Working From Home Megathread

Give over pal, I am not on any high horse.

There is this old world belief in this thread that every company is trying to replace you with some poor Indian lad who you trained and you had no choice because the big boss told you so, and you have to fall into line or else...

Most companies just don't do that at all, some out source of course, but some don't as well. The idea that you have no choice in the matter as well is laughable.

If you yourself knew that this was happening to you, would you happily go along with it? Really?

I work in tech/software. So the idea that you would be made redundant, but then expected to train your replacement is laughable, especially in my industry.

You can go above and beyond in your duties outlined in your contract of work to a degree. However, training a replacement for the role you are being let go from/made redundant from is a big stretch on that front.

An employer can have leeway in a contract, so can an employee.

I hate to break it to you, but this scenario sounds like something from the 1950's, where you were expected to work on weekends for free or you lose your job. Employees have rights, and plenty of access to legal backing to exercise them as well.

There are none so blind as those who just won't see.

Says the person who says they trained their own replacement twice now...

Totally agree.

I think we will see a big reshape on things relating to offices and so on over the next few years. Offices and leases are a large part of budgets as we know, remote work helps cut that and also (depending on the company) they can hire in other cities which is a benefit for companies and workers.

The hot desk solution I think has merit. My company does that, you use an app to book a desk and you are set to go. Each desk has the same set up and arrangement and you just plug and play.

Ok, I will give you that that mentoring and training are the same, however in design circles it is not formal training as it can be subjective and dependant on what kind of design as well. It is not the same as training someone with plumbing etc.

And if I was asked to train or mentor a junior, I would want that reflected in my job title. Plus, training or mentoring a junior is far far different than training someone to replace you at your job, I hope you know the difference in there.

No no, I was never suggesting I wouldn't be training or mentoring a younger designer, apologies if it came across that way.

What I was saying was I would never be training a direct replacement for my role if that scenario arouse (as some seem to have said they have in this thread). I am not ever going to do that, for a fee or otherwise.

And I mention the training part in relation to design as you don't really hear it said that way. You don't "train" as designer in the same way as you do with other professions. It is a very subjective career choice, there are basics you can learn about some of it, but you aren't trained in the traditional sense. For example, everyone in my class at DIT would submit vastly different approaches to certain projects. So one would be photography based, one would be drawing based, one would be typography based. None are the right approach, but the execution of it is what is focused on. And again, it is all subjective.