Are we ready to get dragged back into the office?

[ultimatebob]

I noticed that Apple just joined the list of people forcing their employees to return to the office next month:

https://www.engadget.com/apple-return-to-office-tim-cook-171537064.html

I'm curious if your employers are planning on doing the same thing, and when you'll be expected to go back (if you haven't had to already).

I don't think that I'll be forced to go back any time soon, considering that the company I work for sold two of their three office buildings during the pandemic. Smart move, considering they can be converted to apartments or retail space instead of being left vacant for two years. There literally isn't enough space to hold everyone even if they wanted to send everyone back

 

[IronWing]

In theory, I'll have to be back in the orifice two days per week. In reality, I plan to be visiting job sites at least one of those days.

 

[Red Squirrel]

My company seems to be wanting us back soon too. Well for my department we were still having to go anyway since at least 1 person needs to be in, so the 12h day and night shift would have to go to cover so we took turns. Too bad WFH can't just be the standard though. No reason to be in the office. At least no good reason that outweighs the benefits of being at home.

Not having to deal with starting the vehicle, taking snow off it, scraping windows, digging it out, doing the driveway etc in the morning is great. Get out of shower, and straight to the computer. If there's a storm out it's nice not having to deal with it right in the morning and scrambling to get to work on time. Would be awesome if they decided to make it a permanent thing. I'd eventually move off grid once I build my cabin, save tons of money by not having a house in town and all the bills that come with it.

When I had covid they let me work my last night shift at home and were ok with no one in the office given the circumstance, and that was actually really nice. One big bonus of being at home is having control of hvac too. And the cat.

 

[Torn Mind]

My company seems to be wanting us back soon too. Well for my department we were still having to go anyway since at least 1 person needs to be in, so the 12h day and night shift would have to go to cover so we took turns. Too bad WFH can't just be the standard though. No reason to be in the office. At least no good reason that outweighs the benefits of being at home.

Not having to deal with starting the vehicle, taking snow off it, scraping windows, digging it out, doing the driveway etc in the morning is great. Get out of shower, and straight to the computer. If there's a storm out it's nice not having to deal with it right in the morning and scrambling to get to work on time. Would be awesome if they decided to make it a permanent thing. I'd eventually move off grid once I build my cabin, save tons of money by not having a house in town and all the bills that come with it.

When I had covid they let me work my last night shift at home and were ok with no one in the office given the circumstance, and that was actually really nice. One big bonus of being at home is having control of hvac too. And the cat.

Ah, because if Mr. Bigglesquirrel is harmed, annoyed, or otherwise disturbed...

PEOPLE DIE

 

[Brovane]

My team is spread across the US. We were working remote before the pandemic unofficially. I still had a cubicle in a local building but rarely visited it. We had several higher up leaders in my Department that frowned on WFH even though I was over 1,000+ miles from the main corporate office and nobody from my team worked from my local office. Apparently they thought I should go into the office to jump on a conference call to talk with people in other states when I could just do that from home. My boss is in another state and he left it up to us if we went into the office or not. He just cared if the work got done or not. Get you work done, he didn't care if you worked from home. Now because of COVID my employer has made it official that we can work from home full time. HR left it up to leaders as to where their direct reports work from. Also those higher up leaders in my Department quickly realized that employees could work effectively remote. On a teams call our team took all of 5-minutes to come to the agreement we would give up our local cubicles and we would just be full time remote employees. Now we are all official WFH. Recently emptied out my cubicle, you accumulate a lot of stuff over 20+ years. My employer improved the tools that we use for remote work so for me work from home is even better than it was before the pandemic. My employer is now looking at downsizing several buildings when the leases run out and we will just have hotel cubicles available for those that are full time WFH and need to come into the office for some reason.

 

[nakedfrog]

I've been officially a "work from home" employee for a couple years now, after it being unofficial starting in 2017.

 

[sactoking]

The paperwork I signed when they sent me home in 2019 said the move to remote was permanent and we couldn't go back as a remedy for underperformance, the only remedy was termination.

In light of that if they tell me that somehow they're going to unilaterally terminate the Results Oriented Workforce agreement I'll politely tell them to eat a bag of dicks.

 

[Exterous]

Company still hasn't decided on a formal flexible work plan - just the 'temporary' one from 2020 still. That said it would be really hard to pry this from people's hands at this point. And even if they did I graciously offered up our office space to another dept that had to be on site so I don't know where'd they put us. Glad to hear other companies are making people go back full time - I've got some job openings so I look forward to getting some great employees willing to take a small pay cut for WFH flexibility

 

[BudAshes]

I like coming into the office. I prefer a 50/50 split.

 

[MrSquished]

I think for quite a few industries in some departments, those that stay full WFH will end up at a competitive disadvantage to those that go back to a hybrid mode. For quite a few jobs in-person interactions and collaboration just works better. Having those 2-3 days together will provide big pluses. Companies with a hybrid work model in those fields and areas will be able out perform their peers. Now companies are all on the same playing field so it's not as apparent but it will be.

Also onboarding will almost always be better in person. The best talent will start to realize this and hybrid offices will win even bigger.

Regardless of that subject, the work week should be 4 days with a 3 day weekend.

 

[ultimatebob]

I do find it interesting that the folks who really pushed their WFH software like Microsoft and Google are also the ones who are pushing the hardest to get their employees back in the office. Perhaps they have better metrics than others showing how folks were goofing off when they're supposed to be working

 

[ultimatebob]

I like coming into the office. I prefer a 50/50 split.

Don't get me wrong, I miss going into the office and seeing my co-workers once in a while.

I also kinda feel like my managers are "mushrooming" me at times, and not really telling us everything that's going on in other departments. As an IT guy, I'm more effective when I know what technology roadblocks other teams are running into.

 

[MrSquished]

I do find it interesting that the folks who really pushed their WFH software like Microsoft and Google are also the ones who are pushing the hardest to get their employees back in the office. Perhaps they have better metrics than others showing how folks were goofing off when they're supposed to be working

One of the guests at the event I was at last night may come with me to check out our next revision of one of our meat products. The guy I'm consulting for said it can only happen during the day during the week (that's when our meat vendor contact works) and is he going to take a day off just to do that? And the guy said, well you know I'll just be "working" from home.

There is no doubt that for many jobs being in the office a full 5 days is wasteful. For some there is probably no need to be in the office at all.

But I think for many jobs, they would be served best with a hybrid model. It's good to have a couple days just banging out work on your own with less distractions and saving time and energy on commuting. It's also not disputable that for many parts of work interpersonal relationships matter, from onboarding to mentorship to collaboration and various things in between.

 

[MrSquished]

Just saw this today on my pixel news feed. I think Google bought this building during the pandemic. It's an interesting read

Google’s New Manhattan Groundscraper Bets on the Future of the Office

The company’s purchase of St. John’s Terminal for $2.1 billion is the biggest single-building commercial-real-estate deal in the city since the pandemic began.

www.newyorker.com

 

[IronWing]

So Google didn’t really need to be bribed to come to New York. Surprise, surprise.

 

[jpiniero]

So Google didn’t really need to be bribed to come to New York. Surprise, surprise.

That was Amazon.

 

[MtnMan]

I never worked "in the office" my entire career. That was the nature of what I did, serviced computers, starting in the late 60s.

Now, I did spend most of my time in offices of other companies and interfaced with those trapped under their bosses constant watch, and felt I could never do that.

We had a company office, I even had a desk, but if I was there I wasn't working (making money for the company) but just necessary overhead of internal paperwork, picking up parts to install at customer sites, and the dreaded meetings every week or so.

 

[lxskllr]

Some of my offices...

 

[brianmanahan]

i really hoped remote software dev would stick

it's been nice to work a big city job but live in a rural area for the past couple years

soon 10 hours of my week is going to go back to driving

unless i just get sick of it, quit, and find some remote gig

 

[Torn Mind]

Some of my offices...

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Hilly terrain suggest your farmland is on the Piedmont plateau. A little steep for Montgomery county though...so I guess you're in Frederick or Carroll county.

 

[lxskllr]

Incorrect, but good eye. All the pics aside from the bridge construction are Harford county. The bridge is Sparrows Point.

 

[Torn Mind]

Incorrect, but good eye. All the pics aside from the bridge construction are Harford county. The bridge is Sparrows Point.

I set actual foot in Harford once twice... once because the junkyard there had the part I needed. The other was government auto auction(too bad but government cars are all Fords, Chevys, etc) a couple years before the junkyard trip.

Driving on the way back home....I think I went the wrong way a tad(north, should have gone south) and drive past a store selling adult sexual materials.

The kink county of Maryland.

 

[lxskllr]

I'm gonna guess you were on rte 40, a little east(north really) of Edgewood(a shithole). There used to be a hooker with big sunglasses that walked from the porn shop to Edgewood probably every day. Haven't seen her in years. If she's still alive, she's probably coming up on 70 years old.

 

[NutBucket]

I guess I am an outlier. I've been going 5-6 days a week Fall 2020. In summer 2020 I was going maybe 2-3 days a week. I just work better onsite plus my job requires lab work that can't be done remotely. And, no access to classified stuff at home obviously. Honestly I prefer being on site and am far more efficient.
As a company (and I'm a manager), we have no intention of calling people back to the office. We tell folks to be on site either by choice or by necessity. I'd say most staff in my department is on site 2-3 days a week. That of course varies by department.

 

[Red Squirrel]

My company seems to be having a big hardon for getting everyone back in office in the next few weeks. They even have branding for it and keep sending emails about it and treating it like it's some big event or a product that is about to launch or something. Countdown and everything lmao.

My manager is not sure yet what our fate is, there is some small chance we stay hybrid. I have a feeling we're all going back to the office though. Other than it being better for us there is not really anything the company gains by letting us be hybrid so from company point of view there is no reason to justify we work from home. It would sure be better for the environment and mental health though... and they always promote that they care about those things.