Board 8 > Hybrid remote work is so disrespectful

(+) Yeah! (+)

I'm in the office right now. I was working from home last week and I'm working from home next week. I'm not talking to anyone unless they walk up to my desk and say hi. I'm literally only here to keep the office occupied.

My primary job is just to sit in the office and go to these training sessions every couple months. My employers would tell you my job is tech support. I WANT to be tech support. But the most important thing they're looking for is willingness to sit in the office when they're told, and sit through these mandatory training sessions without complaint.

I used to be a tutor and I would work via zoom. Clients would occasionally ask me to come to them. I let them know I billed for driving and no one had a problem with that. They might have said "Zoom is fine" but no one gave me attitude about it. It's only managers of companies who feel entitled to eat up my whole day for free.

Don't go in

NeatoAnAccount posted...

But the most important thing they're looking for is willingness to sit in the office when they're told, and sit through these mandatory training sessions without complaint.

Yes, your entire job is to be in the office so your boss can have underlings around and feel like a big man. That's how office jobs work. I don't know what else you expected.

You are getting paid ya?

Unfortunately I have to go in. If I don't, someone else has to. I've already been spoken to about this lol

Xeybozn posted...

Yes, your entire job is to be in the office so your boss can have underlings around and feel like a big man. That's how office jobs work. I don't know what else you expected.

I mean yeah. It was like 90/10 and now it's almost 50/50. Ridiculous.

The plan was to take this job and immediately jump to a higher paying one but I'm lazy. I'm currently all hot because I have another mandatory webcam-on training session tomorrow so I'm applying to a bunch of jobs at work. But I know I'm going to stay here and I'm not going to get any of these because every job has hundreds of applicants.

You are getting paid ya?

I'm not getting paid for all the disruption to my day, is the thing. I'm not getting paid when I'm driving here, driving back, or out of the house at lunch. When I'm working remotely, all my time is completely mine except for the time I'm billing for.

NeatoAnAccount posted...

I'm not getting paid when I'm driving here, driving back, or out of the house at lunch

....so, a job then

jcgamer107 posted...

....so, a job then

You're acting like the world hasn't changed the last few years.
Employees have every right to be pissed about companies ending WFH for the sole fact that they have a building they don't want to be empty. People got used to not having to waste their time driving to and from a job that shouldn't require it, companies that go through with ending WFH deserve all the brain and talent drain heading their way.

NeatoAnAccount posted...

Unfortunately I have to go in. If I don't, someone else has to. I've already been spoken to about this lol

So? They can also choose not go in if they feel strongly enough.

Seems like you don't really care about this or your career that much. So it's probably good that you're the fall guy for this.

jcgamer107 posted...

....so, a job then

Jobs include commute time into the value prop they give you during hiring negotiations. If they remove the value prop then you need to re-negotiate.

I've worked for the same company for 18 years. I 100% could do my job remote or at the very least hybrid. They have a strict no remote work policy not even for filling the office purposes, they just don't want people accessing company files from outside the office and are super strict about it. Seniority and tenure doesn't matter, only board level and above have any sort of remote access (I'm the tier below VP on the org chart)

Eventually it's going to cause me to leave because my wife doesn't want to stay in Orlando forever and I also want to remote work like she does.

If people didn't start the trend of overemployment this wouldn't be happening.

Unfortunately bringing in people once a week or so is probably necessary to make sure people don't have 4 jobs going on at the same time. The alternative would be upping surveillance but I would much rather come in once a week than have my company spying on me all of the time

If you can complete your job at home and don't need to be in the office, your commute time counts as work and you should be compensated appropriately for it. Simple as that. If more employees held their company responsible for this, they'd downsize their office. That would save them money. A former employer of mine has embraced this and has put multiple buildings up for sale accordingly, and I hope the private sector follows that example.

If you can't work from home, that's a different story. If your duties require your physical presence, you're not wasting time by commuting.

masterplum posted...

Unfortunately bringing in people once a week or so is probably necessary to make sure people don't have 4 jobs going on at the same time. The alternative would be upping surveillance but I would much rather come in once a week than have my company spying on me all of the time

Maybe they should just each pay 4x as much so there's no incentive to work 4 jobs? But I'm also not really sure why this is a problem that needs solving, who cares what people are doing if it's not affecting their work?

masterplum posted...

Unfortunately bringing in people once a week or so is probably necessary to make sure people don't have 4 jobs going on at the same time. The alternative would be upping surveillance but I would much rather come in once a week than have my company spying on me all of the time

Managers love to say this but how do you know that your employees aren't just putting a stuffed mannequin in a polo shirt at the desk to trick you just the same? You would have to stop by everyone's desk every 15-30 minutes just to make sure.

Being a manager is just way too hard

Really what WFH has highlighted is that for a lot of people, a lot of hours in the 40 hour work week are not actually spent working. Obviously some jobs require you to always be available but a lot of jobs have a ton of downtime.

So even if you get the exact same amount of work done at home as you would at work, there's this lazy stigma attached to WFH because you can actually constructively use the extra time rather than being tied to a desk finding ways to get through the hours.

We had our "in office" day on Wednesday and I had a meeting scheduled with the team. Instead of meeting in a conference room, we all sat at our desks and did it via Teams. All five of us were in the office...

Kenri posted...

Maybe they should just each pay 4x as much so there's no incentive to work 4 jobs? But I'm also not really sure why this is a problem that needs solving, who cares what people are doing if it's not affecting their work?

... You think Developers should be paid 5-$600,000 a year?

foolm0r0n posted...

So? They can also choose not go in if they feel strongly enough.

Seems like you don't really care about this or your career that much. So it's probably good that you're the fall guy for this.

I mean you're basically right, that's a flaw I'm trying to fix. I could be restricting my spending to save up to quit even without a job etc etc etc. I'm looking for jobs with titles like "implementation engineer" and "data engineer" and like I only need one

I could be trying harder to leave this company but it's hard when I don't believe my effort will be rewarded and I don't "need" to quit.
masterplum posted...

If people didn't start the trend of overemployment this wouldn't be happening.

Unfortunately bringing in people once a week or so is probably necessary to make sure people don't have 4 jobs going on at the same time. The alternative would be upping surveillance but I would much rather come in once a week than have my company spying on me all of the time

Why should they stop it?

masterplum posted...

... You think Developers should be paid 5-$600,000 a year?

How much does Toby Fox personally make per year?

Using overemployment as an excuse to end WFH is some peak manager 'logic.'

NeatoAnAccount posted...

Why should they stop it?

Because it is a massive drain on getting jobs to people who actually are going to do them?

masterplum posted...

... You think Developers should be paid 5-$600,000 a year?

If they can do $125k of work in 10 hours a week as you're claiming, then yeah obviously. What's the alternative?

Maybe you think labor price shouldn't scale totally linearly, which is fine, then they should at least get double or triple for being quadruple as effective.

xenosaga posted...

Using overemployment as an excuse to end WFH is some peak manager logic.

I am a manager so....

I've had some my teammembers do it and it is extremely frustrating. Work falls directly on good teammembers pissing them off

foolm0r0n posted...

If they can do $125k of work in 10 hours a week as you're claiming, then yeah obviously. What's the alternative?

They can't. The goal is to take a job and then just ride it until getting fired in 6 months because everyone gives new people the benefit of the doubt

Hybrid is the best of all worlds

masterplum posted...

... You think Developers should be paid 5-$600,000 a year?

Nope, but I do think it would be an effective way to stop someone from working multiple jobs.

masterplum posted...

I am a manager so....

I've had some my teammembers do it and it is extremely frustrating. Work falls directly on good teammembers pissing them off

If your team members are failing to do their work, they should be punished. We're talking about when you aren't failing to do your work, silly.

masterplum posted...

They can't.

You started the convo by saying the only way to determine if they were working or not was to see them physically sitting in a chair in front of you.

So you manage people who don't do shit for 6 months and you literally can't tell just because they jump on a zoom meeting every once in a while? And you still get paid for this? Absolutely wild tbh but good for you. Keep up the scam until they catch you!

edit: Sounds like there's 2 people not doing their job for 6 months here

I used to have to commute 1 hour both ways and I didn't really mind it a ton at the time.

Then the pandemic happened and I worked from home and I suddenly really loved having two hours of my day back.

My work also liked not having to pay for business space in San Francisco, so it worked out for me too.

Really hurt my time I used listening to podcasts though.

Kenri posted...

Maybe they should just each pay 4x as much so there's no incentive to work 4 jobs? But I'm also not really sure why this is a problem that needs solving, who cares what people are doing if it's not affecting their work?

Enjoy your $20 carton of eggs as people still work 4 jobs

I'm gonna be sick tomorrow, I don't want to have to be in the office while the trainer tells me that I'm special because I'm gay but immune to racism because I'm white or whatever.

The trainer is close personal friends of the former head of HR, this is pure nepotism. It's funny, everyone who wants this is straight and white. Which makes sense because our primary role is furniture. They care more about stocking the place with shiny Pokemon than any of our work output.

I like my hybrid remote schedule

im in mon/tues and at home rest of week

Can I offer you some perspective? There are people who are currently working in office all the time, having to work all those 40 hours (not one of those jobs where "I only do 10 hours of work a week, lulz"), and they make half as much as you do.

If you are feeling down about your situation, take solace in the fact that it could be a lot worse. That doesn't mean that you don't have a right to complain or seek something even better for yourself, because you absolutely do have that right, but I just hope you understand many people would kill to have the job you currently describe having. If anything, that can hopefully make you feel a little better about your situation until you can get a job that you feel more satisfied with.

If you can get your work done correctly and on time, who cares where you work from. There are times where being in person for a meeting makes sense but that's a very small amount of time.

Commuting is such a waste of time and resources. Not to mention all the extra sleep I get with a 0 minute commute.

guffguy89 posted...

If you are feeling down about your situation, take solace in the fact that it could be a lot worse.

Has this ever actually helped anyone?

Not in totality, but I think it does play a role in gathering perspective on a situation

NeatoAnAccount posted...

I'm gonna be sick tomorrow, I don't want to have to be in the office while the trainer tells me that I'm special because I'm gay but immune to racism because I'm white or whatever.

The trainer is close personal friends of the former head of HR, this is pure nepotism. It's funny, everyone who wants this is straight and white. Which makes sense because our primary role is furniture. They care more about stocking the place with shiny Pokemon than any of our work output.

hmm

Lopen posted...

Enjoy your $20 carton of eggs as people still work 4 jobs

incredible indictment of our economic system

I mean, yes. But just paying everyone more doesn't fix it 4x shit is still shit the numbers are just higher.

I mean it helps if you have debt to clear or like a mortgage or something. But yeah past that it usually sucks for most as inflation usually outpaces wage increases

When you can work well remotely then that should be an option. The lockdowns showed that it can work in some circumstances.

Uglyface2 posted...

When you can work well remotely then that should be an option. The lockdowns showed that it can work in some circumstances.

This is the most enraging part - it proved the vast majority of jobs could be done 100% from home, my job included, yet all the companies are rolling back their WFH policies to "hybrid" approaches which is such a joke. And you can chalk it up to any number of excuses be it old-school presenteeism, of wanting to use office space, or just a herd mentality (or literal inter-company collusion?) of major corps all enforcing hybrid policies so nobody has the "leader advantage" of being remote. Honestly I wonder if there's municipal government pressure to have companies enforcing in-office policies due to downtown businesses suffering from reduced office worker foot traffic.

I checked LinkedIn openings the other day, where jobs are listed as either "on-site, "hybrid" or "remote" and the vast vast majority are hybrid, 2 or 3 days a week. I think I saw more that were straight-up "on-site" than "remote" too, and the remote ones were for smaller companies many of which I had never heard of. I can't think of any major Canadian corporations which still have a "you can work 100% remote" policy other than Sun Life. All the big banks and telecoms are forcing hybrid policies, governments too (was a major sticking point in PSAC's recent strike).

And when my company put out their return to office communication the rationale was the most b.s. corporatespeak possible, it was something like "people being in the office will energize us producing better results" or something. And all I'm thinking is, were you embarrassed when you wrote that? Are other employees embarrassed when they read that or is it just me? What a fucking joke.

Anyways, my hope is that 100% remote or "remote first" working arrangements do come back in vogue in time. If office space/existing building leases is part of the equation, then maybe it's just a matter of running out the clock on those contracts and then divesting of it. For roles that aren't structured to be in-person, who actually wants to go through commuting time and other expenses of going into the office, the absolute time wastage? Social people and extroverts? Of which CEOs and leadership teams are comprised close to 100% of, which is probably why we have this dumb hybrid problem.

All these people complaining about Hybrid work when I'd just like to have a boss that's not verbally abusive.

Oh yeah did I mention that our office is open to the public? That's super weird. The front desk is on the second floor, and there's a little hallway behind it with a door that leads to the offices. We don't make a big deal out of it but sometimes random people will just walk through the office.

I was working in a different part of the building last time I was in the office and then in our weekly meeting my boss's boss told us to make sure we're in the publicly accessible parts of the second floor so the randos who come in can have the experience of seeing a full office lmao

Also we had a florescent bulb flickering on Monday. I asked if anyone would be bothered if I turned it off (it would turn off a couple other lights too and make the room meaningfully darker). The IT guy said that he wouldn't mind but the top brass would probably not like it because it looks like no one is here. So we left it flickering until we could get it fixed because turning it off looks bad

This place is dumb and I'm so glad I'm probably leaving soon

I just remembered that a couple weeks ago my boss's boss told us that when we're working in the office we should work on the second floor where all the random people who come in can walk around and look at us.

We should not find a quiet room on the third floor where we can work without being disturbed.

Obellisk posted...

You are getting paid ya?

This.

It's a job. Go in, do your job. Simple. If the commute is too far, find a job closer to home.

Commodore posted...

If the commute is too far, find a job closer to home.

Not too close though, otherwise you're a lazy entitled millennial

Also, the complaint is that he's required to be an architectural ornament. How is it simple to get an extra job requirement suddenly hoisted on to you with no explanation?

Commodore posted...

This.

It's a job. Go in, do your job. Simple. If the commute is too far, find a job closer to home.

Don't forget the 3 piece suit. And make sure your belt matches your shoes. And trim those sideburns!

Remember, with a desk job, it's impossible to do it well unless you're dressed impeccably and on location. sarrrrrcasmmmm

Seanchan posted...

Don't forget the 3 piece suit. And make sure your belt matches your shoes. And trim those sideburns!

Remember, with a desk job, it's impossible to do it well unless you're dressed impeccably and on location. sarrrrrcasmmmm

I mean, hes literally on display to the public, so all this would actually serve a purpose at his job!

NeatoAnAccount posted...

Oh yeah did I mention that our office is open to the public? That's super weird. The front desk is on the second floor, and there's a little hallway behind it with a door that leads to the offices. We don't make a big deal out of it but sometimes random people will just walk through the office.

I was working in a different part of the building last time I was in the office and then in our weekly meeting my boss's boss told us to make sure we're in the publicly accessible parts of the second floor so the randos who come in can have the experience of seeing a full office lmao

wat

god I hate remote work

give me an office, get me out of the house, give me a commute.