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I Miss Working from the Office

roguelazer.com

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Re: I Miss Working from the Office

#471

Post by bamboozled »

Philip-J-Fry wrote: post #95
bamboozled wrote: post #10

Thing I miss are: * Having someone clean my works space. My house gets dirtier now and I’m forever cleaning it, doing dishes. * The distinction between the beginning and end of my work day. * Having free space in my house. * Off the cuff dinner and drinks with colleagues. * No lag meetings and whiteboard sessions. * Having intervals apart from my family actually felt healthy, although we have adapted to being around…

>The distinction between the beginning and end of my work day. Just log off at 5pm or 4pm or whenever you have done your contracted working hours. I rarely end up in a meeting which goes over my usual working hours. But otherwise I just log off. I don't understand how someone can work longer hours unwillingly when it's entirely in your control. I guess it depends on how your remote working is implemented. For me I re…

This isn't really what i meant, it's not necessarily that I'm working longer hours now (although I am).

I meant I miss the routine I used to have, go to the gym, come back home, make breakfast, shower, put on my "work clothes" then psychically go to my office, have coffee with colleagues and then sit at my desk, open my day planner and get started.

That was the queue to begin focusing. Of course I can try do this in my living room, but it just doesn't have the same effect for me personally.

I have meetings at awkward hours which kind of makes me feel like I'm kind of permanently attached to my work. Before hand, there was work time, and home time, work stayed at work, often including my work laptop.

Also this statement kind of bugged me: "I don't understand how someone can work longer hours unwillingly when it's entirely in your control.", if you have a job that allows you to 100% dictate your hours, never having to deal with unexpected problems, outages, personnel issues, then congratulations. It's not a reality for everyone.

Re: I Miss Working from the Office

#472

Post by thisarticle »

mrweasel wrote: post #140
thendrill wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is ok. People like you are the worst. Most of those interruptions would have been avoided if you can just learn to use the search function in you mail client and Google.

That makes me a little sad... Well not really, I'm the one who gets interrupted, but sure if allowing myself to be interrupted, in order to help my co-workers, makes me "the worst", then sure. If a 10 minute interruption saves my co-workers hours of frustration, then I personally think it's worth it.

Don’t be sad. You’re fine. Some people don’t know when to keep their mouth shut. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to talk to your coworkers in person versus sending messages via Slack all day.

Re: I Miss Working from the Office

#473

Post by bamboozled »

Aeolun wrote: post #72
bamboozled wrote: post #10

Thing I miss are: * Having someone clean my works space. My house gets dirtier now and I’m forever cleaning it, doing dishes. * The distinction between the beginning and end of my work day. * Having free space in my house. * Off the cuff dinner and drinks with colleagues. * No lag meetings and whiteboard sessions. * Having intervals apart from my family actually felt healthy, although we have adapted to being around…

> When someone of greater rank than me in an inconvenient time zone wants to have a meeting with me involved, I have to attend. I’ve practically lost all my mornings from 6am - 9am, 3-4 days a week. I don’t understand this situation. If this happens I reject the meeting invite, and later see it rescheduled (if my attendance was mandatory). Is there a different way this happens?

It's not that simple, my section managers answer to this (I tried it was), "I go to meetings at awkward hours, so what's you excuse?".

To be fair, this particular meeting I'm supposed to be at is once a fortnight, so I feel that I can't complain too much. Some people I know still commute an hour a day.

It does really inconvenience me in a way that I can't describe, I basically lose an hour of sleep on that day and it really screws me over for the rest of the day, compounding my stress.

Re: I Miss Working from the Office

#474

Post by thisarticle »

djsumdog wrote: post #456
thendrill wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am sorry you had a bullshit job that just involved meets and greets. Not really helping anyone except your salary.

Don't be so smug. Just because you don't like social interaction doesn't mean everyone else is an introvert.

Parent is posting comments like these all over this post. He’s just a troll.

Re: I Miss Working from the Office

#475

Post by bamboozled »

paul_f wrote: post #93
Aeolun wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When someone of greater rank than me in an inconvenient time zone wants to have a meeting with me involved, I have to attend. I’ve practically lost all my mornings from 6am - 9am, 3-4 days a week. I don’t understand this situation. If this happens I reject the meeting invite, and later see it rescheduled (if my attendance was mandatory). Is there a different way this happens?

Exactly, this is farcical. How did you handle the 6am meetings before COVID?

The difference is that now everyone is distributed, if someone "important" is in a different timezone, you can be singled out to attend a meeting because you're no longer "out of the office at 6am", you have no excuse not to be able to attend early meetings.

Also I just feel that it's becoming culturally more acceptable to attend/schedule meetings at weird times because everyone else accepts it.

If you're the nail that sticks out (by rejecting meetings), you get hammered.

Re: I Miss Working from the Office

#476

Post by bamboozled »

Aeolun wrote: post #452
ryandrake wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like a pretty common scenario, at least to me. There’s a 1 hour meeting to present Project X Status to Executive Y. You are presenting for 20 minutes so are required. Exec Y’s schedule for the next month rules everything out besides next Tuesday at 6am. You can’t just decline and not show up. You just have to suck it up and wake up earlier that day. This scenario is actually much easier in COVID-WFH because…

> Exec Y’s schedule for the next month rules everything out besides next Tuesday at 6am. Eh? My schedule for the month rules out anything before 9am. I guess we’re not going to have that meeting then unless Mr exec thinks it’s more important than something else on his schedule (which is healthy anyway, he shouldn’t have to wake up at 6 any more than you do.)

You're obviously, like most people on here, talking from a position of privilege. I don't blame you because I've been there.

You also might not be working for a properly distributed global team. Execs I work for are on the other side of the world.

I've said this before by the exec's at my company tell me they have to attend meetings at weird times, so I should have to as well.

Not everyone at the moment has the luxury to just put their job on the line by telling their manager to go stick it. I for example am not in my native country an I rely on my job to support my visa. If I lose my job right now, my visa is potentially lost at a time where finding another job might not be very straight forwards and where my home country isn't allowing citizens to return home yet.

It isn't all bad, I think distributed work culture is evolving and adapting, it's just right now there are certainly inconveniences for those pioneering it.

Re: I Miss Working from the Office

#477

Post by dang »

thendrill wrote: post #96
mrweasel wrote: post #15

The biggest one for is, as mentioned in the article: casuasl collaboration. I mis being able to just walk over to a coworker. I’m just home every other week, which strikes a reasonable balance for me.

It is ok. People like you are the worst. Most of those interruptions would have been avoided if you can just learn to use the search function in you mail client and Google.

Personal attacks will get you banned here. You've been breaking the site guidelines in other comments too, which is not cool.

If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and sticking to the rules when posting here, we'd be grateful.

Re: I Miss Working from the Office

#478

Post by Tomis02 »

bartread wrote: post #339
Tomis02 wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nobody's losing their minds, exactly, but plenty of people aren't really happy. There seems to be a lot of newfound concern for the wellbeing of the employees. Interesting how this wasn't an issue before Covid hit, and nobody was asked "would you prefer to work from home rather than having to deal with constant distractions in the office? Would you like to not waste your life away on a useless commute? Are you happ…

Could you reign in the cynicism a bit, please? I'm talking about my entire team, including me. These are people I know and work with on a daily basis. Part of knowing people is that you can tell when they're not quite themselves. I've also polled my team on a semi-regular basis throughout the last 8 months on their preferences going forward, which is how I know I have a range of preferences across the spectrum of WFH…

I noticed a very strong current towards employee wellbeing emerge in companies where upper management wants everyone back in the office (for various reasons), and then used to justify why permanent remote work isn't an option. Cynicism is well-deserved.

Your mileage may vary, of course. Your perception on the team might be true, or it might be that people are afraid of saying how they feel for fear of being singled out. We're just sharing anecdotes.

Re: I Miss Working from the Office

#479

Post by dang »

phponpcp wrote: post #288
slumdev wrote: post #239

I don't miss the office at all, and I never want to go back. If management asks us to go back full-time, I will start looking for another job. I'm happier and more productive than ever. I never want to go back to rotting in a cube farm pretending that 1-2 productive hours a day is enough. 1. Cubes, cube pods, and "open offices" are inhumane. 2. I don't have to wear headphones to "hear myself think" anymore. 3. Meetin…

"unhumane" lol just quit and take up a job as one of the thousands of professions who dont work in an office. Your entitlement is ridiculous.

Would you mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and sticking to the site guidelines? This comment and others you've posted are breaking them.

Re: I Miss Working from the Office

#480

Post by dang »

Jugurtha wrote: post #65

Yes. Some people on the internet were also advocating for a return to the office because people could not stand the loneliness anymore and need to interact socially. I had to point out that this was symptomatic of a poor social/family life [outside of work]. If someone is lonely working remotely and they miss humans, it is a sign the only humans they interacted with were colleagues. It's also a sign of what the perso…

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25168859.
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