Working From Home

it's also like, you have to be able to pass a certain threshold to "act rich" in the sense of being cultured, things that make that possible are having gone to the right school and being sexy / desirable in some way. not trying to shade you or yours as we all work with what we have but i feel like sometimes we don't realize our own advantages. which doesn't mean that we also don't have our own disadvantages either.

it's ultimately wild to me that wfh has, as far as i can tell, been the biggest contributor to traveling feeling like you're just wading through endless throngs of people.

We're supposed to go back in mid March - almost exactly two years since most of us have set foot in the office. In the last two years we've had a ton of churn. A bunch of people have 1+ years under their belt and haven't been in the office. Though we're coming back in a hybrid scheme, and return on the day of re-opening is optional, team leaders are being pressured by upper management to encourage a strong showing. They think our culture is one of the big draws and has been missing these past few years.

I think the hybrid model is lose/lose for management: They are still paying the same price for the same office space, but have less team cohesion, poor visibility on the workforce many days of the week, and now a bunch of scheduling complications for meetings. Everybody wants Monday and Friday off -- oops, I meant to work from home those days. Only thing is now that those are the only days home; they'll save all of their little personal errands they were peppering throughout the week for those two days. Or, like, the article says, spend half or more of them traveling to the mountains to go skiing or whatever. I don't see a lot getting done those days.

I suspect companies are all watching to see what other companies are doing. If big Employers of Choice start eliminating the hybrid model after nine months, the smaller ones will too, and each that follows will diminish the threat of employees leaving for greener pastures.

My office is a fairly dilapidated hell-hole. My friends have mostly left in the past few years, whatever "culture" we once had I am not a part of anymore, I've become used to picking my kid up from school every day, and the thought of going back to losing hours out of my day and hundreds out of my check to commute there fills me with dread and loathing. But, whatever.

He anticipates this will lead to demands for shorter work weeks for those mandatory in-person jobs.

Assuming we're talking about legitimately shorter work weeks (e.g. going from 37.5h across 5 days to 30h across 4 days as opposed to compressed work week bs where you cram a full work week into four days) most people can't afford the commensurate drop in pay. And only the most fringe employers will shift their entire staff to a four-day week with no cut to salary. I like to think that if unions had a strong presence maybe things could head towards shorter weeks for everyone but I might be living in the past, man

At least the article does acknowledge that a majority of people can't work from home. Too many of these sort of pieces in the last two years have made it seem like wfh is the norm when it definitely isn't. UK stat is something like 37% of people did some days at home during pandemic. And then within that 37% there will be people who don't want to wfh all the time or whose jobs don't really allow for it long-term, let alone the spatial variation (e.g. higher wfh rate in London, and within London likely higher wfh rate in places like Wimbledon, Hampstead, Twickenham). I've just assumed that people writing these articles, and probably their peers, are in that 37% bubble and they've just lost perspective. That's not to downplay the impact of wfh on cities, which I've spent the majority of my own (wfh) job analysing over the last two years so I know it's important, just something I've found irritating.

Anyway fuck commuting, I want wfh as a rule and office by exception

there is definitely a wide range of compensation in terms of the category of mandatory in-person jobs. While the lowest paid / most exploited workers are in the mandatory in-person category, there are people in the building trades that do quite well for themselves. These articles definitely have a "target audience" and "target subject" that are somewhat exclusive. It's "interesting" to me what types of labor are excluded.

as for me, pre-pandemic, I would have clients come to my home office and do in person appointments, which would sometimes mean the morning mad dash of tidying and the panic-inducing doorbell buzzing when I'm still in my pajamas ... and now, it is way more relaxing even though my housekeeping has fallen to shit and I often feel like a feral child.

Man my house is much more tidy thanks to WFH. And way more meals cooked from home. It is working great for me as a partnered 48 year old who had long since transitioned from work-based/work-tangential social group (also happy hours, shows, clubs) to non-work social group (and cessation of partying ways), but damn I know that WFH would have really sucked at an earlier time in my life.

one thing that does bug me about WFH is how sometimes feedback is received much better in person when you can talk face to face vs written or by digital phone call.

not enough to make me not WFH, but misunderstandings definitely seem more possible in this environment (which can be mitigated by taking extra care when you deliver the message, of course, but that takes more time naturally).

my housekeeping has fallen to shit and I often feel like a feral child.

it's nice to know i'm not alone in this regard

man when I lived by myself, there were bags of chips all over teh floor, printed out paperwork sprawled out everywhere, tv dinners galore flowing outo f the trash can. "I'll pick up after work"

*work ends*

"ehh I'm too tired"

feral child crew, unite

the fun of Daylight Savings Time is that our training classes include learners from different countries/regions, so since we schedule all of our classes in Eastern or Central time, technically those trainers/trainees who are part of a country or Commonwealth that don't observe Daylight Savings Time are going to arrive one hour earlier next week for their classes.

yes, that's obviously also technically true for those observing DST, but for instance, if class is meant to start at 9 am EST, even though it's technically one hour later, it's still 9 am EST our time next week. Whereas in Gurguram, India, this week, that would be 7:30 pm their time, but 6:30 pm next week. which of course could impact things like child care arrangements/car-sharing arrangements with spouse, etc.

we've been doing this for years but inevitably it always causes confusion as we always forget to remind everybody until it's upon us. thankful someone reminded me of DST today so I could remind everyone.

I'm supposed to interview an artist on Monday who lives in Brazil (which does not observe DST). Currently figuring it out with the publicist. "So...it'll be an hour later for me, but the same time for her, so maybe don't even tell her about the change?"

make all appointments in UTC

makes me glad my workplace does everything via calendar invites on the same exchange server because I’ve got people from several time zones in virtually every meeting

I’m pretty good at remembering what time it is in Indian Standard Time now! (the half hour still throws me for a loop sometimes)

after 2 years of covid, i have stopped giving a fuck if people suspect i am on zoom calls or google hangouts while in bed. my headboard is quite aesthetic and looks somewhat chair-like. idk

I just hide the pillow, which is easy with a blurred background

https://fortune.com/2022/03/10/goldman-sachs-office-hybrid-remote-work-david-solomon/

Goldman Sachs is ordering employees back to the office 5 days (or more) a week. Inside CEO David Solomon’s mission to end hybrid work for good

They are such cocks

“Solomon has risked looking like a Neanderthal as remote work has gone mainstream worldwide. Top-tier tech firms—Salesforce, Twitter, Met…”

If they can make up for full in office with significant pay then maybe …otherwise they got some learnin coming to them

“Solomon has risked looking like a Neanderthal as remote work has gone mainstream worldwide.

can't he just hide the pillow which is easy with a blurred background like our Neanderthal?

lol

Love to be reminded that "work from home is not permitted" while my boss is... working from home. For the third time in two weeks.

that's always how it is (in other words, bullshit). one of my old bosses told all of the WFH staff years ago that they had to come in one day per week, while she stayed home all five most of the time.

my boss lives in another state and would "like" us to come in a few times a week. He is lucky to get one out of me and even then no one even notices the difference because I deal with a sales staff that works out in the field across the US.

feel like these bosses deserve the Arnold Schwarzenegger in Terminator 2 "why?" treatment

or the Marlo Stanfield approach, "you want it to be one way. But it's the other way."

Ok here’s one annoyance of virtual meetings: if someone set up an 8:30 am face to face meeting in the past, the organizer(s) would feel guilty enough to at least bring coffee and donuts to the meeting as a sort of make-up gesture. With virtual meetings, the coffee is mine and I have no donuts :(

i had my first day in the office today, just once a week for now. i don't understand why i have to do this. i have that dehydrated exhausted office feeling. it took me 1 hr 20 to get there. i missed early bird parking by 3 minutes. i could not log into the desk phone. a guy left 10 minutes after i got there because his wife tested positive for covid and another is home because his whole family has it. i do not wish to wear office clothing or any shoes at all.

what is "early bird parking"

I’m guessing a discount on the fees in a parking garage for arriving early enough?

oh right, thank you. i had completely forgotten about that concept.

haha yeah, sorry

lol nothing to be sorry for, i've been going to suburban offices for wayyyy too long

the early bird gets the parking, or senior dinner discount

sorry to hear that, harbl. hope you guys are able to show you don't need to go in even if it's only once a week

this is truly a massive "first-world problem" but the one obstacle i've run into is that i can't always work from anywhere that's not home because we can only connect to the VPN from one IP (usually our home IP), so i can't connect to different servers and codebases and stuff. luckily i don't always need to connect to the VPN, but i still need to plan around that stuff when i'm not home

the early bird gets the parking, or senior dinner discount

I've been going barefoot around the house for 2+ years, I think I'm physically transforming into something older, more primitive

I also barely wear my eyeglasses unless I'm leaving the house

got my second recognition in two months for the work I've done despite juggling my dad/mom's health issues.

no matter what issues I have with my company, my department is incredible and without them being supportive, I would have had a complete nervous breakdown.

it probably helps that both my boss and boss's boss are caretaking their parents right now, though. we have a caretaker chat going.

Glad you have some support at work, I feel that’s rare these days.

in my previous job (same company), the project lead's boyfriend was in the hospital for heart-related issues, and all the implementation manager did was grouse at how this was inconveniencing the project and demanding to know how long she'd be out.

that was when I made the firm decision to leave, and I made a lot of noise on my way out of the department.

There is no "my boyfriend is in the hospital" in "team."

lmao

I feel like that was the last time in my life I was any form of assertive. I now have an Implementation Manager, Account Executive, and Director who hate me and won't talk to me ever again. 2017 was wild.

Congrats Neadnerthal, that's good news!

After I had already put in my notice at a previous job, I stopped by the HR office to fill out some paperwork and overheard one of the partners telling our exasperated HR person, "that's too bad, but I've triple-checked our policies and 'boyfriend' is not listed anywhere so tell her she just needs to get back to work". I didn't really need much more confirmation by that point, but really made me happy with my decision.

Project’s lead boyfriend

Glad your work has your back Neanderthal. That kind of behaviour should be normal, not special.

At my workplace I just had to beg to get one of my managees compassionate leave for flying halfway across the world to see their dad while he has a risky tumour surgery. Meanwhile the workplace demands overtime up the wazoo, at late notice. Cunts. I did get my team member’s compassionate leave in the end, at least.

glad you did, and I'm sure they're appreciative.

it's amazing what is treated like an inconvenience.

"Hi, what's up? Huh? Both kidneys? How long you think you'll need? Wait, what, every week? Oooh, I'm not sure if that's going to work. How long do you think you'll live without it? Oh? Oh that's great, that's long enough for you to train your replacement. Hello? Hello?"

My last workplace gave me three weeks paid leave to go to Canada when my partner’s parent was sick! Like it was nothing. And it wasn’t even my parent! This sort of thing shouldn’t be hard.

I am sure chronic depression and acute anxiety are not the best career advisors. But right now I want to go back to an office, just to get out of my apartment.

I am sure chronic depression and acute anxiety are not the best career advisors. But right now I want to go back to an office, just to get out of my apartment.

― Infanta Terrible (j.lu), Wednesday, July 13, 2022 5:28 PM (three days ago

<3 i had these feelings a little while ago ... felt like Catherine Deneuve in Repulsion at one point

I am glad that those of you that have humane colleagues and HR systems ... have those things. ... a new thing I realized about working from home is: that my colleague assumes that I could go to a worksite with as little notice as if I was working in an office, however, because I am at home, I am most often not dressed to go out and look like a professional person in our line of work, and I actually have to take idk at least 10 minutes to get dressed, etc.

this past week was the least "work from home" in a while -- we had 3 walk-throughs and 3 inspections and had to go in person to the City building at least once, and this was a week where my colleague had to mind his 5 year-old kid for at least half the work day ... I had to remind myself that this is actually better than being bored or the slow crazy of isolation