Now this is a valid concern. Although, I will say that the employees in question that are whining aren’t doing so because they have to come back 5 days a week, but even so only when they have to come back 1-3 times a week, which is still vastly “more work from home” compared to the past and beneficial for the environment.
I’m a white collar worker, and I reject the premise that having to go into the office should be classified as legitimate “suffering”.
I mean this entirely vindicates the Boomers’ observation of how entitled and soft generations afterwards have become if this is being taken seriously as unjust suffering to the point where it’s being treated as a labor movement.
Previous generations who fought against actual workplace abusive issues would be embarrassed and cringe so hard, I imagine.
First, my sympathies go out to people that really took a hit from the pandemic. I am fully aware what it’s like to absolutely have to show up to work. I’ve done the work. From construction to installing sprinkler systems. I’ve been there.
Now, I’m a GIS programmer/analyst.
Pre COVID our IS department was sort of a mixed bag of who could choose to work from home. Sys Admins did so about half the time. They where able to set up the connectivity they needed to do it. Sort of pissed me off, since there is no reason for me to be in the office.
So, I wrote a rather pissy email to my boss and grand boss on Friday March 13th 2020. I got admonished for it a bit on that day. Then on that Sunday I got a call saying that the office was closing down due to COVID. I’ve been working from home ever since.
My home workstation was getting a bit long in the tooth, so I bought a new one. I needed more screen real estate, so I bought a 43 inch curved monitor. Internet connection was bad so I bought Starlink satallite dish/service, some additional climbing gear and set the dish. That’s on my dime.
It’s working great. Face to face meetings are not needed. I’m actually getting to know the team better. I may be a special case though, since I much, much prefer the written word, I’m hard of hearing (getting mumbled at from someone in another cube was frustrating).
I’ve talked to another programmer on staff about this. He is also working from home. We are MORE available, not less. I used to work 7am to 3:30pm. And I was out. Now I start around 6:30am and work to 4 or 5pm. It’s much easier for me to keep an eye on stuff and work off hours when I need to do system work/shut things down. The hours to be able to do that are being looked at. Looks like It’s gonna be between 9pm and 3am. Why should I drive to the office? I’ve got an office, right here. Totally pointless.
For myself, I save 2 hours a day not having to commute. 1000 miles a month on the road just to get to work and back (25 miles one way).
I have a corner office/cube at work. One of the nicest ones (I’ve been with same company for 29 years). So no complaints there. But I have a great set up at home in a loft over our master bedroom. As a programmer, and living in the mountains, nobody dresses up for work. I wear the same exact clothes at home that I did when I went into work. So no change there.
TPTB have sent out a questionnaire about remote work. In our sub group of GIS staff three of four would like a hybrid situation. I prefer to just work from home. They are welcome to split up my cube in any way they want. I’m pretty sure this will happen.
So the plan is to consolidate, and share some space. I do not want to hot cube. No way. Been there done that decades ago (different company, 24/7 shop). The entire office was constantly sick.
My thanks go out to all that did their jobs. From doctors to grocery workers. All of which was desperately needed.
I did my job too. Just from home. Proved it for over a year.
For a lot of office work, the pandemic has revealed that it is indeed time for a change in work habits. Many offices can have the computer jockeys come in only part of the time or not at all. Software developers are a great example. But a lot of Customer Service Reps and a wide variety of other jobs can be done from home.
This can result in less need for workers to live in expensive cities & suburbs. It also means many companies can reduce the office space they need to maintain.
Change is not bad, this wouldn’t be a bad change and if some Reddit users sound whiney in their complaints, it doesn’t diminish the fact that there are real benefits to the workers and companies.
Years ago when I entered the professional workforce, we were still in suits but over the next decade business casual became the norm. This was greeted by some as terrible and showed Gen X were really slackers or some such thing. Well, it hasn’t hurt productivity and was a free benefit for companies to give.
“…in that great seafood market know as…the Twilight Zone.”
Stranger
My only real problem in actuality with this change is if everyone is forced to be 100% remote since there are many that do thrive much better working in an office particularly when they don’t have a living situation hospitable for work at home, particularly young and/or single professionals living in a one bedroom apartment.
And those who do well in a social setting, and I see many in the 100% remote crowd dismiss such concerns as well or accuse the person voicing that of being an annoying coworker - which just seems unhealthily asocial and cynical.
And in some sense, companies would be passing the buck on the employees in this respect if they were to entirely stop providing an office for such employees to work in.
The contract specifies where the phone is picked up?
Your sales guy sucks.
Most bigger companies will probably be flexible. Some will be arbitrary and shitty about it. The nature of things.
My wife is looking forward to going back to the office. But working from home part of the week will always be on the table for her. Nice to have the flexibility. She’s lucky.
I’m between jobs currently, for almost a year. In all likelihood when I find something it will be remote contract work. So I don’t really have a stake in this argument but I can really see where Work from Home will be a lot more common post pandemic than pre.
I don’t much agree with the tone of the OP. Employment is a contract of mutual consent, if a large portion of an industry demands work from home, and in-demand workers are willing to leave jobs that don’t offer it, the employer has to decide on how to respond. That’s simple economics, and I feel zero sympathy for employers, or blue collar workers. Different people have different career paths, and obviously a large number of jobs will simply never be doable remotely, some will always require at least partial on premise work.
But in the software field for example most developers can find a new job in around a week of job searching, regularly have to block recruiters phone numbers due to constant phone calls, get 20 emails a week from recruiters pitching jobs etc, and a decent % of these jobs are being offered remote. In that industry the company’s that are totally inflexible on officer vs remoting, are going to lose some skilled workers. Some companies are going to be fine with that, some won’t be.
I actually think that when it is possible, teleworking is a societal benefit in most cases. Permanent telework will help encourage at least some people to live a little bit away from the absolute urban centers of the super high cost tech cities, which is a societal good. People needlessly commuting contributes to pollution and wasted life hours. Unnecessary office parks take up space that could be zoned residential, things of that nature.
I’ll also add that employers have steadily made offices worse to work in since the 1970s. There’s been a lot of studies showing the environment where people work most effectively in an office–and it’s in private offices where they have the freedom to shut out distractions when needed, but are only an open door away from interacting with coworkers as needed. Cubicles actually came about because they provided at least some privacy in office layouts where everyone having a private office just wasn’t feasible or realistic. But then the “open office” floor plan, which eliminated cubicles, privacy, and most personal space, and which are widely hated by employees, largely exist for $ reasons and are shown to be deleterious to productivity and job satisfaction. The fact that at many large companies even VP level employees have to work in open offices is in no small part linked to why people don’t like going to the office any longer.
Well, when that happens at my work, I’ll come back and say you were right.
One size does not fit all.
Well, if we all stay home, our employees never get to eat at the great restaurants out of town, and expense them, and the customer never gets to come out to AZ and play golf on their expense account. But we get just as much done. The only losers are the airlines, rental cars, hotels, restaurants and golf courses.
You can give a three-day project status powerpoint remotely just as well as in person.
Totally get that. One of my coworkers was going a bit nuts working from home. Both her and her husband worked from home. They have a five year old child. And day care got shut down. She, her husband and young daughter in a 2 bedroom townhouse. Difficult to set up two separate office spaces, especially with a five year old bouncing off the walls. Crazy town.
My Wife and I are DINKS. And had enough space to set up office space. My Wife did get called back to work, and is fine with it. I sure don’t want to go back to the office. It would be really, really dumb.
No one in my group is going to be required to work from home.
I don’t mind going back. I just wish I didn’t have to wear a bra, and shoes. Pants I can live with.
Forced ‘team building’ crap at work is far worse. No, I don’t really want to go play paintball after work, but I know exactly how ‘optional’ it is. And, I don’t need to play two truths and a lie in some dumb meeting to do my work better.
Agree 100%. I’m 60 years old. I have plenty of friends. It may be better for younger folks. But not for me. Sledding after work in 10 degrees? Thanks but no. I have things to do.
I suspect that varying levels of experience leading to corresponding levels of “cynicism”* is one of the fault lines at play.
*“The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it.” – George Bernard Shaw
Which is why I’m surprised that primarily the young are advocating for it. Like for an older person with an established social life and fully developed career, it seems a lot less advantageous than going in compared to for young people.
Yet it’s primarily the young who don’t want to go back.
That sounds similar to depressed people asserting that they’re simply describing reality when they’re just being negative (to no fault of their own, I realize it’s an illness).
White collar office worker here and I certainly have nothing to complain about. I work for a fairly large global company that, if anything, should be setting the standard for how things should have been run. I personally have no problem returning to the office but then, my commute is either a 50 min walk, 20 min bike ride, or a 30 min bus ride, none of which are really a pain.
We will be shortly returning but we’ve been allowed to opt in to a desired days per week/days at home ratio. My only problem with going back is that we’ve transitioned to a hoteling model that will impose an annoying logistical cost on me, but that’s workable.
I would say that I could do 95% of my work remotely, with the other 5% being certain meetings in which a whiteboard would be so, so helpful.
Wow, what a condescending, pissy little bitch you still are.
“Ugh, why are depressed people so depressed? Why can’t they just be happy?”
-You