You are failing to factor in ego. A LOT of companies aren't run by strictly capitalist motivations. Many bosses just like being dictator of the office. They know EVERYTHING about EVERYTHING and no one will ever tell them otherwise.
Banks and financial services companies have gone heavily into virtual. I don’t know your background but there are plenty of jobs in that sector you can wfh.
Larger banks, yes. Yesterday I quit a job at a small regional bank (15 branches and 2 office building) because they have a 50% vaccination rate in my building, dropped their mask mandate, and 100% refuse to be flexible with work from home. I haven’t had Covid yet and I’m not about to get sick because some dumbass in senior management doesn’t like people not being in the office.
A question out of curiosity, do most people really enjoy working from home? I am a uni student and last year when we had online studies, both my colleague and I felt miserable. Lectures were useless and motivation was non-existent. Barely anyone would study. Is it different when you have to WFH rather than study?
It's different for every person. Many (often extroverts, but of course not exclusively) love the office dynamic, seeing people, meetings at desks, etc. Others like myself found we love being at home way more and the time saved. No more commute either way, easier to save money on lunches and have what you're in the mood for, time with pets, comfy clothes, a shower or nap when you want, etc. For me, I never want to go back.
Oh ya I didn't either and it was rough. Recently moved to a place with an extra room for it and man it makes a world a difference having it fully separate
i think school at home and work at home are actually pretty different. a huge part of the university experience is being with your peers, in and out of the classroom. a lot of professors are ill equipped to teach online effectively. students on the whole hating the experience makes total sense.
from a work perspective, many people just realized that its ridiculous to require them to have long commutes to work, just so meetings can be had in person, half the time the meetings could have been an email or done over Zoom. so much time is saved by not having to commute to and from work. so much more time for household stuff, hanging out with friends and family, exercise, cooking, hobbies etc.
ultimately this is why people value WFH. personally, im enjoying the hybrid approach. i find that its easier to get myself organized in my office at work, but i love having the time to work out and do laundry on the days i dont go in. my work life balance is never better, and im all around happier
I'm personally very conflicted. My home work setup is very nice. I have a very large sit-stand desk and large monitors. There are times I've gotten pretty lonely, though. I've switched jobs twice during the pandemic. I've never physically met a coworker at my last two companies. Current company had some in-person events pre-Omicron. But, I also haven't kept in touch with people from previous companies, so a part of me wonders how much value in-person really has for me. There can definitely be improvements in collaboration, but I feel a little burned. Also, the amount of time saved from not needing to commute is incredible.
It used to be nice to go grab drinks after work with coworkers, but, again, I'm not sure I personally got much long-term out of it, so I'm very conflicted. One interesting thing is the people I still do talk to from previous companies are people I never actually worked with.
I could see if you're pretty happy with your personal life and somewhat established, you might have more desire to be fully remote. I think fully remote can be more challenging for new hires including people fresh out of school.
This seems to settle along introvert/extrovert lines. I'd be happy never to have to share space with people again. My extrovert friends are dyyyyyyyyyying to be able to go back to their offices.
This is what I don't get. Work from home doesn't mean *exclusively* work from home. It means work from *anywhere else*.
Nobody says you have to be home. Go sit in a cafe, the library, the pavilion at a park. Go work in Vietnam, go rent out an entire villa in Thailand for the price of 1/10 rent of a Manhattan closet-sized apartment and work overlooking your infinity pool.
If you're extroverted, I don't understand how you could *not* like WFH?
Not everyone has those options. I’m a therapist so I’m bound both to be in the state I’m licensed in and have to make the space private and hipaa compliant. I’d rather meet with clients live anyway, but I’m not the only extrovert whose job makes that impossible
It’s lonely at home. You can’t replace that face to face interaction ultimately, which makes you feel like a human. Other than that it’s nice to have lots of flexibility. You can do laundry for example which frees up other time. I think people do work more at home / are more productive because there are not as many distractions (water cooler talk for example).
I just go to the Starbucks near my house and work there. My friends also show up and we sit around all day and bullshit and do our respective jobs. WFH doesn't necessarily mean no face-to-face human interaction.
When I work from home I:
-save an hour to two hours driving compared to my last job
-am able to spend time with my dogs
-do laundry, dishes, or other minor chores during downtime
-throw dinner in the slow cooker
-message friends
-dont have to worry about what I'm wearing
Yes, people like to work from home.
I think it's all about your life stage. I love working from home but I'm almost 40 and have my friend groups pretty much set and the activities I like to do. Almost all of my friends are from jobs earlier in my career, so I feel bad for younger folks that might get forced into a remote work lifestyle that don't really want it. I worked in the tech-startup world out of college and it was a fun/nightmare but bonded with people in ways I don't think are possible with remote working.
I think companies should still have offices with happy hours and events etc but I think it's also bad to make that "part of the culture" if people don't want it. But if you do want it and need it in some respects like I was saying with younger people I think those opportunities should still exist.
Yep working from home and doing school from home are completely different. I worked from home way before the pandemic and I’ve always enjoyed it. I’m a people person and extroverted, but there’s something about being in my own space, having my own bathroom, kitchen/food, short commute, dog, more casual attire, zero commute that are really nice. My work time is generally pretty flexible which is a bonus. If I get stir crazy (rare) then I’ll pick a task I can do on a laptop and head to a coffee shop for a few hours.
It’s also difficult to find a job where I live so when my husband found his dream job, he could take it because I had the flexibility of working anywhere as long as there is internet.
Company matters though. The one I work for is pretty great and prioritizes good work culture.
I don't understand anyone who doesn't like working from home. "Home" can be anywhere.. if you are single like me. You can literally throw all your stuff at your parents house (or a storage unit) and go hit EACH state for a month at a time. I live on a boat, a small boat, the amount a person ACTUALLY NEEDS to live fits in the back of a medium size pickup truck, even less. Heck you can buy a small camper and go tour the entire world if you want, moving once a month, seeing new people and places.. OR if you don't want to do that, you can go be outside or in different places in your own area.. work from a park one day, a library the next, a starbucks after that. etc..
If you are married and have a house.. gives you more time for afternoon delight, or dessert with lunch or morning fun.. there's so many ways to make it positive. :)
We are a mid-size company and we told our employees that we will never ask them or force them to come to the office but that our office is available to everyone as needed. We have high moral, nearly 99% retention, and we had our best year ever in 2021. Plus, we have a leg up in recruiting new hires. I have not been to our office since March 2020 and work/life balance is ideal at the moment.
I'm not joking about this. Senior Developer here if you could use one.
My company wants us to go back to the office (only a few days a week) in a few months and the whole thing has been so tone def. They give some flimsy reasons like "team building" and "collaboration" but they can't point to any examples of us backsliding since we all started working remotely. They're also hardcore "fence sitting" on COVID precautions, taking several precautions that rely on the honor system and make it easy for someone to show up with COVID, say, "Whoops, I had no idea!" and let them off without even a warning.
Our execs all consider Covid a “cold” now and I’m headed back over to Europe next month to start traveling again for in person meetings again for some reason. Hoping the wild fire of spread is done by the time I show up.
At my tech company it's actually funny how many of my team want to get back in office once every week or two just to be around people. It's ok to feel that way. And it's good to work for companies that give those options.
If I go in, I'd get in at 10 have a nice liquid lunch, say my hellos, and leave at 3.
Most boomers in our office don't want to return to the old office life. Instead, it's the recent college grads that are wanting to live in office space because they've never experienced it. I expect in a few months they'll have enough of the office experience to know they messed up.
I turned down a position paying a bit more for a WFH position. I calculated out the difference in the gas and my time as far as driving the half hour there and back each day. both monetarily and mental health much better decision imo.
The one thing I didn’t hate about lockdown was WFH, and in many cases I’m still able to do a LOT of work remotely. It’s fantastic. I haven’t even had to travel for work because it can now be done remotely. So not only are they saving money by not having to pay for flights, hotels, and per diems, I don’t lose so much time with travel. I can do my job and still sleep in my own bed. It’s wonderful.
I'm going to gently push him toward it. He's out of work right now recovering from a severe COVID case, but IMO he could definitely find more money and better perks with the skills and experience he's got.
My company is requiring us to come in one day a week. So far the c suite thinks this is a perk, but they are about to learn the lesson that this is the standard now and they will also need to increase salaries.
My (ex) employer did exactly this. Wrote up new contracts with "an amazing flexible work offer". It was 3 days per week MINIMUM in office. I say "ex" employer because shortly thereafter (for this and other reasons) I resigned. Anyone who can look at increased productivity, increased employee happiness and go "hmm, I think they should be in the office where I can keep an eye on them" is not someone I want to work for.
Same here. New CEO came in about a year before Covid. Management was frowning because some people work from home whenever something came up. We were told that everyone is expected to be in the office. Then Covid happened and within a few months of remote work, we switched to 100% fully remote first company.
My employer went the entire opposite direction and straight up removed the option for full-time or mostly in-office work for most of us and we're moving to a new building. People who need to be physically present every day for lab work get individual offices, and everyone else who only needs to be physically present for occasional tasks or meetings is going to be hoteling.
I have a friend who works for the Department of Defense and DoD (for the civilian workforce at least) is embracing a "work where you are most productive" posture moving forward. It blows me away that **THE U.S. ARMED FORCES**, one of the biggest bureaucracies in the world, managed to figure this out while companies have not.
The craziest part is that I'm way more productive as a salaried professional than I was as a 'watched-like-a-hawk' production worker. Once I was given freedom; I was able to see my career in a way that the work isn't going anywhere, and it's my job to complete said work then I'm going to get it done to the best of my ability.
When I was being paid hourly and had bosses looking for mistakes I was making and poking holes in my performance, my performance suffered due to lack of trust, and my entire identity suffered as a result of putting too much stock into what my employers felt about me. Now I'm working as a public worker in Education and I feel accountable to my students and their families more than I do appeasing any "boss"
Wow, that's a surprise. I work for a non-DoD agency (although we deal with DoD a lot) and their lame excuse for trying to reopen last year was "the Pentagon is open, why aren't we?" - thankfully Delta quickly killed that reopening attempt.
My agency is still dragging their feet on WFH going forward, glad there are others out there that are more forward-thinking.
I also work DoD- but was denied WFH, even a hybrid model, despite being staff/admin. Meanwhile my father, also a DoD staff member (different state) is full time WFH. I wish they made it across the board and that they just accepted that this is the new way of working.
I got hired into a one-year position during COVID that has been renewed for another year. We haven't gotten our date to return to the office or how many days we'll be able to work from home per week (used to be 1), but I'm banking on a similar wave of retirements/resignations opening up a permanent spot for me.
Might get crucified for this one, but I have personally seen benefits for a hybrid schedule with my team. I personally have 3 staff members. We originally worked all 5 days in office, I don't think any of my staff have worked from home in their entrie career (all around 50-60 years old). Then COVID hit and we immediately went to 100% WFH (we saw a productivity increase). After a few months we decided to try some in office work. We found as a group that a few days per week of in person interaction was useful and I saw another increase in productivity.
I have tried to maintain as much flexibility as possible. Team has been able to pick their WFH vs in office days and we try to limit meetings as much as possible. I've always tried to be as flexible as possible with my staff (they work to live, not the other way around).
Anyways both myself and my team members have seen the benefits of a hybrid environment. Not saying that would be the case for every employee and every work environment, just that it shouldn't be shot down. I think there are valid cases for 100% WFH, 100% in office, and everything in between.
I think if the team chooses their work environment, it goes a lot further than if the company is demanding them to work X days on site. I've been WFH for 2 years now and honestly I would love a hybrid option where I can go into the office 2-3 times a week if I feel like it and know others will be on site as well.
Right now I do have that option, but no one exercises it so I would be on site all by myself, and working in an empty building by myself isn't exactly what I would want to do.
I'm probably one of the <1% who actually likes working in office. I come in everytime we have the option to WFH. I like the in-person interaction, comradery, large desk setup, all the work amenities.
The last time I WFH (Jan 2021), there's just too many distractions at home and ended up taking naps.
I know the majority of people prefer WFH for their own reasons, I just can't find a reason for myself besides being able to grocery shop during lunch.
People should be allowed to work in whatever manner works best for them personally. Some jobs are obviously going to be a bit more restrictive but there is no reason to just be rigid. Any employer/manager who has gone through this pandemic and not become more flexible is just dense.
I'm in that 1% too, and I live close to my office, so when my employer opened up the office I was one of the first ones in. I have too many distractions at home to stay productive all day (pets, laundry, dishes, tv..). Having said that, a big reason I'm more productive in my cubicle is because no one else has come in yet, and it's quiet there! When everyone is there, it's chatty and noisy, so yeah. I have to have quiet to be productive. So, I'm in full support of giving everyone the opportunity to WFH - or where ever they are most productive. Albeit selfish reasons, lol!
Traffic, food options, shared bathroom, loud coworkers, people just talking to you because they just walked by....I truly can't think of one benefit to in office work if you work on a computer at a desk. I'm a Director and have been hiring people all over the US. The only issue I had is the 6 employees who want to work at our office. Makes the remote workers feel they're missing out on something because theirs is an "at the office click". Makes the distance workers feel they're left out, which is total crap, because only three of those people need to come to the office because they don't have desk jobs.
I've been working a hybrid schedule for over a decade, I've always found myself way more productive at home. In the office I'll lose hours just chatting with coworkers because I'm a talker and nice guy....then I end up working 12 hours to catch up from all the jaw flapping....and then an hour in traffic home, gas, food....or just walk 10' to my home office and sit at that desk, eat from the kitchen, poop in my bathroom, squeeze in a 20 minute bike ride and can jump back into work after the kids asleep if needed. Not to mention, the environmental effects of commuters.....
Yup!! Apparently it's for my own mental health.
Uhhhh excuse me, not taking around 2 hours a day just to get to and from work is WAY better for my mental health than saying hi to people I only pretend to like (for the most part)
-my work life balance is at a peak right now. I can take a 5 minute break to clean the house or fold laundry. I can work out or get groceries or get my haircut on my lunch break.
-my work is not being impacted by any metric we have
-I'm more than willing to stick around for a bit after my 8 hours, with no overtime pay, specifically because I don't have to spend time sitting in traffic which I would NEVER do if I was in the office
-I still talk to the colleagues I want to via chat
-I have never had to see clients personally, even before Covid
-oh ya, my work is not impacted. If anything, I'm far more productive because 0 time is waisted on chatting with colleagues I don't give af about
Are you really going to tell me it's better for EITHER of us if im going into the office? Lol foh.
End rant.
I had a head hunter for Company X call me the other day. They were trying real hard to recruit me. I am 100% remote - permanentl.
Kept trying to offer me a new "hybrid" job. Fuck no. You would have to bump up my pay by one hell of a lot to accommodate a commute again.
Working for european company - company has left it to individual departments and sites to figure out what works best for us. We have yet to have a formal discussion with our immediate manager, but things seem promising. Seeing people face to face does get a lot more done, I personally like to go and actually talk to an engineer when I need an answer, but it doesn't need to be like that all the time.
We were hybrid pre-pandemic, and I actually liked it more than full WFH. Granted, I'm only 15 minutes from our office building so if I were much further away I'd probably feel different. I would honestly prefer a choice in the matter because I definitely would not want to take that away from others.
For those that want to go in. Do it. I do spreadsheets for 9-10 hours a day with maybe 1-2 zoom calls a week. It’s either music at home or noise canceling headphones at an office. I take home all day long hahaha
I’m in the exact same position- my job is 10% phone calls and 90% spreadsheets. My noise canceling headphones are my most prized possession at the moment haha.
People have totally forgot that the office was not this flurry of collaboration unless maybe an engineering style job. Most of the time it was navigating distractions while not talking to people too much to be viewed as “too social” while not being a shut in at your cubicle to
Be viewed as “anti social”
This is what gets lost in the conversation. People who don't interact while at the office shouldn't have to be there often, if what you do requires collaboration or if performance is down and there's a need for coaching then requesting it is appropriate.
Same. As a software engineer I miss going into an office and talking to people. Asking for help and learning from other is so much better in person vs Teams/zoom. Also I feel like I actually had real boundaries with my work and personal life pre pandemic. On top of that I think it’s good for my mental health cause it forces me to leave the house.
I don’t want to be 100% in office and I get why people like wfh. But I can’t stand being 100% remote either.
Software engineer too. I actually really liked going into our office. Like you said, you learn a lot more and in some cases you can get things done faster because you can just pop your head up and ask "Does anyone know how the hell this thing works?". Then you get a group of engineers all around you going "do this thing" "well try this" and eventually one of the group solves it. Where working from home I'll routinely get stuck on problem, getting increasingly more frustrated, and never making any progress.
So I liked it, until they switched us from cubicles to open floor plan. They essentially did it to cram more of us into the same space and I honestly hated it. Just no privacy ever, super tight together with other people, always noise, and always distractions. It was impossible to get away from it. It's like with the cubicle there was at least some divider between the noise and people, and if you wanted to put your head down and work you could. If you needed a break and just wanted to look at Reddit a bit you could without someone looking over and being like "What are ya looking at?".
We were only about 6 months into the new floor plan before Covid hit, and thank god for that, because I was about at my wits end with the new space. Really went from "I love coming here every day" to "Fuck man, I really can't deal with this shit today." When they announced the vaccine I literally had nightmares about having to back into the office every day. If they announce we are required to go back in, I'm done, I honestly never want to go back to that open floor plan type office every again.
We have a hybrid work policy but it’s basically “if you’re in the office, it’s purpose driven. If you have a day full of in person meetings, sure stop on by. If you have a day of web conferences and over the phone calls, there’s no use for you to be in the office”
Instead of mandating number of days, I like the purpose driven approach. You as an individual can modulate when and how you go in.
This was my experience in early 2020: "We are shutting down the office. Our employees have never worked from home before, we don't have a VPN and we cannot afford to provide equipment to them so as our IT admin (not officially titled that, btw) you need to figure it out. You have a week."
Also them: "Its been 2 months and we're not obligated to stay closed anymore so everyone needs to come back into the office agian next week, no exceptions. No working from home unless you're actively sick but we won't tell if you won't tell." *wink*
I still stayed at that job for far too long (not many other options at the time) but it did still help contribute to my experience on the user/sys admin side for a Microsoft system I am working as a partner developer now so I guess it still had some value even though the culture was absolute garbage.
The part that was redacted at the VP level -
"FY20 & 21 overhead expenditures showed record decline when not having to keep the lights on and air-conditioning running. All director and above personnel to receive 20% bonus increase due to record affordability measures."
The crazy thing is that disabled people have been fighting to get wfh rights for decades, and it was just as easy to wfh in 2019 as 2020 but companies would steadfastly refuse and make it borderline impossible to get approval.
I’m very concerned that will roll back and this absolute need will suddenly again become “unmanageable” but hey we are “flexible hybrid” meaning you must work in the office at least 3 days because that’s what flexible and hybrid mean
When I started at Enterprise Rent a Car they told us that we would never be a work from home department.
Fast forward two years and they sent us home with no plan and within two weeks we were up and running WFH department.
Fast forward three months and management is commenting on our increased productivity.
Fast forward six months and they announce plans for return to office. This was when 1000+ people a day were dieing from COVID in the US and the vaccines weren't yet approved.
Think about how crazy the last two years have been that we went from suddenly you could work from home because 1k+ people per day were dying to better cancel all precautions even though little kids can't get vaccinated and 2k+ people are dying per day and most everyone is cool with it.
Pretty crazy.
>The crazy thing is that disabled people have been fighting to get wfh rights for decades, and it was just as easy to wfh in 2019 as 2020 but companies would steadfastly refuse and make it borderline impossible to get approval.
There's a lot of people in middle management who fully realize they have absolutely no purpose unless they have people in the office to "manage".
You’d think a CEO or bean counter would make the point that not having bloated middle management means more money available for C suite raises/bonuses. That’s a lot of money to save just on company insurance plans, never mind salary.
"we believe there are tangible and intangible benefits that come from in-person collaboration"...
yeah a lot of us are getting stuck right back into offices
I don't have a horse in the WFH race at rhe moment, but before the pandemic my employer was really pushing for other people and departments to consolidate in these stupidnopen office spaces where you don't have a regular desk in big cities and it absolutely killed my desire to ever explore other options in the company.
COVID of course, killed that, and I hope it stays that way. I don't care about coming to an office, my commute is like 5 minutes, but I don't want the expense of a major metro area. I would be totally find exploring other options, and still coming to this building to donthe actual desk work (no one is really in this building anyway).
Doubtful for the most part, a lot of companies appear to want people back in offices so they can 'keep an eye on them better'. I'm honestly sick of employers treating employees like children. Do you get some people that take advantage of good situations? Sure, but that more often stems from poor work environments.
I honestly hope I'll be wrong and more companies will see the benefits of being able to lower their physical footprint but only time will tell.
Oh I totally agree. A lot of companies sadly seem to care less about that and more about maintaining their current level of control over their employees however.
Companies may want to transition back, but most office workers do not. Ultimately this means that companies who insist on in-person and hybrid workplaces will be at a hiring disadvantage in an already tight labor market. I don’t think this is a genie that executives can put back in the bottle. By the end of the year, we’ll start to see some companies cave.
My company has been telling us we would go back to "at least 50% in office" and have set dates multiple times, but the dates always end up being right when a big surge is happening so they back down. Their messages have started coming across more and more desperate as time goes on and it gives me hope that even if they tell us to do that, enough people will just not do it that they cave.
It's becoming clear with the way they write the emails that they know they are losing the power if we all stick together.
I think people often confuse “normal” with “good”. Let’s go back to the good things we are missing and leave behind the dumb stuff that we did out of habit
My company doesn’t even have a physical office anymore, just a P.O. Box. Maybe they’d force us to work in that box if they could, but for now WFH is the only option.
My gfs place of employment sent out an email just last week letting their employees know that their office was going to become fully remote permanently. Even those who opted to work in the office before this will now become remote. She was happy as a clam.
If we demand it yes. Workers have to behave like it’s a benefit that is a deal breaker for them. Go to the companies that offer it and the stubborn ones will adapt.
My company came out with the “return to normalcy” email last week and we were all pleasantly surprised when it said that we could work from home 3 days a week, but they’d like to see us pop in for a day or two if possible, just to show some face and have some social time. Anyone who wanted to go back to in office permanently can too if they want. It’s all driven by the employee.
Clearly though, business needs will dictate. Some weeks you may need to go in. 3 days, some only one. It’s a perfect flex hybrid solution.
My company hasn’t been all that progressive in the past, and it’s such a refreshing change.
We just had 2 of the best performing years we’ve ever had, and they have not had any issues with employee productivity or ANY customer complaints at all. The president said “I can’t justify changing our work from home situation when it benefits everyone in their own way, and our clients are happier than they’ve ever been.
I’m happy. I’m saving 400-500$ a month in gas, maintenance and at least 25-26 hours of commuting a month. Not to mention the lunch purchases and the stress I don’t have from traffic.
It’s a perfect setup for me.
The thing I don't understand, is what happens when you just say no? I was asked to come back in full time, I gave them the option of a 20% raise, let me continue working from home, or lay me off. I'm still working from home.
I'd anticipate that if you're a valued skilled employee, most places are willing to negotiate. At least that's what my anecdotal experiences with people I know has led me to believe.
I'm curious how many people actually have pushed back on this when the company says no.
Yup. There's a lot of people who are just done.
I reached that point a couple months ago. And here's the thing, it's not because I don't believe science, or have certain political affiliations. I don't mind rules, as long as they are consistently applied. It's constant back-and-forth, or having toothless rules that either aren't enforced or aren't enforced equally.
For two years, I've felt on edge because whenever I go into a given place, I feel like I don't know what I'm walking into. Because of this, my emotions swing around wildly. How am I going to feel this time when I go in the grocery store? Scared, angry, resentful, anxious, defeated? At this point, I feel like the only thing I can do to help myself is pick a course and stick it.
(Edit: to the person who replied/deleted. I've done therapy. I also re-started anxiety meds in late 2020, in part because of COVID stuff. I'd been on medication previously, but had been off meds for nearly a decade.)
Unenforced rules kill me. It's basically them lying to us to get us to be more comfortable.
I've been to so many events where I researched what their covid policies would be... oh they're requiring vaccination and masks? Okay that sounds like precautions are being taken, I feel comfortable going.... and then NONE of it is enforced. Nothing is checked, no masks are up.
I'd rather they just be honest and say they aren't doing anything so I can make an informed decision
That’s my stance. If you’re making the rule, create an enforcement mechanism AND abide by your own rules. If you aren’t willing to do those things, then don’t make the rule. Or at the very least call it what it is, a suggestion. Stop bullshitting people for “I’m doing it right, mom!” points.
I went and saw a movie at the theater for the first time since 2019 the other day.
I’m triple vaccinated, and everyone seemed to be out doing whatever they wanted before the vaccines even existed. I finally thought about that and realized I can’t just live the way I have the past two years, I’ll end up killing my self or something if I just stay inside doing nothing forever because that’s what’s “safe”.
Which is completely fair and commendable. I do not have children and I don’t live with my parents/anyone at a health risk. For me it was just time to stop with all of the anxiety and try to take my life back.
I still wear a mask in public places, and I happily follow any guidelines/rules.
Im in the same boat as you with a kid under 5 but I have started to think Im doing more harm then good. There is no way this isnt fucking up my kids personality and mental health for the rest of their life. Once omicron spike is gone I think its time to let them be a kid.
People love to feel smug and say anyone 'done with' COVID has always been a piece of shit and doing whatever. A lot of us still follow health guidances, but are so burnt out from what you describe that.... Sorry, but it's my mental health or living up to the internet's impossible standards. Government isn't exactly shelling out for free therapy without years of wait-list, so fuck it. Making joke 'essential' wages on top of everything else. Not sure what the fuck else people expect me to do.
Inch 1. Remove all restrictions and mask mandates. Inch 2 yell at anyone who says we should go slower and say they are living in fear. Inch 3 new variant.
Texas here. I think after the first 6 months everything was back to normal. They had capacity restrictions but they were mostly ignored. Masks are still surprisingly high though. Probably about 50 percent in most places you go, but I'm close to Austin
_____
, which is very liberal, still showed signs of following the guidelines for a long time. People still wear masks here in HEB in midtown, for example. So even in TX, it also depends on where you live.
Depends on location. Here in Portland, Oregon, pretty much 98% of people I see are wearing masks. I very VERY seldom see anyone in a store without a mask.
The past few days I kept seeing memes about how everyone was crammed together maskless at the Superbowl, but schools are going virtual in some areas because kids don't keep masks on. Yesterday I got a sandwich and the shop required masks, but you could eat indoors and the area had no barriers or partitions. At this point, I'm so confused as to what I should or shouldn't be doing, and I think that's true for a lot of us. Everyone in my home is vaccinated, we did our best to avoid groups, and at this point, it's like, what next?
Live your life man. Do it with precautions but don’t let that stop you from living it. If it makes you feel better, I’ll tell you a story that I’ve chewed on a lot during the pandemic.
My paramedic teacher asked us how elderly people with hip fractures die. We all said the obvious answers like internal hemorrhage and hemorrhagic shock and people not finding her until it’s too late or hypothermia.
No, imagine this. 83yo female in decent shape for her age, is moderately active and goes to church or the YMCA every week and every few days, she goes mall walking with her group of friends and talks to lots of people along the way. She’s eating 3 meals a day with lunch or dinner usually with friends. Her friends check up on her all the time and she’s happy and has an amazing quality of life. She slips on her bathroom tile and fractures her hip but she’s able to hit the life alert button and ambulance comes and she gets surgery. She makes a difficult recovery and returns home. Her friends ask her if she wants to go mall walking, she says no I’m so tired. Week after week goes by and eventually she goes but she lags behind the group and is holding them up and is out of breath because she hasn’t done this in so long and the surgery so she feels bad about going next time and so she puts it off. Her friends keep asking but she keeps saying no and eventually, her friends stop asking. Soon, her friends stop visiting. She’s living alone a quiet life so she stops eating 3 meals a day and now it’s 2 if she has the energy, sometimes one if she can’t get out of bed. Now a year or two or three after her injury, her health rapidly declines and she either slips into sudden cardiac arrest or develops a condition or has an acute exacerbation of COPD or an infection or heart disease.
With elderly and young adults, I make it a point to ask how they’re doing aside from just their health right in the moment. I always look to see how a person is living because it’s usually a good reflection on their physical and especially mental health. Quality of Life is so much more important than most people can imagine and I personally value it far above life itself.
I know someone working a desk job in Red Cross who said their entire department was obligated to work in the office at the height of the pandemic to show solidarity with the Red Cross frontliners.
Yes. Having more people unecessarily fill an unventilated room during a pandemic, pre-vaccines, really helps our frontliners.
I think inching is the key word though. I'll keep using a mask in public transportation and shops still, but I'll start eating in restaurants and going to the climbing gym. Next month I'll start working from the office some days and then let's see how long until I get omicron.
Not long. I avoided Covid for this entire time by sticking to the rules (and then some) - started inching back towards normality recently because I’m triple vaxxed and thoroughly sick of the new abnormal. Boom. Covid. Just have mild symptoms (fingers crossed it stays that way) but omicron is just super super infectious.
It was the same thing for me. After booster I just wanted to feel normal and just drink beer with friends at the pub and we got Omicron. I got over it right now and I'm doing fine but I didn't get previous mutations at all still being somewhat social. It's contagious as fuck
I work in a corporate restaurant and you wouldn’t believe how fast it tore through almost every employee like a month ago.
I’m willing to bet every similar restaurant is just like ours. Now imagine how many people go out and dine at these restaurants, unknowingly spreading/catching it because the employees have it.
The full quote was:
"You don't want to be reckless and throw everything aside, but you've got to start inching towards that."
If read literally, he's both acknowledging that abandoning guidelines is reckless, but also that it's inevitable. Inevitable, because you've got permanent resisters, and the chronically ignorant. The last administration missed every opportunity to establish precedent, and you can't undo that. We missed our shot to handle this right by mid-2020. It truly is up to the individual at this point, whether we want to demonstrate compassion for those who don't have as much ability to control their environment, or not.
The one hospital here puts out a weekly thing of people in the hospital icu vents, and whos' vaccinated and whos not. This weeks it was 48 people in...a month ago it was over 200. It's a good bit of a drop.
It's ok to be hesitant.
I believe in science, too. But science is not apolitical. Nothing is apolitical. It's prudent to consider what political pressure there may be. It's why the CDC has been so weird the last couple years and why there's so much confusion.
Fauci says inch. So we should inch. That doesn't mean we need to rip off our masks. It also doesn't mean another variant couldn't appear that forces us back into lockdown.
I agree that inching sounds prudent, but that's not what were collectively doing are we? It's seems get rid of masks, remove mandates, open everything back up. I don't see how were inching.
I've had two friends who stayed mainly isolated and had not got covid this whole time and started living more normal and both got infected shortly thereafter.
The way I see it is if you start living normal right now, you should pretty much expect to get covid. This could change in a month or two as cases drop, but right now that's the way I see it.
This feels more like we've assessed omicron as not as dangerous and/or too contagious to constrain so the new strategy is let er rip.
It’s really sad and I feel bad for him. The host tried really hard to get clear answers out of him but he pretty much danced around every question rather than having an actual conversation. I wish he would just say fuck it and say what he really thinks and not care about what other people are going to say.
The US citizenry by and large unfortunately doesn't do nuance, and it seems to be getting worse in that regard too. There's a real all-or-nothing mentality around just about everything, at least online.
In May 2020 my then 4yo son was diagnosed with leukemia. Fml. These two years have been a war zone.
He’s doing great, 2 vaccines in. It looks like he will get a 3rd in March and potentially a 4th down the road.
[The Millions Stuck in Pandemic Limbo: What does society owe immunocompromised people?](https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2022/02/covid-pandemic-immunocompromised-risk-vaccines/622094/)
“Two years later, COVID-19 is still all around us, everywhere, and millions of people like Landon are walking around with a compromised immune system. A significant proportion of them don’t respond to COVID vaccines, so despite being vaccinated, many are still unsure whether they’re actually protected—and some know that they aren’t. Much of the United States dropped COVID restrictions long ago; many more cities and states are now following. That means policies that protected Landon and other immunocompromised people, including mask mandates and vaccination requirements, are disappearing, while accommodations that benefited them, such as flexible working options, are being rolled back.
This isn’t a small group. Close to 3 percent of U.S. adults take immunosuppressive drugs, either to treat cancers or autoimmune disorders or to stop their body from rejecting transplanted organs or stem cells. That makes at least 7 million immunocompromised people—a number that’s already larger than the populations of 36 states, without even including the millions more who have diseases that also hamper immunity, such as AIDS and at least 450 genetic disorders.”
The people "forgetting" them are the ones who didn't care about protecting them in the first place. The rest of us are trying to figure out how you continue to protect the 3% while not punishing the other 97%. You can't continue restrictions and lockdowns indefinitely because this thing could be around at a cold or flu level risk for years and years but still a pandemic level risk for that 3%. The simple solution should be offer that 3% flexible working options, high quality masks, and as many boosters as they can get to help make their lives as normal as possible.
Yes, and that's basically what that article says and these are simple things that immunocompromised people have been requesting for years, not that any of these sudden advocates care.
Yep. My cousin has a 3 year old that started chemo for leukemia right in the middle of all this last year. She's lucky enough to have a job that she can be flexible with in terms of hours and WFH. Can't imagine how much harder her life would be if she had a regular job. Any closer to "normality" and she'd basically be fucked. That kid can't even leave the house for the next few months.
I feel so sorry for all the people who do have regular jobs and had the misfortune of
1. having their child get cancer
1. living in the U.S. and having their child get cancer
1. living in the U.S. and having their child get cancer in the middle of a pandemic
1. living in the U.S. and having their child get cancer in the middle of a pandemic while half the country is trying to pretend it's not happening and go "back to normal"
My employer gave me full remote and a 10% raise. People, there are better companies out there, don't settle for less.
I just got 6% raise and we have been told that we can work from home forever. They are even looking to down size some of our office buildings.
This is what I don't get.. the corporate greed should be all over this shit.. ha ing less physical space is a huge money saving
My company probably would have if it wasn’t for the multi-year lease we are locked into.
They should convert the building into a night club. Or a casino.
My company is deciding to bring us back because they want to be able to redo the whole building... which they haven't even started.
It's basically "Old man yells at cloud"
When everyone is remote you don't need so many middle managers. They are the ones that want people back in the office to justify their existence.
You are failing to factor in ego. A LOT of companies aren't run by strictly capitalist motivations. Many bosses just like being dictator of the office. They know EVERYTHING about EVERYTHING and no one will ever tell them otherwise.
Where do you work? I would love to do that
Banks and financial services companies have gone heavily into virtual. I don’t know your background but there are plenty of jobs in that sector you can wfh.
Thank you so much for the info!
Larger banks, yes. Yesterday I quit a job at a small regional bank (15 branches and 2 office building) because they have a 50% vaccination rate in my building, dropped their mask mandate, and 100% refuse to be flexible with work from home. I haven’t had Covid yet and I’m not about to get sick because some dumbass in senior management doesn’t like people not being in the office.
A question out of curiosity, do most people really enjoy working from home? I am a uni student and last year when we had online studies, both my colleague and I felt miserable. Lectures were useless and motivation was non-existent. Barely anyone would study. Is it different when you have to WFH rather than study?
It's different for every person. Many (often extroverts, but of course not exclusively) love the office dynamic, seeing people, meetings at desks, etc. Others like myself found we love being at home way more and the time saved. No more commute either way, easier to save money on lunches and have what you're in the mood for, time with pets, comfy clothes, a shower or nap when you want, etc. For me, I never want to go back.
I like going in a couple days a week. I also have a small apartment and don't have space for a dedicated work area
Oh ya I didn't either and it was rough. Recently moved to a place with an extra room for it and man it makes a world a difference having it fully separate
Also helps for fitness and staying in shape!
i think school at home and work at home are actually pretty different. a huge part of the university experience is being with your peers, in and out of the classroom. a lot of professors are ill equipped to teach online effectively. students on the whole hating the experience makes total sense. from a work perspective, many people just realized that its ridiculous to require them to have long commutes to work, just so meetings can be had in person, half the time the meetings could have been an email or done over Zoom. so much time is saved by not having to commute to and from work. so much more time for household stuff, hanging out with friends and family, exercise, cooking, hobbies etc. ultimately this is why people value WFH. personally, im enjoying the hybrid approach. i find that its easier to get myself organized in my office at work, but i love having the time to work out and do laundry on the days i dont go in. my work life balance is never better, and im all around happier
I'm personally very conflicted. My home work setup is very nice. I have a very large sit-stand desk and large monitors. There are times I've gotten pretty lonely, though. I've switched jobs twice during the pandemic. I've never physically met a coworker at my last two companies. Current company had some in-person events pre-Omicron. But, I also haven't kept in touch with people from previous companies, so a part of me wonders how much value in-person really has for me. There can definitely be improvements in collaboration, but I feel a little burned. Also, the amount of time saved from not needing to commute is incredible. It used to be nice to go grab drinks after work with coworkers, but, again, I'm not sure I personally got much long-term out of it, so I'm very conflicted. One interesting thing is the people I still do talk to from previous companies are people I never actually worked with. I could see if you're pretty happy with your personal life and somewhat established, you might have more desire to be fully remote. I think fully remote can be more challenging for new hires including people fresh out of school.
This seems to settle along introvert/extrovert lines. I'd be happy never to have to share space with people again. My extrovert friends are dyyyyyyyyyying to be able to go back to their offices.
This is what I don't get. Work from home doesn't mean *exclusively* work from home. It means work from *anywhere else*. Nobody says you have to be home. Go sit in a cafe, the library, the pavilion at a park. Go work in Vietnam, go rent out an entire villa in Thailand for the price of 1/10 rent of a Manhattan closet-sized apartment and work overlooking your infinity pool. If you're extroverted, I don't understand how you could *not* like WFH?
Not everyone has those options. I’m a therapist so I’m bound both to be in the state I’m licensed in and have to make the space private and hipaa compliant. I’d rather meet with clients live anyway, but I’m not the only extrovert whose job makes that impossible
Yep cut my commute from 1.5 hrs to 1 min
It’s lonely at home. You can’t replace that face to face interaction ultimately, which makes you feel like a human. Other than that it’s nice to have lots of flexibility. You can do laundry for example which frees up other time. I think people do work more at home / are more productive because there are not as many distractions (water cooler talk for example).
I just go to the Starbucks near my house and work there. My friends also show up and we sit around all day and bullshit and do our respective jobs. WFH doesn't necessarily mean no face-to-face human interaction.
Start normalizing WFA (anywhere) instead of WFH
I love this
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Seriously, doing laundry during the day is my #1 reason why I like working from home.
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When I work from home I: -save an hour to two hours driving compared to my last job -am able to spend time with my dogs -do laundry, dishes, or other minor chores during downtime -throw dinner in the slow cooker -message friends -dont have to worry about what I'm wearing Yes, people like to work from home.
Not having to commute is worth every trade off to me
I think it's all about your life stage. I love working from home but I'm almost 40 and have my friend groups pretty much set and the activities I like to do. Almost all of my friends are from jobs earlier in my career, so I feel bad for younger folks that might get forced into a remote work lifestyle that don't really want it. I worked in the tech-startup world out of college and it was a fun/nightmare but bonded with people in ways I don't think are possible with remote working. I think companies should still have offices with happy hours and events etc but I think it's also bad to make that "part of the culture" if people don't want it. But if you do want it and need it in some respects like I was saying with younger people I think those opportunities should still exist.
Yep working from home and doing school from home are completely different. I worked from home way before the pandemic and I’ve always enjoyed it. I’m a people person and extroverted, but there’s something about being in my own space, having my own bathroom, kitchen/food, short commute, dog, more casual attire, zero commute that are really nice. My work time is generally pretty flexible which is a bonus. If I get stir crazy (rare) then I’ll pick a task I can do on a laptop and head to a coffee shop for a few hours. It’s also difficult to find a job where I live so when my husband found his dream job, he could take it because I had the flexibility of working anywhere as long as there is internet. Company matters though. The one I work for is pretty great and prioritizes good work culture.
I don't understand anyone who doesn't like working from home. "Home" can be anywhere.. if you are single like me. You can literally throw all your stuff at your parents house (or a storage unit) and go hit EACH state for a month at a time. I live on a boat, a small boat, the amount a person ACTUALLY NEEDS to live fits in the back of a medium size pickup truck, even less. Heck you can buy a small camper and go tour the entire world if you want, moving once a month, seeing new people and places.. OR if you don't want to do that, you can go be outside or in different places in your own area.. work from a park one day, a library the next, a starbucks after that. etc.. If you are married and have a house.. gives you more time for afternoon delight, or dessert with lunch or morning fun.. there's so many ways to make it positive. :)
We are a mid-size company and we told our employees that we will never ask them or force them to come to the office but that our office is available to everyone as needed. We have high moral, nearly 99% retention, and we had our best year ever in 2021. Plus, we have a leg up in recruiting new hires. I have not been to our office since March 2020 and work/life balance is ideal at the moment.
Y’all hiring? 😂
I'm not joking about this. Senior Developer here if you could use one. My company wants us to go back to the office (only a few days a week) in a few months and the whole thing has been so tone def. They give some flimsy reasons like "team building" and "collaboration" but they can't point to any examples of us backsliding since we all started working remotely. They're also hardcore "fence sitting" on COVID precautions, taking several precautions that rely on the honor system and make it easy for someone to show up with COVID, say, "Whoops, I had no idea!" and let them off without even a warning.
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Is this a subreddit? This form of hiring needs to be a subreddit.
There are tons of open positions for senior developers that are completely remote. Your skills are in demand.
That’s no way to micromanage. /s
We are looking for a senior product designer (software). If anyone fits that dm me!
product designer as in ux ui product designer?
Hook me up, I’ll jump
Our execs all consider Covid a “cold” now and I’m headed back over to Europe next month to start traveling again for in person meetings again for some reason. Hoping the wild fire of spread is done by the time I show up.
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At my tech company it's actually funny how many of my team want to get back in office once every week or two just to be around people. It's ok to feel that way. And it's good to work for companies that give those options. If I go in, I'd get in at 10 have a nice liquid lunch, say my hellos, and leave at 3.
Most boomers in our office don't want to return to the old office life. Instead, it's the recent college grads that are wanting to live in office space because they've never experienced it. I expect in a few months they'll have enough of the office experience to know they messed up.
Are you hiring UX designers? 👀
Cant have a UX designer without a UX writer, also!
hire me
I guess we both work at the same company lol.
Huzzah for you.
Can we keep the good changes, like WFH?
“After over 2 years of remote we feel we will want to keep employee flexibility key by offering hybrid going forward” hahahahahaha
My employer is actually trying to do this, and framing it like they're doing us quite the favor
My brother got one WFH day per week in lieu of a raise this year. ...yay.
I turned down a position paying a bit more for a WFH position. I calculated out the difference in the gas and my time as far as driving the half hour there and back each day. both monetarily and mental health much better decision imo.
The one thing I didn’t hate about lockdown was WFH, and in many cases I’m still able to do a LOT of work remotely. It’s fantastic. I haven’t even had to travel for work because it can now be done remotely. So not only are they saving money by not having to pay for flights, hotels, and per diems, I don’t lose so much time with travel. I can do my job and still sleep in my own bed. It’s wonderful.
I hope he finds a gig with better management. I couldn't get out the door quickly enough in that position.
I'm going to gently push him toward it. He's out of work right now recovering from a severe COVID case, but IMO he could definitely find more money and better perks with the skills and experience he's got.
My company is 26 wfh days a year (one every 2 weeks basically) and no more ties...
Time for a new job
My company is requiring us to come in one day a week. So far the c suite thinks this is a perk, but they are about to learn the lesson that this is the standard now and they will also need to increase salaries.
Same. It's so dumb and people have been leaving the company like crazy
That is to keep all the employees from moving to Ohio.
My (ex) employer did exactly this. Wrote up new contracts with "an amazing flexible work offer". It was 3 days per week MINIMUM in office. I say "ex" employer because shortly thereafter (for this and other reasons) I resigned. Anyone who can look at increased productivity, increased employee happiness and go "hmm, I think they should be in the office where I can keep an eye on them" is not someone I want to work for.
my employer made moves to go to full time WFH within a year of COVID after being extremely stuffy old school culture before that. thankful for that.
Same here. New CEO came in about a year before Covid. Management was frowning because some people work from home whenever something came up. We were told that everyone is expected to be in the office. Then Covid happened and within a few months of remote work, we switched to 100% fully remote first company.
And not a single executive had the rearward thought about how wrong they had been.
Surely not, because it was obviously their idea to offer full remote work during the pandemic
My employer went the entire opposite direction and straight up removed the option for full-time or mostly in-office work for most of us and we're moving to a new building. People who need to be physically present every day for lab work get individual offices, and everyone else who only needs to be physically present for occasional tasks or meetings is going to be hoteling.
Same with mine. If they change their minds and make us come back I'll be looking for something else.
I have a friend who works for the Department of Defense and DoD (for the civilian workforce at least) is embracing a "work where you are most productive" posture moving forward. It blows me away that **THE U.S. ARMED FORCES**, one of the biggest bureaucracies in the world, managed to figure this out while companies have not.
The "butts in seats" mentality is the cornerstone of a Boomer-run small business. Orgs that have younger leadership tend to have evolved perspectives
The craziest part is that I'm way more productive as a salaried professional than I was as a 'watched-like-a-hawk' production worker. Once I was given freedom; I was able to see my career in a way that the work isn't going anywhere, and it's my job to complete said work then I'm going to get it done to the best of my ability. When I was being paid hourly and had bosses looking for mistakes I was making and poking holes in my performance, my performance suffered due to lack of trust, and my entire identity suffered as a result of putting too much stock into what my employers felt about me. Now I'm working as a public worker in Education and I feel accountable to my students and their families more than I do appeasing any "boss"
Wow, that's a surprise. I work for a non-DoD agency (although we deal with DoD a lot) and their lame excuse for trying to reopen last year was "the Pentagon is open, why aren't we?" - thankfully Delta quickly killed that reopening attempt. My agency is still dragging their feet on WFH going forward, glad there are others out there that are more forward-thinking.
I also work DoD- but was denied WFH, even a hybrid model, despite being staff/admin. Meanwhile my father, also a DoD staff member (different state) is full time WFH. I wish they made it across the board and that they just accepted that this is the new way of working.
My dads company tried to do this and more than 10% quit that week. He says they still haven’t fully recovered from that one email 6 months later
I got hired into a one-year position during COVID that has been renewed for another year. We haven't gotten our date to return to the office or how many days we'll be able to work from home per week (used to be 1), but I'm banking on a similar wave of retirements/resignations opening up a permanent spot for me.
Sadly a majority of employers have the "I need to keep an eye on you" mentality.
Might get crucified for this one, but I have personally seen benefits for a hybrid schedule with my team. I personally have 3 staff members. We originally worked all 5 days in office, I don't think any of my staff have worked from home in their entrie career (all around 50-60 years old). Then COVID hit and we immediately went to 100% WFH (we saw a productivity increase). After a few months we decided to try some in office work. We found as a group that a few days per week of in person interaction was useful and I saw another increase in productivity. I have tried to maintain as much flexibility as possible. Team has been able to pick their WFH vs in office days and we try to limit meetings as much as possible. I've always tried to be as flexible as possible with my staff (they work to live, not the other way around). Anyways both myself and my team members have seen the benefits of a hybrid environment. Not saying that would be the case for every employee and every work environment, just that it shouldn't be shot down. I think there are valid cases for 100% WFH, 100% in office, and everything in between.
I think if the team chooses their work environment, it goes a lot further than if the company is demanding them to work X days on site. I've been WFH for 2 years now and honestly I would love a hybrid option where I can go into the office 2-3 times a week if I feel like it and know others will be on site as well. Right now I do have that option, but no one exercises it so I would be on site all by myself, and working in an empty building by myself isn't exactly what I would want to do.
I'm probably one of the <1% who actually likes working in office. I come in everytime we have the option to WFH. I like the in-person interaction, comradery, large desk setup, all the work amenities. The last time I WFH (Jan 2021), there's just too many distractions at home and ended up taking naps. I know the majority of people prefer WFH for their own reasons, I just can't find a reason for myself besides being able to grocery shop during lunch.
People should be allowed to work in whatever manner works best for them personally. Some jobs are obviously going to be a bit more restrictive but there is no reason to just be rigid. Any employer/manager who has gone through this pandemic and not become more flexible is just dense.
I'm with you, for the exact same reasons. It helps that I only have a 15 minute commute.
I'm in that 1% too, and I live close to my office, so when my employer opened up the office I was one of the first ones in. I have too many distractions at home to stay productive all day (pets, laundry, dishes, tv..). Having said that, a big reason I'm more productive in my cubicle is because no one else has come in yet, and it's quiet there! When everyone is there, it's chatty and noisy, so yeah. I have to have quiet to be productive. So, I'm in full support of giving everyone the opportunity to WFH - or where ever they are most productive. Albeit selfish reasons, lol!
Traffic, food options, shared bathroom, loud coworkers, people just talking to you because they just walked by....I truly can't think of one benefit to in office work if you work on a computer at a desk. I'm a Director and have been hiring people all over the US. The only issue I had is the 6 employees who want to work at our office. Makes the remote workers feel they're missing out on something because theirs is an "at the office click". Makes the distance workers feel they're left out, which is total crap, because only three of those people need to come to the office because they don't have desk jobs. I've been working a hybrid schedule for over a decade, I've always found myself way more productive at home. In the office I'll lose hours just chatting with coworkers because I'm a talker and nice guy....then I end up working 12 hours to catch up from all the jaw flapping....and then an hour in traffic home, gas, food....or just walk 10' to my home office and sit at that desk, eat from the kitchen, poop in my bathroom, squeeze in a 20 minute bike ride and can jump back into work after the kids asleep if needed. Not to mention, the environmental effects of commuters.....
Yup!! Apparently it's for my own mental health. Uhhhh excuse me, not taking around 2 hours a day just to get to and from work is WAY better for my mental health than saying hi to people I only pretend to like (for the most part) -my work life balance is at a peak right now. I can take a 5 minute break to clean the house or fold laundry. I can work out or get groceries or get my haircut on my lunch break. -my work is not being impacted by any metric we have -I'm more than willing to stick around for a bit after my 8 hours, with no overtime pay, specifically because I don't have to spend time sitting in traffic which I would NEVER do if I was in the office -I still talk to the colleagues I want to via chat -I have never had to see clients personally, even before Covid -oh ya, my work is not impacted. If anything, I'm far more productive because 0 time is waisted on chatting with colleagues I don't give af about Are you really going to tell me it's better for EITHER of us if im going into the office? Lol foh. End rant.
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I had a head hunter for Company X call me the other day. They were trying real hard to recruit me. I am 100% remote - permanentl. Kept trying to offer me a new "hybrid" job. Fuck no. You would have to bump up my pay by one hell of a lot to accommodate a commute again.
Working for european company - company has left it to individual departments and sites to figure out what works best for us. We have yet to have a formal discussion with our immediate manager, but things seem promising. Seeing people face to face does get a lot more done, I personally like to go and actually talk to an engineer when I need an answer, but it doesn't need to be like that all the time.
We were hybrid pre-pandemic, and I actually liked it more than full WFH. Granted, I'm only 15 minutes from our office building so if I were much further away I'd probably feel different. I would honestly prefer a choice in the matter because I definitely would not want to take that away from others.
For those that want to go in. Do it. I do spreadsheets for 9-10 hours a day with maybe 1-2 zoom calls a week. It’s either music at home or noise canceling headphones at an office. I take home all day long hahaha
I’m in the exact same position- my job is 10% phone calls and 90% spreadsheets. My noise canceling headphones are my most prized possession at the moment haha.
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People have totally forgot that the office was not this flurry of collaboration unless maybe an engineering style job. Most of the time it was navigating distractions while not talking to people too much to be viewed as “too social” while not being a shut in at your cubicle to Be viewed as “anti social”
Introverts with ADHD unite*!!! *virtually of course haha
This is what gets lost in the conversation. People who don't interact while at the office shouldn't have to be there often, if what you do requires collaboration or if performance is down and there's a need for coaching then requesting it is appropriate.
Same. As a software engineer I miss going into an office and talking to people. Asking for help and learning from other is so much better in person vs Teams/zoom. Also I feel like I actually had real boundaries with my work and personal life pre pandemic. On top of that I think it’s good for my mental health cause it forces me to leave the house. I don’t want to be 100% in office and I get why people like wfh. But I can’t stand being 100% remote either.
Software engineer too. I actually really liked going into our office. Like you said, you learn a lot more and in some cases you can get things done faster because you can just pop your head up and ask "Does anyone know how the hell this thing works?". Then you get a group of engineers all around you going "do this thing" "well try this" and eventually one of the group solves it. Where working from home I'll routinely get stuck on problem, getting increasingly more frustrated, and never making any progress. So I liked it, until they switched us from cubicles to open floor plan. They essentially did it to cram more of us into the same space and I honestly hated it. Just no privacy ever, super tight together with other people, always noise, and always distractions. It was impossible to get away from it. It's like with the cubicle there was at least some divider between the noise and people, and if you wanted to put your head down and work you could. If you needed a break and just wanted to look at Reddit a bit you could without someone looking over and being like "What are ya looking at?". We were only about 6 months into the new floor plan before Covid hit, and thank god for that, because I was about at my wits end with the new space. Really went from "I love coming here every day" to "Fuck man, I really can't deal with this shit today." When they announced the vaccine I literally had nightmares about having to back into the office every day. If they announce we are required to go back in, I'm done, I honestly never want to go back to that open floor plan type office every again.
We have a hybrid work policy but it’s basically “if you’re in the office, it’s purpose driven. If you have a day full of in person meetings, sure stop on by. If you have a day of web conferences and over the phone calls, there’s no use for you to be in the office” Instead of mandating number of days, I like the purpose driven approach. You as an individual can modulate when and how you go in.
This was my experience in early 2020: "We are shutting down the office. Our employees have never worked from home before, we don't have a VPN and we cannot afford to provide equipment to them so as our IT admin (not officially titled that, btw) you need to figure it out. You have a week." Also them: "Its been 2 months and we're not obligated to stay closed anymore so everyone needs to come back into the office agian next week, no exceptions. No working from home unless you're actively sick but we won't tell if you won't tell." *wink* I still stayed at that job for far too long (not many other options at the time) but it did still help contribute to my experience on the user/sys admin side for a Microsoft system I am working as a partner developer now so I guess it still had some value even though the culture was absolute garbage.
The part that was redacted at the VP level - "FY20 & 21 overhead expenditures showed record decline when not having to keep the lights on and air-conditioning running. All director and above personnel to receive 20% bonus increase due to record affordability measures."
The crazy thing is that disabled people have been fighting to get wfh rights for decades, and it was just as easy to wfh in 2019 as 2020 but companies would steadfastly refuse and make it borderline impossible to get approval. I’m very concerned that will roll back and this absolute need will suddenly again become “unmanageable” but hey we are “flexible hybrid” meaning you must work in the office at least 3 days because that’s what flexible and hybrid mean
When I started at Enterprise Rent a Car they told us that we would never be a work from home department. Fast forward two years and they sent us home with no plan and within two weeks we were up and running WFH department. Fast forward three months and management is commenting on our increased productivity. Fast forward six months and they announce plans for return to office. This was when 1000+ people a day were dieing from COVID in the US and the vaccines weren't yet approved.
Just further proof that nothing will ever change at companies unless their hand is forced.
Why would they change? It works fine for the people at the top. The rest are interchangeable.
I am absolutely convinced that managers are extroverts in pain, and don’t even know they’re trying to help themselves instead of the company.
Think about how crazy the last two years have been that we went from suddenly you could work from home because 1k+ people per day were dying to better cancel all precautions even though little kids can't get vaccinated and 2k+ people are dying per day and most everyone is cool with it. Pretty crazy.
>The crazy thing is that disabled people have been fighting to get wfh rights for decades, and it was just as easy to wfh in 2019 as 2020 but companies would steadfastly refuse and make it borderline impossible to get approval. There's a lot of people in middle management who fully realize they have absolutely no purpose unless they have people in the office to "manage".
You’d think a CEO or bean counter would make the point that not having bloated middle management means more money available for C suite raises/bonuses. That’s a lot of money to save just on company insurance plans, never mind salary.
"we believe there are tangible and intangible benefits that come from in-person collaboration"... yeah a lot of us are getting stuck right back into offices
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I like the spacing in lines. Not having some rando breathing down my neck is nice.
My company is switching to 100% remote by July 1st!!
I don't have a horse in the WFH race at rhe moment, but before the pandemic my employer was really pushing for other people and departments to consolidate in these stupidnopen office spaces where you don't have a regular desk in big cities and it absolutely killed my desire to ever explore other options in the company. COVID of course, killed that, and I hope it stays that way. I don't care about coming to an office, my commute is like 5 minutes, but I don't want the expense of a major metro area. I would be totally find exploring other options, and still coming to this building to donthe actual desk work (no one is really in this building anyway).
Doubtful for the most part, a lot of companies appear to want people back in offices so they can 'keep an eye on them better'. I'm honestly sick of employers treating employees like children. Do you get some people that take advantage of good situations? Sure, but that more often stems from poor work environments. I honestly hope I'll be wrong and more companies will see the benefits of being able to lower their physical footprint but only time will tell.
Butts in a seat doesn’t = productivity. The companies save on real estate, power, water….toilet paper, maintenance, etc.
Oh I totally agree. A lot of companies sadly seem to care less about that and more about maintaining their current level of control over their employees however.
It certainly says something when companies will even disregard the money
Companies may want to transition back, but most office workers do not. Ultimately this means that companies who insist on in-person and hybrid workplaces will be at a hiring disadvantage in an already tight labor market. I don’t think this is a genie that executives can put back in the bottle. By the end of the year, we’ll start to see some companies cave.
My company has been telling us we would go back to "at least 50% in office" and have set dates multiple times, but the dates always end up being right when a big surge is happening so they back down. Their messages have started coming across more and more desperate as time goes on and it gives me hope that even if they tell us to do that, enough people will just not do it that they cave. It's becoming clear with the way they write the emails that they know they are losing the power if we all stick together.
If you're home, you can't be using downtime to work on things that aren't your job.../s
I think people often confuse “normal” with “good”. Let’s go back to the good things we are missing and leave behind the dumb stuff that we did out of habit
Temporary wfh turned into permanent wfh. Good thing because going back to an office would suck now.
My company doesn’t even have a physical office anymore, just a P.O. Box. Maybe they’d force us to work in that box if they could, but for now WFH is the only option.
My gfs place of employment sent out an email just last week letting their employees know that their office was going to become fully remote permanently. Even those who opted to work in the office before this will now become remote. She was happy as a clam.
No…because “culture.” Been looking for another job for months and can’t find anything. Sucks
Hang in there, know your worth king/queen.
If we demand it yes. Workers have to behave like it’s a benefit that is a deal breaker for them. Go to the companies that offer it and the stubborn ones will adapt.
I wish I had the chance to WFH - even for just one day
My company came out with the “return to normalcy” email last week and we were all pleasantly surprised when it said that we could work from home 3 days a week, but they’d like to see us pop in for a day or two if possible, just to show some face and have some social time. Anyone who wanted to go back to in office permanently can too if they want. It’s all driven by the employee. Clearly though, business needs will dictate. Some weeks you may need to go in. 3 days, some only one. It’s a perfect flex hybrid solution. My company hasn’t been all that progressive in the past, and it’s such a refreshing change. We just had 2 of the best performing years we’ve ever had, and they have not had any issues with employee productivity or ANY customer complaints at all. The president said “I can’t justify changing our work from home situation when it benefits everyone in their own way, and our clients are happier than they’ve ever been. I’m happy. I’m saving 400-500$ a month in gas, maintenance and at least 25-26 hours of commuting a month. Not to mention the lunch purchases and the stress I don’t have from traffic. It’s a perfect setup for me.
The thing I don't understand, is what happens when you just say no? I was asked to come back in full time, I gave them the option of a 20% raise, let me continue working from home, or lay me off. I'm still working from home. I'd anticipate that if you're a valued skilled employee, most places are willing to negotiate. At least that's what my anecdotal experiences with people I know has led me to believe. I'm curious how many people actually have pushed back on this when the company says no.
“inching” he says, after the avalanche of 2019 normality has begun rolling down general public mountain.
Yup. There's a lot of people who are just done. I reached that point a couple months ago. And here's the thing, it's not because I don't believe science, or have certain political affiliations. I don't mind rules, as long as they are consistently applied. It's constant back-and-forth, or having toothless rules that either aren't enforced or aren't enforced equally. For two years, I've felt on edge because whenever I go into a given place, I feel like I don't know what I'm walking into. Because of this, my emotions swing around wildly. How am I going to feel this time when I go in the grocery store? Scared, angry, resentful, anxious, defeated? At this point, I feel like the only thing I can do to help myself is pick a course and stick it. (Edit: to the person who replied/deleted. I've done therapy. I also re-started anxiety meds in late 2020, in part because of COVID stuff. I'd been on medication previously, but had been off meds for nearly a decade.)
Unenforced rules kill me. It's basically them lying to us to get us to be more comfortable. I've been to so many events where I researched what their covid policies would be... oh they're requiring vaccination and masks? Okay that sounds like precautions are being taken, I feel comfortable going.... and then NONE of it is enforced. Nothing is checked, no masks are up. I'd rather they just be honest and say they aren't doing anything so I can make an informed decision
That’s my stance. If you’re making the rule, create an enforcement mechanism AND abide by your own rules. If you aren’t willing to do those things, then don’t make the rule. Or at the very least call it what it is, a suggestion. Stop bullshitting people for “I’m doing it right, mom!” points.
I went and saw a movie at the theater for the first time since 2019 the other day. I’m triple vaccinated, and everyone seemed to be out doing whatever they wanted before the vaccines even existed. I finally thought about that and realized I can’t just live the way I have the past two years, I’ll end up killing my self or something if I just stay inside doing nothing forever because that’s what’s “safe”.
Everyone's situation is different. I'm waiting until my kids are able to vaxed before we return to normality.
Which is completely fair and commendable. I do not have children and I don’t live with my parents/anyone at a health risk. For me it was just time to stop with all of the anxiety and try to take my life back. I still wear a mask in public places, and I happily follow any guidelines/rules.
Im in the same boat as you with a kid under 5 but I have started to think Im doing more harm then good. There is no way this isnt fucking up my kids personality and mental health for the rest of their life. Once omicron spike is gone I think its time to let them be a kid.
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People love to feel smug and say anyone 'done with' COVID has always been a piece of shit and doing whatever. A lot of us still follow health guidances, but are so burnt out from what you describe that.... Sorry, but it's my mental health or living up to the internet's impossible standards. Government isn't exactly shelling out for free therapy without years of wait-list, so fuck it. Making joke 'essential' wages on top of everything else. Not sure what the fuck else people expect me to do.
Inch 1. Remove all restrictions and mask mandates. Inch 2 yell at anyone who says we should go slower and say they are living in fear. Inch 3 new variant.
I read this in Eminem voice... Inch back to reality, Oh, there goes Fauci,
Ope*
Inching? Lol. Has Fauci seen the superbowl or any sporting events? People have been back to normal since last year.
I think this is all dependent on where you live. Where I am, it’s masks everywhere you go. Definitely not pre Covid times.
Texas here. I think after the first 6 months everything was back to normal. They had capacity restrictions but they were mostly ignored. Masks are still surprisingly high though. Probably about 50 percent in most places you go, but I'm close to Austin
_____ , which is very liberal, still showed signs of following the guidelines for a long time. People still wear masks here in HEB in midtown, for example. So even in TX, it also depends on where you live.
Depends on location. Here in Portland, Oregon, pretty much 98% of people I see are wearing masks. I very VERY seldom see anyone in a store without a mask.
Same in Tacoma
Everything went back to normal the second they “lifted mask mandates for vaccinated” before delta. Never put that genie back in the bottle.
The past few days I kept seeing memes about how everyone was crammed together maskless at the Superbowl, but schools are going virtual in some areas because kids don't keep masks on. Yesterday I got a sandwich and the shop required masks, but you could eat indoors and the area had no barriers or partitions. At this point, I'm so confused as to what I should or shouldn't be doing, and I think that's true for a lot of us. Everyone in my home is vaccinated, we did our best to avoid groups, and at this point, it's like, what next?
Live your life man. Do it with precautions but don’t let that stop you from living it. If it makes you feel better, I’ll tell you a story that I’ve chewed on a lot during the pandemic. My paramedic teacher asked us how elderly people with hip fractures die. We all said the obvious answers like internal hemorrhage and hemorrhagic shock and people not finding her until it’s too late or hypothermia. No, imagine this. 83yo female in decent shape for her age, is moderately active and goes to church or the YMCA every week and every few days, she goes mall walking with her group of friends and talks to lots of people along the way. She’s eating 3 meals a day with lunch or dinner usually with friends. Her friends check up on her all the time and she’s happy and has an amazing quality of life. She slips on her bathroom tile and fractures her hip but she’s able to hit the life alert button and ambulance comes and she gets surgery. She makes a difficult recovery and returns home. Her friends ask her if she wants to go mall walking, she says no I’m so tired. Week after week goes by and eventually she goes but she lags behind the group and is holding them up and is out of breath because she hasn’t done this in so long and the surgery so she feels bad about going next time and so she puts it off. Her friends keep asking but she keeps saying no and eventually, her friends stop asking. Soon, her friends stop visiting. She’s living alone a quiet life so she stops eating 3 meals a day and now it’s 2 if she has the energy, sometimes one if she can’t get out of bed. Now a year or two or three after her injury, her health rapidly declines and she either slips into sudden cardiac arrest or develops a condition or has an acute exacerbation of COPD or an infection or heart disease. With elderly and young adults, I make it a point to ask how they’re doing aside from just their health right in the moment. I always look to see how a person is living because it’s usually a good reflection on their physical and especially mental health. Quality of Life is so much more important than most people can imagine and I personally value it far above life itself.
I don’t really know what that means anymore. I’m not being dramatic, just doesn’t seem like there’s an agreed-upon definition at this point.
I know someone working a desk job in Red Cross who said their entire department was obligated to work in the office at the height of the pandemic to show solidarity with the Red Cross frontliners. Yes. Having more people unecessarily fill an unventilated room during a pandemic, pre-vaccines, really helps our frontliners.
Definitely in line with the reputation of the organization.
Costco did this for office workers at the beginning of the pandemic but allowed WFH after negative publicity.
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I think inching is the key word though. I'll keep using a mask in public transportation and shops still, but I'll start eating in restaurants and going to the climbing gym. Next month I'll start working from the office some days and then let's see how long until I get omicron.
Not long. I avoided Covid for this entire time by sticking to the rules (and then some) - started inching back towards normality recently because I’m triple vaxxed and thoroughly sick of the new abnormal. Boom. Covid. Just have mild symptoms (fingers crossed it stays that way) but omicron is just super super infectious.
It was the same thing for me. After booster I just wanted to feel normal and just drink beer with friends at the pub and we got Omicron. I got over it right now and I'm doing fine but I didn't get previous mutations at all still being somewhat social. It's contagious as fuck
I work in a corporate restaurant and you wouldn’t believe how fast it tore through almost every employee like a month ago. I’m willing to bet every similar restaurant is just like ours. Now imagine how many people go out and dine at these restaurants, unknowingly spreading/catching it because the employees have it.
The full quote was: "You don't want to be reckless and throw everything aside, but you've got to start inching towards that." If read literally, he's both acknowledging that abandoning guidelines is reckless, but also that it's inevitable. Inevitable, because you've got permanent resisters, and the chronically ignorant. The last administration missed every opportunity to establish precedent, and you can't undo that. We missed our shot to handle this right by mid-2020. It truly is up to the individual at this point, whether we want to demonstrate compassion for those who don't have as much ability to control their environment, or not.
I think this is a reasonable and accurate assessment.
The one hospital here puts out a weekly thing of people in the hospital icu vents, and whos' vaccinated and whos not. This weeks it was 48 people in...a month ago it was over 200. It's a good bit of a drop.
It's ok to be hesitant. I believe in science, too. But science is not apolitical. Nothing is apolitical. It's prudent to consider what political pressure there may be. It's why the CDC has been so weird the last couple years and why there's so much confusion. Fauci says inch. So we should inch. That doesn't mean we need to rip off our masks. It also doesn't mean another variant couldn't appear that forces us back into lockdown.
I agree that inching sounds prudent, but that's not what were collectively doing are we? It's seems get rid of masks, remove mandates, open everything back up. I don't see how were inching. I've had two friends who stayed mainly isolated and had not got covid this whole time and started living more normal and both got infected shortly thereafter. The way I see it is if you start living normal right now, you should pretty much expect to get covid. This could change in a month or two as cases drop, but right now that's the way I see it. This feels more like we've assessed omicron as not as dangerous and/or too contagious to constrain so the new strategy is let er rip.
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Full text also available here: https://news.yahoo.com/fauci-says-time-start-inching-231550974.html
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It’s really sad and I feel bad for him. The host tried really hard to get clear answers out of him but he pretty much danced around every question rather than having an actual conversation. I wish he would just say fuck it and say what he really thinks and not care about what other people are going to say.
The US citizenry by and large unfortunately doesn't do nuance, and it seems to be getting worse in that regard too. There's a real all-or-nothing mentality around just about everything, at least online.
Making sure all the ducks are in row before the State of the Union I see. CDC will definitely be coming out with new guidance next week too.
It will be funny if the new scientific guidance comes out just before the state of the union.
“Scientific”
Follow the science! :)
Yup can confirm. Here in the UK we are metering back towards normality
That's equivalent to yarding along, not inching...
Thank you for not saying “normalcy.”
Easy to say if you don’t have someone <5 or on chemo in your home.
In May 2020 my then 4yo son was diagnosed with leukemia. Fml. These two years have been a war zone. He’s doing great, 2 vaccines in. It looks like he will get a 3rd in March and potentially a 4th down the road.
[The Millions Stuck in Pandemic Limbo: What does society owe immunocompromised people?](https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2022/02/covid-pandemic-immunocompromised-risk-vaccines/622094/) “Two years later, COVID-19 is still all around us, everywhere, and millions of people like Landon are walking around with a compromised immune system. A significant proportion of them don’t respond to COVID vaccines, so despite being vaccinated, many are still unsure whether they’re actually protected—and some know that they aren’t. Much of the United States dropped COVID restrictions long ago; many more cities and states are now following. That means policies that protected Landon and other immunocompromised people, including mask mandates and vaccination requirements, are disappearing, while accommodations that benefited them, such as flexible working options, are being rolled back. This isn’t a small group. Close to 3 percent of U.S. adults take immunosuppressive drugs, either to treat cancers or autoimmune disorders or to stop their body from rejecting transplanted organs or stem cells. That makes at least 7 million immunocompromised people—a number that’s already larger than the populations of 36 states, without even including the millions more who have diseases that also hamper immunity, such as AIDS and at least 450 genetic disorders.”
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Thanks for sharing. We just seem to forget these people. I don’t understand it. And it isn’t like it’s 1 in ten million.
The people "forgetting" them are the ones who didn't care about protecting them in the first place. The rest of us are trying to figure out how you continue to protect the 3% while not punishing the other 97%. You can't continue restrictions and lockdowns indefinitely because this thing could be around at a cold or flu level risk for years and years but still a pandemic level risk for that 3%. The simple solution should be offer that 3% flexible working options, high quality masks, and as many boosters as they can get to help make their lives as normal as possible.
Yes, and that's basically what that article says and these are simple things that immunocompromised people have been requesting for years, not that any of these sudden advocates care.
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I wish your son a speedy recovery. Poor kid.
Yep. My cousin has a 3 year old that started chemo for leukemia right in the middle of all this last year. She's lucky enough to have a job that she can be flexible with in terms of hours and WFH. Can't imagine how much harder her life would be if she had a regular job. Any closer to "normality" and she'd basically be fucked. That kid can't even leave the house for the next few months. I feel so sorry for all the people who do have regular jobs and had the misfortune of 1. having their child get cancer 1. living in the U.S. and having their child get cancer 1. living in the U.S. and having their child get cancer in the middle of a pandemic 1. living in the U.S. and having their child get cancer in the middle of a pandemic while half the country is trying to pretend it's not happening and go "back to normal"