerate a long commute. If you live with a partner who also has a career your options are even more constrained. I find it miraculous such a situation works out for anyone.
There are tradeoffs, sure. But there are a lot of jobs in a lot of fields in a lot of places.
The venn overlap is not tiny.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your colleagues are not your friends. You’re more like passenger in the same bus where somebody will depart in the next stop. It’s dangerous to build relationships with people who are about to leave.
I have made many life long friends at work, who I am still friends with to this day, many years after we left the companies we both worked at. I'm sure many other people have too. You need some kind of social bond with the people you work with. What are you going to do instead? Treat the people you work with like robots where every interaction is a barter or request of some kind like "Hi, can you review this please.…
The colleagues are not much more than robots. Wait for another promotion or layoff round. Nice for you if you’re not competing with others for more money or job security.
I feel these discussions always go the same way. Working at an office sucks because of some combination of {long commute, open office plan, team not being there}. I quite like going to the office myself because my situation is the opposite: I bike to work, where I have my own office, and my team likes to come in too. Hating the office is totally justifiable given that my setup isn't common; most people are forced to…
Why office sucks can be for any number of reasons, I think it's more of a long tail phenomenon with a myriad of distincts personal preferences and special needs. For instance office drinks can suck, and someone drinking 3 to 5 cups of warm drinks a day, being able to prepare delicious beverages with specialized equipement is a godsend. Or people who work sitting on their bed. Or want their pet around. Or don't want t…
I appreciate a hard division between work hours and personal hours, and WFH (for me) makes an already tenuous line even more leaky.
I feel these discussions always go the same way. Working at an office sucks because of some combination of {long commute, open office plan, team not being there}. I quite like going to the office myself because my situation is the opposite: I bike to work, where I have my own office, and my team likes to come in too. Hating the office is totally justifiable given that my setup isn't common; most people are forced to…
What is not okay is that the work-from-office people seems to want to force everyone to work from office. (not directed at you. This is directed at the company execs)
Meanwhile, the work-from-home people advocates for everyone to be able to choose. Akin to being the pro-choice side.
Who is this meant to convince? Has anyone ever changed their mind as a result of reading a listicle of complaints? This seems more like something for people who already agree with the author to read and self righteously think "yeah, this is THE way" There isn't some objective right answer here. Different people value different things, and that's ok. Companies can set their RTO policies as they see fit, and that's ok.…
Maybe they should have, because people were complaining about mandatory office work for no benefit for years, especially when open office plans, and most businesses ignored it entirely until a pandemic forced them to actually evaluate it.
Most people would rather have a choice. Being told that you will be fired unless you bring your company laptop into a loud office and do work uncomfortably that you'd do more effectively and efficiently at home was insulting. You knew there was no benefit for you, the pandemic proved that, and then forced RTO regardless of all evidence and data that your own company published showing no loss in efficiency just makes you lose all trust in management.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your colleagues are not your friends. You’re more like passenger in the same bus where somebody will depart in the next stop. It’s dangerous to build relationships with people who are about to leave.
Without fail this is always the response "coworkers aren't your friends". I didn't say they were and more importantly coworkers don't need to be your friends for you to have social interactions with them. I found those in person workplace interactions helpful for my overall mental health, because even a throwaway conversation at lunch time provides some contact with another person. 99% of the time these days the only…
Here's a reason I never see brought up in discussions like this. For me, it's as important as the others: Being an introvert, I always used to be exhausted at the end of the work week. I liked my coworkers a lot, and I liked spending time around them, but it didn't matter, I'd still feel wrung out at the end of the day. And by the end of the week, each day's exhaustion would have accumulated to the point where I need…
It's an extroverts world and we're all forced to conform to the "extroverts narrative".
When all the extroverts were losing their minds because of COVID induced forced WFH, I frankly had no sympathy (and even a little sadistically felt a little glee). Didn't like your work environment for just one or two years? Cry me a river little extrovert and try it for a whole life time.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Working at an office sucks because of some combination of {long commute, open office plan, team not being there} Working at an office sucks because it is a massive constraint on where you can live, even if you can tolerate a long commute. If you live with a partner who also has a career your options are even more constrained. I find it miraculous such a situation works out for anyone.
And yet for millions of people and many years, it has worked out. There are tradeoffs, sure. But there are a lot of jobs in a lot of fields in a lot of places. The venn overlap is not tiny.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Working at an office sucks because of some combination of {long commute, open office plan, team not being there} Working at an office sucks because it is a massive constraint on where you can live, even if you can tolerate a long commute. If you live with a partner who also has a career your options are even more constrained. I find it miraculous such a situation works out for anyone.
And yet for millions of people and many years, it has worked out. There are tradeoffs, sure. But there are a lot of jobs in a lot of fields in a lot of places. The venn overlap is not tiny.
Hardly. This is actually kind of insanely tone-deaf statement to make. People have uprooted their lives, spent lots of their wealth in expensive real-estate markets due to artificial demand, given up time with their families, etc etc.
Saying it's "worked out" is a really bland dismissal of the entire conversation.