‘My Boss Wants Me Back in Office Full Time. Can I Push Back?’
August 23, 2022 2:42 PM Subscribe
In my experience this is a belief that’s more commonly held by the manager’s manager than by the manager herself; she’s just the one tasked with delivering the bad news.
posted by ook at 3:39 PM on August 23, 2022 [58 favorites]
posted by ook at 3:39 PM on August 23, 2022 [58 favorites]
In my experience it’s the manager’s manager who is justifying their job.
posted by glaucon at 3:58 PM on August 23, 2022 [10 favorites]
posted by glaucon at 3:58 PM on August 23, 2022 [10 favorites]
I have a friend who works for Loblaws and the "get your asses back to the office" message comes from the Weston himself, who is personally offended that he can't walk the atrium penthouse balconies in the extremely expensive HQ buildings and look down on a busy herd of peons working diligently to enrich him. It's completely irrelevant that their own metrics show more work is being done more effectively by remote workers.
posted by seanmpuckett at 3:58 PM on August 23, 2022 [47 favorites]
posted by seanmpuckett at 3:58 PM on August 23, 2022 [47 favorites]
These stories stress me out so much. I live pretty far from the nearby business hub & it took a big chunk of my day to get there & back. I was hybrid remote & working extremely effectively but my boss started making noises about how he didn't like how I came in on whatever days worked for my meeting schedule instead of on the same days every week. "How would that be an improvement?" I asked. "It would make it harder to schedule meetings because I can't dictate what days other people are available to meet with me." Ah well, nevertheless, was the reply. Then pandemic came & we all went home anyway so that worked out for me I admit.
My new boss already said I'm considered forever remote & I don't need to worry & I thank god.
posted by bleep at 4:00 PM on August 23, 2022 [17 favorites]
My new boss already said I'm considered forever remote & I don't need to worry & I thank god.
posted by bleep at 4:00 PM on August 23, 2022 [17 favorites]
Honestly, this article is providing terrible advice. The question has been asked and answered: no remote work. The only thing the hypothetical poster owes anyone is to follow up with their recruiters, take interviews and land a new gig that suits their requirements. You don't need permission to quit, and viable alternatives make employment conversations easy.
posted by 4CFCFF at 4:02 PM on August 23, 2022 [12 favorites]
posted by 4CFCFF at 4:02 PM on August 23, 2022 [12 favorites]
So with that experience I'm pretty much convinced this is all complete bullshit, if the work *can* be done at home & the person *wants* to do it there there is no legit reason to stop them.
posted by bleep at 4:02 PM on August 23, 2022 [6 favorites]
posted by bleep at 4:02 PM on August 23, 2022 [6 favorites]
Well, the employee can try asking really heavily/possibly indicating they might leave over this, and then leave, I suppose. Or just get the new job. Or get a new job and then say, "Hey, I'm willing to leave over this, would you rather lose me?"
posted by jenfullmoon at 4:08 PM on August 23, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by jenfullmoon at 4:08 PM on August 23, 2022 [1 favorite]
I did this. School tried to force me to teach a huge college class in-person at the height of the Omicron wave, despite documentation from my doctor that I'm high risk. I said I would only teach virtually. They fought me. I stood my ground because I knew for a fact they had no one else to teach the class. Didn't get fired, and they came to me twice trying to get me to teach again next semester because they still had no one to teach the class.
But I only felt secure doing that because 1) I had info from above that they had no way to replace me and 2) I had a freelance career in my back pocket that I could put more hours into if necessary. Most people don't have the option to push back.
posted by brook horse at 4:09 PM on August 23, 2022 [37 favorites]
But I only felt secure doing that because 1) I had info from above that they had no way to replace me and 2) I had a freelance career in my back pocket that I could put more hours into if necessary. Most people don't have the option to push back.
posted by brook horse at 4:09 PM on August 23, 2022 [37 favorites]
I feel like there's a sharp generational divide over this issue. People I know tend to have Boomer bosses, and the idea of employees not being in the office just drives a Boomer boss insane. It doesn't matter if we've all seen that things can work just as well or a hell of a lot better if employees work from home. It doesn't matter if employees are forced to come back, they absolutely hate it and productivity takes a big hit as the coronavirus rolls through the office in wave after wave. It doesn't matter if the bosses are losing a lot of money on an office building that was already way bigger than they needed before the pandemic. These bosses grew up in a culture where everybody went into the office, where they commuted just as long as they had to, they stayed at the office until 9 PM if that's what it took to meet a deadline, and their personal lives always, always took a back seat. To a lot of Boomers that's just what work is, and anything else feels like a cheat.
I'm not one of those "OK Boomer" types, and this is definitely not meant as a knock on all Boomers. Plenty of them are being forced to go back to the office too! But as I've heard different bosses making the same shitty arguments for why employees need to go back to the office, it's really striking how much of their thinking about labor is firmly stuck in the doldrums of the 20th Century. These people spent months wandering around in their big echoey office buildings like ghosts, keeping the lights on as they walked past all those empty cubes, and now they're desperate to hear the steady hum of worker activity again. They were lost without it.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 4:12 PM on August 23, 2022 [39 favorites]
I'm not one of those "OK Boomer" types, and this is definitely not meant as a knock on all Boomers. Plenty of them are being forced to go back to the office too! But as I've heard different bosses making the same shitty arguments for why employees need to go back to the office, it's really striking how much of their thinking about labor is firmly stuck in the doldrums of the 20th Century. These people spent months wandering around in their big echoey office buildings like ghosts, keeping the lights on as they walked past all those empty cubes, and now they're desperate to hear the steady hum of worker activity again. They were lost without it.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 4:12 PM on August 23, 2022 [39 favorites]
I'm a boomer, I've worked remotely since my son was born (he's 30) - bosses have always felt this way
posted by mbo at 4:14 PM on August 23, 2022 [14 favorites]
posted by mbo at 4:14 PM on August 23, 2022 [14 favorites]
In my experience this is a belief that’s more commonly held by the manager’s manager than by the manager herself; she’s just the one tasked with delivering the bad news.>
Speaking as a middle manager, this is very true for me. If someone’s job duties can get done remotely and they are getting done, I have no problem with them working from home. But not everyone above me agrees with that all the time.
posted by nubs at 4:21 PM on August 23, 2022 [19 favorites]
Speaking as a middle manager, this is very true for me. If someone’s job duties can get done remotely and they are getting done, I have no problem with them working from home. But not everyone above me agrees with that all the time.
posted by nubs at 4:21 PM on August 23, 2022 [19 favorites]
Get another job. If the job you have isn't doing it for you, for whatever reason, get another job. The job market is ridiculously easy for workers right now, and it may not be for long, so make the leap while you can. You can likely find terms you want and better wage someplace else. Or someplace that is a step toward what you want, better than what you have but not yet ideal... and move from there.
I have a goal of getting a job I can walk or bicycle to. My first move was to a job with a 15 minute car commute instead of 30. I'm still looking for work within my small town. I'm being picky, but I'm looking at indeed literally every single day.
Anyone else could, also, be looking at indeed every single day. If they're making you come into the office, do it while you're there.
posted by hippybear at 4:24 PM on August 23, 2022 [3 favorites]
I have a goal of getting a job I can walk or bicycle to. My first move was to a job with a 15 minute car commute instead of 30. I'm still looking for work within my small town. I'm being picky, but I'm looking at indeed literally every single day.
Anyone else could, also, be looking at indeed every single day. If they're making you come into the office, do it while you're there.
posted by hippybear at 4:24 PM on August 23, 2022 [3 favorites]
It's all the assumption that workers, when left to their own devices, will fuck off and not work. The thing is that even worker in in-person situations find ways to fuck off and not work. I was in a fully in-person workplace pre-COVID and I myself was worried that WFH would make me less efficient because I'd find distractions around the house. What I quickly realized was that, I was being distracted constantly in-office by people stopping by my desk to chit-chat; by people asking relevant questions that devolved into rambling off-topic discussions. Managers would do this to be with the same frequency as my peers and reports. In the end, it's a wash, I do get distracted at home and take 30 minute breaks to sit on the porch, drink coffee, and watch birds. I'm also not being distracted by old Larry talking my ear off about whether the grinding noise in his truck is the CV joint or the wheel bearing.
If you honestly think you have the leverage in this situation then go for it. Better yet talk to peers in your situation and if they feel similarly then hey now, that some real leverage. I did something similar at my new job when MGT was trying to get us (salaried engineers) to work unpaid weekends to make some specious deadline that the CEO promised out of his ass to a client. I talked to the team, and basically went to my department head and told him that if he enforced this policy then he would lose engineers at a time where the company could really not afford to do so. At the end of the day we compromised. We did some weekend work in exchange for a firm time limit after which we would no longer do the extra work. We still lost 2 people from a team of 12, but I think we'd have lost 5-6 if we didn't compromise. Since then, no more asks for weekend work, I don't think they want to kick that hornet's nest again.
posted by dudemanlives at 4:27 PM on August 23, 2022 [16 favorites]
If you honestly think you have the leverage in this situation then go for it. Better yet talk to peers in your situation and if they feel similarly then hey now, that some real leverage. I did something similar at my new job when MGT was trying to get us (salaried engineers) to work unpaid weekends to make some specious deadline that the CEO promised out of his ass to a client. I talked to the team, and basically went to my department head and told him that if he enforced this policy then he would lose engineers at a time where the company could really not afford to do so. At the end of the day we compromised. We did some weekend work in exchange for a firm time limit after which we would no longer do the extra work. We still lost 2 people from a team of 12, but I think we'd have lost 5-6 if we didn't compromise. Since then, no more asks for weekend work, I don't think they want to kick that hornet's nest again.
posted by dudemanlives at 4:27 PM on August 23, 2022 [16 favorites]
These bosses grew up in a culture where everybody went into the office, where they commuted just as long as they had to, they stayed at the office until 9 PM if that's what it took to meet a deadline, and their personal lives always, always took a back seat. To a lot of Boomers that's just what work is, and anything else feels like a cheat....they're desperate to hear the steady hum of worker activity again. They were lost without it.
This really sums up what I'm seeing, too.
After more than two years of almost fully remote work, it now seems weird to me that we all just accepted the idea that we had to congregate in the same place. It's bizarre that so many of us would get up at more or less the same time, use resources and put chemicals on our bodies to make ourselves presentable, dress in ways that were not comfortable, then leave our pets and families alone to burn fossil fuels on our way to soulless buildings where we often worked in isolation.
My pug is now 15, and I've had him since he was eight weeks and fit in the palm of my hand. He's been so happy to have me around these last couple of years that I want to cry when I think of all the time he spent alone over those years. (I had a dog-walker etc. but still...)
Luckily, I now head up my own organization and have vowed that I'm not putting anybody else through that, especially not while there is still the risk of a deadly disease. My team work from home as much as they want, and come to the office when they feel like it and/or when face-to-face presence is required. We have a lease on our building with a termination clause that makes it more expensive to leave than to stick out the last few years of the contract, but we won't be renewing. There's no turning back for us.
posted by rpfields at 4:38 PM on August 23, 2022 [45 favorites]
This really sums up what I'm seeing, too.
After more than two years of almost fully remote work, it now seems weird to me that we all just accepted the idea that we had to congregate in the same place. It's bizarre that so many of us would get up at more or less the same time, use resources and put chemicals on our bodies to make ourselves presentable, dress in ways that were not comfortable, then leave our pets and families alone to burn fossil fuels on our way to soulless buildings where we often worked in isolation.
My pug is now 15, and I've had him since he was eight weeks and fit in the palm of my hand. He's been so happy to have me around these last couple of years that I want to cry when I think of all the time he spent alone over those years. (I had a dog-walker etc. but still...)
Luckily, I now head up my own organization and have vowed that I'm not putting anybody else through that, especially not while there is still the risk of a deadly disease. My team work from home as much as they want, and come to the office when they feel like it and/or when face-to-face presence is required. We have a lease on our building with a termination clause that makes it more expensive to leave than to stick out the last few years of the contract, but we won't be renewing. There's no turning back for us.
posted by rpfields at 4:38 PM on August 23, 2022 [45 favorites]
I say this with with the huge caveat that I'm not calling out individuals for stating the opinion, because it is somewhat legit: folks are right, the job market is 'good' and favors the worker right now, but man...for a huge chunk of us (and for an even larger chunk of 'folks who aren't represented on a site like metafilter) the ability to 'just find another job' is a privilege that some of us just don't have.
I worked food-service adjacent jobs for my entire life (mostly in food production facilities), and only because of a global pandemic gutting an entire sector of the workforce and killing a shit ton of people was I able to get on the bottom rung of a rather shitty, personally-morally difficult government desk job. I get to work from home three days a week. It's good, and yeah, would I try to find another job if they decided to stop remote work? Yeah, would I be able to find one? Fuck no! I am barely qualified for the shit I have now.
Just because the labor market 'favors' workers right now, doesn't mean there's an equal distribution of the ability to act on that favor.
posted by furnace.heart at 4:42 PM on August 23, 2022 [103 favorites]
I worked food-service adjacent jobs for my entire life (mostly in food production facilities), and only because of a global pandemic gutting an entire sector of the workforce and killing a shit ton of people was I able to get on the bottom rung of a rather shitty, personally-morally difficult government desk job. I get to work from home three days a week. It's good, and yeah, would I try to find another job if they decided to stop remote work? Yeah, would I be able to find one? Fuck no! I am barely qualified for the shit I have now.
Just because the labor market 'favors' workers right now, doesn't mean there's an equal distribution of the ability to act on that favor.
posted by furnace.heart at 4:42 PM on August 23, 2022 [103 favorites]
I am glad my direct boss seems to be happy to have all of us work at home and there's no "you must be in the office so I can perform my work theater!!!!" that other bosses I have had have done. (I think he's also happy to work at home forever, too.)
(Nevermind there's really no office space for all of us anyway.)
I worked more or less remotely even pre-pandemic (I was in the office a few days a week for a bit) and I have no plans on ever working in an office again. I get there are people who like it and good for them. I also understand not everyone can work remotely. It's just for me, remote work has been such a boon to my mental health that unless it's a super easy commute in an office I can show up in sweats and a graphic T-shirt with barely brushed hair, I don't really see myself ever thinking being in an office is a good idea.
(This is all tied into the stupidity of the hand-wringing over "quiet quitting" -- Oh no, people are doing their jobs and nothing else! Maybe I always had terrible jobs that didn't pay me enough in toxic situations, but my job is my job. I can enjoy things about it but it's not me. It gives me money to live and do things I live. That's all I need.)
posted by edencosmic at 4:50 PM on August 23, 2022 [11 favorites]
(Nevermind there's really no office space for all of us anyway.)
I worked more or less remotely even pre-pandemic (I was in the office a few days a week for a bit) and I have no plans on ever working in an office again. I get there are people who like it and good for them. I also understand not everyone can work remotely. It's just for me, remote work has been such a boon to my mental health that unless it's a super easy commute in an office I can show up in sweats and a graphic T-shirt with barely brushed hair, I don't really see myself ever thinking being in an office is a good idea.
(This is all tied into the stupidity of the hand-wringing over "quiet quitting" -- Oh no, people are doing their jobs and nothing else! Maybe I always had terrible jobs that didn't pay me enough in toxic situations, but my job is my job. I can enjoy things about it but it's not me. It gives me money to live and do things I live. That's all I need.)
posted by edencosmic at 4:50 PM on August 23, 2022 [11 favorites]
Man, this just chaps my hide. If you as a worker wanted to change something substantial about the workplace environment, (say, you wanted new, high-end machines for your team) you'd have to make a presentation about the value of said change: you'd have to prove that the cost of the new machines would result in an uptick in productivity or whatever and would pay for itself in X months.
It would be nice to be able to say to that manager, "if you want this change, go ahead and put together a presentation, with all the numbers, proving out how this will increase productivity (or whatever) for the company, and then we can give it a think."
Because at the end of the day, if this pandemic has proven one thing, it is that we do. not. need. to. be. in. an. office. to. be. productive. Every other article from every fucking business publication after 18 months of this pandemic all basically had the headline "Surprisingly, despite everyone working from home, productivity is up." And yet even when provided with FUCKING DATA, there are a whole lot of people who just cannot help but want to make people's lives worse.
I don't even think they're being cruel, or at least not consciously so. I just think they're stupid. Like, if your productivity goes up when your people don't go into the office, what in heaven's name do you think is going to happen if you make all those people start coming back to the office?
Expect a lot of business publications headlines, a year from now: "Surprisingly, despite everyone coming back to the office, productivity is down."
Morons.
posted by nushustu at 5:24 PM on August 23, 2022 [26 favorites]
It would be nice to be able to say to that manager, "if you want this change, go ahead and put together a presentation, with all the numbers, proving out how this will increase productivity (or whatever) for the company, and then we can give it a think."
Because at the end of the day, if this pandemic has proven one thing, it is that we do. not. need. to. be. in. an. office. to. be. productive. Every other article from every fucking business publication after 18 months of this pandemic all basically had the headline "Surprisingly, despite everyone working from home, productivity is up." And yet even when provided with FUCKING DATA, there are a whole lot of people who just cannot help but want to make people's lives worse.
I don't even think they're being cruel, or at least not consciously so. I just think they're stupid. Like, if your productivity goes up when your people don't go into the office, what in heaven's name do you think is going to happen if you make all those people start coming back to the office?
Expect a lot of business publications headlines, a year from now: "Surprisingly, despite everyone coming back to the office, productivity is down."
Morons.
posted by nushustu at 5:24 PM on August 23, 2022 [26 favorites]
People I know tend to have Boomer bosses, and the idea of employees not being in the office just drives a Boomer boss insane.
It's not a boomer thing, it's a managers who don't actually know what they do or how to manage it thing.
A lot of people in management roles have found out that as soon as they can't look over people's shoulders they don't know if they're working or not, don't know what value they add if they're not doing that, and sometimes don't really even know what their team even does. Some have even discovered that if they don't have the power to interrupt people in their workplace at will, people won't voluntarily interact with them at all.
You can understand why people in that situation want very badly to get back to the environment where they can go back to polishing a thin veneer of competence, and why they'd find friends in the soon-collapsing commercial real estate sector. Both are basically rent-seekers, either of money or time and attention, so they're natural allies.
posted by mhoye at 5:31 PM on August 23, 2022 [20 favorites]
It's not a boomer thing, it's a managers who don't actually know what they do or how to manage it thing.
A lot of people in management roles have found out that as soon as they can't look over people's shoulders they don't know if they're working or not, don't know what value they add if they're not doing that, and sometimes don't really even know what their team even does. Some have even discovered that if they don't have the power to interrupt people in their workplace at will, people won't voluntarily interact with them at all.
You can understand why people in that situation want very badly to get back to the environment where they can go back to polishing a thin veneer of competence, and why they'd find friends in the soon-collapsing commercial real estate sector. Both are basically rent-seekers, either of money or time and attention, so they're natural allies.
posted by mhoye at 5:31 PM on August 23, 2022 [20 favorites]
I have a funny / sad story in the opposite direction.
In the team of 5 people I manage - fully remote - I usually have one fresh graduate each year straight out of university, and this guy was doing really well.
I flagged to senior management that he's going to get the top band rating, and I would frequently communicate to him how well he was doing, and I'd literally tell him if he wanted anything, he only had to ask - more interesting projects, or more time off, different flexible work schedules, literally anything.
He quit, saying that he had applied to a consulting firm with a clear return to office policy.
From his point of view, his peers were living it up in the glitzy central business district, working in tall glass skyscrapers, heading down to fancy cafes for lunches with other professionals, getting networking opportunities by meeting people from different consulting / banking firms in the city. Then at about 5pm they'd knock off work, do more networking in the pubs and bars, maybe dinner at another fancy restaurant.
Whereas he was single, working alone in the gloomy study of his parents house, in his pyjamas, every day. Talking to a few disembodied voices he'd never met in person before. No real prospects of networking or even interacting with people of the opposite gender. Even if he wanted to join his friends after work, why would he put on a business suit, drive through peak hour traffic to reach the city center, then somehow be an "extra" outsider who suddenly joined them at the pub.
100% of our older workers love our full remote policy. No question about that, so we're keeping it. But this story made me sit back and think about we run an effective remote office and whether it's meeting everyone's needs.
posted by xdvesper at 5:32 PM on August 23, 2022 [100 favorites]
In the team of 5 people I manage - fully remote - I usually have one fresh graduate each year straight out of university, and this guy was doing really well.
I flagged to senior management that he's going to get the top band rating, and I would frequently communicate to him how well he was doing, and I'd literally tell him if he wanted anything, he only had to ask - more interesting projects, or more time off, different flexible work schedules, literally anything.
He quit, saying that he had applied to a consulting firm with a clear return to office policy.
From his point of view, his peers were living it up in the glitzy central business district, working in tall glass skyscrapers, heading down to fancy cafes for lunches with other professionals, getting networking opportunities by meeting people from different consulting / banking firms in the city. Then at about 5pm they'd knock off work, do more networking in the pubs and bars, maybe dinner at another fancy restaurant.
Whereas he was single, working alone in the gloomy study of his parents house, in his pyjamas, every day. Talking to a few disembodied voices he'd never met in person before. No real prospects of networking or even interacting with people of the opposite gender. Even if he wanted to join his friends after work, why would he put on a business suit, drive through peak hour traffic to reach the city center, then somehow be an "extra" outsider who suddenly joined them at the pub.
100% of our older workers love our full remote policy. No question about that, so we're keeping it. But this story made me sit back and think about we run an effective remote office and whether it's meeting everyone's needs.
posted by xdvesper at 5:32 PM on August 23, 2022 [100 favorites]
It's all the assumption that workers, when left to their own devices, will fuck off and not work.
It's not all that, though it is some that. Managing teleworkers is different enough from managing in-person people that the manager may just not know how. One would hope they've worked on that in the last couple of years, because at this point it's no surprise.
One thing I see around here, is a morale destroying envy/enmity between people whose jobs lend themselves to telework, and those whose jobs don't. Most of production department here has put a kibosh on regular telework, and that kind of makes sense. But man, are they angry when they go looking for an engineer at their desk and get told the engineer is teleworking.
And let's not even start on people whose job description requires them to be around physically, but often they're doing administrative stuff such that they could have productively spent the day at home. Man are those people angry. But can we really have, like, the equivalent of firefighters, not readily available just because fires don't happen every day?
It's simple, but it's not simple. We've lost people over it. Know what, good for them. They should find a job that suits their needs and wants. This might not be it.
posted by ctmf at 6:13 PM on August 23, 2022 [7 favorites]
It's not all that, though it is some that. Managing teleworkers is different enough from managing in-person people that the manager may just not know how. One would hope they've worked on that in the last couple of years, because at this point it's no surprise.
One thing I see around here, is a morale destroying envy/enmity between people whose jobs lend themselves to telework, and those whose jobs don't. Most of production department here has put a kibosh on regular telework, and that kind of makes sense. But man, are they angry when they go looking for an engineer at their desk and get told the engineer is teleworking.
And let's not even start on people whose job description requires them to be around physically, but often they're doing administrative stuff such that they could have productively spent the day at home. Man are those people angry. But can we really have, like, the equivalent of firefighters, not readily available just because fires don't happen every day?
It's simple, but it's not simple. We've lost people over it. Know what, good for them. They should find a job that suits their needs and wants. This might not be it.
posted by ctmf at 6:13 PM on August 23, 2022 [7 favorites]
I'm able to telework up to 2 days a week, but I've always been ambivalent about it. I don't stay home as many days as I'm allowed. One thing I have learned though, is to never, ever, mention it. It's this shameful thing and such a sensitive subject with people who can't telework that you have to make up some other cover story for not being physically present.
posted by ctmf at 6:21 PM on August 23, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by ctmf at 6:21 PM on August 23, 2022 [1 favorite]
I do think there can legitimately be a 'social' aspect to working as part of a team that's hard to replicate remotely. I'm actually not a great fan of 100% remote work generally and, having done so myself for the last couple of years, I would prefer to go into an office a couple of days a week. I understand that's not the view of everyone but, for me, getting to know my team a bit more personally would be preferable. I live a 1.5-hour flight from my office, though, so a few days every few weeks has to be enough.
posted by dg at 6:34 PM on August 23, 2022 [6 favorites]
posted by dg at 6:34 PM on August 23, 2022 [6 favorites]
I am old and cranky and I rather like this WFH thing, and I’m kind of paranoid about covid and masking policy? that wasn’t followed when it existed and now it doesn’t.
$boss said we need to be hybrid and in office two days a week.
I told $boss that it wasn’t happening and he has a decision to make.
I am still employed and still WFH and maybe one day I’ll feel safe enough to go in occasionally (never two days a week though!) and say hi to the intern.
posted by doomsey at 6:39 PM on August 23, 2022 [5 favorites]
$boss said we need to be hybrid and in office two days a week.
I told $boss that it wasn’t happening and he has a decision to make.
I am still employed and still WFH and maybe one day I’ll feel safe enough to go in occasionally (never two days a week though!) and say hi to the intern.
posted by doomsey at 6:39 PM on August 23, 2022 [5 favorites]
A bit surprised to see the number of comments here Stanning for The Man.
"Go get another job don't argue" is starting to sound a lot like "If you don't like your country you should leave, not try to improve things". Maybe people deserve better than spending half their waking hours serving the interests of capital? Just a thought.
posted by SaltySalticid at 6:43 PM on August 23, 2022 [18 favorites]
"Go get another job don't argue" is starting to sound a lot like "If you don't like your country you should leave, not try to improve things". Maybe people deserve better than spending half their waking hours serving the interests of capital? Just a thought.
posted by SaltySalticid at 6:43 PM on August 23, 2022 [18 favorites]
This tweet:
All this “we must go back to the office” sentiment seems to only come from loser middle-aged men who absolutely hate being at home with their families instead of perched atop their little grey corporate kingdom nursing weird crushes on their women colleaguesposted by condour75 at 6:46 PM on August 23, 2022 [45 favorites]
It's not "get another job, don't argue". Goodness, use that new job as a leverage point. Find the new job, go to your current job and say "this new job is better for me because x y and z, if you want to keep me, you need to be at least that good" and then leave when they say no.
Getting another job is not anything like emigrating to a new country. Voting with your feet is something you can do as a worker. It's called a "labor market" for a reason.
People deserve better than spending half their waking hours serving the interests of capital. That's why moving to a job which suits your work/life balance, lifestyle, whatever you desire is a way you make the point that these old modes of employment are no longer valid in the marketplace.
posted by hippybear at 6:47 PM on August 23, 2022 [8 favorites]
Getting another job is not anything like emigrating to a new country. Voting with your feet is something you can do as a worker. It's called a "labor market" for a reason.
People deserve better than spending half their waking hours serving the interests of capital. That's why moving to a job which suits your work/life balance, lifestyle, whatever you desire is a way you make the point that these old modes of employment are no longer valid in the marketplace.
posted by hippybear at 6:47 PM on August 23, 2022 [8 favorites]
Whereas he was single, working alone in the gloomy study of his parents house, in his pyjamas, every day. Talking to a few disembodied voices he'd never met in person before. No real prospects of networking or even interacting with people of the opposite gender. Even if he wanted to join his friends after work, why would he put on a business suit, drive through peak hour traffic to reach the city center, then somehow be an "extra" outsider who suddenly joined them at the pub.
Gotta admit, that sounds like bloody heaven. "Networking" as something positive is such a weird one to me. It's a thing that shouldn't be necessary, that is awful, that you might have to do to some extent to get jobs, but fuck me, to quit something because you aren't getting to do enough of it? It strikes me as about as plausible as quitting because you were allowed too many toilet breaks - just insane.
Getting another job is not anything like emigrating to a new country. Voting with your feet is something you can do as a worker. It's called a "labor market" for a reason.
It isn't something everyone can do. Options may be limited where you live, you may not have access to public transport (or private transport) and literally be stuck choosing between the two shitty minimum wage agency jobs going in your town. It may be called a 'market' but that is capitalist idealism - there is a market for foreign currency and stocks, but not everyone is in a position to just run out and buy stocks, either.
posted by Dysk at 6:51 PM on August 23, 2022 [17 favorites]
Gotta admit, that sounds like bloody heaven. "Networking" as something positive is such a weird one to me. It's a thing that shouldn't be necessary, that is awful, that you might have to do to some extent to get jobs, but fuck me, to quit something because you aren't getting to do enough of it? It strikes me as about as plausible as quitting because you were allowed too many toilet breaks - just insane.
Getting another job is not anything like emigrating to a new country. Voting with your feet is something you can do as a worker. It's called a "labor market" for a reason.
It isn't something everyone can do. Options may be limited where you live, you may not have access to public transport (or private transport) and literally be stuck choosing between the two shitty minimum wage agency jobs going in your town. It may be called a 'market' but that is capitalist idealism - there is a market for foreign currency and stocks, but not everyone is in a position to just run out and buy stocks, either.
posted by Dysk at 6:51 PM on August 23, 2022 [17 favorites]
That's why moving to a job which suits your work/life balance, lifestyle, whatever you desire is a way you make the point that these old modes of employment are no longer valid in the marketplace
I mean, this does come off very simplistic. Would anyone do a job they dislike if it was easy to get another one they enjoy that also treats them better? Oh, and has health insurance that's adequate. And will allow them to leave when they need to for childcare, be understanding about their chronic illness, etc? And respects work/life balance at all? People have many reasons for not finding another job but the main one, it seems, is that most jobs are not adequate for people's needs - unless your skills are in high demand. Which is really, really rare.
posted by tiny frying pan at 6:59 PM on August 23, 2022 [10 favorites]
I mean, this does come off very simplistic. Would anyone do a job they dislike if it was easy to get another one they enjoy that also treats them better? Oh, and has health insurance that's adequate. And will allow them to leave when they need to for childcare, be understanding about their chronic illness, etc? And respects work/life balance at all? People have many reasons for not finding another job but the main one, it seems, is that most jobs are not adequate for people's needs - unless your skills are in high demand. Which is really, really rare.
posted by tiny frying pan at 6:59 PM on August 23, 2022 [10 favorites]
I work at university, and apparently many of the non-teaching staff jobs are still mostly or partly remote. Which, fine, if your job is working at a computer screen all day you might as well do it at home. But I sure wish they’d transfer the phones to someone instead of just dumping me to voicemail because no one’s in the office.
posted by leahwrenn at 7:02 PM on August 23, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by leahwrenn at 7:02 PM on August 23, 2022 [5 favorites]
My workplace has become completely remote, and one of my coworkers left with one of the reasons being that their new position was back in an office where everyone was required to attend. Even before the pandemic hit, they came to the office every single day even though it wasn't required.
Extroverts have different needs. Introverts are very over-represented on the internet.
posted by meowzilla at 7:03 PM on August 23, 2022 [21 favorites]
Extroverts have different needs. Introverts are very over-represented on the internet.
posted by meowzilla at 7:03 PM on August 23, 2022 [21 favorites]
I have a job with some amount of professional status that I can do either in the office or remotely; it's just that I got that training paying attention, in an office, to the formal work conversations other people were having. There's a certain level of 'I'm alright, Jack' to the purely-remote standpoint, that neglects training younger coworkers in professional norms.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 7:10 PM on August 23, 2022 [12 favorites]
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 7:10 PM on August 23, 2022 [12 favorites]
Sure, I understand that other people might prefer not to be as isolated, but as long as there is an office you can go into, why is it so important for a lot of people that everyone else they work with be made to go into the office?
Like, I understand that not everyone needs lots of toilet breaks, but leaving in order to go to another job because they offer fewer will still always puzzle me. You don't like or need or even want the perk? Great! Why is it a problem that other people get to have it though?
posted by Dysk at 7:10 PM on August 23, 2022 [7 favorites]
Like, I understand that not everyone needs lots of toilet breaks, but leaving in order to go to another job because they offer fewer will still always puzzle me. You don't like or need or even want the perk? Great! Why is it a problem that other people get to have it though?
posted by Dysk at 7:10 PM on August 23, 2022 [7 favorites]
As someone who worked from home for twenty years - I did enjoy setting up a separate office once I had the chance.
It was quite hard on the rest of the family - "Quiet, mum is on the phone" - and it was disruptive of family life - answering the door in the middle of dinner when a client drops by to pay their bill; great, I got paid; not so great, dinner interrupted.
I have no illusions that my staff are only doing my work when they sit in my office - but I pay them to do the work that needs doing and assume that their down time means that they can do a good job when things are busy.
posted by Barbara Spitzer at 7:12 PM on August 23, 2022 [3 favorites]
It was quite hard on the rest of the family - "Quiet, mum is on the phone" - and it was disruptive of family life - answering the door in the middle of dinner when a client drops by to pay their bill; great, I got paid; not so great, dinner interrupted.
I have no illusions that my staff are only doing my work when they sit in my office - but I pay them to do the work that needs doing and assume that their down time means that they can do a good job when things are busy.
posted by Barbara Spitzer at 7:12 PM on August 23, 2022 [3 favorites]
Last I looked on indeed.com, job options were team lead, team member, and "bro-ista" for minimum wage. Options are not plenty for all.
posted by jenfullmoon at 7:16 PM on August 23, 2022 [8 favorites]
posted by jenfullmoon at 7:16 PM on August 23, 2022 [8 favorites]
My experience is that the preferred situations are everyone in the office or no one in the office. This also includes things like "everyone is remote on Fridays" or some kind of shared schedule. The worst is when people are just randomly in or out of the office. Meetings that are partially remote are terrible because the online tools generally suck compared to seeing and yelling at each other at a whiteboard and no one wants to use them, but remote workers are forgotten on a speakerphone somewhere when you do that.
posted by meowzilla at 7:27 PM on August 23, 2022 [8 favorites]
posted by meowzilla at 7:27 PM on August 23, 2022 [8 favorites]
The job market may be good for some types of workers these days. It is absolutely hellacious for many others.
The number of remote positions available has indeed multiplied since the beginning of the COVID pandemic. But the number of people seeking remote work has multiplied exponentially at the same time. When you are competing for a physical office slot, your competition are those who are qualified and who find the job's location suitable. Your competition for remote work is everyone everywhere who's qualified and looking.
Combine that with the reluctance of many, many companies to commit to remote models. As the above states, the forces demanding a return to the old model, the old ways are numerous. For every fully-remote offer recruiters dangled above my email inbox these last eight months, a dozen more were either "how'd you like to move to San Jose or to Armpit, Wyoming for a three-month onsite contract gig" or "Remote until COVID" (which equates to "onsite gig as soon as we say it is at some arbitrary point.")
I got lucky; I snagged a worthwhile remote position juuuust before I would've run out of options and abandoned my professional career. It was a near thing. There are certainly reasons to leave The Office and pursue more agreeable opportunities... but I would strongly suggest that those who do should shed any rose-colored glasses. It's a jungle out there; always has been, and it's only getting hungrier.
posted by delfin at 7:33 PM on August 23, 2022 [9 favorites]
The number of remote positions available has indeed multiplied since the beginning of the COVID pandemic. But the number of people seeking remote work has multiplied exponentially at the same time. When you are competing for a physical office slot, your competition are those who are qualified and who find the job's location suitable. Your competition for remote work is everyone everywhere who's qualified and looking.
Combine that with the reluctance of many, many companies to commit to remote models. As the above states, the forces demanding a return to the old model, the old ways are numerous. For every fully-remote offer recruiters dangled above my email inbox these last eight months, a dozen more were either "how'd you like to move to San Jose or to Armpit, Wyoming for a three-month onsite contract gig" or "Remote until COVID" (which equates to "onsite gig as soon as we say it is at some arbitrary point.")
I got lucky; I snagged a worthwhile remote position juuuust before I would've run out of options and abandoned my professional career. It was a near thing. There are certainly reasons to leave The Office and pursue more agreeable opportunities... but I would strongly suggest that those who do should shed any rose-colored glasses. It's a jungle out there; always has been, and it's only getting hungrier.
posted by delfin at 7:33 PM on August 23, 2022 [9 favorites]
Why is it a problem that other people get to have it though?
My experience is really only with development work in a big city, so maybe I’m missing some of the big picture. But my take on this: right now we’re in a weird moment when management thinks they want an office. There’s various reasons: inertia, the need to prop up real estate holdings, the aforementioned need for certain people — mostly men — to hold court over their underlings, and a cargo cult effect of Faangs demanding it and being able to afford it and retain talent.
But the fact is, it costs an epic fuckton of money to maintain a building for hundreds of people. I remember seeing our office costs for a midtown NY lease and office services in the mid-2010s. It was like 3k a head. That’s not including liability, increased interpersonal and harassment issues, and higher absenteeism, and the opportunity costs associated with only hiring local talent willing to commute.
So yes, if you work a desk job you may have an option to go in now, but I wouldn’t count on it remaining. Other models might gain popularity, like short term rents for temporary, expensed colocation during brainstorming sessions or kickoffs. But at some point, you’ve got to realize that you, the employee, sitting in a giant Manhattan office with a handful of other employees scattered around trying to go on zoom calls with their at-home peers, are essentially paying rent on that space, in the form of a lower salary. Either that or the company is willfully hemorrhaging money.
posted by condour75 at 7:35 PM on August 23, 2022 [7 favorites]
My experience is really only with development work in a big city, so maybe I’m missing some of the big picture. But my take on this: right now we’re in a weird moment when management thinks they want an office. There’s various reasons: inertia, the need to prop up real estate holdings, the aforementioned need for certain people — mostly men — to hold court over their underlings, and a cargo cult effect of Faangs demanding it and being able to afford it and retain talent.
But the fact is, it costs an epic fuckton of money to maintain a building for hundreds of people. I remember seeing our office costs for a midtown NY lease and office services in the mid-2010s. It was like 3k a head. That’s not including liability, increased interpersonal and harassment issues, and higher absenteeism, and the opportunity costs associated with only hiring local talent willing to commute.
So yes, if you work a desk job you may have an option to go in now, but I wouldn’t count on it remaining. Other models might gain popularity, like short term rents for temporary, expensed colocation during brainstorming sessions or kickoffs. But at some point, you’ve got to realize that you, the employee, sitting in a giant Manhattan office with a handful of other employees scattered around trying to go on zoom calls with their at-home peers, are essentially paying rent on that space, in the form of a lower salary. Either that or the company is willfully hemorrhaging money.
posted by condour75 at 7:35 PM on August 23, 2022 [7 favorites]
Most of my coworkers are in Asia or another region of the US anyway. Trying to get some more appropriate tools for a mostly remote and international team is not going well, and that problem isn’t new to the Covid era. Admittedly that situation isn’t ideal but whatever one thinks about remote work in general going to the office to do it is pretty absurd.
posted by doomsey at 7:36 PM on August 23, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by doomsey at 7:36 PM on August 23, 2022 [3 favorites]
You don't like or need or even want the perk? Great! Why is it a problem that other people get to have it though?
I'm reminded of how many people view benefits such as unemployment insurance, health care, and similar forms of assistance that might make their lives easier. You can explain to them until you're blue in the face how said benefit would be beneficial for them. Often, they will AGREE that it is something that would be good for them.
And then they will go and vote for people who want to eliminate it. Why? Because people that they do not like, people who don't "deserve" said benefit, might also have their lives improved by it. And they would rather do without it themselves than live in a world in which the wrong people get it, too.
posted by delfin at 7:42 PM on August 23, 2022 [14 favorites]
I'm reminded of how many people view benefits such as unemployment insurance, health care, and similar forms of assistance that might make their lives easier. You can explain to them until you're blue in the face how said benefit would be beneficial for them. Often, they will AGREE that it is something that would be good for them.
And then they will go and vote for people who want to eliminate it. Why? Because people that they do not like, people who don't "deserve" said benefit, might also have their lives improved by it. And they would rather do without it themselves than live in a world in which the wrong people get it, too.
posted by delfin at 7:42 PM on August 23, 2022 [14 favorites]
at some point, you’ve got to realize that you, the employee, sitting in a giant Manhattan office with a handful of other employees scattered around trying to go on zoom calls with their at-home peers, are essentially paying rent on that space, in the form of a lower salary
The alternative is letting your company rent space in your home for free.
There are many things about remote work that I do like, but as a young lawyer I would've missed learning so much not being able to observe/talk with my manager in person. As a manager, he was a jerk, actually, so all I would've gotten was the jerk demands and not the benefits of being able to watch a very talented guy do his thing.
posted by praemunire at 7:45 PM on August 23, 2022 [24 favorites]
The alternative is letting your company rent space in your home for free.
There are many things about remote work that I do like, but as a young lawyer I would've missed learning so much not being able to observe/talk with my manager in person. As a manager, he was a jerk, actually, so all I would've gotten was the jerk demands and not the benefits of being able to watch a very talented guy do his thing.
posted by praemunire at 7:45 PM on August 23, 2022 [24 favorites]
>The alternative is letting your company rent space in your home for free.
As opposed to being forced to spend two hours a day in your car for free, with everybody else in the world also sitting on the road burning up fossil fuels while the world is on fire? I choose the former.
posted by Sing Or Swim at 7:50 PM on August 23, 2022 [26 favorites]
As opposed to being forced to spend two hours a day in your car for free, with everybody else in the world also sitting on the road burning up fossil fuels while the world is on fire? I choose the former.
posted by Sing Or Swim at 7:50 PM on August 23, 2022 [26 favorites]
Can someone please just post a link to the comic where the office workers go feral. I don't have it ready to hand.
posted by clockwork at 7:54 PM on August 23, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by clockwork at 7:54 PM on August 23, 2022 [3 favorites]
Going forward I kind of think there is a lot of merit to funding WeWork-style hoteling setups as an option for people who want that or activities that need them rather than maintaining company real estate. It’s probably a better way to learn workplace norms than an empty office site too. So I don’t think necessarily that concerns about contact and rent-free appropriation of workspace are necessarily an unsolvable problem.
posted by doomsey at 7:55 PM on August 23, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by doomsey at 7:55 PM on August 23, 2022 [2 favorites]
I’m just going to keep doing whatever I want with an impish smile and the-devil-does-care twirl. It’s the only way I stay sane.
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 8:06 PM on August 23, 2022 [11 favorites]
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 8:06 PM on August 23, 2022 [11 favorites]
Different experience from the median poster here with WFH. I'm speaking here for my profession, industry, and most specifically my immediate colleagues, but for us it's a big hit.
It especially hits employee development. We're in an R&D environment and no one comes in knowing all the nuances. And WFH really ups the barrier to asking for help. It's no longer "Well, this is frustrating, I'm going to walk around the office and see if anyone has any ideas." Instead it's "Do I want to admit I can't finish this on my own and schedule a zoom meeting?" You can't be given a training program to learn it all, either. If we could write down everything you should do, it's not research.
I really worry some younger people in our organization are screwing themselves over without realizing it. We count on employees getting better at all the vaguely defined stuff as they work, and WFH makes it harder on them (and their manager) to do that, so they'll do the clearly defined tasks then be frustrated in 5+ years that they aren't ready for the more fulfilling work.
Incidentally, when people say this is something good managers can handle, I don't totally disagree. Good managers are at least better at it (though there would still be a gap in my area). But the average manager is mediocre! That's the world we live in.
I certainly think there are places where it works! I'm not pretending it's a universal problem. And of course this is job where learning stuff does translate to advancement at least moderately well, and doing the job well can be fulfilling. Which I realize is not the norm these days. But some of the apparent leniency is going to backfire. Really glad I stopped supervising people before all this hit.
posted by mark k at 8:14 PM on August 23, 2022 [31 favorites]
It especially hits employee development. We're in an R&D environment and no one comes in knowing all the nuances. And WFH really ups the barrier to asking for help. It's no longer "Well, this is frustrating, I'm going to walk around the office and see if anyone has any ideas." Instead it's "Do I want to admit I can't finish this on my own and schedule a zoom meeting?" You can't be given a training program to learn it all, either. If we could write down everything you should do, it's not research.
I really worry some younger people in our organization are screwing themselves over without realizing it. We count on employees getting better at all the vaguely defined stuff as they work, and WFH makes it harder on them (and their manager) to do that, so they'll do the clearly defined tasks then be frustrated in 5+ years that they aren't ready for the more fulfilling work.
Incidentally, when people say this is something good managers can handle, I don't totally disagree. Good managers are at least better at it (though there would still be a gap in my area). But the average manager is mediocre! That's the world we live in.
I certainly think there are places where it works! I'm not pretending it's a universal problem. And of course this is job where learning stuff does translate to advancement at least moderately well, and doing the job well can be fulfilling. Which I realize is not the norm these days. But some of the apparent leniency is going to backfire. Really glad I stopped supervising people before all this hit.
posted by mark k at 8:14 PM on August 23, 2022 [31 favorites]
Several companies I've interviewed with in the past few years have taken advantage of WFH possibilities and have completely given up their office-space leases. It's super cost-effective for the employer but could use some tweaking to help the employees - rental or mortgage assistance for a home that includes a home office space, WeWork memberships, reimbursements for equipment needed to do your job at home.
I've received some benefits like this but nowhere near the level it would take to make WFH comparable to working in the office, even taking into account the benefits of WFH.
That said, I never want to not WFH, it just costs a bit more in some ways.
posted by bendy at 8:19 PM on August 23, 2022 [2 favorites]
I've received some benefits like this but nowhere near the level it would take to make WFH comparable to working in the office, even taking into account the benefits of WFH.
That said, I never want to not WFH, it just costs a bit more in some ways.
posted by bendy at 8:19 PM on August 23, 2022 [2 favorites]
I don't like WFH, and I don't like the "only control freak boomers and deranged loners want to work in an office" vibe these conversations always have. I like the giant printer that I don't pay for or have to maintain, I like the supply closet, I like my view, I like my phone that works better than our remote phones, I like having my work not in my home and personal space. I like being able to pop into someone's office to talk out a strategy or ask a stupid question. (Stupid questions seem so much stupider in writing.) I have ADHD and working from home is so so hard. Two+ years and some Adderall and I'm still mentally all over the place when I WFH. I just can't make it work.
Extroverts have different needs. Introverts are very over-represented on the internet.
I'm an introvert and have found I miss the casual, low pressure social interactions at work. But I genuinely like most of the people I work with and not everyone does.
I strongly believe WFH should be voluntary and people shouldn't be required to come to the office unless it's truly necessary. But not everyone who wants to work in an office is a terrible person who hates their family and wants to harass women or whatever.
posted by Mavri at 8:21 PM on August 23, 2022 [67 favorites]
Extroverts have different needs. Introverts are very over-represented on the internet.
I'm an introvert and have found I miss the casual, low pressure social interactions at work. But I genuinely like most of the people I work with and not everyone does.
I strongly believe WFH should be voluntary and people shouldn't be required to come to the office unless it's truly necessary. But not everyone who wants to work in an office is a terrible person who hates their family and wants to harass women or whatever.
posted by Mavri at 8:21 PM on August 23, 2022 [67 favorites]
Meetings that are partially remote are terrible because the online tools generally suck compared to seeing and yelling at each other at a whiteboard and no one wants to use them, but remote workers are forgotten on a speakerphone somewhere when you do that.
Partially remote meetings are why my boss and I ended up working from home more than the company wide standard. We work mostly on a team that includes people from various other offices in North America, and the remote meetings were always terrible. The big lesson from us all going WFH for 2 years was that each of us on our own computer with headphones (wherever that may be) is infinitely preferable to two or more conference rooms trying to zoom together. And really, if I'm going to spend all day in zoom, why bother coming in at all? We only come in one day a week, if that.
I do wonder about the experience our Coop student is getting, with so few people around. Being able to self-advocate and make one's self seen is going to be a major skill.
posted by selenized at 8:22 PM on August 23, 2022 [7 favorites]
Partially remote meetings are why my boss and I ended up working from home more than the company wide standard. We work mostly on a team that includes people from various other offices in North America, and the remote meetings were always terrible. The big lesson from us all going WFH for 2 years was that each of us on our own computer with headphones (wherever that may be) is infinitely preferable to two or more conference rooms trying to zoom together. And really, if I'm going to spend all day in zoom, why bother coming in at all? We only come in one day a week, if that.
I do wonder about the experience our Coop student is getting, with so few people around. Being able to self-advocate and make one's self seen is going to be a major skill.
posted by selenized at 8:22 PM on August 23, 2022 [7 favorites]
It’s weird, I have been in a community of peers online since college, it’s moved a few times (a couple of irc servers, now discord) but a lot of us are still there so I know that the online commons can work.
It is a big frustration to me that I can’t seem to get something like that going at $work to help some of the newer engineers get started and to take advantage of greybeard wisdom when I’ve literally been doing that since the 90s on irc. Part of it is a tools problem - the ones we have are terrible, I actually wrote up some history for a question and the collaboration tool ate my answer so nobody benefits from it - but it’s also a culture problem and I know the right culture can exist because I lived it but how do I make it?
In the mean time I just get grumpier because I see all of this and I can’t fix it and struggle to even get the concerns acknowledged.
posted by doomsey at 8:23 PM on August 23, 2022 [3 favorites]
It is a big frustration to me that I can’t seem to get something like that going at $work to help some of the newer engineers get started and to take advantage of greybeard wisdom when I’ve literally been doing that since the 90s on irc. Part of it is a tools problem - the ones we have are terrible, I actually wrote up some history for a question and the collaboration tool ate my answer so nobody benefits from it - but it’s also a culture problem and I know the right culture can exist because I lived it but how do I make it?
In the mean time I just get grumpier because I see all of this and I can’t fix it and struggle to even get the concerns acknowledged.
posted by doomsey at 8:23 PM on August 23, 2022 [3 favorites]
I do wonder about the experience our Coop student is getting, with so few people around. Being able to self-advocate and make one's self seen is going to be a major skill.
Our interns and new hires are struggling. Similar to my stupid question problem, it's much easier to learn by watching and chit-chatting when you don't have to schedule a zoom call to do it. I'm sure systems can be worked out that are better than the half-assed chaos we have, but a quiet person can easily get lost working remotely. As an introvert and very non-assertive person, I think this is a real issue.
posted by Mavri at 8:29 PM on August 23, 2022 [19 favorites]
Our interns and new hires are struggling. Similar to my stupid question problem, it's much easier to learn by watching and chit-chatting when you don't have to schedule a zoom call to do it. I'm sure systems can be worked out that are better than the half-assed chaos we have, but a quiet person can easily get lost working remotely. As an introvert and very non-assertive person, I think this is a real issue.
posted by Mavri at 8:29 PM on August 23, 2022 [19 favorites]
I hated work from home at first, but now mostly like it since I've found more ways to make it work for me. But the blurry boundaries mean that things spill over more, versus back when I went to the office and going home meant being fully off the clock. I miss those sharp boundaries.
But I'm very aware that this is working for me as a "mid-career" person who has built something of a network; I don't think I would have been successful in this environment if I was just starting out.
posted by Dip Flash at 8:37 PM on August 23, 2022 [3 favorites]
But I'm very aware that this is working for me as a "mid-career" person who has built something of a network; I don't think I would have been successful in this environment if I was just starting out.
posted by Dip Flash at 8:37 PM on August 23, 2022 [3 favorites]
it's much easier to learn by watching and chit-chatting when you don't have to schedule a zoom call to do it
So true. I had a "knowledge-transfer" Zoom meeting with a cow-orker today and I had to end it after an hour-and-a-half because I couldn't stand looking at my face any longer.
posted by bendy at 8:40 PM on August 23, 2022 [4 favorites]
So true. I had a "knowledge-transfer" Zoom meeting with a cow-orker today and I had to end it after an hour-and-a-half because I couldn't stand looking at my face any longer.
posted by bendy at 8:40 PM on August 23, 2022 [4 favorites]
Our interns and new hires are struggling.
This is extremely unfortunate. I got to mentor an intern remotely and it was *my job* to make sure I was available to chat any time and we had regular touch points. It's... what both of you are supposed to be doing. If folks aren't doing that they have to do their jobs better.
posted by bleep at 8:45 PM on August 23, 2022 [6 favorites]
This is extremely unfortunate. I got to mentor an intern remotely and it was *my job* to make sure I was available to chat any time and we had regular touch points. It's... what both of you are supposed to be doing. If folks aren't doing that they have to do their jobs better.
posted by bleep at 8:45 PM on August 23, 2022 [6 favorites]
It is a bit weird that WFH in a way imposes things on the workers. Space, internet availability, etc.
In my last job, my company was bought out by a company in Tennessee, (I’m in Seattle). They wanted me to WFH. My job required a bunch of space, a bunch of computers, and a bunch of test equipment, so I told them that was not possible. They balked, but as I was the only person on the planet who was able to do the job, they acquiesced to letting me rent a space. And eventually it became a job where I didn’t actually do very much.
But not having to pay for an office space, feels a lot like offloading costs that should be fronted by the company onto our home lives. WFH is awesome in some ways, but wait for the capitalists to make it a burden on everyone, to save money on office space.
posted by Windopaene at 8:46 PM on August 23, 2022 [5 favorites]
In my last job, my company was bought out by a company in Tennessee, (I’m in Seattle). They wanted me to WFH. My job required a bunch of space, a bunch of computers, and a bunch of test equipment, so I told them that was not possible. They balked, but as I was the only person on the planet who was able to do the job, they acquiesced to letting me rent a space. And eventually it became a job where I didn’t actually do very much.
But not having to pay for an office space, feels a lot like offloading costs that should be fronted by the company onto our home lives. WFH is awesome in some ways, but wait for the capitalists to make it a burden on everyone, to save money on office space.
posted by Windopaene at 8:46 PM on August 23, 2022 [5 favorites]
My office shut down completely for the pandemic, realized we didn't lose any productivity, and has since moved to a hybrid model that prioritizes remote workers (or so we hope, but it seems to be working so far). I feel like we've done well in addressing a lot of the concerns that people bring up here about remote vs office work - once our offices were allowed to be open again, we had people that were going into the office fill out a survey about why, and kept track of how many people were generally in our offices so that we know how much space we actually need. It feels like we've been very accommodating in recognizing that we all have different preferences for how we work, and while I may never feel a need to work from an office ever again, a lot of people find value in that. We've given out stipends to all existing employees to fit out their home offices, and I believe we do the same for any new hires. There's a general culture of bringing up our newer, less experienced employees into the profession, so a lot of our staff goes into the office almost entirely to serve as on-site mentors with regular "office hours" so that the newer employees know that there will be someone there - and to my knowledge that's been entirely voluntary. So nobody's really been forced to do anything, you get help if you need it, and a bunch of us (myself included) have moved completely away from the region the company is in without feeling like we're missing anything.
posted by LionIndex at 8:50 PM on August 23, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by LionIndex at 8:50 PM on August 23, 2022 [4 favorites]
"Networking" as something positive is such a weird one to me. It's a thing that shouldn't be necessary, that is awful, that you might have to do to some extent to get jobs
Hmm.
So I'm talking about networking both within the company, and outside the company.
And yes, there are many different types of jobs, these are ones where there's a prospect of career progression, a plausible line drawn between where you are as a graduate and the C-suite of a multi billion dollar company. One of my peers I joined as a graduate with in 2008 is the CFO of our 3500 person local business unit right now.
So humans are inherently political. I wish it were not so but we can't stop that from happening, we aren't robots. Authority comes from your job title - but influence comes from your networks and interpersonal relationships. There are countless examples where a leader parachuted into the role has no influence and is unmasked as being completely ineffective because their subordinates aren't on board with their directions and sometimes actively oppose them...
I cannot promote someone into leadership if I know none of the other employees are willing to follow their lead.
Building relationships with your immediate peers is good but not the end of it. What you need are relationships with key personnel across far flung segments of the organization, which is exactly how our graduate training programs are designed - I would have worked in Manufacturing, Procurement, Engineering, Logistics, Program Management, Profit Reporting, etc. In addition, we purposely arrange activities for graduates across different functions so they have frequent opportunities to mix together and build personal relationships and bonds which hopefully last 10-20 years.
This is actually why immigrant minorities have a hidden advantage when it comes to networking and influence - as a minority from a SEA country, I joined a group of workers from that country which spans all levels of management and functions, so I have access to information and friendship circles in areas which I would have no access to otherwise - obscure areas of the business like TQM, prototyping, warehouse management, etc - more importantly, it puts first year graduates in direct contact with senior management / executive level staff on casual footing where we might go out for lunch together, and not in a formal direct reporting relationship.
My point is - a company only works together effectively when staff see each other as being on the same team. It's hard be effective as strangers thrown in together... that's basically what happens in university if you get randomly put together into groups to do a project, what a disaster.
As for external networking... well you might care because you may be looking for a job. But even if you don't, you gain a wealth of knowledge of how other organizations function - I've met people working in the defense industry, working on drones and tanks - I've met people working on local councils, who make decisions on zoning and policy. There's always something interesting you can learn about the wider world.
posted by xdvesper at 9:01 PM on August 23, 2022 [23 favorites]
Hmm.
So I'm talking about networking both within the company, and outside the company.
And yes, there are many different types of jobs, these are ones where there's a prospect of career progression, a plausible line drawn between where you are as a graduate and the C-suite of a multi billion dollar company. One of my peers I joined as a graduate with in 2008 is the CFO of our 3500 person local business unit right now.
So humans are inherently political. I wish it were not so but we can't stop that from happening, we aren't robots. Authority comes from your job title - but influence comes from your networks and interpersonal relationships. There are countless examples where a leader parachuted into the role has no influence and is unmasked as being completely ineffective because their subordinates aren't on board with their directions and sometimes actively oppose them...
I cannot promote someone into leadership if I know none of the other employees are willing to follow their lead.
Building relationships with your immediate peers is good but not the end of it. What you need are relationships with key personnel across far flung segments of the organization, which is exactly how our graduate training programs are designed - I would have worked in Manufacturing, Procurement, Engineering, Logistics, Program Management, Profit Reporting, etc. In addition, we purposely arrange activities for graduates across different functions so they have frequent opportunities to mix together and build personal relationships and bonds which hopefully last 10-20 years.
This is actually why immigrant minorities have a hidden advantage when it comes to networking and influence - as a minority from a SEA country, I joined a group of workers from that country which spans all levels of management and functions, so I have access to information and friendship circles in areas which I would have no access to otherwise - obscure areas of the business like TQM, prototyping, warehouse management, etc - more importantly, it puts first year graduates in direct contact with senior management / executive level staff on casual footing where we might go out for lunch together, and not in a formal direct reporting relationship.
My point is - a company only works together effectively when staff see each other as being on the same team. It's hard be effective as strangers thrown in together... that's basically what happens in university if you get randomly put together into groups to do a project, what a disaster.
As for external networking... well you might care because you may be looking for a job. But even if you don't, you gain a wealth of knowledge of how other organizations function - I've met people working in the defense industry, working on drones and tanks - I've met people working on local councils, who make decisions on zoning and policy. There's always something interesting you can learn about the wider world.
posted by xdvesper at 9:01 PM on August 23, 2022 [23 favorites]
The one concern i have, is that having office space delinates between work and home--I have never had an office job, and I feel esp post covid, too much work all the time
posted by PinkMoose at 9:02 PM on August 23, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by PinkMoose at 9:02 PM on August 23, 2022 [3 favorites]
100% of our older workers love our full remote policy. No question about that, so we're keeping it. But this story made me sit back and think about we run an effective remote office and whether it's meeting everyone's needs.
I can definitely believe there’s some age divide here. Somebody who hasn’t already spent a decade driving to and from some office park every day probably doesn’t hate it yet. If it’s a big fancy HQ in the city they may even have some romantic ideas about it. And there are definitely some parts of the remote work social experience we don’t collectively seem to have figured out yet. I’m currently looking for a job and strongly favoring WFH opportunities but, like, I just had a job for two years without once meeting any of my co-workers face to face and that was kind of weird!
posted by atoxyl at 9:30 PM on August 23, 2022 [6 favorites]
I can definitely believe there’s some age divide here. Somebody who hasn’t already spent a decade driving to and from some office park every day probably doesn’t hate it yet. If it’s a big fancy HQ in the city they may even have some romantic ideas about it. And there are definitely some parts of the remote work social experience we don’t collectively seem to have figured out yet. I’m currently looking for a job and strongly favoring WFH opportunities but, like, I just had a job for two years without once meeting any of my co-workers face to face and that was kind of weird!
posted by atoxyl at 9:30 PM on August 23, 2022 [6 favorites]
It didn’t take me a decade to hate wasting my time pointlessly. And we went to school, we know what wasting time is like.
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 9:34 PM on August 23, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 9:34 PM on August 23, 2022 [4 favorites]
My firm has see-sawed all over the place, from "as long as you get your work done, you can work from home as much as you want" to "well, we've thought about the impact on downtown businesses, and think it would really help if people came in at least once a week" to "we need you to come in three days a week so we can have collaboration together again."
The three-day-a-week plan involved ditching the desktop computers and making everyone schlep their laptops back and forth every day. Apparently there was some pushback from my coworkers on this, because management finally caved and said that anyone in the group who wanted to work remotely full-time could do so.
I'm fairly senior at the group, and have absolutely zero desire to move upwards, so there isn't much upside for working in the office for me. The thing I miss the most is the air conditioning on hot days, but that's mitigated by being able to wear shorts and a tank top instead of business casual on hot days.
My computer setup at home is better--larger monitors, an ergonomic keyboard. If I ever decide I need a trackball or whatever I don't have to get a doctor's note for it and go through a lot of bureaucratic nonsense. I don't care if it means I'm taking on some costs of the office, I'm willing to pay to have things optimized for my work without a lot of hassle and that wasn't an option when I worked in the office. My job requires a lot of repetitive actions and getting all of my equipment to run as smoothly as possibly really cuts down on fatigue.
I don't get distracted by coworkers in an open office talking about projects that I'm not working on and will never work on. I also don't have to listen to them arguing with their kids or tech support. A lot of the things I do require a lot of focused concentration and cutting down on noise is super helpful. Also having more barriers to being interrupted is helpful (rather than any rando just walking up to my desk any time they felt like it).
I don't know what I'd do if they demanded a return to the office, and I don't know what they'd do if I refused. Last performance review, I got a bonus and a raise, so I think they do recognize my value, but on the other hand, a lot of the value I bring is knowing my specific tasks and my bosses really well, and is not transferable to another firm. I'm unlikely to find another job that would pay me nearly as much. OTOH, if I decided to retire early and drastically scale down my spending, the firm would lose institutional knowledge that would take 10+ years to replace. I'm lucky that for the moment, I don't have to see who would blink first.
posted by creepygirl at 9:35 PM on August 23, 2022 [2 favorites]
The three-day-a-week plan involved ditching the desktop computers and making everyone schlep their laptops back and forth every day. Apparently there was some pushback from my coworkers on this, because management finally caved and said that anyone in the group who wanted to work remotely full-time could do so.
I'm fairly senior at the group, and have absolutely zero desire to move upwards, so there isn't much upside for working in the office for me. The thing I miss the most is the air conditioning on hot days, but that's mitigated by being able to wear shorts and a tank top instead of business casual on hot days.
My computer setup at home is better--larger monitors, an ergonomic keyboard. If I ever decide I need a trackball or whatever I don't have to get a doctor's note for it and go through a lot of bureaucratic nonsense. I don't care if it means I'm taking on some costs of the office, I'm willing to pay to have things optimized for my work without a lot of hassle and that wasn't an option when I worked in the office. My job requires a lot of repetitive actions and getting all of my equipment to run as smoothly as possibly really cuts down on fatigue.
I don't get distracted by coworkers in an open office talking about projects that I'm not working on and will never work on. I also don't have to listen to them arguing with their kids or tech support. A lot of the things I do require a lot of focused concentration and cutting down on noise is super helpful. Also having more barriers to being interrupted is helpful (rather than any rando just walking up to my desk any time they felt like it).
I don't know what I'd do if they demanded a return to the office, and I don't know what they'd do if I refused. Last performance review, I got a bonus and a raise, so I think they do recognize my value, but on the other hand, a lot of the value I bring is knowing my specific tasks and my bosses really well, and is not transferable to another firm. I'm unlikely to find another job that would pay me nearly as much. OTOH, if I decided to retire early and drastically scale down my spending, the firm would lose institutional knowledge that would take 10+ years to replace. I'm lucky that for the moment, I don't have to see who would blink first.
posted by creepygirl at 9:35 PM on August 23, 2022 [2 favorites]
All the people in here talking about networking know full well that the only way you’re getting a significant raise is to switch employers. But keep pretending the corporate ladder actually works if you want… for whatever reason lets you sleep.
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 9:40 PM on August 23, 2022 [9 favorites]
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 9:40 PM on August 23, 2022 [9 favorites]
Pandemic aside (though that's not to be underestimated, I've loved not getting the yearly cold), I could maybe be swayed back into the office if commute time counted as work time (and I ride the bus).
That said, my employer's made blended full-remote / hybrid / full-in-office work through a couple details.
1. All meetings that have someone remote will be held full-virtual. This fixes any sort of "oh no, the conference room is ignoring the virtual attendees" business.
2. Define the core hours that overlap between all requisite time zones. That's when all meetings will be held. Relatedly, once I reach lunch the entire latter half of the day is peaceful & distraction-free.
3. Solid note-taking culture. If it matters, it should get written down somewhere. And by a rotating/collaborative set of attendees, so it doesn't fall on unfair shoulders.
posted by CrystalDave at 10:07 PM on August 23, 2022 [6 favorites]
That said, my employer's made blended full-remote / hybrid / full-in-office work through a couple details.
1. All meetings that have someone remote will be held full-virtual. This fixes any sort of "oh no, the conference room is ignoring the virtual attendees" business.
2. Define the core hours that overlap between all requisite time zones. That's when all meetings will be held. Relatedly, once I reach lunch the entire latter half of the day is peaceful & distraction-free.
3. Solid note-taking culture. If it matters, it should get written down somewhere. And by a rotating/collaborative set of attendees, so it doesn't fall on unfair shoulders.
posted by CrystalDave at 10:07 PM on August 23, 2022 [6 favorites]
Cntl f "Union" not found
C'mon people what are we doing here
posted by eustatic at 10:08 PM on August 23, 2022 [14 favorites]
C'mon people what are we doing here
posted by eustatic at 10:08 PM on August 23, 2022 [14 favorites]
This is extremely unfortunate. I got to mentor an intern remotely and it was *my job* to make sure I was available to chat any time and we had regular touch points. It's... what both of you are supposed to be doing. If folks aren't doing that they have to do their jobs better.
I wish people were less eager to generalize from their own experience to any arbitrary situation, even if they are completely unfamiliar with.
Leave that to MBAs. For them, pretending to have a generic management skill is much easier if they believe all jobs and employees are interchangeable and what works once, works always. The rest of us can accept that industries and individuals we've dealt with may have unique or idiosyncratic attributes.
posted by mark k at 10:29 PM on August 23, 2022 [11 favorites]
I wish people were less eager to generalize from their own experience to any arbitrary situation, even if they are completely unfamiliar with.
Leave that to MBAs. For them, pretending to have a generic management skill is much easier if they believe all jobs and employees are interchangeable and what works once, works always. The rest of us can accept that industries and individuals we've dealt with may have unique or idiosyncratic attributes.
posted by mark k at 10:29 PM on August 23, 2022 [11 favorites]
As opposed to being forced to spend two hours a day in your car for free , with everybody else in the world also sitting on the road burning up fossil fuels while the world is on fire?
I've never in my life spent two hours a day in a car commuting to work, and a person who decides to live in a suburb and undertake such a commute is not in the best position to issue lectures on the environment, I think.
But, regardless, that's still two hours, not 24/7 space in your home given over for free to your employer. My summer a/c costs doubled when I started working from home. People should not be enthusiastic about corporations being able to shift even more costs onto their employees.
I bet a number of people would hate being in the office a good deal less if they had an office with a door that closed. If I had to work open-plan I'd probably already be locked up somewhere.
posted by praemunire at 10:34 PM on August 23, 2022 [6 favorites]
I've never in my life spent two hours a day in a car commuting to work, and a person who decides to live in a suburb and undertake such a commute is not in the best position to issue lectures on the environment, I think.
But, regardless, that's still two hours, not 24/7 space in your home given over for free to your employer. My summer a/c costs doubled when I started working from home. People should not be enthusiastic about corporations being able to shift even more costs onto their employees.
I bet a number of people would hate being in the office a good deal less if they had an office with a door that closed. If I had to work open-plan I'd probably already be locked up somewhere.
posted by praemunire at 10:34 PM on August 23, 2022 [6 favorites]
Why did your ac costs double? It’s more efficient to keep your house at a relatively even temp within a few degrees regardless of being there or not for awhile. Starting/stopping is wildly less efficient.
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 10:42 PM on August 23, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 10:42 PM on August 23, 2022 [4 favorites]
All meetings that have someone remote will be held full-virtual.
On my team, this would mean all meetings. I’m not saying this is wrong, but now that some of us are back in office people having meetings at their desks is also disruptive/annoying. So far hybrid is proving a bit more tricksy than either full remote or full in-person, that’s about what I was expecting however.
posted by Jon Mitchell at 10:48 PM on August 23, 2022
On my team, this would mean all meetings. I’m not saying this is wrong, but now that some of us are back in office people having meetings at their desks is also disruptive/annoying. So far hybrid is proving a bit more tricksy than either full remote or full in-person, that’s about what I was expecting however.
posted by Jon Mitchell at 10:48 PM on August 23, 2022
But keep pretending the corporate ladder actually works if you want…
Well I didn't get to where I am now without a college degree by hiding in my office and "staying under the radar", as people like to put it. I've moved departments, but I never had to quit my job.
I dont think that means you have to be a used car salesman-like schmoozer, but you do have to be known. People who tell me they just want to stay under the radar, I say well you can't keep your mistakes a secret, only the good things. That's what you want your image to be, all your mistakes?
posted by ctmf at 10:59 PM on August 23, 2022 [6 favorites]
Well I didn't get to where I am now without a college degree by hiding in my office and "staying under the radar", as people like to put it. I've moved departments, but I never had to quit my job.
I dont think that means you have to be a used car salesman-like schmoozer, but you do have to be known. People who tell me they just want to stay under the radar, I say well you can't keep your mistakes a secret, only the good things. That's what you want your image to be, all your mistakes?
posted by ctmf at 10:59 PM on August 23, 2022 [6 favorites]
If you're part of a team, it's easier to build cohesion if you have *some* time sharing the same physical space. When I was managing, I learned things from in-person meetings with my team that I never would have remotely. So much so that traveling around to see other offices was a specific part of my job description. And training new employees is just easier in person for me.
But: that time does not have to happen in a conventional office. My current employer is downsizing to a hot-desk setup and we are only required to come in for major meetings. It will be interesting to see if that works.
I am not new to working but I don't have a small child, have access to good transit, and kind of enjoy being in a city, so I like going in a few days a week. I get tired of my apartment. I often end up meeting a random bigwig who's in town that day and yeah, that's good for my networking. The people watching is interesting.
So much depends on what your office is like, what your home is like, what burdens you are trying to balance.
posted by emjaybee at 11:07 PM on August 23, 2022 [4 favorites]
But: that time does not have to happen in a conventional office. My current employer is downsizing to a hot-desk setup and we are only required to come in for major meetings. It will be interesting to see if that works.
I am not new to working but I don't have a small child, have access to good transit, and kind of enjoy being in a city, so I like going in a few days a week. I get tired of my apartment. I often end up meeting a random bigwig who's in town that day and yeah, that's good for my networking. The people watching is interesting.
So much depends on what your office is like, what your home is like, what burdens you are trying to balance.
posted by emjaybee at 11:07 PM on August 23, 2022 [4 favorites]
My organisation (about 800 knowledge workers) seems to have found a set of reasonable tradeoffs.
Staff can work from home or the office, but must spend at least day in the office once a week - details are negotiated with your immediate superior. Plenty of people have reasons to want to be in the office and are there all or most of the time. Plenty are mostly at home for their reasons. Some teams spread out office attendance so that there's always someone there, others all come in on the same day - it just depends on what their tasks need. A small number of people are fully-remote for particular reasons. It seems to be working.
But meanwhile, the organisation is introducing hot desking and shrinking its footprint from two buildings to one (halving its accommodation costs). People would normally be very against hot desking, but its viewed as demonstrating a long term commitment to enabling working from home - it'll be impossible for everyone to come in.
posted by jjderooy at 11:47 PM on August 23, 2022 [2 favorites]
Staff can work from home or the office, but must spend at least day in the office once a week - details are negotiated with your immediate superior. Plenty of people have reasons to want to be in the office and are there all or most of the time. Plenty are mostly at home for their reasons. Some teams spread out office attendance so that there's always someone there, others all come in on the same day - it just depends on what their tasks need. A small number of people are fully-remote for particular reasons. It seems to be working.
But meanwhile, the organisation is introducing hot desking and shrinking its footprint from two buildings to one (halving its accommodation costs). People would normally be very against hot desking, but its viewed as demonstrating a long term commitment to enabling working from home - it'll be impossible for everyone to come in.
posted by jjderooy at 11:47 PM on August 23, 2022 [2 favorites]
Just throwing this in for fun: my employer has a "work from anywhere" policy, where you can work from home, the office, or the beach of your favorite vacation destination - they limit that last bit to max 6 weeks a year because otherwise tax will become complicated (your vacation country will likely want you to pay employment related taxes to them too), but the only other limit they put on it is "no sanctioned countries please" - so Russia or Best Korea is out too.
Their only concern is "is your work getting done". If the answer is yes, the next question is "what's best for YOU?"
posted by DreamerFi at 1:06 AM on August 24, 2022 [3 favorites]
Their only concern is "is your work getting done". If the answer is yes, the next question is "what's best for YOU?"
posted by DreamerFi at 1:06 AM on August 24, 2022 [3 favorites]
100% of our older workers love our full remote policy. No question about that, so we're keeping it. But this story made me sit back and think about we run an effective remote office and whether it's meeting everyone's needs.
Restating xdvesper's first comment in the thread because I recognized the same dynamic. In the 2.5 years we've had new hires and most of the young ones left already - and we're talking about those with functions that requires a certain amount gregariousness but also the operational/administrative side too. It's not just a matter of better virtual training - my org is an international one with a lot of remote office staff. But perhaps american work culture is so toxic it's just healthier to develop a reflexive attitude against having to be a physical workspace? It's easier for me to have my opinion i suppose - i can see culturally how much passive learning and apprenticeship takes place in physical spaces here. Not only that I'm now back on a hybrid model. Not only that, our labour law reforms are kicking in under 2 weeks with new regs regarding flexiwork and also reduced mandatory working hours. So what's the point of my comment? Only to push back on the notion that american working attitudes are universal, i suppose.
(A big fan of WFH mode btw, and I can't help but also notice another big lobby in this conversation would have to be developers invested in maintaining the temperature in an overheated property market.)
posted by cendawanita at 4:10 AM on August 24, 2022
Restating xdvesper's first comment in the thread because I recognized the same dynamic. In the 2.5 years we've had new hires and most of the young ones left already - and we're talking about those with functions that requires a certain amount gregariousness but also the operational/administrative side too. It's not just a matter of better virtual training - my org is an international one with a lot of remote office staff. But perhaps american work culture is so toxic it's just healthier to develop a reflexive attitude against having to be a physical workspace? It's easier for me to have my opinion i suppose - i can see culturally how much passive learning and apprenticeship takes place in physical spaces here. Not only that I'm now back on a hybrid model. Not only that, our labour law reforms are kicking in under 2 weeks with new regs regarding flexiwork and also reduced mandatory working hours. So what's the point of my comment? Only to push back on the notion that american working attitudes are universal, i suppose.
(A big fan of WFH mode btw, and I can't help but also notice another big lobby in this conversation would have to be developers invested in maintaining the temperature in an overheated property market.)
posted by cendawanita at 4:10 AM on August 24, 2022
But, regardless, that's still two hours, not 24/7 space in your home given over for free to your employer.
It's the same desk I use for playing PC games and browsing Metafilter. It's space that wasn't going to be used if I were in the office.
I'm not just reclaiming 2 hours from my commute every morning, I'm also able to weave chores and errands into my day so that my evenings and weekends are freer. I can go for a run and not have to worry about co-workers seeing me all sweaty. I can walk my dogs at lunchtime.
Office work has a LOT of downtime built into it. People learn to keep busy, or at least look busy, but it's widely known that everyone's on social media, or reading the newspaper, or shopping online, or what have you. When you work from home, you can more readily capture that without a boss breathing down your neck.
I'm happy to cite the 2 extra hours reclaimed from the commute, but it's probably closer to 3-4 hours per day. I'm happy to have approximately 6 square feet of floor space taken up by my consolidated office accoutrements when I'm off-duty in exchange for 15-20 extra hours per week of me-time.
posted by explosion at 5:10 AM on August 24, 2022 [25 favorites]
It's the same desk I use for playing PC games and browsing Metafilter. It's space that wasn't going to be used if I were in the office.
I'm not just reclaiming 2 hours from my commute every morning, I'm also able to weave chores and errands into my day so that my evenings and weekends are freer. I can go for a run and not have to worry about co-workers seeing me all sweaty. I can walk my dogs at lunchtime.
Office work has a LOT of downtime built into it. People learn to keep busy, or at least look busy, but it's widely known that everyone's on social media, or reading the newspaper, or shopping online, or what have you. When you work from home, you can more readily capture that without a boss breathing down your neck.
I'm happy to cite the 2 extra hours reclaimed from the commute, but it's probably closer to 3-4 hours per day. I'm happy to have approximately 6 square feet of floor space taken up by my consolidated office accoutrements when I'm off-duty in exchange for 15-20 extra hours per week of me-time.
posted by explosion at 5:10 AM on August 24, 2022 [25 favorites]
My (former) employer (tech division in health care industry) went, in less than a year, from pandemic bonuses, weekly "free" mental health hours and other WE LOVE YOU SO MUCH YOU ARE ALL HEROES perks to laying off the entire department (1.5K people, all local) for outsourcing.
Employees were blindsided on a Zoom call following a months-long inner circle project wherein a cabal of C-suite braniacs crunched all the factors already mentioned, and decided to just drop a guillotine on all of it. No more worrying about developing a culture with optimal WFH management practices; no more real estate concerns, no more investment in local workforce; just burn it all down. It was just too hard.
Those who remain during a 60-day "transition period" get a severance package based on length of employment. Of course, anyone who could, left immediately (me included). What's left is a broken, disillusioned skeleton crew of people enduring a hellscape of teaching their decades-long, tacit-knowledge IT jobs to outsourced employees a third of their ages.
I'm not their level of bitter because I was only there a couple of years and I'm not losing any severance; also my new job's salary increase is *significant* (it IS the only way to make that happen). This also revealed at a large scale how underpaid everyone was. I also have never bought any of the "we're family, we care about you" BS that they spewed for so long. But man, has this opened the eyes of those in the industry and locally. "I never thought this could happen here, not in a million years" said my manager after I told her I was leaving.
No one is safe; no one can be trusted. Get marketable skills and find a job that gets you as close as possible to the work/life situation that you can live with. If it's WFH, great; if it's not, great; but do not for one second think that you're immune from being sacrificed for the bottom line.
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 5:10 AM on August 24, 2022 [19 favorites]
Employees were blindsided on a Zoom call following a months-long inner circle project wherein a cabal of C-suite braniacs crunched all the factors already mentioned, and decided to just drop a guillotine on all of it. No more worrying about developing a culture with optimal WFH management practices; no more real estate concerns, no more investment in local workforce; just burn it all down. It was just too hard.
Those who remain during a 60-day "transition period" get a severance package based on length of employment. Of course, anyone who could, left immediately (me included). What's left is a broken, disillusioned skeleton crew of people enduring a hellscape of teaching their decades-long, tacit-knowledge IT jobs to outsourced employees a third of their ages.
I'm not their level of bitter because I was only there a couple of years and I'm not losing any severance; also my new job's salary increase is *significant* (it IS the only way to make that happen). This also revealed at a large scale how underpaid everyone was. I also have never bought any of the "we're family, we care about you" BS that they spewed for so long. But man, has this opened the eyes of those in the industry and locally. "I never thought this could happen here, not in a million years" said my manager after I told her I was leaving.
No one is safe; no one can be trusted. Get marketable skills and find a job that gets you as close as possible to the work/life situation that you can live with. If it's WFH, great; if it's not, great; but do not for one second think that you're immune from being sacrificed for the bottom line.
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 5:10 AM on August 24, 2022 [19 favorites]
I've never in my life spent two hours a day in a car commuting to work, and a person who decides to live in a suburb and undertake such a commute is not in the best position to issue lectures on the environment, I think.
Just get a biglaw job and live in NYC, fools! (Forget that all of the financial and legal services at the apex of the pyramid don't exist without the broad base, and ignore all the environmental trade-offs that living in urban centers involve — especially if you don't have much money.)
But, regardless, that's still two hours, not 24/7 space in your home given over for free to your employer. My summer a/c costs doubled when I started working from home. People should not be enthusiastic about corporations being able to shift even more costs onto their employees.
An increased electricity bill does not even begin compare to the costs (and liabilities) of forced commuting and car ownership, before you get into the impact on families or structural effects like rush hours and infrastructure built to handle them. The proper comparison isn't the six train from Brooklyn to lower Manhattan.
People tend to have computer areas at home these days anyways, and internet. The free-riding could be easily remedied by straightforward regulations requiring some standardized subsidy of home office space and internet. California has had this for businesses relying on workers' personal cell phones for a while.
I bet a number of people would hate being in the office a good deal less if they had an office with a door that closed. If I had to work open-plan I'd probably already be locked up somewhere.
And if that were the reality of office work for most people, maybe the conversation would be different. But it isn't.
posted by snuffleupagus at 5:40 AM on August 24, 2022 [7 favorites]
Just get a biglaw job and live in NYC, fools! (Forget that all of the financial and legal services at the apex of the pyramid don't exist without the broad base, and ignore all the environmental trade-offs that living in urban centers involve — especially if you don't have much money.)
But, regardless, that's still two hours, not 24/7 space in your home given over for free to your employer. My summer a/c costs doubled when I started working from home. People should not be enthusiastic about corporations being able to shift even more costs onto their employees.
An increased electricity bill does not even begin compare to the costs (and liabilities) of forced commuting and car ownership, before you get into the impact on families or structural effects like rush hours and infrastructure built to handle them. The proper comparison isn't the six train from Brooklyn to lower Manhattan.
People tend to have computer areas at home these days anyways, and internet. The free-riding could be easily remedied by straightforward regulations requiring some standardized subsidy of home office space and internet. California has had this for businesses relying on workers' personal cell phones for a while.
I bet a number of people would hate being in the office a good deal less if they had an office with a door that closed. If I had to work open-plan I'd probably already be locked up somewhere.
And if that were the reality of office work for most people, maybe the conversation would be different. But it isn't.
posted by snuffleupagus at 5:40 AM on August 24, 2022 [7 favorites]
I don’t like working from home all that much, but while we have been working from home during COVID my employer decided to take the opportunity to move to a new building. So I am going from a centrally-located building I can walk to from home, surrounded by parklands and trails, with my own cubical with a big window overlooking greenery to a tower in the exurbs, surrounded by hectares of asphalt parking and multi-lane roads, an open plan and no assigned seating … get your stuff from a locker and grab a seat. Instead of a walk to work, I now have a 15 km commute on one of the busiest roads in the city with no good biking options. The quickest bus route is an hour each way.
And they are surprised that only 5% of our workforce wants to return to the office when the new building is ready.
I wanted to go back to the office, but they have made it so awful that I would rather stay at home in the comfort of my private office in the basement of our house.
posted by fimbulvetr at 5:45 AM on August 24, 2022 [4 favorites]
And they are surprised that only 5% of our workforce wants to return to the office when the new building is ready.
I wanted to go back to the office, but they have made it so awful that I would rather stay at home in the comfort of my private office in the basement of our house.
posted by fimbulvetr at 5:45 AM on August 24, 2022 [4 favorites]
I was already working from home for two or three days a week before Covid so the transition for me was pretty seamless. I've since switched jobs and while I could drive out to the suburbs to the office everyday, there's no real point since no one else does and quite a few of my co-workers moved to different cities recently. Heck, one of them even moved to a different country, Belize , if I remember correctly.
I didn't mind working in the office back in the 2000s when I actually had an office with a door but since the switch to open-plan office spaces, I was miserable. Having to block out twenty different conversations while I'm trying to concentrate on coding gave me massive headaches and I'd end up taking my laptop and finding a place to hide to actually get some work done. I'm very happy sitting in the guest bedroom in my house with only the cats to annoy me.
posted by octothorpe at 6:07 AM on August 24, 2022 [3 favorites]
I didn't mind working in the office back in the 2000s when I actually had an office with a door but since the switch to open-plan office spaces, I was miserable. Having to block out twenty different conversations while I'm trying to concentrate on coding gave me massive headaches and I'd end up taking my laptop and finding a place to hide to actually get some work done. I'm very happy sitting in the guest bedroom in my house with only the cats to annoy me.
posted by octothorpe at 6:07 AM on August 24, 2022 [3 favorites]
I'm speaking from utter ignorance here. Do remote workers have privacy to talk with each other about their jobs? If so, how do they make it work?
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 6:09 AM on August 24, 2022
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 6:09 AM on August 24, 2022
In my office, we text each other.
posted by tiny frying pan at 6:23 AM on August 24, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by tiny frying pan at 6:23 AM on August 24, 2022 [5 favorites]
Do remote workers have privacy to talk with each other about their jobs?
Anecdotally? Yes, 100%. I'm working out of my home with only my spouse to overhear me. I can speak with coworkers officially via email and our ticketing software. I can speak with coworkers unofficially via text and phone. I can speak to friends and acquaintances via chat and social media with much more freedom than if I were at work.
I've gotten many more tips on how to make remote work (and work in general) easier from people outside of my organization than any support from inside.
posted by explosion at 6:23 AM on August 24, 2022 [1 favorite]
Anecdotally? Yes, 100%. I'm working out of my home with only my spouse to overhear me. I can speak with coworkers officially via email and our ticketing software. I can speak with coworkers unofficially via text and phone. I can speak to friends and acquaintances via chat and social media with much more freedom than if I were at work.
I've gotten many more tips on how to make remote work (and work in general) easier from people outside of my organization than any support from inside.
posted by explosion at 6:23 AM on August 24, 2022 [1 favorite]
"Can I push back?"
Well, how much economic bargaining power do you have? If you have unusual skills and / or your employer would spend a lot more to replace you for other reasons or if you're part of a powerful union, then you can push back quite a lot. If you don't have any then, no you can't push back.
From his point of view, his peers were living it up in the glitzy central business district, working in tall glass skyscrapers, heading down to fancy cafes for lunches with other professionals, getting networking opportunities by meeting people from different consulting / banking firms in the city. Then at about 5pm they'd knock off work, do more networking in the pubs and bars, maybe dinner at another fancy restaurant.
Same here. Our graduates actually asked me and other senior people to come into the office regularly. I thought it was a joke at first and had assumed that stories of this were something invented by pro-office right wing media in service to property developers but nope, they really wanted office culture back. As I have a fairly fresh baby, I could do without it since I'd rather be cuddling my son than listening to Jack (Aged 22 and 3/4) lay out his career dreams but I guess this is part of my job.
So I'm back in two days a week, because a bunch of 20-somethings want me to buy the rounds in the pub is basically it.
I think it does matter that we have a nice office with a view of Tower Bridge which is surrounded by nice restaurants, pubs, and coffee shops and *not* a grim office park in Middle West Fucknut where a van comes to sell bad sandwiches for half an hour every day and there's a Comic Sans sign up on the microwave about not heating up fish curries or whatever.
All this “we must go back to the office” sentiment seems to only come from loser middle-aged men who absolutely hate being at home with their families instead of perched atop their little grey corporate kingdom nursing weird crushes on their women colleagues
You'd think so, but in my experience those guys all have suburban houses and long commutes and are not actually so eager at all to go back.
All the people in here talking about networking know full well that the only way you’re getting a significant raise is to switch employers. But keep pretending the corporate ladder actually works if you want… for whatever reason lets you sleep.
How are you getting that other job without networking? Many people get jobs because of people they know from company A going to work at company B and recruiting them. Moving companies is good because it forces employers to actually make a yes/no decision about compensation but it isn't the only way to get a raise.
It's not all that, though it is some that. Managing teleworkers is different enough from managing in-person people that the manager may just not know how. One would hope they've worked on that in the last couple of years, because at this point it's no surprise.
I managed a team of 20 people before I received any line management or leadership training that wasn't just focused on simple compliance. I don't think that's uncommon. It's actually really strange that such key parts of how businesses work is just completely ad-hoc with very little attention paid to systematic training and productivity improvement.
I sometimes joke that bad managers are like babies, they have no object permanence and forget about their employees when out of sight.
Have they got clear objectives set for everyone that cascade down to what everyone should focus on day to day? Do they understand who is outperforming and who is underperforming? In my experience most managers fool themselves that they know these things when they're in the office and what they miss when people work from home is a mirage, a feeling that they no longer know something that they didn't even really know before.
Why did your ac costs double? It’s more efficient to keep your house at a relatively even temp within a few degrees regardless of being there or not for awhile. Starting/stopping is wildly less efficient.
This is a very complicated topic that depends on the size of the set back, the temperatures in question, and the thermal fabric performance of the house. In most cases, a significant setback is more efficient than keeping a house at the same temperature throughout the day since the lower delta-t between inside and outside during the setback hours slows heat-ingress by more than the penalty paid for high-power running of air conditioner to return to the desired comfort temperature.
posted by atrazine at 6:39 AM on August 24, 2022 [14 favorites]
Well, how much economic bargaining power do you have? If you have unusual skills and / or your employer would spend a lot more to replace you for other reasons or if you're part of a powerful union, then you can push back quite a lot. If you don't have any then, no you can't push back.
From his point of view, his peers were living it up in the glitzy central business district, working in tall glass skyscrapers, heading down to fancy cafes for lunches with other professionals, getting networking opportunities by meeting people from different consulting / banking firms in the city. Then at about 5pm they'd knock off work, do more networking in the pubs and bars, maybe dinner at another fancy restaurant.
Same here. Our graduates actually asked me and other senior people to come into the office regularly. I thought it was a joke at first and had assumed that stories of this were something invented by pro-office right wing media in service to property developers but nope, they really wanted office culture back. As I have a fairly fresh baby, I could do without it since I'd rather be cuddling my son than listening to Jack (Aged 22 and 3/4) lay out his career dreams but I guess this is part of my job.
So I'm back in two days a week, because a bunch of 20-somethings want me to buy the rounds in the pub is basically it.
I think it does matter that we have a nice office with a view of Tower Bridge which is surrounded by nice restaurants, pubs, and coffee shops and *not* a grim office park in Middle West Fucknut where a van comes to sell bad sandwiches for half an hour every day and there's a Comic Sans sign up on the microwave about not heating up fish curries or whatever.
All this “we must go back to the office” sentiment seems to only come from loser middle-aged men who absolutely hate being at home with their families instead of perched atop their little grey corporate kingdom nursing weird crushes on their women colleagues
You'd think so, but in my experience those guys all have suburban houses and long commutes and are not actually so eager at all to go back.
All the people in here talking about networking know full well that the only way you’re getting a significant raise is to switch employers. But keep pretending the corporate ladder actually works if you want… for whatever reason lets you sleep.
How are you getting that other job without networking? Many people get jobs because of people they know from company A going to work at company B and recruiting them. Moving companies is good because it forces employers to actually make a yes/no decision about compensation but it isn't the only way to get a raise.
It's not all that, though it is some that. Managing teleworkers is different enough from managing in-person people that the manager may just not know how. One would hope they've worked on that in the last couple of years, because at this point it's no surprise.
I managed a team of 20 people before I received any line management or leadership training that wasn't just focused on simple compliance. I don't think that's uncommon. It's actually really strange that such key parts of how businesses work is just completely ad-hoc with very little attention paid to systematic training and productivity improvement.
I sometimes joke that bad managers are like babies, they have no object permanence and forget about their employees when out of sight.
Have they got clear objectives set for everyone that cascade down to what everyone should focus on day to day? Do they understand who is outperforming and who is underperforming? In my experience most managers fool themselves that they know these things when they're in the office and what they miss when people work from home is a mirage, a feeling that they no longer know something that they didn't even really know before.
Why did your ac costs double? It’s more efficient to keep your house at a relatively even temp within a few degrees regardless of being there or not for awhile. Starting/stopping is wildly less efficient.
This is a very complicated topic that depends on the size of the set back, the temperatures in question, and the thermal fabric performance of the house. In most cases, a significant setback is more efficient than keeping a house at the same temperature throughout the day since the lower delta-t between inside and outside during the setback hours slows heat-ingress by more than the penalty paid for high-power running of air conditioner to return to the desired comfort temperature.
posted by atrazine at 6:39 AM on August 24, 2022 [14 favorites]
I got to mentor an intern remotely and it was *my job* to make sure I was available to chat any time and we had regular touch points.
Who else are they talking to? What if their mentor/supervisor sucks? My new colleagues were so isolated when we were 100% WFH because they were only having 1:1 interactions with managers or large project meetings.
They started group chats among themselves, and senior staff set up virtual brown bags and happy hours and office hours. But those are all awkward and more formal and intentional than just, like, talking to the person whose office is next door. If you want to interact with senior staff, then you set up a zoom call to talk about what? It's unbearably awkward and no matter how many times you encourage people to reach out and tell them it's not an imposition, it feels like an imposition to a lot of people. Our management did a terrible job of supporting new hires, but our union put a lot of work into welcoming, supporting, and integrating them. They're still struggling. It's definitely improving now that we can have in-person lunches, happy hours, whatever.
posted by Mavri at 6:57 AM on August 24, 2022 [5 favorites]
Who else are they talking to? What if their mentor/supervisor sucks? My new colleagues were so isolated when we were 100% WFH because they were only having 1:1 interactions with managers or large project meetings.
They started group chats among themselves, and senior staff set up virtual brown bags and happy hours and office hours. But those are all awkward and more formal and intentional than just, like, talking to the person whose office is next door. If you want to interact with senior staff, then you set up a zoom call to talk about what? It's unbearably awkward and no matter how many times you encourage people to reach out and tell them it's not an imposition, it feels like an imposition to a lot of people. Our management did a terrible job of supporting new hires, but our union put a lot of work into welcoming, supporting, and integrating them. They're still struggling. It's definitely improving now that we can have in-person lunches, happy hours, whatever.
posted by Mavri at 6:57 AM on August 24, 2022 [5 favorites]
the US centrism in here is a bit rough.
posted by lazaruslong at 7:13 AM on August 24, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by lazaruslong at 7:13 AM on August 24, 2022 [5 favorites]
I'd personally love to hear about this topic globally but I live in the U.S. so have nothing to add in that arena.
I am surprised how many people here are managers - my thought would be you already command a larger salary than I will probably ever have - then again, I don't own property or have children, so my expenses and need to make more money over time is probably smaller (altho I am paid fairly low for my field, I love my job and what my organization does).
posted by tiny frying pan at 7:17 AM on August 24, 2022
I am surprised how many people here are managers - my thought would be you already command a larger salary than I will probably ever have - then again, I don't own property or have children, so my expenses and need to make more money over time is probably smaller (altho I am paid fairly low for my field, I love my job and what my organization does).
posted by tiny frying pan at 7:17 AM on August 24, 2022
I meant real privacy for talking about the job-- something that the company can't track.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 7:20 AM on August 24, 2022
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 7:20 AM on August 24, 2022
There's definitely lots of ways that changing only the place of work and resisting re-thinking anything else can suck. Employers have been forced to relinquish control over where work happens, and all the reactions to that have shown the real struggle is over time. A lot of the desire to maintain remote work is about not wanting to give up the re-established control over daily life that comes with it. And vice versa.
Some jobs need collaboration, possibly full time, all the time. For them, an office environment (and the staff to support their work) makes sense. For others, some kind of company 'campus' might make sense. You have scheduled hours to come in and work on projects, plan, train, and socialize around the work (with the socializing recognized by the company as a part of the work).
I think for certain cities and the industry sectors enmeshed in them, being in the downtown office district (for example) and having access to the amenities and culture etc around it is part of the compensation bargain, and I'd be pissed if I saw that as part of what I'd been working towards and a reason for compromises I'd made; only to have it dematerialize and leave me with only the un-fun parts of the job — but that's kind of a special case, and those industries can afford to go their own way without dragging everyone else along with them.
posted by snuffleupagus at 7:27 AM on August 24, 2022 [1 favorite]
Some jobs need collaboration, possibly full time, all the time. For them, an office environment (and the staff to support their work) makes sense. For others, some kind of company 'campus' might make sense. You have scheduled hours to come in and work on projects, plan, train, and socialize around the work (with the socializing recognized by the company as a part of the work).
I think for certain cities and the industry sectors enmeshed in them, being in the downtown office district (for example) and having access to the amenities and culture etc around it is part of the compensation bargain, and I'd be pissed if I saw that as part of what I'd been working towards and a reason for compromises I'd made; only to have it dematerialize and leave me with only the un-fun parts of the job — but that's kind of a special case, and those industries can afford to go their own way without dragging everyone else along with them.
posted by snuffleupagus at 7:27 AM on August 24, 2022 [1 favorite]
but what if you don't want to work ... at all?
These last couple of years have taken the final bits of my get up and go. The job market is a great sadness. Every workplace has its shtick: play along while you can.
posted by scruss at 7:34 AM on August 24, 2022 [10 favorites]
These last couple of years have taken the final bits of my get up and go. The job market is a great sadness. Every workplace has its shtick: play along while you can.
posted by scruss at 7:34 AM on August 24, 2022 [10 favorites]
I'm speaking from utter ignorance here. Do remote workers have privacy to talk with each other about their jobs? If so, how do they make it work?
Where I work, if you have something you want to keep fully personal, you use your cellphone to call or text. But otherwise people feel very open talking on Teams -- yes, in theory the company could be listening, but in practice they don't have the capacity to listen to everyone and even if they did, mostly they are just going to hear boring discussions about projects, budget projections, and all the minor work complaints that you'd hear in an office. People are more careful about what they type in the chat function in Teams, and even more careful about email -- in the extremely unlikely event that there was some kind of investigation, those text records would be the easiest for being searched through. But even there, people communicate pretty openly.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:46 AM on August 24, 2022 [5 favorites]
Where I work, if you have something you want to keep fully personal, you use your cellphone to call or text. But otherwise people feel very open talking on Teams -- yes, in theory the company could be listening, but in practice they don't have the capacity to listen to everyone and even if they did, mostly they are just going to hear boring discussions about projects, budget projections, and all the minor work complaints that you'd hear in an office. People are more careful about what they type in the chat function in Teams, and even more careful about email -- in the extremely unlikely event that there was some kind of investigation, those text records would be the easiest for being searched through. But even there, people communicate pretty openly.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:46 AM on August 24, 2022 [5 favorites]
I meant real privacy for talking about the job-- something that the company can't track.
Whatsapp.
posted by plep at 7:53 AM on August 24, 2022 [1 favorite]
Whatsapp.
posted by plep at 7:53 AM on August 24, 2022 [1 favorite]
Amazing that the phrase "studio" has appeared 0 times in this thread, as has "loft"; "bedroom" has only appeared in the context of "guest bedroom". Maybe consider that not everyone is super eager to spend ~20 hours a day existing in the same room? Maybe consider that having a home office is a pretty big goddamn privilege?
People who disagree with you may, in fact, just have different experiences, rather than being some sort of terrible stooge for Big Corporate.
posted by sagc at 7:56 AM on August 24, 2022 [17 favorites]
People who disagree with you may, in fact, just have different experiences, rather than being some sort of terrible stooge for Big Corporate.
posted by sagc at 7:56 AM on August 24, 2022 [17 favorites]
I'm on sagc's side on this one.
My company all went home in spring 2020 and by April 2021 they wanted us to all come back so I did. We had a baby in March 2021 and moved to a new apartment in June 2021. It was at that point I had a choice between the necessary upgrade to a 2 bedroom apartment I didn't feel I could afford and the extravagant upgrade to a 3 bedroom apartment I really couldn't afford. Since we were back in the office at that point I went for the 2 bedroom apartment.
This winter they reintroduced WFH two days a week, but you had to photographically prove you had a separate space with doors suitable for video calls. I declined and everyone was surprised because I had been one of the biggest proponents of and most productive workers from home during the pandemic. I told my manager I won't be working from home again for less than the cost of breaking my lease, moving, and the company paying the difference between a 2 and 3 bedroom apartment.
I'm hoping we buy a house in a few years and if we do it will have a suitable home office space, but until that happens I'm back at the office even if I'm the only one here.
posted by The Monster at the End of this Thread at 8:09 AM on August 24, 2022 [10 favorites]
My company all went home in spring 2020 and by April 2021 they wanted us to all come back so I did. We had a baby in March 2021 and moved to a new apartment in June 2021. It was at that point I had a choice between the necessary upgrade to a 2 bedroom apartment I didn't feel I could afford and the extravagant upgrade to a 3 bedroom apartment I really couldn't afford. Since we were back in the office at that point I went for the 2 bedroom apartment.
This winter they reintroduced WFH two days a week, but you had to photographically prove you had a separate space with doors suitable for video calls. I declined and everyone was surprised because I had been one of the biggest proponents of and most productive workers from home during the pandemic. I told my manager I won't be working from home again for less than the cost of breaking my lease, moving, and the company paying the difference between a 2 and 3 bedroom apartment.
I'm hoping we buy a house in a few years and if we do it will have a suitable home office space, but until that happens I'm back at the office even if I'm the only one here.
posted by The Monster at the End of this Thread at 8:09 AM on August 24, 2022 [10 favorites]
In my organization, we make a distinction between in-person and in-office work. Everyone on my team has some tasks that must be completed in-person, including a certain amount of mentoring for me, but that does not necessarily mean being in the office. For me, I often hold meetings over lunch or coffee, ideally where we can be outside. That's much safer and generally more pleasant for all of us, especially since the pandemic risk is still there.
So far, our flexible approach has worked well, but we did lose one person who wanted to work several thousand kilometres away on a permanent basis. Although we had managed when Covid restrictions were at their peak and no face-to-face interactions were taking place, we could not do it after expectations in our sector, from both stakeholders and partners, started to shift. I'm now very clear with new hires that face-to-face work will be required and that they must be able to come to the office when necessary.
posted by rpfields at 8:11 AM on August 24, 2022 [1 favorite]
So far, our flexible approach has worked well, but we did lose one person who wanted to work several thousand kilometres away on a permanent basis. Although we had managed when Covid restrictions were at their peak and no face-to-face interactions were taking place, we could not do it after expectations in our sector, from both stakeholders and partners, started to shift. I'm now very clear with new hires that face-to-face work will be required and that they must be able to come to the office when necessary.
posted by rpfields at 8:11 AM on August 24, 2022 [1 favorite]
I work for myself and I rent an office.
I add that I live by myself and still won't work from home. I tried it for a while. I would even get up, shower, and drive to get a cup of coffee I would not drink just so I felt like I was going to an office. I guess I am an old guy with some sort of weird work ethic.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 8:29 AM on August 24, 2022 [1 favorite]
I add that I live by myself and still won't work from home. I tried it for a while. I would even get up, shower, and drive to get a cup of coffee I would not drink just so I felt like I was going to an office. I guess I am an old guy with some sort of weird work ethic.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 8:29 AM on August 24, 2022 [1 favorite]
I had a interview a few months ago with an organization that had some real pain points around WFH. Due to the nature of the work the organization does, there are a bunch of people whose jobs require in-person work all the time, but there's also a lot of administrative stuff that really lends itself to a WFA approach. Allowing the administrative staff to work remotely while requiring other staff to show up every day creates jealousy and a management problem; disallowing remote work for those positions puts the organization at a real disadvantage with hiring and turnover. Complicating matters further, some of the people doing administrative work who would be natural candidates for working remotely just don't like it for one reason or another (maybe it's habit; maybe they're extroverts; maybe they just like the dividing line between work and home; maybe it's any number of other reasons).
The organization was at the point they knew they had to be flexible on work location in order to be able to fill certain roles (like the one I was interviewing for) but there were interview questions that addressed the problems of building trust and relationships with staff members who couldn't work remotely at all, who were used to a certain way of working, or who were uncomfortable with the implications of the technology being introduced to the organization. I'm a big believer in letting people who can work remotely do so, but I also had to talk in the interview about how it's easier to build trust when people can see you, and without the intermediation of tools they may not like using (like Slack, to use one example). So as much as the technical part of the potential job could have been done from anywhere, the practical part of it was going to require just showing up enough that people felt like I was part of the team.
Do I prefer to go into an office every day? No, I do not. Would I go into the office a day or two a week if I knew it would help people feel like I was a productive team member and not working against them? You bet.
[I didn't get the job, but they did everything they could short of a flashing neon sign to let me know they thought they might have another job coming up soon that they might want to hire me for, hence the vagueness here].
posted by fedward at 8:33 AM on August 24, 2022 [2 favorites]
The organization was at the point they knew they had to be flexible on work location in order to be able to fill certain roles (like the one I was interviewing for) but there were interview questions that addressed the problems of building trust and relationships with staff members who couldn't work remotely at all, who were used to a certain way of working, or who were uncomfortable with the implications of the technology being introduced to the organization. I'm a big believer in letting people who can work remotely do so, but I also had to talk in the interview about how it's easier to build trust when people can see you, and without the intermediation of tools they may not like using (like Slack, to use one example). So as much as the technical part of the potential job could have been done from anywhere, the practical part of it was going to require just showing up enough that people felt like I was part of the team.
Do I prefer to go into an office every day? No, I do not. Would I go into the office a day or two a week if I knew it would help people feel like I was a productive team member and not working against them? You bet.
[I didn't get the job, but they did everything they could short of a flashing neon sign to let me know they thought they might have another job coming up soon that they might want to hire me for, hence the vagueness here].
posted by fedward at 8:33 AM on August 24, 2022 [2 favorites]
the US centrism in here is a bit rough.
I'm in the UK in case that wasn't clear. Would be interesting to see other parts of the world check-in. Certainly in The Netherlands which is where my other office is and where I'm from originally, I see the same kind of conversations although I have little first hand experience of it since I'm only in that office every few weeks.
I suspect that this may be more different between industries than between countries in many ways. People I know in banking were aggressively back to the office months ago whether they work in the Zuidas or The City whereas software people have mostly gone to hybrid with the idea of going back to full-time office work often considered laughable.
Most people here are from the US so probably they will talk about their own experiences as I will talk about mine.
sagc, I assume that is part of what is driving my younger co-workers to want to work in an office. I have a separate office and a garden at home and live with my wife and son so it's pretty attractive for me to be home. If your only private space is a small bedroom in London and you're living with some dudes that your cousin knows from university or a total cast of randos, then "home" isn't quite so appealing.
JohnnyGunn, Cal Newport (write about productivity who frequently contributes to the New Yorker) has a running series on writers who (despite often having beautiful home offices) would go and write in strange little offices to get things done. Toni Morrison would write laying on a hotel bed on yellow legal pads, well after being able to afford any kind of writing environment she might want.
posted by atrazine at 8:38 AM on August 24, 2022 [1 favorite]
I'm in the UK in case that wasn't clear. Would be interesting to see other parts of the world check-in. Certainly in The Netherlands which is where my other office is and where I'm from originally, I see the same kind of conversations although I have little first hand experience of it since I'm only in that office every few weeks.
I suspect that this may be more different between industries than between countries in many ways. People I know in banking were aggressively back to the office months ago whether they work in the Zuidas or The City whereas software people have mostly gone to hybrid with the idea of going back to full-time office work often considered laughable.
Most people here are from the US so probably they will talk about their own experiences as I will talk about mine.
sagc, I assume that is part of what is driving my younger co-workers to want to work in an office. I have a separate office and a garden at home and live with my wife and son so it's pretty attractive for me to be home. If your only private space is a small bedroom in London and you're living with some dudes that your cousin knows from university or a total cast of randos, then "home" isn't quite so appealing.
JohnnyGunn, Cal Newport (write about productivity who frequently contributes to the New Yorker) has a running series on writers who (despite often having beautiful home offices) would go and write in strange little offices to get things done. Toni Morrison would write laying on a hotel bed on yellow legal pads, well after being able to afford any kind of writing environment she might want.
posted by atrazine at 8:38 AM on August 24, 2022 [1 favorite]
I sometimes joke that bad managers are like babies, they have no object permanence and forget about their employees when out of sight.
The slightly less snarky terms of art for this management behavior are "recency bias" (managing only on what you've most recently seen) or "affinity bias" (favoring the people who do the same things the manager does, like coming into the office all the time, or participating in the same after-work activities). But yeah, I've definitely referred to a lack of object permanence from some managers.
posted by fedward at 8:49 AM on August 24, 2022 [5 favorites]
The slightly less snarky terms of art for this management behavior are "recency bias" (managing only on what you've most recently seen) or "affinity bias" (favoring the people who do the same things the manager does, like coming into the office all the time, or participating in the same after-work activities). But yeah, I've definitely referred to a lack of object permanence from some managers.
posted by fedward at 8:49 AM on August 24, 2022 [5 favorites]
my employer is positively chomping at the bit to keep us all working from home
this issue is multi-faceted.. for every narrative pushing the "Bad Manager Forcing Me Back to the Office" there are cases where the employer is divesting themselves of certain costs and guess what: a lot of us are having to suck it up at home. anyhow, I appreciate the discussion and hope for the best, for everyone regardless of their preferences.
posted by elkevelvet at 8:56 AM on August 24, 2022 [1 favorite]
this issue is multi-faceted.. for every narrative pushing the "Bad Manager Forcing Me Back to the Office" there are cases where the employer is divesting themselves of certain costs and guess what: a lot of us are having to suck it up at home. anyhow, I appreciate the discussion and hope for the best, for everyone regardless of their preferences.
posted by elkevelvet at 8:56 AM on August 24, 2022 [1 favorite]
So true. I had a "knowledge-transfer" Zoom meeting with a cow-orker today and I had to end it after an hour-and-a-half because I couldn't stand looking at my face any longer.
Tip for the future, you can turn off the Zoom self-view.
posted by rhymedirective at 9:01 AM on August 24, 2022 [5 favorites]
Tip for the future, you can turn off the Zoom self-view.
posted by rhymedirective at 9:01 AM on August 24, 2022 [5 favorites]
Re: remote work and communication: if you’re public sector/govt, your email/Teams/etc is typically public record and greatly limits the amount you can casually converse with each other. It’s tough to navigate when you may not want to give personal contact info to each other for whatever reasons.
posted by curious nu at 9:08 AM on August 24, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by curious nu at 9:08 AM on August 24, 2022 [2 favorites]
My company (French, but I'm based in one of the German offices) went for a hybrid approach. We have to be in the office min. 2 days in the week. We can pick and choose which days each week as they suit, though most people will at least align with their department or project team. The other days are at least theoretically "work from anywhere", with the sole caveat that you are within Germany, for tax reasons.
I'm generally in all week, as I prefer in office to WFH, but my impression is that most people are okay, at least, with the 2 days and people have commented that it's nice to be back in and talk to people in person again. It's more the lunchtime or coffee break conversations that felt like they were missing, or the quick question on the corridor when you see someone and realise that they might know the answer.
However, the vast majority of people have a fairly short commute, with lots of people coming by bike and public transport. I even either walk to work (it's about 30 minutes) or take the bus+walk (reduces it to 15 minutes), which is very different to a long commute by car. Homes tend to be smaller here on average than in the US. So while some people may have a spare bedroom, not everyone does, and even those that do still often need to share the space with a spouse.
(I'm sure there are some people who aren't happy with having to be in the office at all, but it seems to be a fairly small number, and a surprising amount of people are in more than the mandatory 2 days.)
posted by scorbet at 9:09 AM on August 24, 2022
I'm generally in all week, as I prefer in office to WFH, but my impression is that most people are okay, at least, with the 2 days and people have commented that it's nice to be back in and talk to people in person again. It's more the lunchtime or coffee break conversations that felt like they were missing, or the quick question on the corridor when you see someone and realise that they might know the answer.
However, the vast majority of people have a fairly short commute, with lots of people coming by bike and public transport. I even either walk to work (it's about 30 minutes) or take the bus+walk (reduces it to 15 minutes), which is very different to a long commute by car. Homes tend to be smaller here on average than in the US. So while some people may have a spare bedroom, not everyone does, and even those that do still often need to share the space with a spouse.
(I'm sure there are some people who aren't happy with having to be in the office at all, but it seems to be a fairly small number, and a surprising amount of people are in more than the mandatory 2 days.)
posted by scorbet at 9:09 AM on August 24, 2022
I'm 48, one of the Olds, and I can't imagine ever going back to an open-plan office regularly now that I have my own corner office with a door. Starting after Labor Day, the campus where I used to commute 35 miles round trip will be fully open Tuesday to Thursday, with Monday and Friday being designated as "fully virtual" days. But there's no obligation to come back in, and teams can set their own standards for how often they'll be on campus. And if working at the office on Mondays and Fridays feels like a good idea, people can do that, but certain campus amenities won't be available on those days (three giant cafeterias, a Starbucks, a Peet's, a Dunkin', etc.)
My manager on paper is someone entirely removed from the team I actually support, so I never see them anyway. And the team I support is spread out across multiple states and time zones, so the chances that we'll all be in the same place are super slim. Leadership is assuming we'll be in the office together maybe once or twice per quarter. Our team structure has changed so much in the last two years that I've actually never met most of my teammates in person.
posted by emelenjr at 9:38 AM on August 24, 2022 [1 favorite]
My manager on paper is someone entirely removed from the team I actually support, so I never see them anyway. And the team I support is spread out across multiple states and time zones, so the chances that we'll all be in the same place are super slim. Leadership is assuming we'll be in the office together maybe once or twice per quarter. Our team structure has changed so much in the last two years that I've actually never met most of my teammates in person.
posted by emelenjr at 9:38 AM on August 24, 2022 [1 favorite]
Team lead for ~10 engineering consultants. WFH during pandemic was mostly fine although I missed the "psychic break" of leaving to go to work in a different place. (office is nearby and generally walkable. Yes, this is a privelege.)
There are two things WFH can't do in the context of our team:
1. everyone in a meeting room with heaps of paper and drawings and coffee and a full wall-sized whiteboard waving our arms and yelling and screaming about how the dosing valve can't go there, it has to go there.
2. Onboarding new staff is somewhere between difficult and impossible for us without some office presence.. Comments above about structured mentoring and regular contacts. Yes agreed, we do that and it helps, and it requires mindfulness and attention to stay on it. However, I am convinced they miss so many micro opportunities to watch and listen and ask minor questions and bullshit while standing at the urinal and etc., and there is no substitution for this. Since i am firmly of the opinion that a professional technical career aint nothing but a million small experiences one accretes to oneself *makes mollusk-attaching gesture around abdomen* that I feel like this is a huge loss.
posted by hearthpig at 9:46 AM on August 24, 2022 [4 favorites]
There are two things WFH can't do in the context of our team:
1. everyone in a meeting room with heaps of paper and drawings and coffee and a full wall-sized whiteboard waving our arms and yelling and screaming about how the dosing valve can't go there, it has to go there.
2. Onboarding new staff is somewhere between difficult and impossible for us without some office presence.. Comments above about structured mentoring and regular contacts. Yes agreed, we do that and it helps, and it requires mindfulness and attention to stay on it. However, I am convinced they miss so many micro opportunities to watch and listen and ask minor questions and bullshit while standing at the urinal and etc., and there is no substitution for this. Since i am firmly of the opinion that a professional technical career aint nothing but a million small experiences one accretes to oneself *makes mollusk-attaching gesture around abdomen* that I feel like this is a huge loss.
posted by hearthpig at 9:46 AM on August 24, 2022 [4 favorites]
Can someone please just post a link to the comic where the office workers go feral. I don't have it ready to hand.
here you go (via) - nsfw of course
posted by Gerald Bostock at 9:52 AM on August 24, 2022 [9 favorites]
here you go (via) - nsfw of course
posted by Gerald Bostock at 9:52 AM on August 24, 2022 [9 favorites]
Feral, you say.... The Crimson Permanent Assurance Company
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 10:12 AM on August 24, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 10:12 AM on August 24, 2022 [3 favorites]
Put me down as a youngish person who-- while of course I don't like commuting-- also doesn't like working from home, at least not full time.
I'm speaking from utter ignorance here. Do remote workers have privacy to talk with each other about their jobs? If so, how do they make it work?
Even if there are ways to talk to your coworkers privately, I would say that in my experience it takes much much longer for me to feel close enough to my coworkers candidly or even semi-candidly when I am barely seeing them in person.
I just moved on from a job that I worked at for a year and a half remotely and I feel like I barely knew those people. Like, I get that office culture is not the most exciting thing in the world but having some kind of work banter is one of the ways I get through the day and build relationships at work. It's hard to develop work relationships when you're a new face on a zoom call full of other people (in my case, much older than me) who already know each other. I'm normally very fast to get up to speed at a new job, but I had no idea what they wanted me to do half the time because I was entirely dependent on their poor training materials and seeking help out, vs in past jobs where I was able to learn through observation and in casual conversations.
One more reason that younger people might rather work from an office than from home-- younger people are less likely to have a room in their home to work from. I have been sitting in a corner of my living room for two years while my partner avoids making loud noises or cooking in the adjoining kitchen if I'm in a meeting. Of course I like being in my apartment in some ways but it's also a hassle in it's own right.
posted by geegollygosh at 10:15 AM on August 24, 2022 [9 favorites]
I'm speaking from utter ignorance here. Do remote workers have privacy to talk with each other about their jobs? If so, how do they make it work?
Even if there are ways to talk to your coworkers privately, I would say that in my experience it takes much much longer for me to feel close enough to my coworkers candidly or even semi-candidly when I am barely seeing them in person.
I just moved on from a job that I worked at for a year and a half remotely and I feel like I barely knew those people. Like, I get that office culture is not the most exciting thing in the world but having some kind of work banter is one of the ways I get through the day and build relationships at work. It's hard to develop work relationships when you're a new face on a zoom call full of other people (in my case, much older than me) who already know each other. I'm normally very fast to get up to speed at a new job, but I had no idea what they wanted me to do half the time because I was entirely dependent on their poor training materials and seeking help out, vs in past jobs where I was able to learn through observation and in casual conversations.
One more reason that younger people might rather work from an office than from home-- younger people are less likely to have a room in their home to work from. I have been sitting in a corner of my living room for two years while my partner avoids making loud noises or cooking in the adjoining kitchen if I'm in a meeting. Of course I like being in my apartment in some ways but it's also a hassle in it's own right.
posted by geegollygosh at 10:15 AM on August 24, 2022 [9 favorites]
Some of our new hires are simply not thriving in a WFH environment. Some of it is a continuation of the school mentality, where you can skate by and cram at the last minute, and you get instant feedback if you did poorly. But as a new hire, you get a lot of leeway - maybe the assignment was harder than we all thought? Then the entire project is a month behind and everyone else on the team has to rush to fix it up.
In the past, we used to place the new hires right next to the more senior members, to lower the threshold for any small questions. You can learn a lot through osmosis. It's a lot easier to just spin your chair around and poke the first person you see so they can help you, instead of specifically choosing someone on the chat list to ask, setting up screen sharing, etc. etc. Or worse, broadcasting your ignorance in team chat even though that's literally the best place. Whenever remote employees share their screen, they often have strange problems and workflows that were fixed informally in the office, because the helper was like "Uh, did you know that there's a setting where you don't have to do [crazy series of steps] to do that?"
posted by meowzilla at 10:29 AM on August 24, 2022 [7 favorites]
In the past, we used to place the new hires right next to the more senior members, to lower the threshold for any small questions. You can learn a lot through osmosis. It's a lot easier to just spin your chair around and poke the first person you see so they can help you, instead of specifically choosing someone on the chat list to ask, setting up screen sharing, etc. etc. Or worse, broadcasting your ignorance in team chat even though that's literally the best place. Whenever remote employees share their screen, they often have strange problems and workflows that were fixed informally in the office, because the helper was like "Uh, did you know that there's a setting where you don't have to do [crazy series of steps] to do that?"
posted by meowzilla at 10:29 AM on August 24, 2022 [7 favorites]
it's much easier to learn by watching and chit-chatting when you don't have to schedule a zoom call to do it.
I dunno, I like "share screen" on Zoom, it's a lot easier to coach people through doing things that way and switching off who does what than having everyone gather 'round someone's desktop in the office and sitting there awkwardly watching at an angle, passively not learning through doing.
My experience is that the preferred situations are everyone in the office or no one in the office. This also includes things like "everyone is remote on Fridays" or some kind of shared schedule. The worst is when people are just randomly in or out of the office.
I would absolutely agree with this, except for covid. It'd be so much easier to have designated work-in-office days for all, except if everyone comes in all together, unmasked...we know what happens. It's mildly annoying to have my in-office work schedule change every week, but at least that way we have less people physically in the office to get exposed to things. And unfortunately we do need to have at least a few people in there daily to go find physical papers and run the printers, and sadly we still permit walk-ins to drop by, albeit only for 4 hours a day now and not most of the day.
posted by jenfullmoon at 10:34 AM on August 24, 2022 [1 favorite]
I dunno, I like "share screen" on Zoom, it's a lot easier to coach people through doing things that way and switching off who does what than having everyone gather 'round someone's desktop in the office and sitting there awkwardly watching at an angle, passively not learning through doing.
My experience is that the preferred situations are everyone in the office or no one in the office. This also includes things like "everyone is remote on Fridays" or some kind of shared schedule. The worst is when people are just randomly in or out of the office.
I would absolutely agree with this, except for covid. It'd be so much easier to have designated work-in-office days for all, except if everyone comes in all together, unmasked...we know what happens. It's mildly annoying to have my in-office work schedule change every week, but at least that way we have less people physically in the office to get exposed to things. And unfortunately we do need to have at least a few people in there daily to go find physical papers and run the printers, and sadly we still permit walk-ins to drop by, albeit only for 4 hours a day now and not most of the day.
posted by jenfullmoon at 10:34 AM on August 24, 2022 [1 favorite]
I know metafilter is not secure comms, and the internet is forever, but i'm still disappointed in how few stories there are of collective action in the thread, since public health logic is constantly serving us collectivist justifications for maintaining work from home in the face of management pressure.
I know the OP is from a publication called "Ask a Manager" (i mean..what are you going to get from asking a manager?)
And the intro quote / recommendation is rather offensive--i mean, once you have psychologically internalized your inner sacking, swallowed all of the fucking stress of being laid off into your stomach ulcer chakra, drunk through your good booze, and done all the god damn work talking to other companies and resumeing so that you are ready to be fired, why not just strike for your co-workers?
your bargaining power only increases with numbers, it's just math if you are already thinking of yourself as chronically sacked.
yeah, we no longer meet on the shop floor, but many of us have powerful telecoms computers in our pocket that we personally own/encrypt/microwave, as well as access to third spaces off of the plantation where we can recreate. and talk with the phones off.
I'm in the US, where public health policy is totally vaccine-consumption-morality-based instead of science-based, but for most of this pandemic, i have had a kid who was unable to be vaccinated.
I have refused forced office work by saying "my kid can't be vaccinated, i can't breathe your air." Despite being only one of two staff with kids in the whole company, my co-workers can also chime in as pro-WFH, as it is for the children, y'all--"well, we can't do this decision process from the office, as we need eustatic and I don't want to get his kid sick."
Of course that hasn't worked recently, but---similarly, many of us are taking care of older family members, for whom vaccines don't work well, either due to age or other meds like steroids.
"I can't office, i have to see my Mother in Law in 10 days, i'm out of free COVID tests and the national guard stopped the testing" has also worked like the kid strategy.
In my case, Management is more likely to have elderly relations with bodies who can't maintain the antibodies from the vaccine, i think they are even more emotionally vulnerable to this logic.
Incidentally, we have, for decades, had "remote staff" who have always received less than average attention and support, due to the nature of our work and their work "in the field." Frankly, they have been pooped on, especially the ones in different time zones.
Since the pandemic, everyone is remote staff, and I gather that we really have been able to communicate with them, really, for the first time in the company's decades-long history. So, management has actually internalized that a bit--that WFH allows staff in other time zones to be fully included in work stuff.
So, we add up the kid stuff, elder stuff, "innovations" from WFH, and the limits of vaccines and shittness of the US public health system which has been run by the same crusty dude longer than the majority of working staff have even been alive, and other emotional logic bits here and there; and we quickly reach a majority of non-management staff who can surround and shut down the demand for office. Our card check for WFH arrives thusly.
What is your vote count? how's it going?
posted by eustatic at 10:34 AM on August 24, 2022 [6 favorites]
I know the OP is from a publication called "Ask a Manager" (i mean..what are you going to get from asking a manager?)
And the intro quote / recommendation is rather offensive--i mean, once you have psychologically internalized your inner sacking, swallowed all of the fucking stress of being laid off into your stomach ulcer chakra, drunk through your good booze, and done all the god damn work talking to other companies and resumeing so that you are ready to be fired, why not just strike for your co-workers?
your bargaining power only increases with numbers, it's just math if you are already thinking of yourself as chronically sacked.
yeah, we no longer meet on the shop floor, but many of us have powerful telecoms computers in our pocket that we personally own/encrypt/microwave, as well as access to third spaces off of the plantation where we can recreate. and talk with the phones off.
I'm in the US, where public health policy is totally vaccine-consumption-morality-based instead of science-based, but for most of this pandemic, i have had a kid who was unable to be vaccinated.
I have refused forced office work by saying "my kid can't be vaccinated, i can't breathe your air." Despite being only one of two staff with kids in the whole company, my co-workers can also chime in as pro-WFH, as it is for the children, y'all--"well, we can't do this decision process from the office, as we need eustatic and I don't want to get his kid sick."
Of course that hasn't worked recently, but---similarly, many of us are taking care of older family members, for whom vaccines don't work well, either due to age or other meds like steroids.
"I can't office, i have to see my Mother in Law in 10 days, i'm out of free COVID tests and the national guard stopped the testing" has also worked like the kid strategy.
In my case, Management is more likely to have elderly relations with bodies who can't maintain the antibodies from the vaccine, i think they are even more emotionally vulnerable to this logic.
Incidentally, we have, for decades, had "remote staff" who have always received less than average attention and support, due to the nature of our work and their work "in the field." Frankly, they have been pooped on, especially the ones in different time zones.
Since the pandemic, everyone is remote staff, and I gather that we really have been able to communicate with them, really, for the first time in the company's decades-long history. So, management has actually internalized that a bit--that WFH allows staff in other time zones to be fully included in work stuff.
So, we add up the kid stuff, elder stuff, "innovations" from WFH, and the limits of vaccines and shittness of the US public health system which has been run by the same crusty dude longer than the majority of working staff have even been alive, and other emotional logic bits here and there; and we quickly reach a majority of non-management staff who can surround and shut down the demand for office. Our card check for WFH arrives thusly.
What is your vote count? how's it going?
posted by eustatic at 10:34 AM on August 24, 2022 [6 favorites]
eustatic: I know the OP is from a publication called "Ask a Manager" (i mean..what are you going to get from asking a manager?)
On the occasions when Ask the Headhunter content would make it to Ask a Manager, the comments would be ablaze with annoyance that job seekers are going around HR to find the hiring manager rather than follow The Process that often ends in wasted time and frustration for all parties involved but keeps HR happy.
posted by dr_dank at 11:19 AM on August 24, 2022 [2 favorites]
On the occasions when Ask the Headhunter content would make it to Ask a Manager, the comments would be ablaze with annoyance that job seekers are going around HR to find the hiring manager rather than follow The Process that often ends in wasted time and frustration for all parties involved but keeps HR happy.
posted by dr_dank at 11:19 AM on August 24, 2022 [2 favorites]
I still work mostly from home. I go into the office when I need to and leave when I'm done. No one has said anything (or noticed) so I don't see any reason to change that until someone does. The job still gets done.
I work for a Very Big Company and last week I had to go to another one of our sites in town that wasn't the one I'm "based" out of. I know it OK, but not by instinct like the one I work at.
I got spun around and lost trying to go to a part of the site I'm less familiar with. I saw one lady working in a sea of empty cubicles. So I put on my best Kindly Brontosaurus, gently interrupted her, and asked if she could please point me towards the right building.
She pops up and says, "I'll take you there!" and now I feel guilty because that's now what I was asking. "NoNoNo... you don't have to do that. If you could just point me in the right direction that would be a big help..."
And she said, "You're the first person I've seen this week. I'm desperate for even a little human contact."
posted by Cyrano at 11:48 AM on August 24, 2022 [8 favorites]
I work for a Very Big Company and last week I had to go to another one of our sites in town that wasn't the one I'm "based" out of. I know it OK, but not by instinct like the one I work at.
I got spun around and lost trying to go to a part of the site I'm less familiar with. I saw one lady working in a sea of empty cubicles. So I put on my best Kindly Brontosaurus, gently interrupted her, and asked if she could please point me towards the right building.
She pops up and says, "I'll take you there!" and now I feel guilty because that's now what I was asking. "NoNoNo... you don't have to do that. If you could just point me in the right direction that would be a big help..."
And she said, "You're the first person I've seen this week. I'm desperate for even a little human contact."
posted by Cyrano at 11:48 AM on August 24, 2022 [8 favorites]
it's much easier to learn by watching and chit-chatting when you don't have to schedule a zoom call to do it.
I find it's exactly the opposite of that. It's so trivially easy to slack someone and say, "Hey can you look at this?" versus unhooking your laptop and carrying it down to wherever they are in the building to show them something.
posted by octothorpe at 12:31 PM on August 24, 2022 [2 favorites]
I find it's exactly the opposite of that. It's so trivially easy to slack someone and say, "Hey can you look at this?" versus unhooking your laptop and carrying it down to wherever they are in the building to show them something.
posted by octothorpe at 12:31 PM on August 24, 2022 [2 favorites]
Forgot to mention a huge benefit of working from home: less exposure to random chitchat means much less exposure to racial microaggressions from my white coworkers and supervisors. I honestly can't remember the last time I heard one since I started WFH. When I worked in the office, it was at least every week or two.
I know that WFH is a very poor solution to that problem (some POC at the firm still have to work in the office, or want to work in the office for a chance at advancement). The firm suddenly discovered racism existed in 2020, and has implemented training that has been entirely focused on educating people about events 60+ years ago. I expect they'll get to training on microaggressions long after I've retired. Or after I die. I have given detailed feedback in anonymous surveys, as have others. It's been ignored. So I'm going with the imperfect solution.
posted by creepygirl at 12:44 PM on August 24, 2022 [15 favorites]
I know that WFH is a very poor solution to that problem (some POC at the firm still have to work in the office, or want to work in the office for a chance at advancement). The firm suddenly discovered racism existed in 2020, and has implemented training that has been entirely focused on educating people about events 60+ years ago. I expect they'll get to training on microaggressions long after I've retired. Or after I die. I have given detailed feedback in anonymous surveys, as have others. It's been ignored. So I'm going with the imperfect solution.
posted by creepygirl at 12:44 PM on August 24, 2022 [15 favorites]
Why did your ac costs double? It’s more efficient to keep your house at a relatively even temp within a few degrees regardless of being there or not for awhile. Starting/stopping is wildly less efficient.
With the exception of a couple special cases (heat pumps in heating mode without special adaptive setback thermostats and electrical rates that vary in cost over the course of the day (sometimes)) this is generally never true for residential cooling (EG: US DOE on set back thermostats).
Direct Energy:
posted by Mitheral at 1:16 PM on August 24, 2022 [5 favorites]
With the exception of a couple special cases (heat pumps in heating mode without special adaptive setback thermostats and electrical rates that vary in cost over the course of the day (sometimes)) this is generally never true for residential cooling (EG: US DOE on set back thermostats).
Direct Energy:
The Department of Energy estimates savings of about 1 percent for each degree of thermostat adjustment per 8 hours, and recommends turning thermostats back 7 to 10 degrees from their normal settings for 8 hours per day to achieve annual savings of up to 10%.Because residential A/C condensing units usually don't include variable compressors that decrease in electrical consumption translates directly into reduced run time and reduced wear/longer life of the condensing unit.
posted by Mitheral at 1:16 PM on August 24, 2022 [5 favorites]
I'm split on this topic. I know there's plenty of people who make WFH work wonderfully. And that's great! But I worked for a bit at a pharma marketing firm that had about 50% of the staff WFH (it was a complex situation, but most of the WFH folks had been hired that way and it was grandfathered in by their contracts). Granted, this was a few years before the pandemic, but we still had a robust call-in system, email, Slack-type tools, screen sharing (I'm not a tech person and this was several years ago so I don't know all the details)... a very "connected" office whose parent office was in a different state. And this was a 100% digital marketing firm. So the technology support was there to make WFH work.
There were definite issues with many of the WFH people. Sure, some people might have been slacking off or whatever, but I think most people were doing their best to stay connected. In short, so much extra work ended up on the plates of the people in the office. This was because it was possible to have in-person meetings and make split second decisions and get input from extremely busy higher-ups while in the office. And at least once a day—sometimes more— there was some WFH person who became unreachable at some clutch moment and the office people would have to scramble to work around it.
I saw this happen all the time as an office-worker. Many reasons why. Many times I didn't know the reasons why... I just saw and helped the in-office staff scramble around trying to get answers or just having to take on things, or finish some WFH's stuff because a client made an unscheduled call, or, or, or... etc.
And there were some WFH people who (I believe) had clever and subtle ways to shirk responsibility from time to time. Some of these people were pretty high ranking, so it wasn't like they were going to be questioned for their excuses or whatever. I also think some of the WFH people were even passive-aggressive to a point.
Sure, blame it on bad management. But bad management is most places. And this was a multi-million dollar business with giant pharma accounts. This wasn't a mixed up little place that never got its shit together.
Plus, the company culture and experience for young new-hires was just plain weird. So many people they never met IRL. I saw that some of them didn't adapt to this very well. Again, this is just one example. But it can't be the only place where things like this happen regularly.
There seems to be a good slice of the Internet who are completely happy with WFH. I'm sure it does work perfectly in some cases. But I think it's not all so great for everyone involved.
And yeah—not everyone has a home office. Especially the younger new-hires I mentioned. But plenty of other people lack a dedicated office in their homes.
posted by SoberHighland at 1:30 PM on August 24, 2022 [1 favorite]
There were definite issues with many of the WFH people. Sure, some people might have been slacking off or whatever, but I think most people were doing their best to stay connected. In short, so much extra work ended up on the plates of the people in the office. This was because it was possible to have in-person meetings and make split second decisions and get input from extremely busy higher-ups while in the office. And at least once a day—sometimes more— there was some WFH person who became unreachable at some clutch moment and the office people would have to scramble to work around it.
I saw this happen all the time as an office-worker. Many reasons why. Many times I didn't know the reasons why... I just saw and helped the in-office staff scramble around trying to get answers or just having to take on things, or finish some WFH's stuff because a client made an unscheduled call, or, or, or... etc.
And there were some WFH people who (I believe) had clever and subtle ways to shirk responsibility from time to time. Some of these people were pretty high ranking, so it wasn't like they were going to be questioned for their excuses or whatever. I also think some of the WFH people were even passive-aggressive to a point.
Sure, blame it on bad management. But bad management is most places. And this was a multi-million dollar business with giant pharma accounts. This wasn't a mixed up little place that never got its shit together.
Plus, the company culture and experience for young new-hires was just plain weird. So many people they never met IRL. I saw that some of them didn't adapt to this very well. Again, this is just one example. But it can't be the only place where things like this happen regularly.
There seems to be a good slice of the Internet who are completely happy with WFH. I'm sure it does work perfectly in some cases. But I think it's not all so great for everyone involved.
And yeah—not everyone has a home office. Especially the younger new-hires I mentioned. But plenty of other people lack a dedicated office in their homes.
posted by SoberHighland at 1:30 PM on August 24, 2022 [1 favorite]
the US centrism in here is a bit rough.
I'm in Australia, if that helps.
As a full-time WFH person and having only ever worked from home for this company, I certainly don't feel the connection to my team that I used to when working full-time in an office. For me (as someone that's not at all a 'people person'), I miss that connection in ways I would never have thought possible. After more that two years, I still feel more connected to the people I use to work with (some of whom I'd worked with for well over a decade) than I do to the people I work with now. I invited a bunch of people I used to work with to our wedding a year ago, but none of my current co-workers.
I absolutely do not miss the three hours a day of commuting (especially in the winter when I would never see my home in daylight) and love that I can sit out on my deck and have a coffee looking over the water whenever I want, but I miss the clear distinction between work life and real life and I hardly ever take advantage of the opportunity to sit outside and have a coffee. In many ways, I'm very lucky in that I have a dedicated office in my home and can shut the door if I need privacy or to shut out distractions. I never want to go back to working in an office full-time but, given the choice, I would like to spend a couple of or even three days a week there. The fact is, for all the benefits, WFH is a lonely existence for me. Days go by without leaving the house or speaking face-to-face with another human apart from my wife. She asks me what happened to me today and I shrug and say 'nothing really' because nothing happens worth mentioning, while she's full of stories about her day.
As someone that struggles to make friends and whose social life for many years was centred around work colleagues, WFH full-time can take me to dark places sometimes. If I was still single, I'm not sure how I would cope, to be honest.
posted by dg at 3:28 PM on August 24, 2022 [10 favorites]
I'm in Australia, if that helps.
As a full-time WFH person and having only ever worked from home for this company, I certainly don't feel the connection to my team that I used to when working full-time in an office. For me (as someone that's not at all a 'people person'), I miss that connection in ways I would never have thought possible. After more that two years, I still feel more connected to the people I use to work with (some of whom I'd worked with for well over a decade) than I do to the people I work with now. I invited a bunch of people I used to work with to our wedding a year ago, but none of my current co-workers.
I absolutely do not miss the three hours a day of commuting (especially in the winter when I would never see my home in daylight) and love that I can sit out on my deck and have a coffee looking over the water whenever I want, but I miss the clear distinction between work life and real life and I hardly ever take advantage of the opportunity to sit outside and have a coffee. In many ways, I'm very lucky in that I have a dedicated office in my home and can shut the door if I need privacy or to shut out distractions. I never want to go back to working in an office full-time but, given the choice, I would like to spend a couple of or even three days a week there. The fact is, for all the benefits, WFH is a lonely existence for me. Days go by without leaving the house or speaking face-to-face with another human apart from my wife. She asks me what happened to me today and I shrug and say 'nothing really' because nothing happens worth mentioning, while she's full of stories about her day.
As someone that struggles to make friends and whose social life for many years was centred around work colleagues, WFH full-time can take me to dark places sometimes. If I was still single, I'm not sure how I would cope, to be honest.
posted by dg at 3:28 PM on August 24, 2022 [10 favorites]
I forgot one thing that I absolutely love about WFH, it's that everyone has their name under their face in Zoom calls. I'm both faceblind and have horrible trouble with names so it's so much easier for me to connect with co-workers when I know their names right off the bat.
posted by octothorpe at 4:28 PM on August 24, 2022 [9 favorites]
posted by octothorpe at 4:28 PM on August 24, 2022 [9 favorites]
In July my therapist and I were talking about how WFH has led to almost total elimination of any semblance of socializing with co-workers.
Last year I WFH for a company where most of the employees worked together in an office pre-pandemic and the company was updating the offices for when they all came back and reunited. Those employees knew each other, had worked in an office together and there was a lot of conversation about kids and family and vacations and their lives in general.
In March I started WFH for a company where most of us were hired in the last year and we all work remotely. Pretty much the only topics we talked about were a) moving - someone on a Zoom call is going to be sitting in a different room soon and b) getting COVID - Omicron has made it so that we’ve all had it, some more than once and it means you’re going to be out of the “office”.
I know very little about my current co-workers, some I don’t even know where they are. I’ve never met any of them in person, never overheard their phone calls with their partners, their realtors, their mechanics, their babysitters, never seen family photos or office toys on their desks, never seen their pants or shoes or what they eat for lunch. The only things I know about them are things they feel comfortable volunteering which varies wildly. I hear a lot about the guy who runs half-marathons every weekend but I know nothing about another woman and her “fairly fresh baby.”
Almost every single characteristic I’d use to consider their personality and by extension how I interact with them is gone. I can’t tell yet if narrowing our relationships to strictly work ones is beneficial overall - it definitely saves a lot of time and probably improves potential “work/life balance” but it sort of feels like a daily relationship with strangers.
posted by bendy at 4:34 PM on August 24, 2022 [7 favorites]
Last year I WFH for a company where most of the employees worked together in an office pre-pandemic and the company was updating the offices for when they all came back and reunited. Those employees knew each other, had worked in an office together and there was a lot of conversation about kids and family and vacations and their lives in general.
In March I started WFH for a company where most of us were hired in the last year and we all work remotely. Pretty much the only topics we talked about were a) moving - someone on a Zoom call is going to be sitting in a different room soon and b) getting COVID - Omicron has made it so that we’ve all had it, some more than once and it means you’re going to be out of the “office”.
I know very little about my current co-workers, some I don’t even know where they are. I’ve never met any of them in person, never overheard their phone calls with their partners, their realtors, their mechanics, their babysitters, never seen family photos or office toys on their desks, never seen their pants or shoes or what they eat for lunch. The only things I know about them are things they feel comfortable volunteering which varies wildly. I hear a lot about the guy who runs half-marathons every weekend but I know nothing about another woman and her “fairly fresh baby.”
Almost every single characteristic I’d use to consider their personality and by extension how I interact with them is gone. I can’t tell yet if narrowing our relationships to strictly work ones is beneficial overall - it definitely saves a lot of time and probably improves potential “work/life balance” but it sort of feels like a daily relationship with strangers.
posted by bendy at 4:34 PM on August 24, 2022 [7 favorites]
In short, so much extra work ended up on the plates of the people in the office. This was because it was possible to have in-person meetings and make split second decisions and get input from extremely busy higher-ups while in the office. And at least once a day—sometimes more— there was some WFH person who became unreachable at some clutch moment and the office people would have to scramble to work around it.
The “Top Employers in the Bay Area” list led me to a couple companies sites to learn more about them. I can’t find the exact link but I think it was Afresh that handles “distributed work” by waiting 24 hours to make some decisions to give employees around the world time to contribute feedback.
posted by bendy at 5:02 PM on August 24, 2022
The “Top Employers in the Bay Area” list led me to a couple companies sites to learn more about them. I can’t find the exact link but I think it was Afresh that handles “distributed work” by waiting 24 hours to make some decisions to give employees around the world time to contribute feedback.
posted by bendy at 5:02 PM on August 24, 2022
I know very little about my current co-workers, some I don’t even know where they are.
One trick that's helped for me, similarly starting a perma-WFH job where my coworkers are scattered about:
1:1s. Make them *your* thing. I was encouraged to set up varying cadences of 1:1s with everybody on my team, skip-level 1:1s, 1:1s with department architects, etc.
But not the business-focused ones. Personal-focus. It's lovely being able to hear from my coworkers, and I only have to figure out about 10-15 minutes of personal social details each week to volunteer for myself, so it doesn't feel exhausting from that side. (not that I repeat myself verbatim, but there's usually some overlap until the conversation digresses into a unique detail)
Sometimes work comes up, but more organically, after the important portion of the time is resolved. And it's amazing what you can get keyed into & organize as a result.
To your point and many others, it's a shift away from accidental interaction & requires more deliberate action, but that's no reason to give up before taking deliberate action.
I have no interest in overhearing phone calls of the intimacy of my coworkers' lives, but they know my cats names and chat lights up when Jojo makes a flying leap behind me.
posted by CrystalDave at 5:04 PM on August 24, 2022 [5 favorites]
One trick that's helped for me, similarly starting a perma-WFH job where my coworkers are scattered about:
1:1s. Make them *your* thing. I was encouraged to set up varying cadences of 1:1s with everybody on my team, skip-level 1:1s, 1:1s with department architects, etc.
But not the business-focused ones. Personal-focus. It's lovely being able to hear from my coworkers, and I only have to figure out about 10-15 minutes of personal social details each week to volunteer for myself, so it doesn't feel exhausting from that side. (not that I repeat myself verbatim, but there's usually some overlap until the conversation digresses into a unique detail)
Sometimes work comes up, but more organically, after the important portion of the time is resolved. And it's amazing what you can get keyed into & organize as a result.
To your point and many others, it's a shift away from accidental interaction & requires more deliberate action, but that's no reason to give up before taking deliberate action.
I have no interest in overhearing phone calls of the intimacy of my coworkers' lives, but they know my cats names and chat lights up when Jojo makes a flying leap behind me.
posted by CrystalDave at 5:04 PM on August 24, 2022 [5 favorites]
I know very little about my current co-workers, some I don’t even know where they are. I’ve never met any of them in person, never overheard their phone calls with their partners, their realtors, their mechanics, their babysitters, never seen family photos or office toys on their desks, never seen their pants or shoes or what they eat for lunch.
This sounds like a description of heaven. It's something that people have struggled to get at some jobs I've worked in the past: I'm there to do a job, do it well, get paid, and go home. I'm not there to socialise, to chat, to get to know a large group of people with whom there almost certainly will be no mutual understanding, shared interests, etc. Like, I will politely make small talk if called upon to do so, but really I'd rather be busy, or going home. (The worst jobs are ones with downtime where they won't let you go home.) The free jobs I've had where I was working from home were brilliant in that regard - only the daily email of two to one maybe two other people, never have to deal with anything that isn't an easy to understand, hard scripted professional work interaction. The properly busy jobs (factory, warehouse) have been similar - you're kept too busy to chat, and that's brilliant. When I'm not in work mode, I absolutely want to socialise. Just rarely with the people I work with, if ever. I have friends, I did the impossibly hard work of getting to know people and being emotionally vulnerable with them as an incompetent autist, please nobody make me do that ever again. Just give me work to do, send me home when you've got no more work to give me, pay a decent wage, and don't run any team building exercises or otherwise force me to socialise.
(Sorry, guess I needed to vent!)
posted by Dysk at 11:39 PM on August 24, 2022 [17 favorites]
This sounds like a description of heaven. It's something that people have struggled to get at some jobs I've worked in the past: I'm there to do a job, do it well, get paid, and go home. I'm not there to socialise, to chat, to get to know a large group of people with whom there almost certainly will be no mutual understanding, shared interests, etc. Like, I will politely make small talk if called upon to do so, but really I'd rather be busy, or going home. (The worst jobs are ones with downtime where they won't let you go home.) The free jobs I've had where I was working from home were brilliant in that regard - only the daily email of two to one maybe two other people, never have to deal with anything that isn't an easy to understand, hard scripted professional work interaction. The properly busy jobs (factory, warehouse) have been similar - you're kept too busy to chat, and that's brilliant. When I'm not in work mode, I absolutely want to socialise. Just rarely with the people I work with, if ever. I have friends, I did the impossibly hard work of getting to know people and being emotionally vulnerable with them as an incompetent autist, please nobody make me do that ever again. Just give me work to do, send me home when you've got no more work to give me, pay a decent wage, and don't run any team building exercises or otherwise force me to socialise.
(Sorry, guess I needed to vent!)
posted by Dysk at 11:39 PM on August 24, 2022 [17 favorites]
Why did your ac costs double? It’s more efficient to keep your house at a relatively even temp within a few degrees regardless of being there or not for awhile. Starting/stopping is wildly less efficient.
Holy crap, do people just leave the AC on 24/7 even when they aren't home? Thats unreal.
posted by zymil at 2:47 AM on August 25, 2022 [2 favorites]
Holy crap, do people just leave the AC on 24/7 even when they aren't home? Thats unreal.
posted by zymil at 2:47 AM on August 25, 2022 [2 favorites]
You’re not alone, Dysk. It’s been heaven to me, too, and also a recipe for fewer micro aggressions and personal judgments affecting work. I don’t want my coworkers knowing a thing about my phone calls or how I dress or seeing my family photos.
I had my first in person meeting since March 2020 just this week, hated every second of it, and would gladly go another 2.5 years without doing it again. (Especially since no one else wore a damn mask.) I’m glad my workplace has made coming back in an option for those who want it, but also very glad they’ve left 99.5% remote available for everyone who wants that.
A department we work with closely started bringing people in more often and promptly lost most of its staff to fully-remote jobs. I think that scared upper admin, and rightly so. I am very happy in my current job and regularly receive promotions and stellar reviews, so it’s a good match where everyone’s happy, but a return to regular in-office work at this point would send me job-hunting, too.
posted by Stacey at 4:15 AM on August 25, 2022 [7 favorites]
I had my first in person meeting since March 2020 just this week, hated every second of it, and would gladly go another 2.5 years without doing it again. (Especially since no one else wore a damn mask.) I’m glad my workplace has made coming back in an option for those who want it, but also very glad they’ve left 99.5% remote available for everyone who wants that.
A department we work with closely started bringing people in more often and promptly lost most of its staff to fully-remote jobs. I think that scared upper admin, and rightly so. I am very happy in my current job and regularly receive promotions and stellar reviews, so it’s a good match where everyone’s happy, but a return to regular in-office work at this point would send me job-hunting, too.
posted by Stacey at 4:15 AM on August 25, 2022 [7 favorites]
I'm with Dysk and Stacey here. WFH has been life-alteringly positive for me. I am creeping up on 55, have had many different jobs, and have a total of zero friendships today with the people whom I was "friends" with at work.
I am here to do a job in exchange for a salary, and I will do it to the best of my ability. Expecting me to socialize with people who someone else chose to put in my company? Nah. 9 times of out 10 people are garbage when you start learning more about them. And now that I know you throw homophobic microagressions around in casual conversation, it'll sure be fun working on this project with you!
posted by archimago at 4:35 AM on August 25, 2022 [5 favorites]
I am here to do a job in exchange for a salary, and I will do it to the best of my ability. Expecting me to socialize with people who someone else chose to put in my company? Nah. 9 times of out 10 people are garbage when you start learning more about them. And now that I know you throw homophobic microagressions around in casual conversation, it'll sure be fun working on this project with you!
posted by archimago at 4:35 AM on August 25, 2022 [5 favorites]
Holy crap, do people just leave the AC on 24/7 even when they aren't home? Thats unreal.
You'd be be surprised, modern AC units (inverter type) are at their most efficient and long lived when you leave them on permanently - it's the turning on and turning off that shortens its lifespan and kills their efficiency. Also, modern houses have great insulation and double glazing.
Think about your fridge, that thing runs 24/7 for years with no maintenance, and is pretty efficient, to the point no one even thinks about what it costs to run, right? Or think about your car, it's at its most efficient at highway cruising speed at 1300 RPM. When you're driving downhill and downshift to 5000 RPM you can instantly feel the incredible amount of engine drag from friction in its moving parts. Now imagine accelerating hard to the redline at 7000 RPM when taking off at the lights - that's the drag your engine has to overcome, and it absolutely murders your fuel economy.
Well, turning on your AC on a completely hot / cold house is like redlining your engine at 7000RPM for 1-2 hours, until the temperature reaches the setpoint and the AC can throttle back and just operate in cruise mode. Yes, you will still save some electricity turning your AC off when you're not in the home, but honestly it's not going to save as much as you think - I did some testing with my power meter and turning the AC off while I'm not home isn't worth very much.
In winter, my bedroom / study is maintained at 23°C overnight compared to an average outside temperature of -3°C at a cost of about 400 watts. In the daytime, when it's about 10°C outside, it costs about 250 watts. On average, that's about 6 cents an hour. It's similar in summer, when it's over 40°C outside it maintains an inside temperature of about 26°C no issues for similar cost. I just turn on the AC in Autumn and don't turn it off until the end of Spring!
posted by xdvesper at 4:44 AM on August 25, 2022 [2 favorites]
You'd be be surprised, modern AC units (inverter type) are at their most efficient and long lived when you leave them on permanently - it's the turning on and turning off that shortens its lifespan and kills their efficiency. Also, modern houses have great insulation and double glazing.
Think about your fridge, that thing runs 24/7 for years with no maintenance, and is pretty efficient, to the point no one even thinks about what it costs to run, right? Or think about your car, it's at its most efficient at highway cruising speed at 1300 RPM. When you're driving downhill and downshift to 5000 RPM you can instantly feel the incredible amount of engine drag from friction in its moving parts. Now imagine accelerating hard to the redline at 7000 RPM when taking off at the lights - that's the drag your engine has to overcome, and it absolutely murders your fuel economy.
Well, turning on your AC on a completely hot / cold house is like redlining your engine at 7000RPM for 1-2 hours, until the temperature reaches the setpoint and the AC can throttle back and just operate in cruise mode. Yes, you will still save some electricity turning your AC off when you're not in the home, but honestly it's not going to save as much as you think - I did some testing with my power meter and turning the AC off while I'm not home isn't worth very much.
In winter, my bedroom / study is maintained at 23°C overnight compared to an average outside temperature of -3°C at a cost of about 400 watts. In the daytime, when it's about 10°C outside, it costs about 250 watts. On average, that's about 6 cents an hour. It's similar in summer, when it's over 40°C outside it maintains an inside temperature of about 26°C no issues for similar cost. I just turn on the AC in Autumn and don't turn it off until the end of Spring!
posted by xdvesper at 4:44 AM on August 25, 2022 [2 favorites]
Our global company had already switched to encouraging WFH pre-pandemic, originally prompted by employee demand and then expanded when they realized it it mostly increased productivity and saved on real estate. Our local office has about 50% of the desks needed for the number of local workers, we each get a locker but no assigned or reserved seating. Since the pandemic, each team has had to come up with a team charter stating their balance between remote and office time.
My boss is Europe, one teammate in UK and the other in India, and I am in California. I have met each of them once or twice, around a decade ago when we were not on the same immediate team and our company had more of a travel budget for big conferences.
I think I would recognize my boss on the street but would need to hear him speak to be sure it was him. My two teammates both avoid video and they've had the same profile pics for many many years so I would not know them on sight. They might recognize me because I keep my profile updated and stand out as a middle aged woman with a shaved head.
Our team do each have a half hour 1:1 with boss once a week, which is mostly chatty and informal, and then every other week all four of us have a call that mostly is venting frustration and asking for help where we are stuck. None of these are video because all four of us are weirded out seeing our own faces.
All of us are relieved to be mostly work from home (even though I expected to struggle with ADHD) but also happy to have the chance to go into the office as needed. One is happy to escape the child chaos when he needs to get major work done, one is genuinely an extrovert and loves seeing lots of people, one wants a weekly change of scenery, and I appreciate functional ac when it's over 90 degrees.
(We don't have a modern house, good insulation, or double-glazing so running the ac is not only expensive, it makes barely any difference so we rarely bother. )
posted by buildmyworld at 6:30 AM on August 25, 2022
My boss is Europe, one teammate in UK and the other in India, and I am in California. I have met each of them once or twice, around a decade ago when we were not on the same immediate team and our company had more of a travel budget for big conferences.
I think I would recognize my boss on the street but would need to hear him speak to be sure it was him. My two teammates both avoid video and they've had the same profile pics for many many years so I would not know them on sight. They might recognize me because I keep my profile updated and stand out as a middle aged woman with a shaved head.
Our team do each have a half hour 1:1 with boss once a week, which is mostly chatty and informal, and then every other week all four of us have a call that mostly is venting frustration and asking for help where we are stuck. None of these are video because all four of us are weirded out seeing our own faces.
All of us are relieved to be mostly work from home (even though I expected to struggle with ADHD) but also happy to have the chance to go into the office as needed. One is happy to escape the child chaos when he needs to get major work done, one is genuinely an extrovert and loves seeing lots of people, one wants a weekly change of scenery, and I appreciate functional ac when it's over 90 degrees.
(We don't have a modern house, good insulation, or double-glazing so running the ac is not only expensive, it makes barely any difference so we rarely bother. )
posted by buildmyworld at 6:30 AM on August 25, 2022
My company is moving from one day RTO to two (everyone the same days), and, all official denial to the contrary, the goal is to get us back to five days a week. This puts me in the position of rather than deciding whether I like the hybrid model, I'm just annoyed the parent company legit thinks we're too stupid to realize that they are treating us as frogs in a pot because nobody would stick around if they went directly back to their pre-Covid policy. (Parent Company CEO has an extreme hatred of WFH to the point that I wonder what get got away with during his internet industry entry-level days that he's so sure we're all plotting to steal time from the company and must be watched like naughty toddlers.)
Given the option, I'd rather WFH but 3/4 of that is because I have a ten mile (16km) commute that takes 45 minutes in rush hour, and any onsite job I could find in the area would be as hard or worse to get to. (The Northeast megalopolis is congested.) If it were walkable or (let's be real) a clean <5 minute drive, I'd probably have been going into the office once a week or so even back when it was voluntary. I like my housemates and we have sufficient home office space, but we do get on top of each other sometimes.
As introverted and I am and as much as I love not having to put on shoes unless I want to, there are things that work better in the office. I am a Person Who Knows Things, which puts me in the position of being able to see where my juniors are getting stuck. If I see a pattern, throw together a refresher or training session for a department and I keep an eye out for juniors I think can actually absorb new information as one-offs and mentor/train them. I've been doing this via chat, voice/video and screensharing while remote but I really don't have as good a feel for the post-COVID hires as the ones I worked with packed into a cubicle farm. It also really is easier to pause for a second and call over the wall, "Person A, would you like to learn a thing?" and have them watch me resolve whatever they'd gotten stuck on earlier. Doing that and observing which Persons don't come back with the same errors after I show them a thing, and continue to be excited to learn other new things is something I keep in my head and pass along to management so they know to further cultivate those people. The new hires aren't getting as much benefit from that because I really only know the ones gregarious or desperate enough to ping me on the company chat proactively. The new hires also, not having seen the calling-over-the-wall tip-giving I do, won't know that "hey, have a second to learn something?' from me means just that, and is not a passive-aggressive opener to a reprimand.
There are also (often older) people who function much better by popping in on someone rather than remote contact. I happen to hate being interrupted that way, but my presence in the office does make their work easier, and that's a benefit to the company even if it's an annoyance to me.
I crave a company like DreamerFi has with a policy of "work from whatever location allows you to get the work done." I suspect a lot of the uncharitable characterization of people who are pushing for RTO aren't really meant to describe anyone who prefers having an office to go to but are reactions to the many many companies that aren't making the decision based on what is best for the workers or even the work, but for what makes the company feel like they are in proper control.
posted by Karmakaze at 8:21 AM on August 25, 2022 [2 favorites]
Given the option, I'd rather WFH but 3/4 of that is because I have a ten mile (16km) commute that takes 45 minutes in rush hour, and any onsite job I could find in the area would be as hard or worse to get to. (The Northeast megalopolis is congested.) If it were walkable or (let's be real) a clean <5 minute drive, I'd probably have been going into the office once a week or so even back when it was voluntary. I like my housemates and we have sufficient home office space, but we do get on top of each other sometimes.
As introverted and I am and as much as I love not having to put on shoes unless I want to, there are things that work better in the office. I am a Person Who Knows Things, which puts me in the position of being able to see where my juniors are getting stuck. If I see a pattern, throw together a refresher or training session for a department and I keep an eye out for juniors I think can actually absorb new information as one-offs and mentor/train them. I've been doing this via chat, voice/video and screensharing while remote but I really don't have as good a feel for the post-COVID hires as the ones I worked with packed into a cubicle farm. It also really is easier to pause for a second and call over the wall, "Person A, would you like to learn a thing?" and have them watch me resolve whatever they'd gotten stuck on earlier. Doing that and observing which Persons don't come back with the same errors after I show them a thing, and continue to be excited to learn other new things is something I keep in my head and pass along to management so they know to further cultivate those people. The new hires aren't getting as much benefit from that because I really only know the ones gregarious or desperate enough to ping me on the company chat proactively. The new hires also, not having seen the calling-over-the-wall tip-giving I do, won't know that "hey, have a second to learn something?' from me means just that, and is not a passive-aggressive opener to a reprimand.
There are also (often older) people who function much better by popping in on someone rather than remote contact. I happen to hate being interrupted that way, but my presence in the office does make their work easier, and that's a benefit to the company even if it's an annoyance to me.
I crave a company like DreamerFi has with a policy of "work from whatever location allows you to get the work done." I suspect a lot of the uncharitable characterization of people who are pushing for RTO aren't really meant to describe anyone who prefers having an office to go to but are reactions to the many many companies that aren't making the decision based on what is best for the workers or even the work, but for what makes the company feel like they are in proper control.
posted by Karmakaze at 8:21 AM on August 25, 2022 [2 favorites]
I was part of a collective action over WFH earlier this year. After two years of highly productive, fully remote work, in an academic research office I’d joined at the start of the pandemic, the professor at the head of our unit — who worked in another building and had, according to my co-workers, never once set foot in our office before the pandemic — suddenly announced that everyone had to return to the office full time, five days a week, because Things Are Going Back to Normal.
We all got together (excepting the chief of staff, to avoid putting her in a difficult position) and wrote a letter respectfully describing how important remote work had been to our lives, the strategies we’d used to stay productive and the key metrics behind that, how we’d appreciate consideration of a hybrid schedule, citing models from academia and industry, and how much we appreciated being part of the team, etc.
Alas, the professor threw a tantrum and even went to the president of the university to express his scorn for the gall to send such a letter before saying no, Things Are Going Back to Normal. So half of us ended up quitting and haven’t yet been replaced (myself included), while everyone else is in varying stages of departure.
So collective action is important, but you have to be ready for it to go either way. There was a cost to the professor for the way he responded (grants and promotional opportunities missed, etc) but I doubt he’s had any second thoughts. People are great at telling themselves stories that justify what they wanted to do.
I’m now at a better, higher-paying job that’s hybrid, and the CEO keeps complaining that some employees spend too much time chatting with each other while they’re in the office. Yes, that is what happens in offices!
posted by chimpsonfilm at 8:51 AM on August 25, 2022 [9 favorites]
We all got together (excepting the chief of staff, to avoid putting her in a difficult position) and wrote a letter respectfully describing how important remote work had been to our lives, the strategies we’d used to stay productive and the key metrics behind that, how we’d appreciate consideration of a hybrid schedule, citing models from academia and industry, and how much we appreciated being part of the team, etc.
Alas, the professor threw a tantrum and even went to the president of the university to express his scorn for the gall to send such a letter before saying no, Things Are Going Back to Normal. So half of us ended up quitting and haven’t yet been replaced (myself included), while everyone else is in varying stages of departure.
So collective action is important, but you have to be ready for it to go either way. There was a cost to the professor for the way he responded (grants and promotional opportunities missed, etc) but I doubt he’s had any second thoughts. People are great at telling themselves stories that justify what they wanted to do.
I’m now at a better, higher-paying job that’s hybrid, and the CEO keeps complaining that some employees spend too much time chatting with each other while they’re in the office. Yes, that is what happens in offices!
posted by chimpsonfilm at 8:51 AM on August 25, 2022 [9 favorites]
Nobody here complaining about giving up 30 - 50 sq. ft. or more of your home to your employer. Not everybody everywhere has broadband, though, srly, they should. Having young kids makes WFH pretty difficult due to noise and kids being kids. I hate allowing a potential or actual employer to see into my home, it feel so invasive.
There will be a big shakeout; I hope everyone gets something close to what works for them.
posted by theora55 at 9:33 AM on August 25, 2022 [2 favorites]
There will be a big shakeout; I hope everyone gets something close to what works for them.
posted by theora55 at 9:33 AM on August 25, 2022 [2 favorites]
Holy crap, do people just leave the AC on 24/7 even when they aren't home? Thats unreal.
Why is that unreal? That's... incredibly common for central air conditioning.
Now window ACs I would agree with you.
posted by rhymedirective at 10:05 AM on August 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
Why is that unreal? That's... incredibly common for central air conditioning.
Now window ACs I would agree with you.
posted by rhymedirective at 10:05 AM on August 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
With central, you don't necessarily leave it set to the same temperature you'd keep it at while at home, rather you'd use a time-programmed or away setting to keep it from drifting up too high while gone so you don't have to absolutely blast it when getting home.
Otherwise I'd think there might be an even bigger spike in electrical usage in the post-commute hours (like the legendary East Enders teakettle), which isn't great for spreading load and making the best use of renewables.
posted by snuffleupagus at 10:30 AM on August 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
Otherwise I'd think there might be an even bigger spike in electrical usage in the post-commute hours (like the legendary East Enders teakettle), which isn't great for spreading load and making the best use of renewables.
posted by snuffleupagus at 10:30 AM on August 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
The AC question seems like a thing that would vary extremely widely based on peoples' locations, both macro and micro, and probably something that we could just trust certain folks find to be an unwelcome added expense, while others do not, without quibbling overmuch.
(That said I am new to the land of central air and feel like MANY of the truisms of A/C that I once thought to be universal are definitely not.)
As a person who absolutely loathes offices, I find myself in a tricky position:
1. I think it is true that our new hires are struggling to onboard.
2. I think it is true that my manager cannot effectively keep tabs on things now that the team is larger.
3. I can no longer bring any of these concerns to anyone with a "boss level" title because I fear they'll just blame it on WFH instead of on our deep, abiding, corporate dysfunction.
We never onboarded new hires properly when we HAD an office. (My onboarding consisted of a laptop with a post-it on it, at an empty hotdesk.) Our managers were ALWAYS spread too thin, and half of them are halfway across the country anyway so they never were in meatspace with their reports. People may be unhappy and feeling disconnected but they're ultimately leaving because the job is terrible, not because it's remote. More often, people (like me) are staying out of fear that the next job WON'T be remote, but will still be terrible, because basically every job is.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 1:12 PM on August 25, 2022 [5 favorites]
(That said I am new to the land of central air and feel like MANY of the truisms of A/C that I once thought to be universal are definitely not.)
As a person who absolutely loathes offices, I find myself in a tricky position:
1. I think it is true that our new hires are struggling to onboard.
2. I think it is true that my manager cannot effectively keep tabs on things now that the team is larger.
3. I can no longer bring any of these concerns to anyone with a "boss level" title because I fear they'll just blame it on WFH instead of on our deep, abiding, corporate dysfunction.
We never onboarded new hires properly when we HAD an office. (My onboarding consisted of a laptop with a post-it on it, at an empty hotdesk.) Our managers were ALWAYS spread too thin, and half of them are halfway across the country anyway so they never were in meatspace with their reports. People may be unhappy and feeling disconnected but they're ultimately leaving because the job is terrible, not because it's remote. More often, people (like me) are staying out of fear that the next job WON'T be remote, but will still be terrible, because basically every job is.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 1:12 PM on August 25, 2022 [5 favorites]
I genuinely don't understand how businesses are not getting sued for workplace hazards over the lack of Covid-19 mitigations.
posted by srboisvert at 2:26 PM on August 25, 2022 [6 favorites]
posted by srboisvert at 2:26 PM on August 25, 2022 [6 favorites]
The thing that always strikes me about WFH discussions (not here more than anywhere else) is the extent to which people sometimes seem to have genuine difficulty understanding that their personal situation and preferences on the matter are not universal, natural and objectively correct.
posted by eponym at 4:22 PM on August 25, 2022 [10 favorites]
posted by eponym at 4:22 PM on August 25, 2022 [10 favorites]
I genuinely don't understand how businesses are not getting sued for workplace hazards over the lack of Covid-19 mitigations.
This is a fascinating area of business law that we're starting to get to grips with, especially in companies with strong manufacturing unions. They would not tolerate a single death or disability due to malfunctioning machinery, so how do we treat Covid?
There has been one case where the employer was found liable for directing the employee to perform work in such a manner that they caught Covid and died - and were ordered to pay $830,000 to his widow plus loss of salary. Australia at the time was pursuing a zero-Covid strategy so infections and deaths in the country were virtually zero - the employer directed the employee to undertake a business trip to the US, where he contracted Covid and died. The employer argued that it is likely the employee contracted Covid in social settings outside of work (restaurants, bars) - the court determined the employee would not have been in the US in the first place if not directed to do so for work.
Even Work From Home itself raises other interesting legal questions - is the home now legally a "workplace"? Apparently yes - in one case, a person was murdered at home while performing work for their employer. The special circumstance in this case is that the murderer - her husband - was also employed by the same company, and had paranoid delusions about the manner that she was performing her work. The employer was deemed liable for the death and ordered to pay $450,000 to their dependent children as the deceased was murdered in the course of performing their work, and the reason for the murder was related to her work duties.
The standard legal test in workplace injury cases is whether the risk could be expected (yes) and whether reasonable mitigating actions were taken - mandating workers wear a hazmat suit in the office would not be reasonable, but allowing workers to work from home is eminently reasonable. Interpreting common law that way (globally) would have been one reason I think many companies like ours have made WFH permanent.
posted by xdvesper at 7:54 PM on August 25, 2022 [6 favorites]
This is a fascinating area of business law that we're starting to get to grips with, especially in companies with strong manufacturing unions. They would not tolerate a single death or disability due to malfunctioning machinery, so how do we treat Covid?
There has been one case where the employer was found liable for directing the employee to perform work in such a manner that they caught Covid and died - and were ordered to pay $830,000 to his widow plus loss of salary. Australia at the time was pursuing a zero-Covid strategy so infections and deaths in the country were virtually zero - the employer directed the employee to undertake a business trip to the US, where he contracted Covid and died. The employer argued that it is likely the employee contracted Covid in social settings outside of work (restaurants, bars) - the court determined the employee would not have been in the US in the first place if not directed to do so for work.
Even Work From Home itself raises other interesting legal questions - is the home now legally a "workplace"? Apparently yes - in one case, a person was murdered at home while performing work for their employer. The special circumstance in this case is that the murderer - her husband - was also employed by the same company, and had paranoid delusions about the manner that she was performing her work. The employer was deemed liable for the death and ordered to pay $450,000 to their dependent children as the deceased was murdered in the course of performing their work, and the reason for the murder was related to her work duties.
The standard legal test in workplace injury cases is whether the risk could be expected (yes) and whether reasonable mitigating actions were taken - mandating workers wear a hazmat suit in the office would not be reasonable, but allowing workers to work from home is eminently reasonable. Interpreting common law that way (globally) would have been one reason I think many companies like ours have made WFH permanent.
posted by xdvesper at 7:54 PM on August 25, 2022 [6 favorites]
I think the assumed legal situation is, if you're (in the US) doing at least what the CDC recommends, then a lawsuit is going to go nowhere. You could go more. You could certainly choose to go less, at the increased risk of your precautions being found unreasonably lax.
posted by ctmf at 10:55 PM on August 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by ctmf at 10:55 PM on August 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
I’m lucky enough to be full remote in a job where that works okay. My family situation meant I had to take more COVID precautions than most for a long time, but that’s changed and I don’t feel as threatened by the prospect of one-way masking as I did. I’m thinking of going into the office more regularly now because I need more exercise and a bike commute is one way to get it. It’ll probably change back in winter. A fine example of how this is all very particular and not one-size-fits-all.
I do feel for the new hires over this period. It has been a very difficult time to get integrated.
posted by eirias at 11:40 PM on August 25, 2022
I do feel for the new hires over this period. It has been a very difficult time to get integrated.
posted by eirias at 11:40 PM on August 25, 2022
The thing that always strikes me about WFH discussions (not here more than anywhere else) is the extent to which people sometimes seem to have genuine difficulty understanding that their personal situation and preferences on the matter are not universal, natural and objectively correct.
I've yet to meet anyone arguing for mandatory working from home, but there's lots of people pushing for mandatory return to the office. That's the context for all the people making passionate arguments for why working from home is important to them: it's a plea to please let them continue to have that option, not an argument against opening up the office for those who want that.
posted by Dysk at 12:20 AM on August 26, 2022 [7 favorites]
I've yet to meet anyone arguing for mandatory working from home, but there's lots of people pushing for mandatory return to the office. That's the context for all the people making passionate arguments for why working from home is important to them: it's a plea to please let them continue to have that option, not an argument against opening up the office for those who want that.
posted by Dysk at 12:20 AM on August 26, 2022 [7 favorites]
It’s been heaven to me, too, and also a recipe for fewer micro aggressions and personal judgments affecting work.
For me it’s mitigated all of my insecurities about seeing PersonOne and PersonTwo disappear into a conference room and stressing about what they’re talking about and whether I should be in that meeting and what decisions they’re making without my input or the benefit of what I know. Offices are a horrible environment for my particular strain of anxiety.
posted by bendy at 12:38 AM on August 26, 2022 [4 favorites]
For me it’s mitigated all of my insecurities about seeing PersonOne and PersonTwo disappear into a conference room and stressing about what they’re talking about and whether I should be in that meeting and what decisions they’re making without my input or the benefit of what I know. Offices are a horrible environment for my particular strain of anxiety.
posted by bendy at 12:38 AM on August 26, 2022 [4 favorites]
It’s been heaven to me, too, and also a recipe for fewer micro aggressions and personal judgments affecting work.
For me it’s mitigated all of my insecurities about seeing PersonOne and PersonTwo disappear into a conference room and stressing about what they’re talking about and whether I should be in that meeting and what decisions they’re making without my input or the benefit of what I know. Offices are a horrible environment for my particular strain of anxiety.
There was also evidence that school closures and the movement to online was a mental health rescue for some kids. Child suicides dropped quite a bit suggesting that in person school is a form of intolerable hell for a subset of kids.
If it feels like you are being bullied back to the office it might just be that you are and the bullying is the point.
posted by srboisvert at 4:18 AM on August 26, 2022 [4 favorites]
For me it’s mitigated all of my insecurities about seeing PersonOne and PersonTwo disappear into a conference room and stressing about what they’re talking about and whether I should be in that meeting and what decisions they’re making without my input or the benefit of what I know. Offices are a horrible environment for my particular strain of anxiety.
There was also evidence that school closures and the movement to online was a mental health rescue for some kids. Child suicides dropped quite a bit suggesting that in person school is a form of intolerable hell for a subset of kids.
If it feels like you are being bullied back to the office it might just be that you are and the bullying is the point.
posted by srboisvert at 4:18 AM on August 26, 2022 [4 favorites]
I'm just against the concept of "Your strongest leverage is your willingness to give up your livelihood" on its face. Not everyone has recruiters offering them better jobs to run away to. My leverage is the value I provide to the company. If it's significant, I can negotiate against it for better treatment. "If you want my output to continue this way, I get to decide when I work from home and when I don't" is the negotiating position (not necessarily how to put it to your boss) to take.
If you don't provide enough value on your own that your productivity declining is much of an inconvenience to your employer, then collective action is the way to go. Either in union-form or by just talking to and cooperating with the co-workers who agree with you and going to see management en masse.
posted by signsofrain at 11:52 AM on August 26, 2022 [2 favorites]
If you don't provide enough value on your own that your productivity declining is much of an inconvenience to your employer, then collective action is the way to go. Either in union-form or by just talking to and cooperating with the co-workers who agree with you and going to see management en masse.
posted by signsofrain at 11:52 AM on August 26, 2022 [2 favorites]
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This seems to be a common attitude from managers everywhere. It's as if the success of people working from home through the pandemic has been quickly forgotten and now we all have to go back to 'normal'. They don't seem to understand that people have discovered the benefits of not having to spend half their day getting to and from work and aren't going to give that up easily. I feel like it's a trust issue and, regardless of the clear evidence that working from home can be even more productive than trudging into the office every day (not for all jobs, of course, but for many), many managers are uncomfortable with the idea that people will continue to do their job when they aren't under the watchful eye of a manager. Such people are unfit to be managers, in my view. If your team can't be trusted to do their job unless constantly and physically monitored, why did you hire them in the first place?
posted by dg at 3:25 PM on August 23, 2022 [54 favorites]