I recently switched jobs from a company with a “soft” hybrid work requirement to a fully-remote position with a company that doesn’t enforce any office attendance policy. As a neurodivergent introvert, remote work is a comfortable thing for me, and I’ve got a good setup for it.
I took a trip across the state to be in-office for a couple days of meetings recently, and I was honestly kinda surprised to find that the lack of an office attendance policy had kinda killed the company culture. Even on peak attendance days, the office is maybe 1/4 full, silent as a tomb, and basically without value for collaborative work because the people you need to talk to probably aren’t there. I went home from my trip feeling quite a bit worse about my new job, which was kinda the opposite of what was intended.
I didn’t like being in-office at my old job, exactly, but I did really like my team, and enjoyed the conversations and banter we had. I’m fortunate to be working for a good employer that doesn’t see the need to enforce an in-person work policy, but it’s a little sad to realize that not having that policy means that the office as a place to work together with people is functionally dead.
I had a similar experience but a different view than you. My last job had no in person requirements but we had an office for people who chose to go.
I did a couple times a week for a few months, and it was actually pleasant, because I knew the people that were there chose to be there. I would socialize with them knowing that they actively wanted to be in a space with coworkers to socialize.
Normally I’d be hesitant to strike up a conversation with someone from a different team in the office because there’s a decent chance they just want to put their head down and work because they don’t want to be there and would rather be working from home, keeping communications strictly to what’s necessary.
Sometimes I would feel less social for weeks or months and wouldn’t go into the office. It was nice to have the option to do both.
You are not wrong about the lack of corporate culture. But at the end of the day, is that worth giving up family time, company of your pets, a corner office of your choosing, with access to your own fridge and amenities, being able to receive people at the door at reasonable hours, and not having to commute asinine hours?
Many people will reject that notion.
But here’s the kicker: companies don’t care about your well being. They only care about the bottom line. What incentive do they have to cater to your needs? None, other than the minimum for employee retention.
This idea of “team building” is just smoke and mirrors. An excuse to not have to admit the real reason: adapting away from buts-in-seats as a performance measure is hard.
Don’t get me wrong, either – I’m not at all in favor of mandatory RTO policies, and that team that I loved at my old employer is now scattered to the winds as a result of layoffs and related attrition. The corporate arm of that company had nothing to do with how well my team meshed and worked together (though I will give lots of credit to my immediate boss there – I went to work at that company to work with her specifically, and she was one of the best managers one could ever ask for), and I suspect we’d have all agreed to be in-office together one or two days a week even without the RTO mandate. But it’s been hard to get integrated at this new place of work, and I was looking forward to this trip as a way to start connecting with coworkers, only to find out none of them actually turned up to the office anyway. Without the company making a specific effort to bridge the gap, I think that remote work can become really isolating and reinforce existing cliques and teams to the detriment of those who join up later on.
“Return to the office.”
Uh… There aren’t actually enough facilities here at the office because you downsized after the pandemic.
“Return to the office now.”
Ok, can I get a dedicated seat so I don’t have to adjust my monitor for 10 minutes every time I come in?
“No, there aren’t enough seats for everyone to have one.”
Oh…ok…
But there are lots of roles in this office, can I please move to a team in this location, or at least work from this location instead?
“No, return to your assigned office”
10 minutes is rookie numbers. You gotta unpack the standing desk, under desk treadmill, pink gaming chair, kneeling chair, second and third monitors, clamps, cables, coffee warmer, family photos, keyboard, mouse, tarot cards, incense, bobblehead, giant water jug. Ideally, by the time you finish, it’s about time to start packing it up again.
You’re right, it’s five minutes now. You can request another 5 minutes from HR for a full tea ceremony.
Damn, I just rotate one vertical and then sort through the USBC until I find the one that actually works.
/me takes notes
My work literally has people in the cafeteria and food courts with their laptops because we don’t have enough seats for everyone.
That will help foster a sense of community and teamwork. Thank you for your attention. Please return to your cafeteria seat.
Sincerely,
Your Manager
PS. We’ve been receiving noise complaints from employees with offices near the cafeteria, outside of lunch hours. Please keep the noise in that area to a minimum out of respect for your peers.
It’s funny because I know you don’t work at my company but those are word for word the messages we get constantly as we continue to lose IT people and specialists
Business Innovation™
That’s where the innovation happens, didn’t you read the memo?
We are getting ready to have to RTO next week. Buy every single person on my team was hired after the company went fully remote and only 4 of us out of 14 are near an office to return to. So, we get to drive in rush hour traffic there and back, not have enough seats/monitors and may not get to be near pur team members that ARE there, and still have to be on Teams calls all day because the majority of our team is is spread out across the country and internationally. They won’t even have the cafeteria operational yet, nor is it big enough to seat everyone. They will have one coffee shop that “serves lunch items”, but we’ll have ~1000 people in the building trying to get lunch and i’ve never see a coffee shop serve more than one or two sandwiches a minute. So…
Also, the nice thing is that they pulled back the original 4 day in office requirement to only 2 days. However, the only reason for that is because they realized they literally cannot get everyone in the building at once and it’s not even close. So, I’m not filled with confidence on the logistics of this.
The executive: “yeah yeah, I made 1000 peoples lives more miserable, but at least I get to keep my job.”
Fucking useless…
At my workplace, executives get bonuses for how well they implement RTO. It’s written in their performance agreements. Guess who has all the RTO exemptions?
I started a new job at this manufacturing plant. New supervisor is threatening everyone at the morning meeting that if you look at your phone for ANY reason he will write you up. See him walk by on his phone smiling not 10 minutes later. 🙄 The little shit walks around like a damn prison guard trying to catch people like they’re in highschool cheating on a test. Then if you’re idle for more than a minute he’ll try to find some bullshit for you to do. He also micromanages things to the point that it hurts production because he has no idea what he’s talking about he just wants people to look like they’re busy.
The engineers that designed the production line are a bunch of dickheads too. They didn’t put enough of a buffer zone between areas and the later part of the line runs slower than the first half. Their solution is to make the workers take widgets off the line by hand and then put them on again if the backend goes down.
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My employer sold the our office. Ownership seems to like profit more than control.
This is functionally true IMO. There are exceptions to this, like if you need to interact with the public (not over the phone) or equipment, as part of your job. Machine operators, desk service people, etc…
For anyone primarily working with data, it’s not a requirement to be in one place or any place specifically.
For me, I work IT support as a service to other companies. My clients are usually not consistent in terms of where they are and even if they’re geographically similar in location, they’re usually not the busiest clients nor do I ever have a full day of work for any of them to justify me going to their site. The past few jobs I’ve had use remote tools to access client systems, and more than 90% of the time, I don’t need to leave my chair to do my job. I feel like that’s the line. If the vast majority of your job can be done without leaving your chair, then working remotely is not only valid, but should be the default.
There’s nothing special about going to a common place and sitting with your co-workers to do your jobs entirely from your chairs. Their chair isn’t special, and nothing at the office is better or more beneficial to my work when I’m doing it. Sitting at the office doesn’t make me work harder or better than I do at home.
I left my last job at the right time. I have friends still working there and they’ve reported that the hybrid work that was in place for years after COVID, was being retired and management expects that everyone is in office 100% of the time so we can sit in their crappy chairs (and they were crappy), and use their crappy computers (and they were crappy), to do the same work.
My new position doesn’t even have an office. It’s a relatively new company, I think they were founded around the time COVID started, maybe a bit before, I’m not sure, and as far as I know, they’ve never had an office. Everyone is 100% remote 100% of the time (except when doing site visits, which is fairly rare). I like it a lot more than the old job. There’s a long story why I no longer work there which isn’t relevant, but the hybrid policy, and the management’s obvious preference to have people in office, was keeping me one-foot-out-the-door. Other circumstances give me reason to suggest that my friends who still work there should vacate, but again, that’s not related to the hybrid/WFH situation.
IMO, any job where you can do basically all of your work “from a chair” and isn’t regarding some machinery or device that cannot be moved for some reason, should be remote… At least, as an option. I don’t begrudge anyone for wanting to work from an office. I’m not that kind of person and that makes me different from them. We’re different, and that’s ok. Any employer who forces one or the other on people who could work either way, is doing themselves and their employees, a disservice. Good people will go walking if you don’t let them choose. My company doesn’t provide a choice because we don’t have an office to work from; I get it. People who like in office environments need not apply. They’re up front about it. Meanwhile other employers shield themselves behind “hybrid” as a buzzword, and bluntly, do not provide any context on job searches for what that looks like at that company. Is it one day a week in office? Is it one day a week WFH? Is it something in between? Do you get to choose your own adventure with WFH, or is it dictated to you by your employer? What does hybrid even mean anymore? It’s a useless buzzword. So when I saw the listing for my current job which said it was a “fully remote position” I jumped. I’m way better for it.
Other people will want different things. Taking the choice away from them only breeds resentment. That leads to turnover, and the cycle continues. It’s why I wanted to leave my last job, it’s why I am happier in my new job.
I’m pretty sure that’s worse, but I have managed to never see an episode of The Teletubbies, so I could be wrong.
Edit: Fun Fact, the Teletubby Sun Baby is currently expecting her first child. Judging by when she announced to the media, the kid will be here by July
Teletubbies are peak stopgap pedagogy. Lots of scientific backing.
Wait, hear me out. The whole show is set up so that you have repetitions of the same thing said at different levels of language acquisition so small kids can identify with whichever tubbie is at their level, look down a bit on the ones below that, and up to the ones above it (it goes all the way from pretty much baby speech to full adult). Thus their minds can climb the ladder.
Under normal circumstances that kind of setup is present in a child’s environment – differently-aged kids and adults, either in the family or neighbourhood, they get plenty of exposure. Now enter capitalism, alienation and atomisation and small kids get parked in front of the TV which might speak to them at a language level they aren’t at, and can’t react to them either, by translating their baby speech to more adult speech. Along come the Teletubbies, making sure that those kids at least have a resemblance of language skill once they reach school age.
And all that so the US can cut billionaire taxes to avoid paying for universal free daycare. Not that it should be taken off the air, also countries without that fucked of a situation air it because it doesn’t hurt anyone and might help the occasional kid and the rest are merely entertained, but it’s specifically the US combination of atrocious child rearing conditions (can’t even play with other kids because you can’t roam suburbia because that would get the parents arrested), combined with enough university resources to come up with the Teletubbies that, well, created the Teletubbies.
I have managed to never see an episode of The Teletubbies
I tried once. You haven’t missed much. Or maybe I’m not young and hip enough to get it.
Stop making me old! I can be young as long everyone works together to say 1999 was last year. And we can all believe we’ll be able to start up a tech company to get rich!
I was born in 1980, so that’s fine with me
Honestly why else keep wages low and people occupied with busy work? It’s a social control structure. We’re not improving anything substantial.
You think corporations keep people on doing busywork just for social control? They can and will fire every single one of them the second that job is automatable. They want control over their workers, but they’d rather pay for a robot to do it instead if they can. Robots don’t cost them payroll tax.
Or that’s their excuse while they’re simply making life difficult for their opposition.
what are the white boxes
Locks.
Yeah but - in fairness, a lot of people who work from home are taking advantage of their situation. I’m not one of them, I’m retired now but I know people who “work from home” by going shopping most of the day and then maybe doing 1 or 2 hours actual work.
Just sayin.’
Fair point. It happens, but sadly often this in the meme is the company culture we are returning to.
I had one shitty colleague who was taking naps during work hours and then working in the evening when all of us have headed home, so he makes decisions we never agreed on and surprises us in the morning.
I think his problem may have had more to do with him being an asshole rather than the working from home policy. But it sure as hell made it easier for him to get away with this behaviour behind a screen.
Well it’s hard to sympathize when you’ve only ever worked in a company culture. (AND by the way, always 8 to 5…do people really work 9 to 5 and why have I never had such a job??). I never had the option to work from home, and in a way I’m glad because I know it would have been 92 percent playing on the computer and maybe 3 percent work and 5 percent going to the bathroom to pee.
So i see where employers are coming from in wanting to get back to the office environment again. It is almost impossible to track what workers are really doing from home, especially if they are actually taking naps and then doing asshole things in the evening that ruin your work life the next day!
People acting like you can’t fire bad employees just because they work from home.
Ok then.
It’s impossible to track workers at work too though… Everyone is whereever to do whatever. At least in Europe.
True, it’s not easy no matter where you are.
I think the lack of monitoring can be helpful to employees: rather than breathing over their necks (whether physically or digitally), you should enable them to make their own decisions, hold them responsible for them, and give them ownership over their own work. A someone who’s been working non-stop since university, the only places where I truly thrive and want to take most responsibility are the places that don’t police me, the places that are transparent but not intruding.
Maybe working from home is one way to achieve this. Having good online etiquette when using stuff like Slack or Discord can mitigate problems that arise from physical distance. Out to do an urgent shopping task? Fine, just say so on your Discord status! Then you become visible to everyone without having to be in the same room or building.
Well that’s true also. I always preferred a work environment where I was trusted to do what I was hired to do and then left to do it without people “helicoptering” over me monitoring me all the time. Although to be honest, I’ve rarely had that kind of freedom.
I too have thrived more in those environments where I’m trusted and not overly criticized or policed all the time. But, I wasn’t one to slack off if I was left to my own devices, I always took the reigns and did the work that needed doing.
It’s a different world today and with many more employees working from home, the idea of using Discord or something similar to handle situations where you need to away for a time or unreachable for a time seems like a great idea to me!
That’s a potentially failure of management to provide adequate work or oversight. Or the person is being paid based on output and not “ass in seat” time. Either way, the company is clearly ok enough with it not to say anything to the employee, so fuck it and do what you have to for your check and skate the rest of the way.
I think it’s true that some of it is failure of management for work oversight, but the “just skate and get by” mentality is actually unfair to the employer. I mean one person said to me, “Why can’t I go shop and go to my appointments, it’s not my fault those businesses are only open during the day.”
That’s true, but when you commit to work for an employer, you know what your work hours are expected to be. I had to do it too, working the daily grind in an office for decades, and if I needed to go to a doctor’s or dentist’s appoint, I’d let my employer know and ask for the time off.
Yeah it sucks and it’s not total freedom or a license to skate through life, but that’s just the way it is when you have a job.
“just skate by” = do what I’ve been paid to do. When I was younger I hustled and put a lot extra in and as I got older I realised it was a waste of time, got me nowhere and added a lot of stress to my life.
I do what in paid to do, I do it well, but I’m not doing anymore than that and neither should anyone have to
Not all jobs are measured by time spent on the clock, so no it doesn’t have to be that way. Many jobs can and should be measured by simply meeting productivity requirements. A parking attendants job is being present on shift because that is a requirement of that job. But a programmer’s job is to create software that performs a certain way. There is no time requirement of the product there.
Just cause you suffered your way through it doesn’t mean you should encourage others to do the same.
Okey dokey.
the “just skate and get by” mentality is actually unfair to the employer
Yeah, and the vast difference between productivity increases and that of wages over the last 40 years is even more fair to the employees. Sorry if I don’t cry about how unfair it is to the employer when an employee does the bare minimum to get paid. And I say that for both RFH and in person positions.
That’s true, but when you commit to work for an employer, you know what your work hours are expected to be
And you’re assuming that they’re not meeting those core requirements. Apparently they’re meeting their employer’s expectations on work output/availability, so why do you care? Some of us that work from home have great flexibility and can just go to appointments and have our managers be ok with that. Hell, I’ve had in person gigs that felt the same. I got my stuff done and ran the errands that needed run.
Ok.
I know people who spend their entire day at the office shopping on Amazon, walking around and socializing, playing games on their computer, drinking, or doing a whole long list of non-work related stuff. Hell, I’ve worked places where it seemed like most people spent more time pretending to look busy than actually doing anything productive.
It tends to be worse at places where the only metrics are “butts in seats.” This problem – and it’s only really a problem if expectations aren’t being met – is unrelated to remote work and is a result of poor leadership.
I’ve worked in places where that’s exactly what people did, shopped on Amazon and socialized 99 percent of the time. I agree that it’s also a leadership issue, and that you’re right, employees will slack off as much as possible whenever possible.
Bentham pilled.
Haha jk that’s just life in general, not the office - we all live in the digital panopticon
Why does work now reminds me of psychiatric institutions, jail, residential schools and slavery all at once?
Because the good is all supplied by the same company?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon for those curious about the lower part of the image.
A visitor… Mmmm… Indeed. I have slept long enough. The kingdom of Heaven has long since forgotten my name, and I am EAGER to make them remember.
Bajoran workers, your attention please. Your attempt to seize control of this facility is going to fail. You are valuable workers, and we wish you no harm. However, if you do not return control of this unit to your Cardassian supervisors, we will be forced to take action. You have eight minutes to make your decision.
This was the moment that everyone realized that Ellen was a massive piece of shit. Like, Dukat? Have you no shame?
What do you mean? He saved Bajor. Honestly, they should be building statues of him. /s
