Working From Home Megathread

I mean just comparing a normal day going in or staying at home.

Going in

Gone before the kid is gone to school.

Dog is in the house alone from 8 till 6.

Rush home and try cook, do homework, spend time with the kid and walk a depressed dog.

Get much less work done as their are far too many distractions.

So basically a dog neglected, less time with family, exhaustion, stress and commuting money.

Working at Home

Spend the morning with the kid and drop off at school.

Use my breaks to walk the dog and prepare dinner.

More time in the evening with the family.

More work done without needless distractions.

So basically a happy family, happy dog, more money, less stress and more productive at work.

Then the office is open to anyone who wants to go in their every day.

I go in 1 day and I pointed the reason to my manager on why I am not getting as much done in a week as I used too.

I think depending on your situation at home, the office might be a preferred choice.

Younger people may not have the set up at home or are more likely to want to socialise.

Elderly people or people with no kids may like to go in to socialise.

People with young kids and who need to do so many things during a day just find it so much easier at home.

The good thing is everyone has a choice to what suits their circumstances.

We all got on with it before Covid, but this is a different world, and it's hard to justify bringing people who don't want to go back.

Forcing people back will reduce morale and performance will drop and people will leave to go somewhere who allows them to work in a way that suits them.

I've been WFH 95% of the time since the beginning of the pandemic, and I'm pretty sick of it now, to be honest. At the same time, I love the flexibility and no commute. I think for my own sanity I need a hybrid role. I feel quite isolated a lot of the days and I don't think video calls makes up for normal human interaction. It doesn't help that my colleagues are quite boring, in my opinion, ha. Maybe it's just finally time for a change all round!

Does anyone else feel like their attitude to work and career in general has changed a lot since the pandemic? I've been thinking a lot recently about the meaning of work in our lives. It seems really hard to find an interesting job where you work hard, but without killing yourself as a lot of jobs these days seem to come with risk of burnout.

As someone hybrid (fighting a full 5 day return) I personally find the office a much worse place to work to be honest. I much prefer working at home, more productive overall (while actually working less) and just less of a chore. Even when on-site the vast majority of our calls are done online anyway even when there are a few of us in the same room as there is always other sites or fully remote people involved (even excluding calls with external clients). I find this better anyway as its easier share screens etc or get your point across and on calls you are only listening (which I end up on a lot) I can keep working away on other stuff while listening in - I've grown to really dislike meeting room meetings. That being said I have lots of interaction at home - wife works from home, family close by that I see during the day, kids are around some days so I don't find it isolating or this type of thing.

With that all being said I do have parts of my role that requires interaction with production and hardware development areas that do require semi-regular onsite presence so fully remote is not an option in my current role.

Ideally I would like to come in only on the days I specifically need to be there - that is probably 1 or 2 days most weeks but could be 5 days on occasion and no days reasonably often. Instead I have been doing 2 fixed days at home (moving around things to suit this) while having to come in days where I sit all day on calls due to it being a WFO day. To make matters worse we are under mounting pressure to be in the office 5 days per week every week which I am losing sleep over I find it that stressful a prospect.

The push back to the office has finally come. Expected to be back minimum 2 days a week, I did 3 days then following week I done 1. It is not entirely monitored yet.

One thing going for me is my manager or team doesn't work in my office so I can't see her jumping on my case if I only get 1 of those days!. At least I can still pick my days and I'll try Mondays as its quite and Fridays with the same logic. If they happen to fall on a public holiday that's not my problem 🤷

It was and even changed to make it stronger but I still think it has no teeth and is easily got around by an employer leaving little to fight them on it bar going nuclear like the WRC which you might as well leave rather than do in this case.

Same here. I find key players are left alone to work fully remote (from wherever they want) or hybrid. My own wife's company has recalled a load of staff back to the office, but herself and a few others have just been quietly ignored and let carry on remote. Very handy during the summer with the kids where she can work from anywhere and extend the holidays by a few weeks.

Ah, I see. That's unfortunate. Some companies can't shake that factory floor attitude I'm afraid. OR… people are taking the piss. However, you mention line managers being fully remote, so maybe the shift has changed towards the key players and you're simply not one of them. Would you aspire to be a line manager or (like me) you're not interested in managing people.

I cant understand how in this day and age that a manager needs staff in an office to make sure they are not slacking on the work.

You are literally assigned work and your manager can see how you are performing.

If you had new hires and you wanted team members to come in to help out at the start, then fair enough.

If a manager is looking for people back in the office a few days a week, I can only assume it's because they need to make it look like they do something.

You are literally assigned work and your manager can see how you are performing.

Managers have now had several years to observe whether meeting expected speed targets is the only measure that matters.

It looks like they've concluded that it's not, and that there are other less quantifiable factors that influence overall rganisational performance.

Who'd have every guessed!

Where I've worked, it's often been the middle management in different private companies or agencies and public sector organisations who have been free (or had the responsibility) to make local arrangements with remote working. Years before lock down.

Even now our policy is it has to be signed off by the line manager. They can nix it if they require it.

Its not much different to organising shifts or holidays, or leave. Anything really.

What are these other less quantifiable factors?

It would be interesting to see how large multinationals might suffer compared to others.

There's a whole industry devoted to putting check boxes and objectives , targets achieved, customer ratings, satisfaction, retention, staff culture surveys, on anything and everything.

October 2023 I started a job and was told 1-2 days a month in the office.

January 3rd 2024, we got a new CTO who said in his inauguration speech that he despises WFH and was now mandating 3+ days a week in the office. I wonder did he co-write the book "how to lose friends and alienate people".

Of course then the predictable happened, lots of people showed up to the office and there werent enough desks for everyone. People who had travelled in from Portarlington, ended up sitting at one of the tables in the canteen, on a chair less comfortable than their home office at home.

My line manager lives in Denmark and has told me she doesnt care if I go to the office or not.

The point is, unless it is written into your contract, the employer can change their policy on remote working at any point.