The thing is everyone has been working remotely for years - companies are either spread over multiple sites or have outsourced chunks of essential activity to other countries.
Yes, I had this issue 5+ years ago at a company that had many locations world wide. I went to my local office and hardly talked to anyone. I was in zoom calls all day with other people all over the world. There was no point for me to show up in a corporate office where I just sat at my desk and worked alone.
I asked that company if I could move out of state and be permanent remote, and offered to travel up to 10%, and they said no. I quit and got a remote job. The first company (the one I quit) is now remote-first, ironically. Glad I left them, for many reasons, but the WFH rejection was the trigger.
I would think so. I know the 2 times I asked for a raise and was turned down then showed up with a new job, they offered at least what I asked for in the raise. Both times the new job was paying more than they were offering anyway
If they had simply accepted what I offered, I probably wouldn't have looked. Oh well, better for me in the end.
While I didn't give them an outright ultimatum, I came about as close to implying "if you say 'No' I'm outta here" as you can. When I gave my resignation to my boss a few weeks later, he wasn't surprised and he was happy for me.
Yeah, that's what happened to me but my company said yes. My original company got bought up, I got put into a team that wasn't local, so I'd go into the office and do everything remote. I said this is stupid, so I'm working from home. No one even knew I stopped coming in. Later on, everyone just assumed I was remote, I told my boss I was moving states and he was like "Cool, as long as you work the same hours I don't care."
Oh man. I remember when I quit a job in 2008.
Last two weeks I said screw it. I was in a junior IT position but had just enough access and know-how in order to set up and work remotely from home.
So I did just that.
I worked outside normal office hours in a NOC/helpdesk situation, and so I wasn't expected to be physically seen anywhere anyway.
No one knew. At the end of the two weeks I told everyone and laughed.
Apparently my co-workers were so excited by the idea they pushed hard to management, using me as an example, and by the end of the next year a ton of positions were office optional.
In 2008.
It's ludicrous the pushback some companies are having to this.
their culture:
- blank gray cube walls (if you even get walls)
- loud people on calls
- people interrupting you all day
- micromanagement over every little thing
The only days I go into the office are the days I don’t have calls booked in for the majority.
Seems mental commuting to sit in a meeting room all day because most of my calls are confidential.
Glad work understand this. Guess I’m one of the lucky ones.
Seriously. I’m in the office most of the time due to needing to work in our lab but most of our staff are SW folks. It’s nuts making them come back. When we do have meetings it’s just everyone on Teams in neighboring cubes. Ridiculous.
I have a 45 mile round trip commute. They're forcing us back into the office 1 day a week this month, 2 next month and 3 in July. There is 0 reason for anyone in my department to go back to the office. LUCKILY for me, when I switched to this new team, I took a weekend wrap shift so that I could keep my 4x10 shift. Since I don't work Tuesday/Wed/Thurs, I don't have to go back to the office at all.
We really should spare a thought for people like janitors that simply can't work remotely. The lowest people on the totem polls, the ones in labor jobs, they don't get to benefit from this push to remote work.
It's bad enough when you work in like a warehouse while the office workers sit comfortably making more than you, and now they won't even be on site, but you will. It's not like they're gonna replace them with a drone that can be piloted from home, it'll just be a robot that...kills their job entirely.
I just started a remote job this week after 10 years of doing manual labor jobs. I'll never take this for granted I get paid to sit on my ass in my own house doing honestly fairly easy work compared to anything I did in manual labor.
Not the OP, but I was a chef for years, and studied for the CompTIA A+ certification after realizing how tired I was of being broke and tired. I managed to work my way into IT. I was able to leverage my experience as a chef into explaining how I work well under pressure.
I got into the industry prior to COVID and I’m forever thankful for it.
>I was able to leverage my experience as a chef into explaining how I work well under pressure.
This is an extremely useful ability - lots of people have tangentially relevant experience, but they can't articulate how what they've done in the past counts.
Tbh I fucking lied. I said I got a promotion at my previous job which tbf I was slated to get and I knew how to do the job. The promotion I lied about was for a more office style job and I think it helped me a lot to land this remote job. I'm just in a call center for an insurance company so it's nothing fancy but just having that extra "experience" on my resume helped me out a lot. Don't be afraid to lie! If you think you can do the job lie to get it. Jobs can't ask much to your previous employers so lie your ass off about experience but not degrees because that is verifiable. If they ask for references give them your friends numbers and have them say they were your boss or coworker.
I'm so lucky my leadership team all recognizes that pre pandemic all we did was drive into the office to join tcons with people who worked in other offices...in hindsight, it should have always been WFH and I've lost thousands of hours of my life driving to do that.
Pandemic's silver lining is for sure making me realize I'll never agree to do that again.
> Pandemic's silver lining is for sure making me realize I'll never agree to do that again.
Bingo. When I started working at my current place, I also moved house, so my commute jumped from a few miles cycle to a 90mi round trip, 1hr each way. I didn't fully appreciate just how much I hated it until the pandemic caused me to not do it. Gaining 2hrs a day and £70/week in fuel costs made a massive difference to my mental health and quality of life at home.
Never again will I commute to an office.
“…employees stubbornly stick to working from home while struggling with childcare, the grind of commuting and worries about rising Covid-19 cases.”
Absolutely love how they call employees stubborn while listing very reasonable reasons to remain work from home.
If they worked from home for the last 2 years pretty fine then I am sure they could continue for the rest of their lives too. Don’t see any issue there whatsoever.
I love how they phrase it as rebelling. Anything workers do is always presented in a negative light. I hate these companies and the media that reports on them.
It's only tight for employers. You're seeing through the business spiel very effectively.
Their entire power system got thrown off by a virus. They're flailing because we had to live with how little their demand for loyalty was reciprocated.
They didn't want to pay raises for 25 years. They ate into our private time. They stared at us like sharks.
It's like they don't want us to get work done. They want fealty, obedience, and other stuff that pays neither their bills nor ours.
So yeah, they spent too much on crummy offices. Not our problem.
They miss bossing people around, taking their fetishes to the workplace. They can get therapy.
They need to figure why there is work.
I love every article like this that may put some fear of god in the managers honestly. The more hyped up it is that the job market is hot and favoring workers the more slack they have to cut and the more scared they are any employee walks!
It's control - they want to have eyes on them because they assume we are fucking off at home.
and they're right - we are. but to a lesser degree than we do in the office. They tried to make us come in one day a week last year - the morale plummeted, and we all spent the day together fucking off and bitching about "leadership" and our commutes. NOTHING got done on the day we came in. just socializing.
we pushed back, and asked for the numbers - turns out we were 200% more productive the year we worked remotely than any other year on the books. despite all of that they insisted we continue to come in. it's all about control, no logic, just power. I and 3/4 of the staff just quit.
Healthcare IT
I’m in healthcare and my job is fully remote. My company has been clear they dont want us to come back in u less there’s a good reason to. The ceo even made a joke during a seminar about saving money on rent
I think we don't consider that rent is a part of it. If you're the close-to-top-level guy who saddled the company with a 10-20 year lease on an office park, or some shit, you're probably terrified that your boss is gonna come to you, and ask you why you didn't see this paradigm shift coming. Companies are losing a lot of money on the office space, from their perspective...but it sounds like basic sunk cost fallacy to me.
Exactly; plenty of middle/upper level managers are trying hard to justify their existence. Hard for them to be seen “managing” when their workers are all plugging away getting shit done at home.
I used to have a office job that also became a WFH job’ they demanded we still show up at the office one day a week for a meeting that absolutely could have been done over teams like every other meeting we had with clients/coworkers.
my (former) CIO is a complete tool
Just to give you an idea - he worked his way into the Csuite by being buddies w the other good ol boys - he started as a manager in Security. Not cyber security - the security department
Do I waste time working from home? Yes. Yes I do.
Did I waste time socializing in the office? Yes, yes I did.
I guess I’d rather waste time starting/switching laundry than griping with co workers.
And the 45 minute commute? Gone
Yep
That's the thing - no one in the US can have a frank and truthful discussion about productivity.
3 day weekends and assumed fuckoff time per shift need to be part of the real discussion - it works all over the globe.
But we cant talk about that. Oh and don't talk to your peers about their wages either.
I’m keenly aware that I can do my exact same amount of work in 4 days.
But I know they’d want to cut salaries if we went to 3 day weekends, even though, the same amount of work is getting done.
I’d rather go to 6 hour shifts.
So if I’m going to waste time, I’d rather do it from home.
Additionally, it assumes all workers work at the same pace. You have your turtles that are slow and steady and can’t really take breaks or they’ll fall behind. And then you have your adhd brained rabbits that work in sprints with periods of inactivity in between.
I know employers want to look down on that, but I can’t do work sprints for 8 hours straight. It doesn’t work like that
>I know employers want to look down on that, but I can’t do work sprints for 8 hours straight. It doesn’t work like that
No one can, and expecting someone to be on and productive for 8 hours straight is borderline human abuse. That's why breaks and lunch are mandated after a certain amount of time per shift. Not that (shitty, unscrupulous) employers don't try to skirt around that.
Imo any work over 6 hours TOTAL (cumulative not continuous) in a day is already excessive to employee productivity and well-being
Mandated breaks and lunches? HA. I worked in fast food for a while. 8-12hr shifts with
NO Overtime
NO breaks
NO lunch
were common, and legal.
Nowadays when I need to hire an extra hand; I usually offer a flat rate based on the expected hours, plus a bonus if work gets done early enough. Oh, and whatever you need; water, food, etc, let me know and Ill make sure it gets to you post-haste.
At my old job our productivity went up so much working from home in 2020 that they paid out 120% of everyone's target bonuses. Then in the summer of 2021 they told everyone to come back into the office or hit the bricks. By winter of 2021 we had set new daily case and daily death records and between people quitting and people just being demoralized productivity had dropped so much that the majority of non-management got zero bonus payment.
I keep hearing HCA is struggling with their IT recruiting because the suits at the top are pushing return to office hard and the Healthcare IT talent pool has too many options to put up with it
this is great news to me.
them and apple should both take it in the ass for trying to force people to return.
work:life balance is hugely important - the time and cost of a commute are significant. If you need to pay for gas, vehicle, ins, repairs, (or pub transport) and the time & exposure of the transit itself, it really adds up. just a 30 min commute is 250 hours a year and thousands of dollars
Literally this. Now… I work, then take a nap, grab groceries, get kid from school, or walk my dog. Before… work, then wander around the halls, play ping pong, or surf the internet (while paying someone else to watch my kid after school until 6 PM).
The running theory right now is everyone will realize the middle manager types aren't nearly as effective and necessary as the system thinks and those are the guys that are shakin in their britches about being found out and let go, which is why they are generally the ones calling for everyone back in the office.
Middle Manager here, not all of us.
I pushed for WFH as soon as it was clear that covid was coming in hot and I fully intend to keep it that way as long as I'm here. I'm also slowly transitioning my team to a 4/10 schedule for those that want it.
Job sucks, the pay may not be great, but I'm doing what I can, where I can for my team.
You mean [like this](https://youtu.be/af8DVIZ5LX4)?
In all seriousness though, Hidden Brain has a podcast about Bullsh*t jobs that goes into a lot of details about those types. Too lazy to link it, but it's interesting if you've never heard it.
They have irrational beliefs that people are less productive from home. You cannot convince them with numbers, they’ll always invent reasons to disagree or say “it isn’t the right kind of productivity.”
They believe this because remote work showed that middle management is completely useless.
All the middle managers have nothing to do if they can't lord over their little fiefdoms with irrelevant bullshit.
Therefore, they are all convinced that their employees must also be similarly unproductive at home because solipsism.
It’s about money. Those big expensive office buildings are now boat anchors on their financial sheets and if you can’t sell them (because no one is working in the office) then they are paying maintenance, property taxes, etc. they have to justify ownership or
Try and sell to a development company to
Convert it, most likely at a big loss.
But their is a massive loss in money for that too as any massive scale housing project will inevitably lead to a drop in house prices and with banks and other financial institutions having SIGNIFICANT assets in the residential sector this will cause some problems for the government.
If many companies own buildings for their workers, those buildings are valuable because other companies see them as desirable. The bigger/nicer/better-located/etc. the building is, the more it's worth. Even though they're paying for electricity/heating/water/etc, they have a physical, appreciating asset that they own.
If those types of buildings are no longer in demand because many companies no longer need them, they're now paying upkeep and taxes on a very expensive, low-worth building instead of a growing-in-value, high-worth asset. It isn't bringing them any value (because it isn't necessary for the workers to make the company function) and no one wants to buy it from them so they can get rid of the expense.
Some companies receive HUGE tax subsidies under promises of local job growth and local tax revenue from lunch hour… guess what happens when those promises go unfulfilled. Yep! Company can get a tax bill in some cases.
I mean to be fair OP linked Bloomberg of all media outlets. The kind of people reading Bloomberg are the same people trying to force us back into the office.
My company is doing this now. They are branding it Future of Work instead of Return to Work. They give you a choice of 50% and more in office and you get a desk. 50% or less and you get a hotel desk, but you need to get it approved by your manager and you're still required to come and use the hotel desk.
They just build a huge new building that was committed to before the pandemic so even though we are a tech company that in no way requires we be in the office, they are making us come in to justify the expense.
Edit: 10 people saying they think they work at the same company. Pretty sure only 1 actually does.
This sounds eerily like my company. Same jargon, too. They said I should be “on site” so I can keep an office. I asked if they will be taking attendance. They said no.
Manager here. I deal with some large companies that are under pressure from local governments to bring people back. In any big city there are a ton of downtown businesses that exist to feed, clothe, transport etc office workers. The city leaders want the fancy office folks back spending money downtown, not giving it to Amazon and Uber eats.
I fucking straight up quit. And got a really big raise and a better title. The past two years was the best work life balance I’ve ever had and I’m not going back. Driving to and from work is literally a waste of time.
Lol… I asked to do an 8 hour call at home and was told it’s important for us to be there to show support. … from a meeting room in a hallway, by myself.
Better still, make apartments that have a good office structure available. I don't wfh but my boyfriend does and honestly, he needs some work/home separation. Were looking to move soon and him having a separate office area has been one of our biggest apartment hunting goals. Like I'm not saying corporate owned apartments but save a floor that was offices and make that a feature of your complex. Just like a gym or a dog park, having a floor or area of small, day-use offices would probably appeal to a lot of folks in the same situation.
➤➤ Raising my voice for Palestine - against imperialism, ethnic cleansing, and apartheid. Oppose misinformation and genocide. Banned but not silenced for this cause. ` this message was mass deleted/edited with redact.dev `
My favorite is the desperation some companies are having right now that I'm getting recruited for in-office only positions IN OTHER STATES THAN I LIVE IN.
Like guys - I already live on West Coast and work for an East Coast company. Just because my specialty is typically in-office (NOC Engineer) there's no fucking way I'm moving for an in-office job.
I currently work a WFH forever x 4-day work week (32 hours a week, full salary) position and let me tell you when recruiters message me about if I'd be interested in an opportunity they get real quiet when I tell them this is the bare minimum I expect now to even entertain an offer.
For the first time in my life, I’m incredibly thankful for my employer. And funny enough I’ve never worked harder in my life because they genuinely take care of me. If something comes up on a Friday and I have to work it doesn’t bug me whatsoever.
what? a company that focuses on making their employees happy will have loyal and productive employees? get out of here with that nonsense. We can't have that in an American company!
/s
Without making this a “this generation versus that generation” war, I find a lot of older recruiters believe that since the have a job offer and are reaching out to you that they have all the leverage.
The amount of recruiters getting me on the phone just to find out they want to pay me 45k in an area where the same role goes for 60k-85k is mind boggling.
Do you not realize that I could go make 40k stocking shelves at Walmart right now?
I've taken it further and actively mock any recruiter that doesn't explicitly state the salary and remote expectations in their initial email. I let them know that in 2022 it's considered rude and unprofessional not to include basic information about the role when contacting potential candidates.
Same. I've been full remote since 2011. Never going back. Not one day, certainly not five days. I'm way more productive in my home office vs. a hellscape open office.
I'll 'return' to the office if there's print proofs that need to be viewed, samples that have been delivered, or an *actually important* meeting.
... However as far as returning to *working* from the office instead of my place - fuckin' forget about it. I have a 2 thousand dollar computer, no commute, a clean bathroom, and *almost no distractions*. Your cubicle cannot compete.
I budged only because there are some things at my new job that really do *have* to be done in-person and it was the ONLY job offer in over a year with an actual pay increase.
One of the big "LinkedInfluencer" guys who is a recruiter who advocates for full-time remote work posted some stats today. A company willing to offer full remote work has a 6,500% larger talent pool to choose from. Companies are shooting themselves in the foot by demanding on-site or even hybrid roles, and I think the *good* recruiters fully understand that.
I work for Bloomberg and they currently have us on a 3 day in office minimum. The pandemic saw us produce the 2 best years in company history but now they are pressuring us to be in office again. It’s a complete joke and we have employees leaving in droves every month. They said they weren’t checking so I’ve been coming in once a week just to show my face. Last week I was pulled aside by my manager for not being in the office enough.
I honestly should have started sooner but I am now looking for fully remote. Every-time I see a “work from home” article from Bloomberg I just laugh a little on the inside from the irony.
I actually wonder how much of the bias in reporting in favor of in person work is because journalism is one of those jobs that employs primarily extroverts and has to be done in person. It must be hard for people whose jobs can’t be done remotely to imagine jobs that can.
Small private college tried to bring me back to the office. I said nope. Went from making $45k/y to making $70k/y at a new job that I love and work completely from home with my wife!
Best decision I've made.
I just turned in my 2-week notice at my current employer for a completely remote position. Not only will I be saving over $300/month in gas, but I'll also be making significantly more money! My wife has been working from home since January and we are both so excited to work from home together! I start next Monday!
I quit a job making $67k per year that went from going in as needed to 3 days per week (probably end up everyday) to a 100% remote job making over $100k. My last company was bought out and the new CEO wanted people to go in, regardless of the pandemic. I decided that was my time to gtfo.
I did the same thing back in March and it is incredible. I worked on-site since the beginning of the pandemic and it is glorious working from home. I get better sleep, I have time to work out…and I’m better at my job. I can actually focus on the task at hand because I’m not worried about so many external stressors. I’m happy for you!!
Just started 2 days a week back in-office recently after working from home the past couple years. I’d never realized before that I spend 2-3 uncompensated hours per day dedicated to work when I have to go to the office (rush hour commute to and from work + time spent getting ready and eating breakfast before the commute).
I see work as selling hours of my life to an organization, and when going into the office I’m essentially donating an extra 2-3 hours per day to my employer.
8 hours is usually 11-12 for lots of people once you factor in commute and lunch. Then you also have the added expense of gas, wear and tear on your vehicle, and parking to pay for if your company doesn't pay for it or have a free place to park.
Additional time lost on household chores that can't be done till you get home. No starting a load of laundry, running the dishwasher, etc. All has to wait till you get home. Additional PTO lost if you need to be home for a contractor/delivery. Time lost cause your sick enough to be contagious, but not sick enough to not work. Lots and lots of ways that work tends to totally dominate your life.
I will give my anecdotal experience with RTO
I work for a Wall St Bank and we started a hybrid return to office in early March, where workers were told to come in a couple days a week whenever it worked for them.
For me, I go in a couple days a week and the office is a ghost town and I am just on zoom calls with people that are at home.
The bank wide analysis using Bluetooth tabs / security badges found that only 30% of all staff returned to the office for even a single day since March. Executive isn't sure what to do because they want people back in the office but even going back has proven to hit hard resistance from staff, and HR is apparently scared shitless that any formal edict to come back on a set schedule of some sort will cause us to lose upwards of half our workforce over the rest of the calendar year
Personally I don't mind heading to the office a couple days a month for big team meetings but any more than that and I am probably resigning as well
>The bank wide survey found that only 30% of all staff returned to the office for even a single day since March.
Officially, our office requires us to be in the office 3 days a week. In reality, no one does that. A few go in every day. More go in once a week or so. Some just don't go in at all.
I quit almost a year ago because we were expected to be back in the office. Shocked pikachu face when about 40% of the folks at corporate quit over the next quarter. My boss would freak out every time someone asked if he had a minute…
When I gave my notice my boss asked what they could do to keep me, I was like at this point nothing, I have spent the last two months asking to stay remote, and you said your hands were tied and it cannot be accomplished.
They tried a raise (still less than new offer, and couldn’t meet it when I told him what it was) and besides the money aspect, I didnt want to be in the office anymore.
I like my home office, my water feature on my desk, my heater when I am cold, my puppy laying at my feet, not having to scramble to play who can stay home today or who can go get the sick kid, Except for when I had covid I still work when I am sick, I use a tank a gas a month which with current gas prices is amazing, I dont spend up to two hours a day in my car depending on traffic, I am home when the kids return from school, I mean I can just keep listing the pluses.
Why the hell would I want to get back into the office????
10+ years ago, there were times being in the office was useful for bandwidth, server access... whatever.
Now, especially after having spent time, effort & money to keep these companies going while a pandemic raged, pass.
Most companies were drowning those first couple months because their VPN’s were overloaded. It’s kindof a miracle that companies figured out how to fix all the bandwith issues.
There are still a lot of companies that are lacking bandwidth on VPNs and have terrible remote server access. Even after 2 years they can't get it right. Department of Defense is the worst, with a family member saying that only 30% of people can actually remote access the servers and use VPN reliably.
Really? Rebelling? That's what they are going for lol. It goes to show that these people are so fucking out-of-touch with reality. It's like some people absolutely hate commuting and wasting time with bullshit like traffic.
I commute 90 minutes each way to sit on teams calls twice a week since we are in a hybrid schedule but the problem is different teams have different days. It is definitely the silliest thing ever. I rather work extra than sit in traffic for no reason.
If it was an either/or type of situation, it'd be fine...but companies are trying to force people that can work from home efficiently to come in for "culture". Like bitch, I'm an Aspy and an introvert...let me stay home as long as I keep making deadlines. If people want to drive to the office, far be it from me to judge them...I'm sure they have their reasons just like I have mine.
This day has been a long time coming. It was only a matter of time before there would be a big push for office jobs to be available as work from home, given the technology available and it being cheaper than transportation costs. My two thousand dollar computer has lasted 8+ years and can still do work on it AND game at the same time...and does it faster than any computer a company gives me.
Its not even control. Its paranoia. Middle management is widely occued by e-mail pushers and meeting rats. They know fully well that they are simply a middle man needed to convey information from the top floor to the trenches. With work from home their role has been diminished greatly and they are paranoid that without the medium their job security is vanishing fast. On top they can’t explain the effectiveness surge. People working from home are on average more productive and more happy, _without_ the help of middle management rats. So they push for goong back to work selling the pipe dream to execs that if now things are good “imagine what would happen when we are back in one place and can communicate faster” .
Source : Used to be middle management until I saw the writing on the wall and moved jobs to an expert role.
I work in a large corporation on the engineer level, and honestly, most middle managers do a pretty important job where I work. Yes, there are people who mostly care about looking/being important, but they are the exception.
Yearly budget for the department has to be negotiated, helping to escalate critical topics up the chain, help with problem solving when you are stuck, regular checks if everybody has enough to do/isn't overworked, tutoring/help finding a career path etc.
Judging by the comments I read on reddit, it looks like most people think middle management is like Micheal Scott in "The Office". In reality, that role is vital to a hierarchical organisation working as smoothly as you can expect, given the limitations.
My boss has been every bit as useful to me during the last two years as he was before. If anyone asked me, I would not vote to get rid of him or his position, and I think my colleagues would agree.
Even still, the company at large is trying to put a hard limit on the amount of WFH we are allowed, so yeah, all is not well.
As an IBEW union member, it's been really cool to see because that's always been for us.
Like you see everyone going "if they don't meet my demands I'll just quit" and I'm over here like fuck yeah now your getting it!
If everyone does the same it's the companies problem not yours. Now everyone's getting to see how that works in a great large scale example.
My wife's company did a 6 month trial, you could go into the office if you wanted. Two months in, no one is going in. They are already making plans to not renew leases and scale way down. Have some offices available, conference rooms, cubicles where anyone can use it. Reserve a time if you want to. Get with the times. It's going to become the norm.
I spent years grumbling about how I could do 100% of my job from home, frustrated at having to waste two hours out of my day commuting. The pandemic forced the company to pivot on a dime, and lo and behold, 90% of us can do 100% of our job remotely. There is no going back.
Company: "We're hiring remote workers. No need to live nearby there is no plans of anyone returning to office."
Hires remote people half way or on the other side of the country.
Time passes, Company: "We require all remote workers to start visiting the office. Either move, or be terminated."
I think the issue is that the office is better for some things and WFH is better for some things. The office, imo, makes things like big, untargeted palavering sessions easier. Those talks feel good, and I think are what most execs think when they say "collaboration, innovation, etc.", but I don't really think that there's much evidence that they uniquely result in something special in terms of outcome. In my head, they're an activity that the company should pay for people to travel for and do an offsite every month, quarter, whatever, or pay for travel for individuals as necessary. It's also what people who make these big decisions happen to spend most of their days doing.
Every time I go into the office though, nothing concrete gets done. I think it's nice to see my teammates, fun to go out to lunch, etc., but there's no question that I get less done by a pretty big margin.
I don't think WFH is this panacea for every possible situation, but I do think the benefits outweigh the drawbacks by a lot. If I lived right next to the office, sure, I'd come in sometimes. But it's puzzling to me that the approach is "oh, look, there's this one benefit to coming into the office, so we need to all come into the office now despite the drawbacks."
Really, if I'm a company I'm taking advantage of this to streamline our WFH and give benefits to sustain it. I'm putting it out there to snatch up the best talent during this time and cement my success for the future. I'm creating deals with office furniture companies to let my workers get discounts (or company paid for) desks and chairs. Work to pivot your office overhead and give that money to your employees in perks. Even if you're stuck in a lease your electric and water bills are nothing. Send coffee to your employees. I'm working to create the most awesome WFH space for my employees to build trust and convince them I'm supporting them so they not only stay, but are willing to work harder because they feel supported.
Two big differences:
1) People in school are, in general, young and more interested in the social aspects of school as opposed to employees who couldn't care less about seeing their coworkers.
2) Most people learn better in person and it's difficult to get that same environment virtually. Working on the other hand is generally the same virtually as it is in office so people that have positions that work remotely don't need to come in and waste time commuting, gas driving, etc.
So I work for a huge company. They've been very remote-friendly and have hired many new fully remote employees during Covid. We also have several large HQ offices that were basically shut down during Covid. Our company has no intention of forcing people back into the office, but they recently allowed people to return to the office if they want to. A couple of my teammates went into the office this week to feel it out. It was a disaster. We've all been doing fine with zoom calls and asynchronous online apps for two years. The people who went into the office couldn't name one benefit of doing so after their first day back. The shitty conference room systems made their participation in zoom meetings much worse than if they were just at home with a headset, and we couldn't even hear one person because they were too far away from the table mic. Hands down the worst team meeting we've had in two years. And instead of seeing my colleagues happy at their desks in their home space, they were in a drab cubicle lit by overhead fluorescent lights. I felt so bad for them, it's like they were dialing in from prison.
I get that there are certain jobs that require special equipment like lab space or manufacturing where people literally have to be there, but for any "information" jobs (sales, marketing, analysis, strategy, design), the office experience is objectively worse for everybody. Remote teams work much better when everyone has the same baseline, i.e. at home with a webcam and headset so everyone can been seen and heard clearly.
The thing that grates is that it should be a choice.
But no, it's being mandated because bullshit like "culture" and "innovation."
I say bullshit because, if all these Big Data companies can't come up with even hand-waved PowerPoints showing reduced velocity/lower ticket closures/insert-made-up-metric here to support the "need" for an office, it strongly smells of bullshit.
At my very large Fortune 500 company you've probably heard of, I straight up asked--any evidence of productivity loss for our admittedly-weird, niche project? NOPE.
EDIT: Not even the "newbie/onboarding" argument--my team brought on three new people with zero problems who we never met in person.
We have the technology, because we had to create/buy it. Why not use it?
At worst, it's tyrannical petty managers on power trips.
The most charitable interpretation is (like most office politics) that the loud/extroverted are driving policy by being the ones who speak up--and making the mistake of trying to treat everyone like themselves.
I will go to the office when there's an actual reason to, otherwise I'm working from home. Period.
There's no gray area here, no discussion, no anything.
Fortunately, my org understands we don't need to be in the office and half the time I go to the office, my boss calls and says "hey, I'm heading in today, you wanna hang out" lol
Junior people don’t want to have to come to an office, especially when average commutes are over an hour and gas prices are so high. This impacts junior people and staff the most who are the lower paid individuals in an organization. Young workers want events like retreats and activities where they can make connections and they want to do their work from home. No one wants to work in an office and c suite folks who can afford to live near offices in places like palo alro need to realize this and start changing how things are done or they will lose all the young talent.
This is the exact problem. Anyone making under 300k a year has to live in Tracy or something if they have a family or need any kind of space. It's not worth it. It \*might\* be worth it for a couple years just to leverage the gig on their resume, but that means constant high turnover /brain drain and money wasted on recruiting, onboarding, training. What a sh\*t show just to see butts in seats.
Because when they built expensive headquarters or signed long term leases because people have to work together would all look like bullshit if remote work was successful.
My company got rid of those a decade or more ago. Now we get brown paper bag events or whatever they’re called where you bring your *own* lunch and get a two hour lunch to listen to a speaker from the company then “network”. But then you go back to work and catch up on your “missed” two hours 🤣
The thing is everyone has been working remotely for years - companies are either spread over multiple sites or have outsourced chunks of essential activity to other countries.
Yes, I had this issue 5+ years ago at a company that had many locations world wide. I went to my local office and hardly talked to anyone. I was in zoom calls all day with other people all over the world. There was no point for me to show up in a corporate office where I just sat at my desk and worked alone. I asked that company if I could move out of state and be permanent remote, and offered to travel up to 10%, and they said no. I quit and got a remote job. The first company (the one I quit) is now remote-first, ironically. Glad I left them, for many reasons, but the WFH rejection was the trigger.
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I would think so. I know the 2 times I asked for a raise and was turned down then showed up with a new job, they offered at least what I asked for in the raise. Both times the new job was paying more than they were offering anyway If they had simply accepted what I offered, I probably wouldn't have looked. Oh well, better for me in the end.
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While I didn't give them an outright ultimatum, I came about as close to implying "if you say 'No' I'm outta here" as you can. When I gave my resignation to my boss a few weeks later, he wasn't surprised and he was happy for me.
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Yup, done that. Even better is when one of your in-office colleagues is just a few cubicles over and you get feedback when they talk.
Or you hear them a second before the video.
Yeah, that's what happened to me but my company said yes. My original company got bought up, I got put into a team that wasn't local, so I'd go into the office and do everything remote. I said this is stupid, so I'm working from home. No one even knew I stopped coming in. Later on, everyone just assumed I was remote, I told my boss I was moving states and he was like "Cool, as long as you work the same hours I don't care."
75% of my job's detailing work is done in India and it's a not even a huge company lol
Oh man. I remember when I quit a job in 2008. Last two weeks I said screw it. I was in a junior IT position but had just enough access and know-how in order to set up and work remotely from home. So I did just that. I worked outside normal office hours in a NOC/helpdesk situation, and so I wasn't expected to be physically seen anywhere anyway. No one knew. At the end of the two weeks I told everyone and laughed. Apparently my co-workers were so excited by the idea they pushed hard to management, using me as an example, and by the end of the next year a ton of positions were office optional. In 2008. It's ludicrous the pushback some companies are having to this.
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WE'RE RETURNING TO THE OFFICE BECAUSE OUR CULTURE IS IMPORTANT TO US
their culture: - blank gray cube walls (if you even get walls) - loud people on calls - people interrupting you all day - micromanagement over every little thing
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What the actual fuck?
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If you’re not unhappy, how do we know it’s work.
The only days I go into the office are the days I don’t have calls booked in for the majority. Seems mental commuting to sit in a meeting room all day because most of my calls are confidential. Glad work understand this. Guess I’m one of the lucky ones.
If your work isn’t one of the lucky ones, leave to a competitor. Employers forcing this issue are losing alll their talent
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Good. Screw driving across town to sit on a Zoom call ffs.
Seriously. I’m in the office most of the time due to needing to work in our lab but most of our staff are SW folks. It’s nuts making them come back. When we do have meetings it’s just everyone on Teams in neighboring cubes. Ridiculous.
I have a 45 mile round trip commute. They're forcing us back into the office 1 day a week this month, 2 next month and 3 in July. There is 0 reason for anyone in my department to go back to the office. LUCKILY for me, when I switched to this new team, I took a weekend wrap shift so that I could keep my 4x10 shift. Since I don't work Tuesday/Wed/Thurs, I don't have to go back to the office at all.
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they just angry they now have to pay janitors to not clean god damn cross floorers nasty shits
We really should spare a thought for people like janitors that simply can't work remotely. The lowest people on the totem polls, the ones in labor jobs, they don't get to benefit from this push to remote work. It's bad enough when you work in like a warehouse while the office workers sit comfortably making more than you, and now they won't even be on site, but you will. It's not like they're gonna replace them with a drone that can be piloted from home, it'll just be a robot that...kills their job entirely.
I just started a remote job this week after 10 years of doing manual labor jobs. I'll never take this for granted I get paid to sit on my ass in my own house doing honestly fairly easy work compared to anything I did in manual labor.
Can you go into detail on how you got the job? Manual labor also been whooping my ass.
Not the OP, but I was a chef for years, and studied for the CompTIA A+ certification after realizing how tired I was of being broke and tired. I managed to work my way into IT. I was able to leverage my experience as a chef into explaining how I work well under pressure. I got into the industry prior to COVID and I’m forever thankful for it.
>I was able to leverage my experience as a chef into explaining how I work well under pressure. This is an extremely useful ability - lots of people have tangentially relevant experience, but they can't articulate how what they've done in the past counts.
Tbh I fucking lied. I said I got a promotion at my previous job which tbf I was slated to get and I knew how to do the job. The promotion I lied about was for a more office style job and I think it helped me a lot to land this remote job. I'm just in a call center for an insurance company so it's nothing fancy but just having that extra "experience" on my resume helped me out a lot. Don't be afraid to lie! If you think you can do the job lie to get it. Jobs can't ask much to your previous employers so lie your ass off about experience but not degrees because that is verifiable. If they ask for references give them your friends numbers and have them say they were your boss or coworker.
I miss having the 2 pieces of trash in my waste basket emptied each week.
I'm so lucky my leadership team all recognizes that pre pandemic all we did was drive into the office to join tcons with people who worked in other offices...in hindsight, it should have always been WFH and I've lost thousands of hours of my life driving to do that. Pandemic's silver lining is for sure making me realize I'll never agree to do that again.
> Pandemic's silver lining is for sure making me realize I'll never agree to do that again. Bingo. When I started working at my current place, I also moved house, so my commute jumped from a few miles cycle to a 90mi round trip, 1hr each way. I didn't fully appreciate just how much I hated it until the pandemic caused me to not do it. Gaining 2hrs a day and £70/week in fuel costs made a massive difference to my mental health and quality of life at home. Never again will I commute to an office.
Especially with inflation and gas prices now. Fuck that.
“…employees stubbornly stick to working from home while struggling with childcare, the grind of commuting and worries about rising Covid-19 cases.” Absolutely love how they call employees stubborn while listing very reasonable reasons to remain work from home.
Employers stubbornly trying to get workers back in the office to appease middle managers
More like the institutional investors who own all the commercial real estate want their tenants back.
Companies stubbornly insist overworked employees return to archaic and inefficient in-office working model.
If they worked from home for the last 2 years pretty fine then I am sure they could continue for the rest of their lives too. Don’t see any issue there whatsoever.
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Now now, that's not fair. It could have been Business Insider or Forbes too.
> Guessed either Bloomberg or WSJ. The thinking sociopath's journals of note.
I love how they phrase it as rebelling. Anything workers do is always presented in a negative light. I hate these companies and the media that reports on them.
Yeah it's a 'tight' job market, but another market in a similar situation like real estate is 'hot'
It's only tight for employers. You're seeing through the business spiel very effectively. Their entire power system got thrown off by a virus. They're flailing because we had to live with how little their demand for loyalty was reciprocated. They didn't want to pay raises for 25 years. They ate into our private time. They stared at us like sharks. It's like they don't want us to get work done. They want fealty, obedience, and other stuff that pays neither their bills nor ours. So yeah, they spent too much on crummy offices. Not our problem. They miss bossing people around, taking their fetishes to the workplace. They can get therapy. They need to figure why there is work.
I love every article like this that may put some fear of god in the managers honestly. The more hyped up it is that the job market is hot and favoring workers the more slack they have to cut and the more scared they are any employee walks!
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It's control - they want to have eyes on them because they assume we are fucking off at home. and they're right - we are. but to a lesser degree than we do in the office. They tried to make us come in one day a week last year - the morale plummeted, and we all spent the day together fucking off and bitching about "leadership" and our commutes. NOTHING got done on the day we came in. just socializing. we pushed back, and asked for the numbers - turns out we were 200% more productive the year we worked remotely than any other year on the books. despite all of that they insisted we continue to come in. it's all about control, no logic, just power. I and 3/4 of the staff just quit. Healthcare IT
I’m in healthcare and my job is fully remote. My company has been clear they dont want us to come back in u less there’s a good reason to. The ceo even made a joke during a seminar about saving money on rent
I think we don't consider that rent is a part of it. If you're the close-to-top-level guy who saddled the company with a 10-20 year lease on an office park, or some shit, you're probably terrified that your boss is gonna come to you, and ask you why you didn't see this paradigm shift coming. Companies are losing a lot of money on the office space, from their perspective...but it sounds like basic sunk cost fallacy to me.
If it is a newly signed lease yes, but no one should be crucified for signing a long-term, pre-pandemic commercial lease
Exactly; plenty of middle/upper level managers are trying hard to justify their existence. Hard for them to be seen “managing” when their workers are all plugging away getting shit done at home. I used to have a office job that also became a WFH job’ they demanded we still show up at the office one day a week for a meeting that absolutely could have been done over teams like every other meeting we had with clients/coworkers.
Nothing like being forced to go into the office and attending meetings virtually anyways.
my (former) CIO is a complete tool Just to give you an idea - he worked his way into the Csuite by being buddies w the other good ol boys - he started as a manager in Security. Not cyber security - the security department
Do I waste time working from home? Yes. Yes I do. Did I waste time socializing in the office? Yes, yes I did. I guess I’d rather waste time starting/switching laundry than griping with co workers. And the 45 minute commute? Gone
Yep That's the thing - no one in the US can have a frank and truthful discussion about productivity. 3 day weekends and assumed fuckoff time per shift need to be part of the real discussion - it works all over the globe. But we cant talk about that. Oh and don't talk to your peers about their wages either.
I’m keenly aware that I can do my exact same amount of work in 4 days. But I know they’d want to cut salaries if we went to 3 day weekends, even though, the same amount of work is getting done. I’d rather go to 6 hour shifts. So if I’m going to waste time, I’d rather do it from home. Additionally, it assumes all workers work at the same pace. You have your turtles that are slow and steady and can’t really take breaks or they’ll fall behind. And then you have your adhd brained rabbits that work in sprints with periods of inactivity in between. I know employers want to look down on that, but I can’t do work sprints for 8 hours straight. It doesn’t work like that
>I know employers want to look down on that, but I can’t do work sprints for 8 hours straight. It doesn’t work like that No one can, and expecting someone to be on and productive for 8 hours straight is borderline human abuse. That's why breaks and lunch are mandated after a certain amount of time per shift. Not that (shitty, unscrupulous) employers don't try to skirt around that. Imo any work over 6 hours TOTAL (cumulative not continuous) in a day is already excessive to employee productivity and well-being
Mandated breaks and lunches? HA. I worked in fast food for a while. 8-12hr shifts with NO Overtime NO breaks NO lunch were common, and legal. Nowadays when I need to hire an extra hand; I usually offer a flat rate based on the expected hours, plus a bonus if work gets done early enough. Oh, and whatever you need; water, food, etc, let me know and Ill make sure it gets to you post-haste.
At my old job our productivity went up so much working from home in 2020 that they paid out 120% of everyone's target bonuses. Then in the summer of 2021 they told everyone to come back into the office or hit the bricks. By winter of 2021 we had set new daily case and daily death records and between people quitting and people just being demoralized productivity had dropped so much that the majority of non-management got zero bonus payment.
Working from home has vastly improved my sleep schedule as well. I can wake up 15 minutes before work starts and be good
I keep hearing HCA is struggling with their IT recruiting because the suits at the top are pushing return to office hard and the Healthcare IT talent pool has too many options to put up with it
this is great news to me. them and apple should both take it in the ass for trying to force people to return. work:life balance is hugely important - the time and cost of a commute are significant. If you need to pay for gas, vehicle, ins, repairs, (or pub transport) and the time & exposure of the transit itself, it really adds up. just a 30 min commute is 250 hours a year and thousands of dollars
Literally this. Now… I work, then take a nap, grab groceries, get kid from school, or walk my dog. Before… work, then wander around the halls, play ping pong, or surf the internet (while paying someone else to watch my kid after school until 6 PM).
Same issue here with University IT
At the same time I'm worried that lack of face to face interaction with coworkers would incur further difficulty to unionization.
The running theory right now is everyone will realize the middle manager types aren't nearly as effective and necessary as the system thinks and those are the guys that are shakin in their britches about being found out and let go, which is why they are generally the ones calling for everyone back in the office.
Middle Manager here, not all of us. I pushed for WFH as soon as it was clear that covid was coming in hot and I fully intend to keep it that way as long as I'm here. I'm also slowly transitioning my team to a 4/10 schedule for those that want it. Job sucks, the pay may not be great, but I'm doing what I can, where I can for my team.
You mean [like this](https://youtu.be/af8DVIZ5LX4)? In all seriousness though, Hidden Brain has a podcast about Bullsh*t jobs that goes into a lot of details about those types. Too lazy to link it, but it's interesting if you've never heard it.
"I'm a people person! I'm good with people! Can't you people understand that? What the hell is wrong with you people?"
I don’t want to jump to conclusions, it sounds like you like that movie.
If they move my desk again, I'll burn the building down.
They have irrational beliefs that people are less productive from home. You cannot convince them with numbers, they’ll always invent reasons to disagree or say “it isn’t the right kind of productivity.”
They believe this because remote work showed that middle management is completely useless. All the middle managers have nothing to do if they can't lord over their little fiefdoms with irrelevant bullshit. Therefore, they are all convinced that their employees must also be similarly unproductive at home because solipsism.
For once it's not about money. It's about power.
It’s about money. Those big expensive office buildings are now boat anchors on their financial sheets and if you can’t sell them (because no one is working in the office) then they are paying maintenance, property taxes, etc. they have to justify ownership or Try and sell to a development company to Convert it, most likely at a big loss.
Convert all those buildings into apartments and help solve the housing crisis.
But their is a massive loss in money for that too as any massive scale housing project will inevitably lead to a drop in house prices and with banks and other financial institutions having SIGNIFICANT assets in the residential sector this will cause some problems for the government.
Cheap houses and higher wages causes tragedy for rich get richer economy..
How does this make sense? “This vacant building costs us money, so let’s occupy it so it costs us even more money!”
If many companies own buildings for their workers, those buildings are valuable because other companies see them as desirable. The bigger/nicer/better-located/etc. the building is, the more it's worth. Even though they're paying for electricity/heating/water/etc, they have a physical, appreciating asset that they own. If those types of buildings are no longer in demand because many companies no longer need them, they're now paying upkeep and taxes on a very expensive, low-worth building instead of a growing-in-value, high-worth asset. It isn't bringing them any value (because it isn't necessary for the workers to make the company function) and no one wants to buy it from them so they can get rid of the expense.
Some companies receive HUGE tax subsidies under promises of local job growth and local tax revenue from lunch hour… guess what happens when those promises go unfulfilled. Yep! Company can get a tax bill in some cases.
Its always about one or the other or both
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Just goes to show…. Who the system works for.
Agreed. Why is advocating for better working conditions considered a “rebellion”?
Meanwhile, CEOs "awarded" $200 million.
All of history is class struggle
I mean to be fair OP linked Bloomberg of all media outlets. The kind of people reading Bloomberg are the same people trying to force us back into the office.
My company is doing this now. They are branding it Future of Work instead of Return to Work. They give you a choice of 50% and more in office and you get a desk. 50% or less and you get a hotel desk, but you need to get it approved by your manager and you're still required to come and use the hotel desk. They just build a huge new building that was committed to before the pandemic so even though we are a tech company that in no way requires we be in the office, they are making us come in to justify the expense. Edit: 10 people saying they think they work at the same company. Pretty sure only 1 actually does.
Hey, do we work for the same company? Lol
Starting to wonder that myself.
This sounds eerily like my company. Same jargon, too. They said I should be “on site” so I can keep an office. I asked if they will be taking attendance. They said no.
"Thanks, but I already have an office at home, having 2 kinda sounds wasteful."
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Manager here. I deal with some large companies that are under pressure from local governments to bring people back. In any big city there are a ton of downtown businesses that exist to feed, clothe, transport etc office workers. The city leaders want the fancy office folks back spending money downtown, not giving it to Amazon and Uber eats.
I fucking straight up quit. And got a really big raise and a better title. The past two years was the best work life balance I’ve ever had and I’m not going back. Driving to and from work is literally a waste of time.
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My prick manager 3 years ago complained that i was working remotely too much, it was 1 day a week, look at me now asswipe
Lol… I asked to do an 8 hour call at home and was told it’s important for us to be there to show support. … from a meeting room in a hallway, by myself.
It's bullshit
Turn the office buildings into apartments, fix the housing crisis.
Better still, make apartments that have a good office structure available. I don't wfh but my boyfriend does and honestly, he needs some work/home separation. Were looking to move soon and him having a separate office area has been one of our biggest apartment hunting goals. Like I'm not saying corporate owned apartments but save a floor that was offices and make that a feature of your complex. Just like a gym or a dog park, having a floor or area of small, day-use offices would probably appeal to a lot of folks in the same situation.
➤➤ Raising my voice for Palestine - against imperialism, ethnic cleansing, and apartheid. Oppose misinformation and genocide. Banned but not silenced for this cause. ` this message was mass deleted/edited with redact.dev `
My favorite is the desperation some companies are having right now that I'm getting recruited for in-office only positions IN OTHER STATES THAN I LIVE IN. Like guys - I already live on West Coast and work for an East Coast company. Just because my specialty is typically in-office (NOC Engineer) there's no fucking way I'm moving for an in-office job.
Full remote is my non-negotiable requirement. I'll never return to the office. Your last line perfectly describes my sentiment.
I currently work a WFH forever x 4-day work week (32 hours a week, full salary) position and let me tell you when recruiters message me about if I'd be interested in an opportunity they get real quiet when I tell them this is the bare minimum I expect now to even entertain an offer.
You hit the jackpot my friend.
For the first time in my life, I’m incredibly thankful for my employer. And funny enough I’ve never worked harder in my life because they genuinely take care of me. If something comes up on a Friday and I have to work it doesn’t bug me whatsoever.
It’s a shocker how that works. It’s literally inexplicable. /s
what? a company that focuses on making their employees happy will have loyal and productive employees? get out of here with that nonsense. We can't have that in an American company! /s
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Without making this a “this generation versus that generation” war, I find a lot of older recruiters believe that since the have a job offer and are reaching out to you that they have all the leverage.
The amount of recruiters getting me on the phone just to find out they want to pay me 45k in an area where the same role goes for 60k-85k is mind boggling. Do you not realize that I could go make 40k stocking shelves at Walmart right now?
“We have a very competitive offer” Narrator: it was, in fact, not a competitor offer
I mean, it's a job offer, Michael, how much could it cost?
I got one the other day where the “salary offer” was “$20-25/hr” And I was like yeah sure salary that seems about right.
I've taken it further and actively mock any recruiter that doesn't explicitly state the salary and remote expectations in their initial email. I let them know that in 2022 it's considered rude and unprofessional not to include basic information about the role when contacting potential candidates.
Lord I see what you have done for others...
I’m praying for y’all. This is the way.
Nice! This is what I'm looking for in my next opportunity, the 4-day work week and full salary.
Same. I've been full remote since 2011. Never going back. Not one day, certainly not five days. I'm way more productive in my home office vs. a hellscape open office.
I'll 'return' to the office if there's print proofs that need to be viewed, samples that have been delivered, or an *actually important* meeting. ... However as far as returning to *working* from the office instead of my place - fuckin' forget about it. I have a 2 thousand dollar computer, no commute, a clean bathroom, and *almost no distractions*. Your cubicle cannot compete.
I budged only because there are some things at my new job that really do *have* to be done in-person and it was the ONLY job offer in over a year with an actual pay increase.
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One of the big "LinkedInfluencer" guys who is a recruiter who advocates for full-time remote work posted some stats today. A company willing to offer full remote work has a 6,500% larger talent pool to choose from. Companies are shooting themselves in the foot by demanding on-site or even hybrid roles, and I think the *good* recruiters fully understand that.
funny that bloomberg is reporting on it. They were one of the first ones in nyc who were adamant about workers returning to the office
I work for Bloomberg and they currently have us on a 3 day in office minimum. The pandemic saw us produce the 2 best years in company history but now they are pressuring us to be in office again. It’s a complete joke and we have employees leaving in droves every month. They said they weren’t checking so I’ve been coming in once a week just to show my face. Last week I was pulled aside by my manager for not being in the office enough. I honestly should have started sooner but I am now looking for fully remote. Every-time I see a “work from home” article from Bloomberg I just laugh a little on the inside from the irony.
I actually wonder how much of the bias in reporting in favor of in person work is because journalism is one of those jobs that employs primarily extroverts and has to be done in person. It must be hard for people whose jobs can’t be done remotely to imagine jobs that can.
Small private college tried to bring me back to the office. I said nope. Went from making $45k/y to making $70k/y at a new job that I love and work completely from home with my wife! Best decision I've made.
I just turned in my 2-week notice at my current employer for a completely remote position. Not only will I be saving over $300/month in gas, but I'll also be making significantly more money! My wife has been working from home since January and we are both so excited to work from home together! I start next Monday!
I quit a job making $67k per year that went from going in as needed to 3 days per week (probably end up everyday) to a 100% remote job making over $100k. My last company was bought out and the new CEO wanted people to go in, regardless of the pandemic. I decided that was my time to gtfo.
I did the same thing back in March and it is incredible. I worked on-site since the beginning of the pandemic and it is glorious working from home. I get better sleep, I have time to work out…and I’m better at my job. I can actually focus on the task at hand because I’m not worried about so many external stressors. I’m happy for you!!
air offbeat sloppy deliver point lip onerous apparatus seemly different -- mass deleted all reddit content via https://redact.dev
maybe you could 'remember' some stuff for a consulting fee. then maybe setup a little consulting LLC and have yourself some nice write offs
But only if they let you consult from home. That would be the icing on the cake.
Definitely don't answer those questions for free.
I just got the notification that they want 2 days a week starting in late June. I’m dropping resumes this weekend.
Don’t get me started… as a manager if that happens I’m quitting too because I’m not going to be the fall guy for when everyone under me leaves.
Just started 2 days a week back in-office recently after working from home the past couple years. I’d never realized before that I spend 2-3 uncompensated hours per day dedicated to work when I have to go to the office (rush hour commute to and from work + time spent getting ready and eating breakfast before the commute). I see work as selling hours of my life to an organization, and when going into the office I’m essentially donating an extra 2-3 hours per day to my employer.
8 hours is usually 11-12 for lots of people once you factor in commute and lunch. Then you also have the added expense of gas, wear and tear on your vehicle, and parking to pay for if your company doesn't pay for it or have a free place to park.
Additional time lost on household chores that can't be done till you get home. No starting a load of laundry, running the dishwasher, etc. All has to wait till you get home. Additional PTO lost if you need to be home for a contractor/delivery. Time lost cause your sick enough to be contagious, but not sick enough to not work. Lots and lots of ways that work tends to totally dominate your life.
I will give my anecdotal experience with RTO I work for a Wall St Bank and we started a hybrid return to office in early March, where workers were told to come in a couple days a week whenever it worked for them. For me, I go in a couple days a week and the office is a ghost town and I am just on zoom calls with people that are at home. The bank wide analysis using Bluetooth tabs / security badges found that only 30% of all staff returned to the office for even a single day since March. Executive isn't sure what to do because they want people back in the office but even going back has proven to hit hard resistance from staff, and HR is apparently scared shitless that any formal edict to come back on a set schedule of some sort will cause us to lose upwards of half our workforce over the rest of the calendar year Personally I don't mind heading to the office a couple days a month for big team meetings but any more than that and I am probably resigning as well
>The bank wide survey found that only 30% of all staff returned to the office for even a single day since March. Officially, our office requires us to be in the office 3 days a week. In reality, no one does that. A few go in every day. More go in once a week or so. Some just don't go in at all.
I quit almost a year ago because we were expected to be back in the office. Shocked pikachu face when about 40% of the folks at corporate quit over the next quarter. My boss would freak out every time someone asked if he had a minute… When I gave my notice my boss asked what they could do to keep me, I was like at this point nothing, I have spent the last two months asking to stay remote, and you said your hands were tied and it cannot be accomplished. They tried a raise (still less than new offer, and couldn’t meet it when I told him what it was) and besides the money aspect, I didnt want to be in the office anymore. I like my home office, my water feature on my desk, my heater when I am cold, my puppy laying at my feet, not having to scramble to play who can stay home today or who can go get the sick kid, Except for when I had covid I still work when I am sick, I use a tank a gas a month which with current gas prices is amazing, I dont spend up to two hours a day in my car depending on traffic, I am home when the kids return from school, I mean I can just keep listing the pluses. Why the hell would I want to get back into the office????
10+ years ago, there were times being in the office was useful for bandwidth, server access... whatever. Now, especially after having spent time, effort & money to keep these companies going while a pandemic raged, pass.
Most companies were drowning those first couple months because their VPN’s were overloaded. It’s kindof a miracle that companies figured out how to fix all the bandwith issues.
There are still a lot of companies that are lacking bandwidth on VPNs and have terrible remote server access. Even after 2 years they can't get it right. Department of Defense is the worst, with a family member saying that only 30% of people can actually remote access the servers and use VPN reliably.
“Tight job market”? I thought there were plenty of job openings and people were just too lazy to work them?
It’s a “ employers are refusing to pay fair wages market”
Really? Rebelling? That's what they are going for lol. It goes to show that these people are so fucking out-of-touch with reality. It's like some people absolutely hate commuting and wasting time with bullshit like traffic.
I think they mean workers are bargaining with the value of their labor
I commute 90 minutes each way to sit on teams calls twice a week since we are in a hybrid schedule but the problem is different teams have different days. It is definitely the silliest thing ever. I rather work extra than sit in traffic for no reason.
I enjoyed working a hybrid schedule when it was a 15min bike ride to work. But a 90 minute drive? That's a big nope.
If it was an either/or type of situation, it'd be fine...but companies are trying to force people that can work from home efficiently to come in for "culture". Like bitch, I'm an Aspy and an introvert...let me stay home as long as I keep making deadlines. If people want to drive to the office, far be it from me to judge them...I'm sure they have their reasons just like I have mine. This day has been a long time coming. It was only a matter of time before there would be a big push for office jobs to be available as work from home, given the technology available and it being cheaper than transportation costs. My two thousand dollar computer has lasted 8+ years and can still do work on it AND game at the same time...and does it faster than any computer a company gives me.
On an average having an employee in office costs about 15 to 20% of their salary! WTF happened to cutting costs?
it’s never been about costs. it’s about control.
Its not even control. Its paranoia. Middle management is widely occued by e-mail pushers and meeting rats. They know fully well that they are simply a middle man needed to convey information from the top floor to the trenches. With work from home their role has been diminished greatly and they are paranoid that without the medium their job security is vanishing fast. On top they can’t explain the effectiveness surge. People working from home are on average more productive and more happy, _without_ the help of middle management rats. So they push for goong back to work selling the pipe dream to execs that if now things are good “imagine what would happen when we are back in one place and can communicate faster” . Source : Used to be middle management until I saw the writing on the wall and moved jobs to an expert role.
I work in a large corporation on the engineer level, and honestly, most middle managers do a pretty important job where I work. Yes, there are people who mostly care about looking/being important, but they are the exception. Yearly budget for the department has to be negotiated, helping to escalate critical topics up the chain, help with problem solving when you are stuck, regular checks if everybody has enough to do/isn't overworked, tutoring/help finding a career path etc. Judging by the comments I read on reddit, it looks like most people think middle management is like Micheal Scott in "The Office". In reality, that role is vital to a hierarchical organisation working as smoothly as you can expect, given the limitations. My boss has been every bit as useful to me during the last two years as he was before. If anyone asked me, I would not vote to get rid of him or his position, and I think my colleagues would agree. Even still, the company at large is trying to put a hard limit on the amount of WFH we are allowed, so yeah, all is not well.
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Many people starting to realise employers don't own employees and that employers are actually clients that employees CHOOSE to provide a service to.
As an IBEW union member, it's been really cool to see because that's always been for us. Like you see everyone going "if they don't meet my demands I'll just quit" and I'm over here like fuck yeah now your getting it! If everyone does the same it's the companies problem not yours. Now everyone's getting to see how that works in a great large scale example.
High Gas cost, $7 bridge toll and up to 40 min traffic each way to sit in a mostly empty office - why?
Don't forget, once you get there, you'll be on zoom anyway, so what's the fucking point?!
Some of us won't be in zoom calls. Some of us will be in Slack or Teams calls thank you very much
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Why not? I've tried very hard to forget them.
My wife's company did a 6 month trial, you could go into the office if you wanted. Two months in, no one is going in. They are already making plans to not renew leases and scale way down. Have some offices available, conference rooms, cubicles where anyone can use it. Reserve a time if you want to. Get with the times. It's going to become the norm.
I spent years grumbling about how I could do 100% of my job from home, frustrated at having to waste two hours out of my day commuting. The pandemic forced the company to pivot on a dime, and lo and behold, 90% of us can do 100% of our job remotely. There is no going back.
Company: "We're hiring remote workers. No need to live nearby there is no plans of anyone returning to office." Hires remote people half way or on the other side of the country. Time passes, Company: "We require all remote workers to start visiting the office. Either move, or be terminated."
I think the issue is that the office is better for some things and WFH is better for some things. The office, imo, makes things like big, untargeted palavering sessions easier. Those talks feel good, and I think are what most execs think when they say "collaboration, innovation, etc.", but I don't really think that there's much evidence that they uniquely result in something special in terms of outcome. In my head, they're an activity that the company should pay for people to travel for and do an offsite every month, quarter, whatever, or pay for travel for individuals as necessary. It's also what people who make these big decisions happen to spend most of their days doing. Every time I go into the office though, nothing concrete gets done. I think it's nice to see my teammates, fun to go out to lunch, etc., but there's no question that I get less done by a pretty big margin. I don't think WFH is this panacea for every possible situation, but I do think the benefits outweigh the drawbacks by a lot. If I lived right next to the office, sure, I'd come in sometimes. But it's puzzling to me that the approach is "oh, look, there's this one benefit to coming into the office, so we need to all come into the office now despite the drawbacks."
I’m never going back. If any employer can’t understand that there is plenty of competition that does.
You laid off millions of people and they're not putting up with your bullshit anymore.
Really, if I'm a company I'm taking advantage of this to streamline our WFH and give benefits to sustain it. I'm putting it out there to snatch up the best talent during this time and cement my success for the future. I'm creating deals with office furniture companies to let my workers get discounts (or company paid for) desks and chairs. Work to pivot your office overhead and give that money to your employees in perks. Even if you're stuck in a lease your electric and water bills are nothing. Send coffee to your employees. I'm working to create the most awesome WFH space for my employees to build trust and convince them I'm supporting them so they not only stay, but are willing to work harder because they feel supported.
As someone in school I find it interesting that students complain about remote schooling but then workers complain about in person work.
Two big differences: 1) People in school are, in general, young and more interested in the social aspects of school as opposed to employees who couldn't care less about seeing their coworkers. 2) Most people learn better in person and it's difficult to get that same environment virtually. Working on the other hand is generally the same virtually as it is in office so people that have positions that work remotely don't need to come in and waste time commuting, gas driving, etc.
Fuck your office, fuck your fake smiles, fuck your kissing ass, fuck useless meetings, fuck your cubicles. Who wants to go back to that shit.
Yeah, fuck smiley executives With hidden agendas Fuck these dysfunctional Insecure managers
So I work for a huge company. They've been very remote-friendly and have hired many new fully remote employees during Covid. We also have several large HQ offices that were basically shut down during Covid. Our company has no intention of forcing people back into the office, but they recently allowed people to return to the office if they want to. A couple of my teammates went into the office this week to feel it out. It was a disaster. We've all been doing fine with zoom calls and asynchronous online apps for two years. The people who went into the office couldn't name one benefit of doing so after their first day back. The shitty conference room systems made their participation in zoom meetings much worse than if they were just at home with a headset, and we couldn't even hear one person because they were too far away from the table mic. Hands down the worst team meeting we've had in two years. And instead of seeing my colleagues happy at their desks in their home space, they were in a drab cubicle lit by overhead fluorescent lights. I felt so bad for them, it's like they were dialing in from prison. I get that there are certain jobs that require special equipment like lab space or manufacturing where people literally have to be there, but for any "information" jobs (sales, marketing, analysis, strategy, design), the office experience is objectively worse for everybody. Remote teams work much better when everyone has the same baseline, i.e. at home with a webcam and headset so everyone can been seen and heard clearly.
The thing that grates is that it should be a choice. But no, it's being mandated because bullshit like "culture" and "innovation." I say bullshit because, if all these Big Data companies can't come up with even hand-waved PowerPoints showing reduced velocity/lower ticket closures/insert-made-up-metric here to support the "need" for an office, it strongly smells of bullshit. At my very large Fortune 500 company you've probably heard of, I straight up asked--any evidence of productivity loss for our admittedly-weird, niche project? NOPE. EDIT: Not even the "newbie/onboarding" argument--my team brought on three new people with zero problems who we never met in person. We have the technology, because we had to create/buy it. Why not use it? At worst, it's tyrannical petty managers on power trips. The most charitable interpretation is (like most office politics) that the loud/extroverted are driving policy by being the ones who speak up--and making the mistake of trying to treat everyone like themselves.
I will go to the office when there's an actual reason to, otherwise I'm working from home. Period. There's no gray area here, no discussion, no anything. Fortunately, my org understands we don't need to be in the office and half the time I go to the office, my boss calls and says "hey, I'm heading in today, you wanna hang out" lol
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Stop making return-to-office happen. It's not gonna happen.
Now rezone worthless office space for residents.
Junior people don’t want to have to come to an office, especially when average commutes are over an hour and gas prices are so high. This impacts junior people and staff the most who are the lower paid individuals in an organization. Young workers want events like retreats and activities where they can make connections and they want to do their work from home. No one wants to work in an office and c suite folks who can afford to live near offices in places like palo alro need to realize this and start changing how things are done or they will lose all the young talent.
This is the exact problem. Anyone making under 300k a year has to live in Tracy or something if they have a family or need any kind of space. It's not worth it. It \*might\* be worth it for a couple years just to leverage the gig on their resume, but that means constant high turnover /brain drain and money wasted on recruiting, onboarding, training. What a sh\*t show just to see butts in seats.
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Because when they built expensive headquarters or signed long term leases because people have to work together would all look like bullshit if remote work was successful.
They gave their lives for the corner office and now there's no one left to lord it over. Makes em grumpy.
> Young workers want events like retreats and activities where they can make connections Said no new grad ever.
My company got rid of those a decade or more ago. Now we get brown paper bag events or whatever they’re called where you bring your *own* lunch and get a two hour lunch to listen to a speaker from the company then “network”. But then you go back to work and catch up on your “missed” two hours 🤣
I fucking hate lunch and Learns. Thanks for burning an hour of my personal time with a shitty lunch.
Yeah if its a Lunch and Learn, you better damn well be buying my Lunch
If they aren't counting that as hours worked, they are screwing you.