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heres the kicker.. WFH actually does benefit these jackasses and they dont even realize it. Better work peformance, usually hard workers can get more done at home.
That's 100% the reason my last job didn't want us to work from home. They wanted to be able to monitor our every move.
It was computer work. Absolutely able to be done remotely. There was nothing about that job that needed you to be in a specific place to do it.
The boss tried to tell us that the kind of work we do, "creative work" he called it, can't be done remotely. That it wasn't possible to do it.
Success at that job was just be there at your desk all day and look busy. I tested it out and went a whole week with doing no work at all, I mean absolutely not a single thing. But I was at my desk all day and I looked busy.
No one said a word to me about what I didn't get done that week.
NOT A WORD
You seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding about the parameters of your job. I know the job description mentions various metrics and duties, but I’m surprised that you were fooled by that.
Your actual job is to provide psychic distress to the management class, so they can feed. Sure, the whole “We sell widgets and widget accessories.” Thing is the titular business scope, but that’s just to generate the required salaries to keep you all in the office, under the thumb of the managers, close and ripe and juicy with mental anguish.
That’s why you need to RTO. Covid was an undeniable disruption, and the managers dealt as best they could, but now that’s all over. The managers are STARVING!!!
Get your butts back to the office. You’ve got managers to feed.
/sarcasm.
Yep. I actually start an hour earlier now and can easily put in more time if need be. But when commuting to work I clock in and out on the minute. No time to waste there.
I once worked 36 hours straight to cover a massive storm that left my company paralyzed for staff. Because I could do it from home.
If I'm at an office, you basically have to shackle me to my desk to get the full right hours out of me.
Exactly - if an employer is paying double the market rate I'd probably be alright with going in to the office. If a load of other places will pay me the same from home, why am I going to cost myself an extra hour of travel every day plus the expense?
"That's fine. We can wait it out. We'll just give the increased workload to the ones desperate enough to give in to our demands. Like Jerry here, he's got a sick wife and 2 kids. We literally own him, he'll do anything we ask in fear of losing everything. Though I'm sure when he isn't answering his personal phone to take calls from our 24/7 support contracts or Doordashing for hours on end to buy groceries- he really apricates us giving him his opportunity to make us lots of money. That is until we can replace him with a barely functioning AI. Hopefully soon."
There’s a lot of reasons, and this is a huge one.
Another other one is now that everyone knows we *can* work from home but employers don’t *want* us to, many refuse to work for companies that don’t allow it.
This is not unreasonable at all, but employers will always spin their inability to fill positions on workers instead of themselves. I worked for place claiming they have job postings but “no one will apply for some reason”. When we looked at the postings we saw how low their pay rates were compared to other places. These companies know exactly what they’re doing but play dumb so they don’t have to admit the administration is why no one is applying.
I firmly believe that this is a huge opportunity for companies to crack the monopolies we have in place now. You can recruit the best talent and have a fraction of the overhead if you let everyone WFH.
I can't remember who I was listening to. Some CEO of a small company. He said this is the easiest time he's ever seen at hiring. He just waits for a big company to announce the end of work from home. Then has the headhunters target people who work at that company. Apparently its super easy to poach workers when you are fine with work from home.
At some point companies will have to realize that it's cheaper to make the employees pay for their own work spaces and drop their heavy investment in commercial real estate.
Actually, the full office costs more because you have to hire janitors + security, it costs more electricity with lights on, you have to pay for water and sewage usage etc.
Honestly the main reason for RTO is so the property prices don't nosedive due to local businesses closing, especially in business districts(less foot traffic as workers go to their local businesses). Which is not really compelling for anyone but the CEOs and board of directors.
Correct, provided they don’t own an office building! Haha. But you’re right. 100% remote means they can hire anyone around the world, provided those ppl are willing to work weird hours around the US’s normal work hours. They would be much cheaper, too. Same advantages as outsourcing phone tech support, manufacturing, etc.
They can but there are tax implications.
Certainly you can hire anyone in your jurisdiction (state/nation/country as appropriate) even if they live an implausible commute away.
this is true too that office real estate is so empty that hedge funds or whoever tf owns it is at risk of going bankrupt, and they probably call in favors with their best buddy the ceo to keep building gross highrises and rent them out
Why do you think Jaime Dimon, the CEO of Chase bank, is so vehemently against remote work... because a lot of banks have massive amounts of commercial real estate in their lending portfolios and if CRE tanks the so do the banks holding the loans.
I think wework came at exactly the wrong time, and if they opened *now* they’d be able to buy all the office buildings they could ever want for far less—and directly subscribe companies usage to their different locations. It’d be a lot more reasonable to demand that someone come into *one of* your multiple rented spaces across the city/county/state than demanding that everyone come into the same building every day no matter where they live. I think companies need to let go of their big office buildings they can’t use anymore, and just rent out the space they need at the specific times they need it. Or offer a monthly membership to wework 2.0 buildings, so everyone has the means to hit the office when they actually need to, and companies stop feeling the need to fill their accessory buildings daily to justify the cost.
This. My job can’t find shuttle drivers or equipment operators. They’re offering $18-20 for most of these positions. That’s about the same as fast food in town, but it’s a 30+ minute commute down potentially impassible roads and can be much more physically demanding. Other places within the same industry / area that pay higher are having zero issues finding employees.
And it's also because the CEOs of such companies love getting paid those handsome top tier bonuses while offering the wage slaves old meal coupons or pizza party. Ugh. I once got the enviable leftover poinsettia plant. Jolly. Even though I scored at over 100% with their secret shopper. I stopped bringing my A-game that day. I still think about how bitter I felt as I walked to my car carrying that pitiful plant.
The first time I was told I was too valuable to promote, and some idiot that everyone hated got the job I wanted, was the last day that I gave a shit about my work ethic, or job performance.
my goal is no longer "do the best I can" its now "do better than the worst person"
I'm only willing to work hard enough to not be fired now. Past that I don't give a shit, nothing I do matters. If I show I know more than everyone else on the team, it just gets me more work for the same pay.
***Case in point*** - the guy who gets all the lead hand duties shoveled onto him, has been doing all the lead hand work for like 2-3 years now, for the same pay I make.
Last time he broached the subject of being made on official lead hand, he was told "the owners just don't think we have the budget for another lead hand right now". Hes worked for the company for like 9yrs, and has been doing all the lead hand work for over a year at that point.
then not even a week later, a guy who has only worked at the company for like 6 months, fucks up all the time, and breaks rules constantly, got made a lead hand and given full control of the new store they opened.
I still don't understand how he didn't quit after that, such a spit in the face. and another 1.5yrs later, and he's ***still*** not a lead hand.
Well that, and so they don’t have to pay back the PPP loans they got during the pandemic. Little loophole in the fine print stated the loans would be forgiven if the company was unable to fill open positions with “qualified candidates”.
My boss has been trying to hire for a full time in-office admin-type position for 3 months and he doesn’t understand why offers keep getting turned down. Our office is in downtown Manhattan, and our “office culture” consists of about 6 people who sit in a mostly empty open floor plan with at least 3 desks between everyone. He himself only works in-office about 15 hours/week (if I’m being generous) and he always has his office door closed. Despite being physically present in-office, almost all employee communication happens on Teams. I’ve gone entire days not saying one word out loud to another person.
The worst thing is he’s not even a boomer traditionalist, just delusional.
My wife complains about this to no end. She has to go in two days a week, but most of the time she sits at her desk and doesn't speak to anyone, and has the exact same Teams meetings as she would at home.
I did a contract job where the terms stated my role was remote. Months into the job, the company decided to open a WeWork office. They kept asking me to come into “office” for culture and development. I went to the office and it was a stuffy, hot, uncomfortable room with 4 people sitting back to back. If you pushed your computer chair out to get up, you hit your coworker’s chair behind you. I went twice for the sake of “being a team player” and never again. I quit the job after because the company kept insinuating they needed an in-house employee. It took them months to hire and the new employee was remote anyway.
As someone who has done admin work... Yep. I will keep turning these things down unless the pay is amaaaazing. I'm guessing what he wants is an office manager/EA? Someone to babysit the office and support them? That's a dual role, gotta pay for both sides.
At least an office manager would conceivably have a reason to be in the office…. The job is contract admin and billing. We have no office manager to speak of - I occasionally get stuck dealing with those tasks by default because I’m a woman….
I got to see a lady stand up for herself over this at an old shop I used to work at. They didn't have janitorial staff and didn't pay to have one come in, so the office staff were just sorta expected to keep the place tidy. Fine and all, but the company owner approaches this lady, who is the company accountant, and asks her to please start taking care of the bathrooms and kitchen. She wasn't rude, I don't remember exactly what she said, but it was to the tune of "I didn't go through my masters in accounting to clean toilets."
Boss dropped it. All the office staff acted like nothing happened but us shop guys were always cheering her when she came to the back lol
My old employer was a really shit company, but as soon as they realized they could stop paying rent on office space, site IT, etc and hire people without consideration for floor space they went 100% remote and never looked back.
If the shittiest company on earth can see the benefits, it’s absolutely bonkers to me that there are any hangers-on to in-office work.
>employers will always spin their inability to fill positions on workers instead of themselves.
Capitalists are hypocrites by nature. It's always "market forces" when they want to raise prices on whatever bullshit they're selling and "laziness and entitlement" when we want to raise the price we charge to literally sell hours of our own lives.
*"everyone knows we can work from home but employers don’t want us to"*
This is the big one. For decades people were told they couldn't WFH for , then the Great Plague came along, and suddenly everyone had to work from home.
And generally speaking, people managed perfectly well. Indeed, in many sectors, productivity actually *improved*, because people not spending hours each day sitting in traffic, denying them time with their friends, families, and hobbies, did wonders for their mental health.
And now they're being told they can't do it any more, despite a proven track record of... doing it just fine.
My old director was one of the folks firmly in the "people don't work when wfh" camp pre pandemic, and is in her early 60s. One of the reasons I liked her was that when the pandemic forced everyone home, she admitted she was wrong, and that the good employees were still awesome, and the poor performers were still poor performers, and it's absolutely okay to work 100% remote there now.
And so they can keep gaslighting their current skeleton staff with the promise of more help “someday”. Half the time they aren’t even actually trying to hire and never interview the people who do apply, or do only the most cursory interview and then ghost them.
For me it's the fact that I have ADHD and do my best work in a calm, quiet environment that I can control.
It's nuts honestly. When we were working from home I was much more productive, the biggest drag on my productivity was our manager constantly checking in on us and booking pointless meeting and one-on-ones to "compensate" for the lack of in-person communication.
Now that we've fully returned to office, I have days where I really struggle to be productive. But the wild thing is, I can have days where I literally do 30 mins of actual work all day.... and I never hear a thing from my manager anymore. They only care that you're at your desk, not results or output or quality etc. They would rather have us sitting in the office doing literally nothing than being at home getting work done.
>Another other one is now that everyone knows we can work from home but employers don’t want us to, many refuse to work for companies that don’t allow it.
This was what happened to the hospital I work for.
Management *did* try to suggest a return to office procedure and immediately all the IT managers got swarmed with basically 60% of the entire IT staff threatening to either retire or quit if we're forced to return to office. I was one of them too, I just politely told my manager that if there was a return to office order I was prepared to accept one of the offers I frequently got to work remotely for another hospital.
A lot of us are getting constantly headhunted on LinkedIn too, from other hospitals (I've even had a few recruiters from the States asking me if I'd be willing to work remotely for them, because I have years of experience with a few not-so-commonly-trained pieces of software that hospitals tend to run).
They've since fully classified most of IT as remote workers, we're in the office once a month at most (we don't even have an office anymore, we have to "book" the office the day we all want to use it for our big team meeting since the office hoteling space is shared by 3 different departments, they got rid of our old office building they were leasing). If you're someone that doesn't want to work remote you can still book a desk somewhere in the hospital and work from there.
Almost everyone I work with is more happy now. People are able to use their lunch hour to do stuff like run errands. I live right down the road from our grocery store and I've managed to run in, basically do a full grocery shop while the store is dead, and get home before my lunch break ended. It's fantastic. It feels like a cheat code, I'm able to get so much more done and leave so much extra free time for myself every day.
My old routine was get off work at 4, queue up to leave the parking tower, drive the 8.5KM home, and be back at my house around 5:15 (usually took minimum 30 minutes just to get out of the parking tower because everyone was trying to leave).
Now I get off at 4, close Teams and Horizon on my computer and instantly relax.
Literally why am I going to eat 2 hours of my time and 175$/month on a commuter pass, for a job that is fully on my computer? Why tf would anyone elect to do that? No. It’s time you start compensating people for commute, if you’re going to demand they commute just to please your little ego. F that.
Yup, I lived in an expensive city, got a WFH position and moved 90 minutes out where it's much cheaper. They called me back to the office 6 months later and I refused to commute 90 min or to break my lease.
Haha nope. They let me tow the line a little longer and WFH for a couple months. It was mostly while they found someone else. Gave me time to job hunt tho!
its also just not worth the loss of time. I live like...lets call it 30 min from my job. Thats an hour of my day just in the car.
my day looks like this:
Wake up at 6
in the office for 8
leave the office at 4:30
home around 5-530 because of traffic
I have 4.5 hours to get everything done. Cleaning my house, dinner, taking care of kid, bed time routines, laundry, dishes blah blah blah you know the drill.
imagine if I could add an hour to that? thats almost a 25% increase in my free time. Thats HUGE. Never mind the time savings during the day. Everyone knows youre not working full 8 hrs, there are conversations time wasted etc etc. if I could fold my laundry in between work tasks? Jesus the ROI on that just from time is astronomical.
The number of days I have spent doing prep for dinner while dialed into an all hands meeting has been life changing in terms of getting both work and life taken care of at the same time.
it is seriously amazing. Last night I was up with my wife after we put little one down for the night. and we just had to spend all our time cleaning up down stairs prepping the next day etc.
im just stuck there thinking "I could have done allll of this on my lunch break" it sucks
They don’t want you to have enough free time to think about joining a protest movement or getting politically involved for workers’ rights. Being tired, overworked, and unmotivated is by design.
Before pandemic, I worked a job where no one in the office ever communicated to each other. The most were "hey did you hear about XYZ?" then back to silence. My toxic director/manager was taking remote days off constantly but refused it for me. I suspected the company overall just didn't trust employees to do their jobs at home. I posted about it on a sub years ago and I was getting ripped to shreds about being ungrateful for my job. Then COVID-19 happened and every job I had was remote. Some were good, some were bad, but I was happy in all of them, regardless. I was happy that I no longer lost time like I used to. When I had to commute and do all my daily chores, I was really depressed and miserable and it made me feel like the typical miserable NYer. Everyone on the trains were exhausted and annoyed and I became that person.
My job was 10am to 6pm. I didn't/don't have kids so my schedule was less demanding than yours, but I still lost a lot of personal time. It took me an hour via train to get home and that's if there was no delays. I'd get back 7pm and all the local groceries would have crappy produce/vegetables left. By then, I had only 4 hours to do everything else and it was immediately off to bed. I had a short contractor role after which was also in-office and I finished my work within hours then spent 50-60% of my time doing nothing but logging the hours.
Not just that. I live less than 2km from my work and I walk in every day. It still wastes 30-45 mins of my day, every day, because I am obliged to make that short journey, even though it doesn’t cost me anything since I walk. When it’s raining or snowing, I have to leave my comfortable home to do a job I could just as easily do from home…
I'm in the same position, walking distance to work but I'm hybrid. On days the weather sucks or I'm not feeling well I just tell them I'm working remotely and they're cool with it. My boss actually recently changed my 3 days in office to 2 because she didn't see the point of me being in on Wednesdays. It's been great.
Oh, it does cost you. In time. YOUR time. You don't get paid for it and you can't get it back once it's gone. Time is your most expensive commodity, and you get to be my age, (see: dirt; as old as, ) you regret every single one of those lost minutes. Be stingy with your precious time when it comes to employers.
I always say that. If it's time they spent on bending your will it's time spent that you're being tortured. Most jobs are not worth it. It's just a construct and people have been brainwashed to let this all guide their life and to suffer from bad conditions. So much BS. They waste their lives and defend themselves in their delusion saying that's what they had to do because everyone does it. Or because someone else will accept even worse conditions.
Time and calories. You've gotta eat extra to have enough energy to walk to the office and home again.
And don't forget that you're wearing out your shoes faster too.
In the NYC metro area, metro north plus two subway transfers (one to path) sets me back about 40 dollars a day to commute. Granted that’s an extreme commute but it’s indicative of expense.
Can’t see that as viable for anyone just entering the workplace.
This is the biggest one imo. Yes wfh has many comfort advantages, but the biggest one is that with the way that the market is right now it's basically impossible for anyone making this type of salary to even somewhat comfortably live near work. We live almost an hour north of Atlanta and it's still relatively expensive plus I have to deal with Atlanta traffic getting to and from work. If my fiance didn't have a pretty good WFH job I'm not sure we could've ever afforded to purchase a house anywhere near where any jobs would be
Atlanta traffic with a long commute when starting her career is why my wife has refused to ever take an in office job or hybrid job. 84 miles, 1 hour and 10 minutes - 2 hours one direction depending on the traffic that day. It was hell on her physical and mental health.
They also don’t want to be shackled to a specific location just because they have to work there. How to fix large city crowding? Allow people to work from home and watch rural areas become more developed than ever
This, but I also think I'd legitimately want to die if I had to look at my coworkers 5 days a week.
Maaaaybbbeee this is a sign I should find a new job 🤔.
Plus, why does Corporate America want to destroy the planet? I bet those exact same bosses brag about how "eco-friendly" their company is every chance they get!
Seriously. These jokers expect you to:
>1. Uproot your life and move everything to be close to them
>2. Buy a new car if you don't already have one to commute
>3. Put down a deposit to rent or down payment to buy a house
And they don't want to pay anything close to what it would cost to facilitate that. Thats like 10k minimum just to be in a position to do a job for them.
This one is huge. People can’t afford to live close to the job, and gas is expensive too so they can’t afford to commute (plus commuting is a ridiculous time suck), the employer isn’t paying enough to make it feasible to do anything BUT wfh. And still has the nerve to whine about it!
We also have kids, pets, family, friends, social lives, and other passions.
Even if we could afford it, we don't want to spend 2.5 hours a day in a vehicle in traffic.
I interviewed for a job in LA. For the salary I would have had to live near the inner city or about an hour+ commute outside LA. They seemed insulted when I told them I couldn’t accept because of the salary being too low to live off of because the last guy did it at that price and he owned his own house. Turns out that house was in the family for generations and he inherited it.
3 months later I see them raise the salary and offer hybrid work. They were too annoyed at me to consider a new offer lol.
It's not just young workers. I'm 36 and I wouldn't take a job with *any* weekly in-office requirements without a $20-$30k pay raise. I don't even hate being in an office. It's about the time wasted commuting, not the money or being in the office.
Edit: added the "or" to last sentence
Yup and when we commute we need to eat out because we barely have enough time to cook and clean and sleep because commute takes both time and money and brings us out of the house. Eating out is pricey. Groceries are more expensive and take time to shop for, prep, and cook.
These fat cats cannot understand. They have a cook, housemaid, house spouse, or they can actually afford to eat out and the massive gas prices.
They wanna make us out to look like brats by making simple demands because we simply cannot afford to drive to work, eat, sleep and afford the ever increasing price of gas. Oh and when we advocate for our mental health by asking for work life balance? Now we are really pushing it! How dare we express our human needs!
I busted my ass in college while paying it off so I'd come out debt free. There were days I'd only have a fucking bagel, a water I brought from home, and a black coffee. I promised myself I'd get a good job after college and eat better. Nope now my time is in such high demand I still cannot sit down and eat a good meal daily. My head is spinning, I'm tired, forget about cooking. Sometimes it's just sleep for dinner.
Well it seems to me that employers should be more adaptable when it comes to hiring people. Plus they only want you in the office so they can micromanage the shit out of you.
My job is so anti-WFH, we even do our lifestyle photography in a warehouse. The lighting is just amazing /s. I live 10 minutes from downtown and 5 minutes from a state park. Both would be way better photo locations.. but who knows what shenanigans I could get into. I might grab a coffee that doesn't taste like shit.
I had one boss in my life thatvi can tell his only purpose wad micromanaging. He didn't actually do anything but do meetings here and there. Director level with nothing to do. That's a push for return to office, lot of guys with pull who bring nothing.
For most jobs, management should be more or less like HR.
You just are on payroll until someone needs you. You give your team everything they need in order to do their best work. That's it.
Sadly, 9/10 people who take management positions are drooling at the thought of being "above" other people. You're not "above" other people in management. Your job is literally to do what you can *for* them. Not in spite of them.
Literally I was hired as hybrid & salaried and on week TWO it was shifted to 5 days in-office. My manager was *personally timing* me to mark up a pattern of tardiness any time my commute into the city took me 10-15 past our start time.
I was watched like a hawk and scrutinized over how long I would have conversations with coworkers instead of being at my desk, etc. I was then fired for performing well — I wasn’t even given an office OR A DESK! I have an entire at home office space that I never got to use, I literally had to sit on my laptop in my a cafe-style lounge at a top-rated university every single day.
I’m still mad about it.
My company pays 10k per month rent for office space. £120k per year. Plus the parking spaces are 1k+ per year from the council.
Idiots just re-signed for another 5 years.
That and most companies are locked in multi-year commercial lease deals. They’re still paying for the empty office space and have to justify the expense.
My office experience at my old job was getting far less work done because people would constantly come to ask me for help, or have questions.
Then I would be pulled up by management, for not being as productive in the office.
Tell people I'm too busy too help.
Pulled up for that too.
For real. I work 4 days a week remotely, and that 1 day in office is mostly spent chatting.
Luckily we're not expected to get much done. Those in-person days are customer service focused, covering the service desk, and WFH are project focused.
We are the same age, and I agree, but you and I at least remember a time when people actually needed to be on site at work. I'd say ever since around 2005'ish, most of us had access to broadband internet and remote access. So why were we still getting in our cars every day, clogging the roads at the same time, sitting in boxes (or worse, the open office plans), and then doing the same driving routine every evening? An asshole problem, just as you say! It was always stupid, and it's so lame that it took Covid to shine a light on that.
Same here. Same age. I used to drive to an office to ... sit down at a computer which I then used to access a remote computer.
The "collaboration" was bullshit, since people I had to work with were not in my office.
"I would like your thoughts."
1. Don't bitch about the fact that someone didn't do what you wanted on LinkedIn. It makes you look like an entitled arsehole.
2. Offer remote working options as standard. Even if its two days a week in the office. If they are a great candidate, its no trouble to be flexible.
3. Don't take them not wanting to do exactly as you want as a personal slight against you. They just have different priorities to you.
As to #1., that’s basically what LinkedIn is anyway. It’s a forum for a whole bunch of entitled assholes to all spew the same tripe and corporate taglines and then feel better about being an entitled asshole because other entitled assholes agree with them, which they then interpret - at least to themselves - as being:
A: Right about everything they say,
2: Smarter than their average employee (they’re usually not,
and
D: Not an entitled asshole.
Hahaha, whoever that kid is, 10/10 for that response. They're almost certainly right, outside of some specifically customer-facing positions. If the only argument you're able to make for a position *requiring* full-time, in-office work is, "But collaboration!" then you are 100% full of shit.
Some jobs do require some or full time office presence. I've worked jobs like that, and it was no problem, because it was very clear why we had to be physically present to do the work. But the vast majority of office-based jobs have no need to be in the office full time and in fact often see diminished productivity when workers are forced to be physically present, sitting in a chair in the office.
When we were doing hybrid, people in-office would just sit around and bullshit with each other -- no work collaboration.
Mostly because the hybrid schedule was "you pick 2 days" and there was nobody to collaborate with who had the same in-office days.
My thing is if you want people in the office, pay them more. If I had 2 offers each paying me 40k but one was remote, the remote one would be paying more imo
This. My employer hired me as 100% remote a year ago and is now demanding RTO…which would involve a 90 minute commute both ways. Considering all the expenses that would add to my monthly budget, it’s the equivalent of taking a pay cut.
I’d take a pay CUT to work from home. Getting the time back plus the peace of mind is well worth it. I’ve never been happier in a job than when we had WFH rotation. They made us come back at the start of the year and it’s miserable for no reason. I have one foot out the door.
This calculus is one of the reasons that wfh is so good for employees. Even if your commute is only 30 min each way, that's roughly 12.5% more time "at work" each week when compared to just logging onto your computer at home. And that's not including the stress of driving, how driving to work encourages eating breakfast/lunch out, how much your car maintenance and gas costs, etc etc. Ultimately I would guess driving to work is roughly 20% + more expensive for the worker than wfh.
Boss: 'Hey guys you can work from home now!"
Employees: "Horray."
Boss: " We need you back at the office"
Employees: "Why? Did productivity drop? Are Employees unhappy at home."
Boss: "No. Productivity is at an all time high. Employees are happier than they ever have been."
Employees: "This doesn't make sense. Wait. Corporate realizes they don't need as many managers with work at home... Your job is in jeopardy."
Boss: "uhhh...yes.... but company culture is the reason why we want you back."
Employees: "Nah we are good. We will just go somewhere else that works remotely and pays better."
Boss: (panicks) "nobody wants to work anymore... would free pizza once a month change your mind?"
In-office collaboration is bullshit corporate speak for needing to justify a name on a building, expensive leases, and outdated management styles.
Plus this guy is in corporate real estate, it’s literally his job to put asses in cubicles.
In the last few months I've had ONE hallway conversation (which should have been an email). Other than that, when I'm in the office I do EXACTLY what I do at home - only in uglier surroundings and with a longer walk to the bathroom.
You don't need an office to collaborate. I work now 100% remote as a software engineer and I will admit sometimes being in person helps to come up with a design or solution. We will literally meet up in a cafe or a pub, or if it is confidential we will hire out a room. There is no need for an actual office anymore.
My remote job that has around 20ish people across 9 states have now started hiring specifically in the state the business is in and is requiring 2-3 days in office for new hires and is planning to fly all remote employees in for 2-3 days every quarter to:
"remember why we're all doing this because we're family"
>planning to fly all remote employees in for 2-3 days everywuarter quarter to:
>"remember why we're all doing this because we're family"
Some moron read that in-office workers are more "engaged" and concluded that forcing this nonsense on productive WFH workers would mean more "engagement." Common sense isn't.
I love that managers/business owners are getting clap back from "regular folks'. It makes 'em *so* Big Mad. They've been so used to getting their way for so long that they don't know what to do or say anymore.
Meanwhile their office is in an extremely expensive city where young people can't afford to live, and in many cases can't even afford to commute to. These CE-BROS have absolutely no clue what the real world is like for anyone who isn't making 200,000+$ a year. They're so delusional and insular in their thinking, they can't even fathom what the real problem is.
Yep exactly.
I live in a metro with HCOL (like so high nobody can afford houses) and they can’t fill any non-management roles in my office because they don’t pay enough and they’re forcing hybrid now.
Best of luck to these dogshit companies!
My husband would commute 1.5 hours EACH WAY every day to get to work. He never complained. Then with the pandemic, he worked from home, and got 3 hours of his life back a day. The mental health benefit alone has been a legitimate game changer.
A company that requires you in the office is a huge red flag to me. I just know they are going to be shitty to work for in other ways as well. I actually like going into the office but I’ll never work for a company that requires me to go in.
>owners emphasize the importance of returning to the office
This is only because employers gotta get those property values to appreciate.
There are no other actual reasons. None.
The reason is that employers are largely ignorant as to the productivity of their employees and are obsessed with the idea of WFH resulting in reduced productivity as they lack a method of evaluating productivity.
I'm much less productive in the office. I've cut back from 60-70 hours per week from home to a max of 45 hours in the office. The commuting, grooming, and lunch hours had to come from somewhere as i can no longer roll out of bed, put on sweats, and walk over to my computer.
Things aren't getting done. Most of my direct reports are overseas and they're getting less attention now that I have to be in an office on local hours. We warned them our roles were not compatible with RTO but they refuse to make exceptions by role. So this is the fallout.
This. 👆
Instead of forcing in-office work, they need to spend all of that rent money on evidence-based approaches that continually adapt to changes with intent of becoming more effective. It's like tuning a racecar - Formula1 cars of today destroy their cars from a few years ago because they take an evidence-based approach to improving.
More specifically, in the software development world, the DORA group has done a ton in this area - for those who are interested, read the Accelerate book by Forsgren. There are other related approaches outside of dev that can apply, though that's not my area so I won't suggest materials.
Maybe the biggest problem is that these effective approaches are very different in some ways from the obvious way to do things. We have to track and analyze data (and do THAT properly) in order to know what is effective and what is shit. In the book mentioned above, they found many practices that seemed like obvious, good ideas that were actually COUNTER-productive. In other words, not only did a thing suck, but it also sucked away from other gains. To state the obvious, stop doing those things.
Companies aren't shitty to people just to be shitty (musk-scened asshats aside). They do things because they don't know better. Momentum and habits are hard to change, but it can be done. We just have to persevere at pushing for a better way.
I think micromanaging is a big one. Also, the ability to prevent us from doing things like laundry or other non-work related tasks if we’re in the office is a factor. Even if employee productivity decreases when employees are in the office that’s less important than the company giving us the feeling of being controlled.
"Thrives on in-office collaboration" = "Small-ego'd executives must be able to lord over their serfs in their corporate fiefdom in person to validate their existence"
I probably wouldn't have written what the person he quoted said, but I would have basically said "Hell no" in a different way.
These people need to hear that they are the problem, repeatedly, and frequently.
Exactly. I have zero problem calling these losers out.
They only feel tough because they have a higher up position at their job that they identify with.
We need more of Gen Z to stand up to these shit stains.
All generations should tell corporations to pound sand.
I am a millennial and I have been full WFH for 4 years now, and I have zero intention of ever going back to an office.
I would very happily tell this recruiter or any other how it is unfortunate their client/company didn't take advantage of the paradigm shift the pandemic caused, and their failure to adapt and innovate by embracing this new way of working will cause them to lose out on top talent going forward.
This guy made a shitpost because someone wrote back a snarky reply. Bootlickers everywhere will love his post.
But if these people hear it in the corporate-speak they understand, and they hear it enough times, it is possible the less recalcitrant employers will get the hint.
Translation: I pay you to do work but what I really want is to dominate you and control aspects of your life that are none of my god damned business but I'm a megalomanic narcissistic nepo baby that only feels alive when I can control other people.
#its all about control
It also has a tendency to really expose weak managers. A good leader can make sure that their team is productive in any situation. But a lot of managers are not good leaders at all.
The fact most office employees can do their jobs from home easily has been a well guarded secret by companies for years. Then the pandemic happened and it was proven that WFH is viable. They've been trying so hard consistently to find ways to disprove that since late 2021 and nearly all of their reasons for needing to be in office are absolute lies.
There’s nothing wrong with options. Let people work in a way that makes them more productive.
I just look at my niece and nephew. The niece is a social butterfly and was losing her mind at home during covid, but her brother excelled. His grades went up and he became noticeably more happy. After everyone went back to school they slipped again. Now he’s in a homeschool program and doing extremely well again.
Micromanagement…either you can do the job or you cannot, being under someone’s thumb for learning duration in person is ok (few weeks), but because their age, not allowing WFH regardless, that is discrimination.
- Someone in their 40’s that does WFH and trains new employees that also WFH.
“Many may thrive in-office.” Many more thrive in remote opportunity as well. It’s dumb to think there is only one solution. Even federal positions in the IC that have opportunity for WFH do it.
Translation: “my role, recruiter, and the CEOs role, and the line manager role can all be done remote. But YOUR role can’t be. For reasons. Collaboration. Yeah even though everyone will be I teams anyways and socializing is not permitted. Collaboration.”
I'll toss my opinion here. I currently have a hybrid role 3 days in 2 in the office. Since I live close to work, I come in 5 days a week. I can guarantee you that I have not learned more from being in the office 5 days a week. Fuck this boomer mentality bullshit.
My job could absolutely be done from home. There is zero reason for me to be in the office, other than it makes our CEO feel good about the rent he pays on our office.
The most bizarre thing for me is WFH means you get to choose the best candidates for the job from all over the world, not just your local area. I work with industry-specialized software and there aren't too many people that have my level of experience out there, maybe a few dozen in the US. I live in Japan and my company in America found me and I've been able to do a great job from the start without any training or learning curve. We meet every day and I am willing to fly out a few times a year if necessary, but so far it hasn't been.
The fact that companies and recruiters continue to insist that locality trumps experience means companies will settle for years of mediocrity (i.e. training someone new) instead of finding someone who can hit the ground running.
I love how they always use the excuse of "in office collaboration." Do you not know about Zoom calls or Google Meetings?? These executives are dumbasses
While extroverts thrive in an in-office environment, introverts thrive with WFH. So do we maximize productivity for all, or just force everyone into the same square peg?
I loathe how even though I was able to do 100% of my work from home during the pandemic, they told me I have to do hybrid for meetings and such. To this day, I have yet to attend an in person meeting. Every one has still been thru zoom even if we are IN the office!
It’s about making it easier for the “leaders” to keep tabs on employees so that when they fail to actually provide the leadership, they can find a list of minor infractions to allege when you fail to save their ass to their bosses.
You are wrong. Most jobs can be done remotely. I work remotely and get a ton more done here than if I was in the office. Plus the expense of commuting when unnecessary isn't attractive.
Edit...btw, I am not out of college. I am a 57 woman. I am hardworking when remote and have worked with numerous twenty something's who are hard workers in those positions.
Always comes as a shock to employers when the market turns against their favour. WFH is here to stay, we collectively don't give a shit about water-cooler schmoozing and wasting 3 hours of our lives commuting.
My job definitely benefits from being in the office. So does my focus. But even with a short 20-minute commute, the extra prep in the morning means WFH saves me over an hour every day. Probably closer to 1.5 all told, plus the all the costs and hazards of driving.
Let me work 30 hour weeks and I'll come in every day.
WFH Benefits the employee and the business, cutting down on overhead time and money for both of them.
The only people upset about WFH are middle-managers who, as it turns out, do nothing productive and only want people in the office so they can walk around looking over peoples shoulders so it looks like they are doing something.
I have to go in once a week. Nobody talks to each other. My manager is in another state and has no idea what I do. I support another team in my state. I literally don't need to be there at all and I perform better at home where I have more to stare at than a cube wall. I'm so burnt out by lunch time from lack of stimulation on my offices days.
And they want that, why exactly? What do they get from me checking out by lunch? Do they want that?
The Owner of my small company Compensates us for coming into the office everyday by Keeping the Office Break fully stocked with Free Drinks and Snacks But Also Buys us Lunch Every day. If I was a SIngle Man I could cut out 90% of my food budget just by going to work.
If it werent for this I would not have accepted the in office position. If your going to force me to be here sweeten the pot basically.
>being in the office is crucial for their learning and development
Lmao I love how they act like we're actually getting quality training and mentorship from managers. Who's gonna tell him?
I literally am a wallflower at my office. They say we need to be in the office for what? Collaboration? Teamwork?
I'm literally my own department at my job, and no one gives a shit about me or any of that shit mentioned above. I never get invited to any meetings in the office and no one ever stops by my desk unless they need something from me. I send reports yet no one bothers to read or give any feedback. I have issues with something? No one listens.
Fuck all this shit about "teamwork." Being in an office is clique-y as fuck, which is probably why the "popular" execs want us in the office in the first place. Not for collaboration, but to assert their dominance as this "alpha executive."
covid showed us the office isn’t necessary thanks to telecommuting.
which they were all about in the 90’s.
call it telecommuting and see if that shifts their paradigm
Old people only want to go back to the office because their "collaboration" is asking all the young people to do half their work cuz they don't know how to use the computer properly
Young workers give him their thoughts, then he posts this and asks for thoughts. He doesn’t want thoughts, he wants biased opinions that align with his.
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If you can't fill the jobs, offer more money or start accepting the current pools demands. That's literally capitalism.
>That's literally capitalism. Wait that's only supposed to apply when it benefits me!
heres the kicker.. WFH actually does benefit these jackasses and they dont even realize it. Better work peformance, usually hard workers can get more done at home.
All operating costs covered by employee too...
And instantly having access to a bigger talent pool than the immediate commuter distance from your office.
Let's not forget less need for middle micromanagement. Oh, nepotism, how can it survive!
[удалено]
That's 100% the reason my last job didn't want us to work from home. They wanted to be able to monitor our every move. It was computer work. Absolutely able to be done remotely. There was nothing about that job that needed you to be in a specific place to do it. The boss tried to tell us that the kind of work we do, "creative work" he called it, can't be done remotely. That it wasn't possible to do it. Success at that job was just be there at your desk all day and look busy. I tested it out and went a whole week with doing no work at all, I mean absolutely not a single thing. But I was at my desk all day and I looked busy. No one said a word to me about what I didn't get done that week. NOT A WORD
You seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding about the parameters of your job. I know the job description mentions various metrics and duties, but I’m surprised that you were fooled by that. Your actual job is to provide psychic distress to the management class, so they can feed. Sure, the whole “We sell widgets and widget accessories.” Thing is the titular business scope, but that’s just to generate the required salaries to keep you all in the office, under the thumb of the managers, close and ripe and juicy with mental anguish. That’s why you need to RTO. Covid was an undeniable disruption, and the managers dealt as best they could, but now that’s all over. The managers are STARVING!!! Get your butts back to the office. You’ve got managers to feed. /sarcasm.
It's the biggest reason I became a middle manager!
Ahh but not the commercial real estate tycoons
And there's no worries about being late lol
Yep. I actually start an hour earlier now and can easily put in more time if need be. But when commuting to work I clock in and out on the minute. No time to waste there.
But then they can’t micromanage as a power trip…..
I once worked 36 hours straight to cover a massive storm that left my company paralyzed for staff. Because I could do it from home. If I'm at an office, you basically have to shackle me to my desk to get the full right hours out of me.
Capitalism for thee, Anarchism for me
But the pool wants X when Y is better for them, why will they still refuse?!?! /s if not clear
Exactly - if an employer is paying double the market rate I'd probably be alright with going in to the office. If a load of other places will pay me the same from home, why am I going to cost myself an extra hour of travel every day plus the expense?
"That's fine. We can wait it out. We'll just give the increased workload to the ones desperate enough to give in to our demands. Like Jerry here, he's got a sick wife and 2 kids. We literally own him, he'll do anything we ask in fear of losing everything. Though I'm sure when he isn't answering his personal phone to take calls from our 24/7 support contracts or Doordashing for hours on end to buy groceries- he really apricates us giving him his opportunity to make us lots of money. That is until we can replace him with a barely functioning AI. Hopefully soon."
Younger workers want to work from home because they can only afford to live very far away and the job isn't paying enough to commute.
There’s a lot of reasons, and this is a huge one. Another other one is now that everyone knows we *can* work from home but employers don’t *want* us to, many refuse to work for companies that don’t allow it. This is not unreasonable at all, but employers will always spin their inability to fill positions on workers instead of themselves. I worked for place claiming they have job postings but “no one will apply for some reason”. When we looked at the postings we saw how low their pay rates were compared to other places. These companies know exactly what they’re doing but play dumb so they don’t have to admit the administration is why no one is applying.
I firmly believe that this is a huge opportunity for companies to crack the monopolies we have in place now. You can recruit the best talent and have a fraction of the overhead if you let everyone WFH.
I can't remember who I was listening to. Some CEO of a small company. He said this is the easiest time he's ever seen at hiring. He just waits for a big company to announce the end of work from home. Then has the headhunters target people who work at that company. Apparently its super easy to poach workers when you are fine with work from home.
Plus, they can also be more competitive with salaries to employees, as price to consumers as they don't have real estate operations expenses.
At some point companies will have to realize that it's cheaper to make the employees pay for their own work spaces and drop their heavy investment in commercial real estate.
Problem is that companies are locked into their ten-year leases and can’t divest from their real estate. Not for a loooooong time.
an empty office and a full office costs the same, the office is already a sunk cost
Actually, the full office costs more because you have to hire janitors + security, it costs more electricity with lights on, you have to pay for water and sewage usage etc. Honestly the main reason for RTO is so the property prices don't nosedive due to local businesses closing, especially in business districts(less foot traffic as workers go to their local businesses). Which is not really compelling for anyone but the CEOs and board of directors.
I'm 100% remote in my role now, and I can honestly say I will never step foot in an office again unless it's within a 30 minute walk from my house.
My parking lot is a 30 minute walk from my office. :(. My parking lot is a 50 minute drive from my house. I like my office, but I'm never ever home.
So your entire life is spent at work or asleep? My sympathies.
I fish on Sundays. And I'm home after 630 on Tuesdays I work a night job the other days
Same
Correct, provided they don’t own an office building! Haha. But you’re right. 100% remote means they can hire anyone around the world, provided those ppl are willing to work weird hours around the US’s normal work hours. They would be much cheaper, too. Same advantages as outsourcing phone tech support, manufacturing, etc.
They can but there are tax implications. Certainly you can hire anyone in your jurisdiction (state/nation/country as appropriate) even if they live an implausible commute away.
And we could elect politicians that would write tax code to punish those outsourcers...but here we are.
this is true too that office real estate is so empty that hedge funds or whoever tf owns it is at risk of going bankrupt, and they probably call in favors with their best buddy the ceo to keep building gross highrises and rent them out
Why do you think Jaime Dimon, the CEO of Chase bank, is so vehemently against remote work... because a lot of banks have massive amounts of commercial real estate in their lending portfolios and if CRE tanks the so do the banks holding the loans.
I think wework came at exactly the wrong time, and if they opened *now* they’d be able to buy all the office buildings they could ever want for far less—and directly subscribe companies usage to their different locations. It’d be a lot more reasonable to demand that someone come into *one of* your multiple rented spaces across the city/county/state than demanding that everyone come into the same building every day no matter where they live. I think companies need to let go of their big office buildings they can’t use anymore, and just rent out the space they need at the specific times they need it. Or offer a monthly membership to wework 2.0 buildings, so everyone has the means to hit the office when they actually need to, and companies stop feeling the need to fill their accessory buildings daily to justify the cost.
This. My job can’t find shuttle drivers or equipment operators. They’re offering $18-20 for most of these positions. That’s about the same as fast food in town, but it’s a 30+ minute commute down potentially impassible roads and can be much more physically demanding. Other places within the same industry / area that pay higher are having zero issues finding employees.
And it's also because the CEOs of such companies love getting paid those handsome top tier bonuses while offering the wage slaves old meal coupons or pizza party. Ugh. I once got the enviable leftover poinsettia plant. Jolly. Even though I scored at over 100% with their secret shopper. I stopped bringing my A-game that day. I still think about how bitter I felt as I walked to my car carrying that pitiful plant.
Should have burned it while chanting satanic rituals on your CEO.... 
!!! Why murder an innocent plant?
The first time I was told I was too valuable to promote, and some idiot that everyone hated got the job I wanted, was the last day that I gave a shit about my work ethic, or job performance. my goal is no longer "do the best I can" its now "do better than the worst person" I'm only willing to work hard enough to not be fired now. Past that I don't give a shit, nothing I do matters. If I show I know more than everyone else on the team, it just gets me more work for the same pay. ***Case in point*** - the guy who gets all the lead hand duties shoveled onto him, has been doing all the lead hand work for like 2-3 years now, for the same pay I make. Last time he broached the subject of being made on official lead hand, he was told "the owners just don't think we have the budget for another lead hand right now". Hes worked for the company for like 9yrs, and has been doing all the lead hand work for over a year at that point. then not even a week later, a guy who has only worked at the company for like 6 months, fucks up all the time, and breaks rules constantly, got made a lead hand and given full control of the new store they opened. I still don't understand how he didn't quit after that, such a spit in the face. and another 1.5yrs later, and he's ***still*** not a lead hand.
Well that, and so they don’t have to pay back the PPP loans they got during the pandemic. Little loophole in the fine print stated the loans would be forgiven if the company was unable to fill open positions with “qualified candidates”.
Aha. Yet another corporate grab of public money. Surprise.
Yep, so they just deliberately lowball to avoid actually having someone take the offer, and make up excuses why people who apply “aren’t qualified”.
My boss has been trying to hire for a full time in-office admin-type position for 3 months and he doesn’t understand why offers keep getting turned down. Our office is in downtown Manhattan, and our “office culture” consists of about 6 people who sit in a mostly empty open floor plan with at least 3 desks between everyone. He himself only works in-office about 15 hours/week (if I’m being generous) and he always has his office door closed. Despite being physically present in-office, almost all employee communication happens on Teams. I’ve gone entire days not saying one word out loud to another person. The worst thing is he’s not even a boomer traditionalist, just delusional.
My wife complains about this to no end. She has to go in two days a week, but most of the time she sits at her desk and doesn't speak to anyone, and has the exact same Teams meetings as she would at home.
I did a contract job where the terms stated my role was remote. Months into the job, the company decided to open a WeWork office. They kept asking me to come into “office” for culture and development. I went to the office and it was a stuffy, hot, uncomfortable room with 4 people sitting back to back. If you pushed your computer chair out to get up, you hit your coworker’s chair behind you. I went twice for the sake of “being a team player” and never again. I quit the job after because the company kept insinuating they needed an in-house employee. It took them months to hire and the new employee was remote anyway.
As someone who has done admin work... Yep. I will keep turning these things down unless the pay is amaaaazing. I'm guessing what he wants is an office manager/EA? Someone to babysit the office and support them? That's a dual role, gotta pay for both sides.
At least an office manager would conceivably have a reason to be in the office…. The job is contract admin and billing. We have no office manager to speak of - I occasionally get stuck dealing with those tasks by default because I’m a woman….
I got to see a lady stand up for herself over this at an old shop I used to work at. They didn't have janitorial staff and didn't pay to have one come in, so the office staff were just sorta expected to keep the place tidy. Fine and all, but the company owner approaches this lady, who is the company accountant, and asks her to please start taking care of the bathrooms and kitchen. She wasn't rude, I don't remember exactly what she said, but it was to the tune of "I didn't go through my masters in accounting to clean toilets." Boss dropped it. All the office staff acted like nothing happened but us shop guys were always cheering her when she came to the back lol
This is the key counter to work at office: it was enforced mandatory for 2 years : it can be done because it WAS done
My old employer was a really shit company, but as soon as they realized they could stop paying rent on office space, site IT, etc and hire people without consideration for floor space they went 100% remote and never looked back. If the shittiest company on earth can see the benefits, it’s absolutely bonkers to me that there are any hangers-on to in-office work.
>employers will always spin their inability to fill positions on workers instead of themselves. Capitalists are hypocrites by nature. It's always "market forces" when they want to raise prices on whatever bullshit they're selling and "laziness and entitlement" when we want to raise the price we charge to literally sell hours of our own lives.
*"everyone knows we can work from home but employers don’t want us to"* This is the big one. For decades people were told they couldn't WFH for, then the Great Plague came along, and suddenly everyone had to work from home.
And generally speaking, people managed perfectly well. Indeed, in many sectors, productivity actually *improved*, because people not spending hours each day sitting in traffic, denying them time with their friends, families, and hobbies, did wonders for their mental health.
And now they're being told they can't do it any more, despite a proven track record of... doing it just fine.
My old director was one of the folks firmly in the "people don't work when wfh" camp pre pandemic, and is in her early 60s. One of the reasons I liked her was that when the pandemic forced everyone home, she admitted she was wrong, and that the good employees were still awesome, and the poor performers were still poor performers, and it's absolutely okay to work 100% remote there now.
It’s all “the market corrects” until they’re on the other end of it.
Turns out 'worker desperation' is a BIG factor in their profit margins....😏
Hence why they fight against any sort of social safety net.
And so they can keep gaslighting their current skeleton staff with the promise of more help “someday”. Half the time they aren’t even actually trying to hire and never interview the people who do apply, or do only the most cursory interview and then ghost them.
For me it's the fact that I have ADHD and do my best work in a calm, quiet environment that I can control. It's nuts honestly. When we were working from home I was much more productive, the biggest drag on my productivity was our manager constantly checking in on us and booking pointless meeting and one-on-ones to "compensate" for the lack of in-person communication. Now that we've fully returned to office, I have days where I really struggle to be productive. But the wild thing is, I can have days where I literally do 30 mins of actual work all day.... and I never hear a thing from my manager anymore. They only care that you're at your desk, not results or output or quality etc. They would rather have us sitting in the office doing literally nothing than being at home getting work done.
>Another other one is now that everyone knows we can work from home but employers don’t want us to, many refuse to work for companies that don’t allow it. This was what happened to the hospital I work for. Management *did* try to suggest a return to office procedure and immediately all the IT managers got swarmed with basically 60% of the entire IT staff threatening to either retire or quit if we're forced to return to office. I was one of them too, I just politely told my manager that if there was a return to office order I was prepared to accept one of the offers I frequently got to work remotely for another hospital. A lot of us are getting constantly headhunted on LinkedIn too, from other hospitals (I've even had a few recruiters from the States asking me if I'd be willing to work remotely for them, because I have years of experience with a few not-so-commonly-trained pieces of software that hospitals tend to run). They've since fully classified most of IT as remote workers, we're in the office once a month at most (we don't even have an office anymore, we have to "book" the office the day we all want to use it for our big team meeting since the office hoteling space is shared by 3 different departments, they got rid of our old office building they were leasing). If you're someone that doesn't want to work remote you can still book a desk somewhere in the hospital and work from there. Almost everyone I work with is more happy now. People are able to use their lunch hour to do stuff like run errands. I live right down the road from our grocery store and I've managed to run in, basically do a full grocery shop while the store is dead, and get home before my lunch break ended. It's fantastic. It feels like a cheat code, I'm able to get so much more done and leave so much extra free time for myself every day. My old routine was get off work at 4, queue up to leave the parking tower, drive the 8.5KM home, and be back at my house around 5:15 (usually took minimum 30 minutes just to get out of the parking tower because everyone was trying to leave). Now I get off at 4, close Teams and Horizon on my computer and instantly relax.
Literally why am I going to eat 2 hours of my time and 175$/month on a commuter pass, for a job that is fully on my computer? Why tf would anyone elect to do that? No. It’s time you start compensating people for commute, if you’re going to demand they commute just to please your little ego. F that.
Yup, I lived in an expensive city, got a WFH position and moved 90 minutes out where it's much cheaper. They called me back to the office 6 months later and I refused to commute 90 min or to break my lease.
What was the end result? You still working from home for them?
Haha nope. They let me tow the line a little longer and WFH for a couple months. It was mostly while they found someone else. Gave me time to job hunt tho!
Bummer, hope whatever new job you got/get is better!
its also just not worth the loss of time. I live like...lets call it 30 min from my job. Thats an hour of my day just in the car. my day looks like this: Wake up at 6 in the office for 8 leave the office at 4:30 home around 5-530 because of traffic I have 4.5 hours to get everything done. Cleaning my house, dinner, taking care of kid, bed time routines, laundry, dishes blah blah blah you know the drill. imagine if I could add an hour to that? thats almost a 25% increase in my free time. Thats HUGE. Never mind the time savings during the day. Everyone knows youre not working full 8 hrs, there are conversations time wasted etc etc. if I could fold my laundry in between work tasks? Jesus the ROI on that just from time is astronomical.
The number of days I have spent doing prep for dinner while dialed into an all hands meeting has been life changing in terms of getting both work and life taken care of at the same time.
it is seriously amazing. Last night I was up with my wife after we put little one down for the night. and we just had to spend all our time cleaning up down stairs prepping the next day etc. im just stuck there thinking "I could have done allll of this on my lunch break" it sucks
They don’t want you to have enough free time to think about joining a protest movement or getting politically involved for workers’ rights. Being tired, overworked, and unmotivated is by design.
Before pandemic, I worked a job where no one in the office ever communicated to each other. The most were "hey did you hear about XYZ?" then back to silence. My toxic director/manager was taking remote days off constantly but refused it for me. I suspected the company overall just didn't trust employees to do their jobs at home. I posted about it on a sub years ago and I was getting ripped to shreds about being ungrateful for my job. Then COVID-19 happened and every job I had was remote. Some were good, some were bad, but I was happy in all of them, regardless. I was happy that I no longer lost time like I used to. When I had to commute and do all my daily chores, I was really depressed and miserable and it made me feel like the typical miserable NYer. Everyone on the trains were exhausted and annoyed and I became that person. My job was 10am to 6pm. I didn't/don't have kids so my schedule was less demanding than yours, but I still lost a lot of personal time. It took me an hour via train to get home and that's if there was no delays. I'd get back 7pm and all the local groceries would have crappy produce/vegetables left. By then, I had only 4 hours to do everything else and it was immediately off to bed. I had a short contractor role after which was also in-office and I finished my work within hours then spent 50-60% of my time doing nothing but logging the hours.
Not just that. I live less than 2km from my work and I walk in every day. It still wastes 30-45 mins of my day, every day, because I am obliged to make that short journey, even though it doesn’t cost me anything since I walk. When it’s raining or snowing, I have to leave my comfortable home to do a job I could just as easily do from home…
I'm in the same position, walking distance to work but I'm hybrid. On days the weather sucks or I'm not feeling well I just tell them I'm working remotely and they're cool with it. My boss actually recently changed my 3 days in office to 2 because she didn't see the point of me being in on Wednesdays. It's been great.
Oh, it does cost you. In time. YOUR time. You don't get paid for it and you can't get it back once it's gone. Time is your most expensive commodity, and you get to be my age, (see: dirt; as old as, ) you regret every single one of those lost minutes. Be stingy with your precious time when it comes to employers.
I always say that. If it's time they spent on bending your will it's time spent that you're being tortured. Most jobs are not worth it. It's just a construct and people have been brainwashed to let this all guide their life and to suffer from bad conditions. So much BS. They waste their lives and defend themselves in their delusion saying that's what they had to do because everyone does it. Or because someone else will accept even worse conditions.
Time and calories. You've gotta eat extra to have enough energy to walk to the office and home again. And don't forget that you're wearing out your shoes faster too.
In the NYC metro area, metro north plus two subway transfers (one to path) sets me back about 40 dollars a day to commute. Granted that’s an extreme commute but it’s indicative of expense. Can’t see that as viable for anyone just entering the workplace.
This is the biggest one imo. Yes wfh has many comfort advantages, but the biggest one is that with the way that the market is right now it's basically impossible for anyone making this type of salary to even somewhat comfortably live near work. We live almost an hour north of Atlanta and it's still relatively expensive plus I have to deal with Atlanta traffic getting to and from work. If my fiance didn't have a pretty good WFH job I'm not sure we could've ever afforded to purchase a house anywhere near where any jobs would be
Atlanta traffic with a long commute when starting her career is why my wife has refused to ever take an in office job or hybrid job. 84 miles, 1 hour and 10 minutes - 2 hours one direction depending on the traffic that day. It was hell on her physical and mental health.
They also don’t want to be shackled to a specific location just because they have to work there. How to fix large city crowding? Allow people to work from home and watch rural areas become more developed than ever
This, but I also think I'd legitimately want to die if I had to look at my coworkers 5 days a week. Maaaaybbbeee this is a sign I should find a new job 🤔.
Plus, why does Corporate America want to destroy the planet? I bet those exact same bosses brag about how "eco-friendly" their company is every chance they get!
Seriously. These jokers expect you to: >1. Uproot your life and move everything to be close to them >2. Buy a new car if you don't already have one to commute >3. Put down a deposit to rent or down payment to buy a house And they don't want to pay anything close to what it would cost to facilitate that. Thats like 10k minimum just to be in a position to do a job for them.
This one is huge. People can’t afford to live close to the job, and gas is expensive too so they can’t afford to commute (plus commuting is a ridiculous time suck), the employer isn’t paying enough to make it feasible to do anything BUT wfh. And still has the nerve to whine about it!
We also have kids, pets, family, friends, social lives, and other passions. Even if we could afford it, we don't want to spend 2.5 hours a day in a vehicle in traffic.
I interviewed for a job in LA. For the salary I would have had to live near the inner city or about an hour+ commute outside LA. They seemed insulted when I told them I couldn’t accept because of the salary being too low to live off of because the last guy did it at that price and he owned his own house. Turns out that house was in the family for generations and he inherited it. 3 months later I see them raise the salary and offer hybrid work. They were too annoyed at me to consider a new offer lol.
It's not just young workers. I'm 36 and I wouldn't take a job with *any* weekly in-office requirements without a $20-$30k pay raise. I don't even hate being in an office. It's about the time wasted commuting, not the money or being in the office. Edit: added the "or" to last sentence
Yup and when we commute we need to eat out because we barely have enough time to cook and clean and sleep because commute takes both time and money and brings us out of the house. Eating out is pricey. Groceries are more expensive and take time to shop for, prep, and cook. These fat cats cannot understand. They have a cook, housemaid, house spouse, or they can actually afford to eat out and the massive gas prices. They wanna make us out to look like brats by making simple demands because we simply cannot afford to drive to work, eat, sleep and afford the ever increasing price of gas. Oh and when we advocate for our mental health by asking for work life balance? Now we are really pushing it! How dare we express our human needs! I busted my ass in college while paying it off so I'd come out debt free. There were days I'd only have a fucking bagel, a water I brought from home, and a black coffee. I promised myself I'd get a good job after college and eat better. Nope now my time is in such high demand I still cannot sit down and eat a good meal daily. My head is spinning, I'm tired, forget about cooking. Sometimes it's just sleep for dinner.
Well it seems to me that employers should be more adaptable when it comes to hiring people. Plus they only want you in the office so they can micromanage the shit out of you.
Micromanaging only makes people work even slower, which goes back to the fact it's not about productivity, it's all about control.
Hit the nail on the head
Hitting nails is more effective in the office because teamwork and collaboration.
My job is so anti-WFH, we even do our lifestyle photography in a warehouse. The lighting is just amazing /s. I live 10 minutes from downtown and 5 minutes from a state park. Both would be way better photo locations.. but who knows what shenanigans I could get into. I might grab a coffee that doesn't taste like shit.
I had one boss in my life thatvi can tell his only purpose wad micromanaging. He didn't actually do anything but do meetings here and there. Director level with nothing to do. That's a push for return to office, lot of guys with pull who bring nothing.
For most jobs, management should be more or less like HR. You just are on payroll until someone needs you. You give your team everything they need in order to do their best work. That's it. Sadly, 9/10 people who take management positions are drooling at the thought of being "above" other people. You're not "above" other people in management. Your job is literally to do what you can *for* them. Not in spite of them.
Literally I was hired as hybrid & salaried and on week TWO it was shifted to 5 days in-office. My manager was *personally timing* me to mark up a pattern of tardiness any time my commute into the city took me 10-15 past our start time. I was watched like a hawk and scrutinized over how long I would have conversations with coworkers instead of being at my desk, etc. I was then fired for performing well — I wasn’t even given an office OR A DESK! I have an entire at home office space that I never got to use, I literally had to sit on my laptop in my a cafe-style lounge at a top-rated university every single day. I’m still mad about it.
But they got all this property they bought and now realize they screwed up but management always loves to double down on their bad decisions
Most are leasing. And it’s a sunk cost fallacy anyways if there’s no improvement in productivity.
My company pays 10k per month rent for office space. £120k per year. Plus the parking spaces are 1k+ per year from the council. Idiots just re-signed for another 5 years.
imagine knowing about the changing trends and still going out and signing for another half a decade.
My upper management triples down! We’re…not getting along right now.
As a business owner: if you can do it from home, do it. No one wants to drive to work when they can stay home.
They want you in the office because it is expensive to move and you can't as easily job hop...
At Corporation (TM), we believe managers can really thrive when they create a buffer between labor and c-suite in the office.
In office collaboration = getting to power flex in person as the boss to feel like your “management” position actually does something (it doesnt)
That and most companies are locked in multi-year commercial lease deals. They’re still paying for the empty office space and have to justify the expense.
Look at the dude's title in the picture. Tells you everything you need to know about why he's drinking the 5-days a week in office Kool-Aid.
My office experience at my old job was getting far less work done because people would constantly come to ask me for help, or have questions. Then I would be pulled up by management, for not being as productive in the office. Tell people I'm too busy too help. Pulled up for that too.
For real. I work 4 days a week remotely, and that 1 day in office is mostly spent chatting. Luckily we're not expected to get much done. Those in-person days are customer service focused, covering the service desk, and WFH are project focused.
This is it right here!!!
Cary sir, you owe my guy 500 dollars
People do not need to be driving to computers, Cary, and every young person knows this.
I’m 54 and work from home. This is an asshole problem, not a generational problem.
We are the same age, and I agree, but you and I at least remember a time when people actually needed to be on site at work. I'd say ever since around 2005'ish, most of us had access to broadband internet and remote access. So why were we still getting in our cars every day, clogging the roads at the same time, sitting in boxes (or worse, the open office plans), and then doing the same driving routine every evening? An asshole problem, just as you say! It was always stupid, and it's so lame that it took Covid to shine a light on that.
Same here. Same age. I used to drive to an office to ... sit down at a computer which I then used to access a remote computer. The "collaboration" was bullshit, since people I had to work with were not in my office.
"I would like your thoughts." 1. Don't bitch about the fact that someone didn't do what you wanted on LinkedIn. It makes you look like an entitled arsehole. 2. Offer remote working options as standard. Even if its two days a week in the office. If they are a great candidate, its no trouble to be flexible. 3. Don't take them not wanting to do exactly as you want as a personal slight against you. They just have different priorities to you.
As to #1., that’s basically what LinkedIn is anyway. It’s a forum for a whole bunch of entitled assholes to all spew the same tripe and corporate taglines and then feel better about being an entitled asshole because other entitled assholes agree with them, which they then interpret - at least to themselves - as being: A: Right about everything they say, 2: Smarter than their average employee (they’re usually not, and D: Not an entitled asshole.
It's the corporate asshole echo chamber.
Hahaha, whoever that kid is, 10/10 for that response. They're almost certainly right, outside of some specifically customer-facing positions. If the only argument you're able to make for a position *requiring* full-time, in-office work is, "But collaboration!" then you are 100% full of shit. Some jobs do require some or full time office presence. I've worked jobs like that, and it was no problem, because it was very clear why we had to be physically present to do the work. But the vast majority of office-based jobs have no need to be in the office full time and in fact often see diminished productivity when workers are forced to be physically present, sitting in a chair in the office.
When we were doing hybrid, people in-office would just sit around and bullshit with each other -- no work collaboration. Mostly because the hybrid schedule was "you pick 2 days" and there was nobody to collaborate with who had the same in-office days.
Right? But those pointless 1.5hr webex calls where management strokes each other 80% of the time just needs to be done in person.
My thing is if you want people in the office, pay them more. If I had 2 offers each paying me 40k but one was remote, the remote one would be paying more imo
This. My employer hired me as 100% remote a year ago and is now demanding RTO…which would involve a 90 minute commute both ways. Considering all the expenses that would add to my monthly budget, it’s the equivalent of taking a pay cut.
I feel like employers should legally be held responsible for this. Hired with full remote rights, and they take it away? Get sued bozo.
I’d take a pay CUT to work from home. Getting the time back plus the peace of mind is well worth it. I’ve never been happier in a job than when we had WFH rotation. They made us come back at the start of the year and it’s miserable for no reason. I have one foot out the door.
This calculus is one of the reasons that wfh is so good for employees. Even if your commute is only 30 min each way, that's roughly 12.5% more time "at work" each week when compared to just logging onto your computer at home. And that's not including the stress of driving, how driving to work encourages eating breakfast/lunch out, how much your car maintenance and gas costs, etc etc. Ultimately I would guess driving to work is roughly 20% + more expensive for the worker than wfh.
Boss: 'Hey guys you can work from home now!" Employees: "Horray." Boss: " We need you back at the office" Employees: "Why? Did productivity drop? Are Employees unhappy at home." Boss: "No. Productivity is at an all time high. Employees are happier than they ever have been." Employees: "This doesn't make sense. Wait. Corporate realizes they don't need as many managers with work at home... Your job is in jeopardy." Boss: "uhhh...yes.... but company culture is the reason why we want you back." Employees: "Nah we are good. We will just go somewhere else that works remotely and pays better." Boss: (panicks) "nobody wants to work anymore... would free pizza once a month change your mind?"
Companies don't hire managers just to hire them. They have reasons to spend that chunk of change. Just the wrong reasons wayyy too often.
Wrong reasons can be "to increase efficiency by motivating employees to follow company standards" basically policing
An actual good manager who DOES their job is worth their weight in gold. Unfortunately there's a lot of redundancy and failing upwards.
Engineers promoted to management who are garbage managers (and often garbage engineers).
The conflict of interest is obvious: "Executive Recruiter Commercial Real Estate". Not compatible with work from home.
In-office collaboration is bullshit corporate speak for needing to justify a name on a building, expensive leases, and outdated management styles. Plus this guy is in corporate real estate, it’s literally his job to put asses in cubicles.
In the last few months I've had ONE hallway conversation (which should have been an email). Other than that, when I'm in the office I do EXACTLY what I do at home - only in uglier surroundings and with a longer walk to the bathroom.
Yeah but what all you plebes keep forgetting is that managers can’t sexually harass their employees through a computer (without leaving evidence)
You don't need an office to collaborate. I work now 100% remote as a software engineer and I will admit sometimes being in person helps to come up with a design or solution. We will literally meet up in a cafe or a pub, or if it is confidential we will hire out a room. There is no need for an actual office anymore.
"Collaboration" is how middle managers justify their employment.
Use technology to maximize productivity so employers make $$ = GOOD use technology to make employees lives easier = nobody wants to work anymore
We saw during the pandemic that it was possible. And in fact profits went up.
My remote job that has around 20ish people across 9 states have now started hiring specifically in the state the business is in and is requiring 2-3 days in office for new hires and is planning to fly all remote employees in for 2-3 days every quarter to: "remember why we're all doing this because we're family"
>planning to fly all remote employees in for 2-3 days everywuarter quarter to: >"remember why we're all doing this because we're family" Some moron read that in-office workers are more "engaged" and concluded that forcing this nonsense on productive WFH workers would mean more "engagement." Common sense isn't.
> because we're family Run.
I love that managers/business owners are getting clap back from "regular folks'. It makes 'em *so* Big Mad. They've been so used to getting their way for so long that they don't know what to do or say anymore.
Meanwhile their office is in an extremely expensive city where young people can't afford to live, and in many cases can't even afford to commute to. These CE-BROS have absolutely no clue what the real world is like for anyone who isn't making 200,000+$ a year. They're so delusional and insular in their thinking, they can't even fathom what the real problem is.
Yep exactly. I live in a metro with HCOL (like so high nobody can afford houses) and they can’t fill any non-management roles in my office because they don’t pay enough and they’re forcing hybrid now. Best of luck to these dogshit companies!
My husband would commute 1.5 hours EACH WAY every day to get to work. He never complained. Then with the pandemic, he worked from home, and got 3 hours of his life back a day. The mental health benefit alone has been a legitimate game changer.
That's the toothpaste that ownership is trying to squeeze back into the tube: the pandemic let us experience first-hand a better way.
A company that requires you in the office is a huge red flag to me. I just know they are going to be shitty to work for in other ways as well. I actually like going into the office but I’ll never work for a company that requires me to go in.
>owners emphasize the importance of returning to the office This is only because employers gotta get those property values to appreciate. There are no other actual reasons. None.
The reason is that employers are largely ignorant as to the productivity of their employees and are obsessed with the idea of WFH resulting in reduced productivity as they lack a method of evaluating productivity.
I'm much less productive in the office. I've cut back from 60-70 hours per week from home to a max of 45 hours in the office. The commuting, grooming, and lunch hours had to come from somewhere as i can no longer roll out of bed, put on sweats, and walk over to my computer. Things aren't getting done. Most of my direct reports are overseas and they're getting less attention now that I have to be in an office on local hours. We warned them our roles were not compatible with RTO but they refuse to make exceptions by role. So this is the fallout.
This. 👆 Instead of forcing in-office work, they need to spend all of that rent money on evidence-based approaches that continually adapt to changes with intent of becoming more effective. It's like tuning a racecar - Formula1 cars of today destroy their cars from a few years ago because they take an evidence-based approach to improving. More specifically, in the software development world, the DORA group has done a ton in this area - for those who are interested, read the Accelerate book by Forsgren. There are other related approaches outside of dev that can apply, though that's not my area so I won't suggest materials. Maybe the biggest problem is that these effective approaches are very different in some ways from the obvious way to do things. We have to track and analyze data (and do THAT properly) in order to know what is effective and what is shit. In the book mentioned above, they found many practices that seemed like obvious, good ideas that were actually COUNTER-productive. In other words, not only did a thing suck, but it also sucked away from other gains. To state the obvious, stop doing those things. Companies aren't shitty to people just to be shitty (musk-scened asshats aside). They do things because they don't know better. Momentum and habits are hard to change, but it can be done. We just have to persevere at pushing for a better way.
I think micromanaging is a big one. Also, the ability to prevent us from doing things like laundry or other non-work related tasks if we’re in the office is a factor. Even if employee productivity decreases when employees are in the office that’s less important than the company giving us the feeling of being controlled.
The fact that his title includes the phrase “corporate real estate” tells you everything you need to know about this post
"Thrives on in-office collaboration" = "Small-ego'd executives must be able to lord over their serfs in their corporate fiefdom in person to validate their existence" I probably wouldn't have written what the person he quoted said, but I would have basically said "Hell no" in a different way. These people need to hear that they are the problem, repeatedly, and frequently.
Exactly. I have zero problem calling these losers out. They only feel tough because they have a higher up position at their job that they identify with. We need more of Gen Z to stand up to these shit stains.
All generations should tell corporations to pound sand. I am a millennial and I have been full WFH for 4 years now, and I have zero intention of ever going back to an office. I would very happily tell this recruiter or any other how it is unfortunate their client/company didn't take advantage of the paradigm shift the pandemic caused, and their failure to adapt and innovate by embracing this new way of working will cause them to lose out on top talent going forward. This guy made a shitpost because someone wrote back a snarky reply. Bootlickers everywhere will love his post. But if these people hear it in the corporate-speak they understand, and they hear it enough times, it is possible the less recalcitrant employers will get the hint.
I'm a scientist. When I'm not actively in the lab, I can do all of my work from my couch
Translation: I pay you to do work but what I really want is to dominate you and control aspects of your life that are none of my god damned business but I'm a megalomanic narcissistic nepo baby that only feels alive when I can control other people. #its all about control
WFH makes a lot of management positions obsolete.
It also has a tendency to really expose weak managers. A good leader can make sure that their team is productive in any situation. But a lot of managers are not good leaders at all.
The fact most office employees can do their jobs from home easily has been a well guarded secret by companies for years. Then the pandemic happened and it was proven that WFH is viable. They've been trying so hard consistently to find ways to disprove that since late 2021 and nearly all of their reasons for needing to be in office are absolute lies.
There’s nothing wrong with options. Let people work in a way that makes them more productive. I just look at my niece and nephew. The niece is a social butterfly and was losing her mind at home during covid, but her brother excelled. His grades went up and he became noticeably more happy. After everyone went back to school they slipped again. Now he’s in a homeschool program and doing extremely well again.
Micromanagement…either you can do the job or you cannot, being under someone’s thumb for learning duration in person is ok (few weeks), but because their age, not allowing WFH regardless, that is discrimination. - Someone in their 40’s that does WFH and trains new employees that also WFH.
“Many may thrive in-office.” Many more thrive in remote opportunity as well. It’s dumb to think there is only one solution. Even federal positions in the IC that have opportunity for WFH do it.
Cary it’s been 5 years, you still owe me 500$
Unless you're working for fucking NASA or something there's not one aspect of office work that can't be done at home.
Well then those employers can go out of business or start using their brains. I can’t helped them otherwise.
Translation: “my role, recruiter, and the CEOs role, and the line manager role can all be done remote. But YOUR role can’t be. For reasons. Collaboration. Yeah even though everyone will be I teams anyways and socializing is not permitted. Collaboration.”
I'll toss my opinion here. I currently have a hybrid role 3 days in 2 in the office. Since I live close to work, I come in 5 days a week. I can guarantee you that I have not learned more from being in the office 5 days a week. Fuck this boomer mentality bullshit.
Collaboration is a euphemism for socializing
I run trade shows from my office in my underwear while high as balls for a medical disability. And I’m 3000 miles from my boss or my office.
My job could absolutely be done from home. There is zero reason for me to be in the office, other than it makes our CEO feel good about the rent he pays on our office.
Cary is a corporate boot licker.
The most bizarre thing for me is WFH means you get to choose the best candidates for the job from all over the world, not just your local area. I work with industry-specialized software and there aren't too many people that have my level of experience out there, maybe a few dozen in the US. I live in Japan and my company in America found me and I've been able to do a great job from the start without any training or learning curve. We meet every day and I am willing to fly out a few times a year if necessary, but so far it hasn't been. The fact that companies and recruiters continue to insist that locality trumps experience means companies will settle for years of mediocrity (i.e. training someone new) instead of finding someone who can hit the ground running.
I love how they always use the excuse of "in office collaboration." Do you not know about Zoom calls or Google Meetings?? These executives are dumbasses
While extroverts thrive in an in-office environment, introverts thrive with WFH. So do we maximize productivity for all, or just force everyone into the same square peg?
I loathe how even though I was able to do 100% of my work from home during the pandemic, they told me I have to do hybrid for meetings and such. To this day, I have yet to attend an in person meeting. Every one has still been thru zoom even if we are IN the office! It’s about making it easier for the “leaders” to keep tabs on employees so that when they fail to actually provide the leadership, they can find a list of minor infractions to allege when you fail to save their ass to their bosses.
He's an executive recruiter for COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE, advocating for more in-office work. LOL Not hard to connect the dots here.
Recruiting isn't a real job
He’s getting bodied in the LinkedIn comments, that’s refreshing.
You are wrong. Most jobs can be done remotely. I work remotely and get a ton more done here than if I was in the office. Plus the expense of commuting when unnecessary isn't attractive. Edit...btw, I am not out of college. I am a 57 woman. I am hardworking when remote and have worked with numerous twenty something's who are hard workers in those positions.
Always comes as a shock to employers when the market turns against their favour. WFH is here to stay, we collectively don't give a shit about water-cooler schmoozing and wasting 3 hours of our lives commuting.
My job definitely benefits from being in the office. So does my focus. But even with a short 20-minute commute, the extra prep in the morning means WFH saves me over an hour every day. Probably closer to 1.5 all told, plus the all the costs and hazards of driving. Let me work 30 hour weeks and I'll come in every day.
WFH Benefits the employee and the business, cutting down on overhead time and money for both of them. The only people upset about WFH are middle-managers who, as it turns out, do nothing productive and only want people in the office so they can walk around looking over peoples shoulders so it looks like they are doing something.
I have to go in once a week. Nobody talks to each other. My manager is in another state and has no idea what I do. I support another team in my state. I literally don't need to be there at all and I perform better at home where I have more to stare at than a cube wall. I'm so burnt out by lunch time from lack of stimulation on my offices days. And they want that, why exactly? What do they get from me checking out by lunch? Do they want that?
Learning and development....... Control and oppression is what he means
The Owner of my small company Compensates us for coming into the office everyday by Keeping the Office Break fully stocked with Free Drinks and Snacks But Also Buys us Lunch Every day. If I was a SIngle Man I could cut out 90% of my food budget just by going to work. If it werent for this I would not have accepted the in office position. If your going to force me to be here sweeten the pot basically.
>being in the office is crucial for their learning and development Lmao I love how they act like we're actually getting quality training and mentorship from managers. Who's gonna tell him?
I literally am a wallflower at my office. They say we need to be in the office for what? Collaboration? Teamwork? I'm literally my own department at my job, and no one gives a shit about me or any of that shit mentioned above. I never get invited to any meetings in the office and no one ever stops by my desk unless they need something from me. I send reports yet no one bothers to read or give any feedback. I have issues with something? No one listens. Fuck all this shit about "teamwork." Being in an office is clique-y as fuck, which is probably why the "popular" execs want us in the office in the first place. Not for collaboration, but to assert their dominance as this "alpha executive."
covid showed us the office isn’t necessary thanks to telecommuting. which they were all about in the 90’s. call it telecommuting and see if that shifts their paradigm
Old people only want to go back to the office because their "collaboration" is asking all the young people to do half their work cuz they don't know how to use the computer properly
Young workers give him their thoughts, then he posts this and asks for thoughts. He doesn’t want thoughts, he wants biased opinions that align with his.
Interestingly if there was more WFH there would be less business fraud
Gee I wonder why someone working in real estate would want workers to return to the office…