FFS, if you cannot monitor your employee’s productivity via ERP software or meetings you are a shit boss and you should have been shitcanned a long time ago. Why the fuck is the mainstream media pumping out this shit day in and day out?
They pump it out because it’s what the people at the top of the societal pyramid want. And those are the top are really the ones with all that commercial real estate that’s wasting away.
Because commercial real estate is suffering. Got to pump the usage rates and occupancy numbers so the REITs can be rated AAA for investors!!1
Nailed it. If you aren’t working onsite then they can’t write off the asset. This leaves businesses holding an expensive depreciating asset that highly impacts the balance sheet. Solution? Force people back to the office to get that sweet, sweet write-off.
So that underpaid employees can spend most of their money on gas and sandwiches from the cafeteria round the corner
That’s a feature not a bug. Enjoy the increased productivity and the less having to be on top of things that don’t matter.
“We don’t know what you’re up to!”
You don’t know that in an office either. You trust us because you have your own tasks.
“We can’t get a hold of you”
That’s an individual’s responsibility. Don’t bunch me up with others.
The whole reason is jealousy and it sucks.
Lol I don’t need to be watched. I do my job and still end up finding office people screwing up badly. I’ve had to fix their mistakes.
Lol, get fucked. I’d sacrifice 50% of my pay before going back to the office full time.
Hey, I’m hiring for 50% of your pay. Come work for me.
Cool, what do we do?
We make soap
We make soap?
The best soap
People say it’s great soap, the best soap, good people.
Let’s make a rule not to talk about it too much
“Bosses” can go fuck themselves, alongside the astroturfing scum that keeps pumping out articles trying to validate the idiotic decision of returning to offices.
Simple solution. Is the work getting done? Then your minions, sorry employees, are doing their jobs.
A lot of the time there is no way to tell if the work is getting done because most of the jobs have at least some amount of bullshit job woven into it. Most of what people do is just time filler.
This is a symptom of jobs undervaluing good workers…
If working harder gets you no raise, then why would anyone work harder than they need to?
I’ve discovered this at my current job. I worked tons of unpaid overtime (I’m salary), did everything I could get my hands on, I was getting compliments from upper management, my reviews were stellar, etc, etc, and my raise was 3%. My rent went up more than my paycheck did. After that, I started doing only the bare minimum. Some days I even play some Xbox in the afternoon to kill time. My latest review was excellent, and I got a 5% raise. They can go fuck themselves. I’m not going to work any harder for this company than I absolutely need to. Working less got me a bigger raise.
Food for thought: I bet you were happier when you were working less and taking time. Good things (career wise) seem to find happy people.
I’ve noticed with each increase in my income, the work has gotten easier and easier to do. The opposite result of what I have been told to expect. We have nothing in common with a meritocracy.
And then they call it “quiet quitting”. Fuck em.
This exactly. I work at 40% because any faster irritates my supervisors.
Lesson I learned early in life: most bosses prefer predictability over excellence.
We can’t tell you off for taking a moment to look at your phone or for wearing headphones unless you are in the office; this is how we justify our positions… so despite the economic, environmental and quality of life improvements we are demanding you return so we can continue to justify our pay and position.
Also fuck you, and get in your cubicle bitch
So don’t. Give your employees tasks and then leave them the hell alone. If they don’t get things done, find a new employee.
I had a one on one with my boss today. He told me he was very happy that sometimes he doesn’t even know what I’m doing, but he doesn’t get any complaints and all my deliverables are on time. I am for help when I need it and before everything is urgent
Meanwhile he needs to babysit the two most senior employees and have daily meetings with them because they don’t deliver anything on time and is going to force them to go to the office twice per week. I guess not everyone knows how to be responsible, but at least my boss knows he can trust some people
Last meeting with my boss he told me “I don’t know what you’re doing but keep doing it because you’re the most productive employee we’ve got.” Having a job where it’s easy to see what people accomplish day to day clearly helps though…
I think this is what a lot of people here miss. Yes many people can be productive from home, but a few are not and I could see them ruining it for everyone on some teams. If you say ‘just fire them’ you either work for a terrible company or have never been a manager. It doesn’t work like that, for good reason.
The other one I think a lot of people miss is training. I’m not worried about my senior engineers, I’m worried about my junior engineers. The juniors specifically complain about seniors not being around to train them and I worry about their career development. Obviously it depends on the role/type of work/etc, but I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect some time in the office for senior positions that are responsible for training others. My junior staff shows up to the office voluntarily every day because they see a lot of value in it in terms of technical growth.
And before you say they can just call/message. Sure, but they won’t. Even in the office I have to go up to junior staff and only then do I get the ‘well while you’re here’. I know there’s a lot of shit managers and shit companies out there but I think blanket saying ’ any form of any level of in office work is tyranny!!!1!’ is really oversimplifying things. Also, not everyone writes code for a living, you’re in a bubble. I’ll now accept all your hate
And before you say they can just call/message. Sure, but they won’t. Even in the office I have to go up to junior staff and only then do I get the ‘well while you’re here’.
Honestly, this is where I’d put the onus on you as a manager. The senior staff may not need as much interaction, but the junior staff are the ones that will require more if your time. Daily check-ins with the junior staff can ensure the necessary “face time” and interactions that would spur additional questions from the “while I’ve got you” perspective.
Remote work requires a full paradigm shift, especially from managers. I’m in constant contact with my manager, my peers, and other related teams throughout the day. My manager “comes up to me” by pinging me on WebEx to ask for clarification or to request a task. Sometimes, he’ll ping me and we’ll jump on a call. The interaction is the same as when I was in an office, and a senior manager would come to me and ask questions.
Working remotely does not mean working in a vacuum. Instead of walking across a room to ask Lisa a question, you ping her on instant message instead, and honestly, in my last position, we worked with so many people across the country and across the world that pinging “Lisa” was the only option because she’s in Manila while I’m in Ohio.
Outside of work that requires physical labor like running a forklift or operating a physical machine, a lot of positions simply need to reconsider how they interact with employees rather than making blanket statements about how “we work better together in the office”.
This is what the problem is. If you trust your team, you don’t need middle management whose sole purpose is to hover around. They’re the ones complaining to uppers about wanting in-person time. If everyone’s at home checking off their milestones, what do you need all these managers around for?
I could write a long-ass reply to this, but I’ll get to the point, I rock at multi-tasking and juggling all my priorities. It makes absolutely no sense to me that some random dude should get to what I can and can’t be working on, for the only benefit of meeting made-up deadlines and not mixing “points” up in some burn chart. I am good at this because I know how to exploit my brain to fill my entire days with relevant work. If you assign me stuff at random because of office politic it is gonna be shit.
what do you need all these managers around for?
I think a lot of careers are bullshit but we somehow tolerate them so the rich kids who went to college for them don’t have to work at burger king.
Sounds like they need something to fill their days with AND they don’t know how to do their own jobs. If you know the work well enough, you can understand milestone/status checkins and gauge progress enough to fill your useless reports.
Well, I spend most of my day filling out TPS reports on my employees. And yes, I put my cover sheet on it. Then I print out three copies and give them to my three bosses.
I spend most of my day filling out TPS reports
I see what you did there.
I’m pretty sure nearly everyone who was WFH in my area had to return to the office because my morning commute went from 25-30m to 35-40m. Doesn’t sound like much but the traffic has gotten so busy the long way is faster most mornings.
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Congratulations on getting to add “former” to that bosses name.
It’s possible more collaboration would have helped, but so would properly speccing the project…
They are too stupid to actually review your work. No, they need to SEE you doing your work.
I manage a team of remote workers. About half of them are doing great. The other half are constantly struggling to meet their metrics/manage their time effectively. I’ve talked to them repeatedly about this and coached them on various ways they can do better but they’re not getting it. If they were in the office where I could watch them it would be a lot easier to help them because I could see where they are messing up as it happens rather than just trying to talk through it with them after the fact based off recordings and reports.
That being said. I would never force anyone to work from the office if they didn’t want to. They are all free to do so whenever they want and I advised that it might help them to get where they need to be but it’s not a requirement. At this point their success or failure is their responsibility.
So you would sit over their shoulder and watch them work? Why not ask them to bring you into a call the next time they run into an issue? How would you be notified they need help if they were in the office.
I wouldn’t sit over their shoulder watching them work all the time. I have my own shit to do and don’t have time to babysit everyone but they sit near enough to me that I could overhear what was going on or see them fucking around on their phone or whatever and jump in as needed instead of waiting for them to ask for help.
I am more than happy to any questions they have as it is. The problem is that they don’t do that. They think they can wait until the next time we talk to ask and by then they have forgotten whatever it was.
I love WFH but there is no denying it has a learning curve. Those who have adopted it fastest are those who already have skill communicating remotely: IT, gamers, amateur radio, some other hobby groups. Those who are struggling are often just untrained communicators. Don’t focus on training to them to work remotely so much as focusing on how to communicate as part of a team. I would start with asking them to check in once a day around a mutually agreed time just to say whether they’re doing alright or being blocked by something. Anything that opens the door will get people talking more regularly.
Yeah if they’re not getting it remote I highly doubt they’re going to get it with you obsessively watching them. That’s a ridiculous idea
i’m not confident they would either, I just like to give everyone as much of a chance to succeed as possible… or at least come to the conclusion that they’re not cut out for this on their own so they can find another job before I have to fire them. I also do think some people work better without all the distractions that come with being at home. I know that’s the case for me which is why I work from the office.
Again it’s their choice. I’ve done all I can for them.
Also, if they’re not getting it done remotely, there’s absolutely no guarantee they’re going to get it done in an office. Results matter, and good managers and good employers should realize that. If you get your work done and you do a good job, then that’s what matters. Of course, it’s not always that simple with office politics etc.
They are living with the constant assumption you’re not doing much work because that’s what they are doing every day.
Ding ding ding
“I am unable to focus for long enough to work from home, therefore nobody can and everyone is lying. Also, the numbers saying it’s more efficient are lies.”
Definitely. I actually look at my teams’ overall performance as well as on an individual basis. Crazy concept right!? It would also stop an interoffice politics and drama that are massive time wasters.
My company just announced they aren’t interested in remote work even though our call center is all internet driven with heavy metrics and they know that office space costs thousands or tens of thousands a month. It’s baffling.
If the work gets done, then congrats there are no problems
Most industries should do remote work as much as possible, specifically the ones that involves sitting in front of a computer all day: less traffic on the road, no commute time, more commercial office real estate that can be converted to housing/shops…
I don’t really see the downside to any of this except to micro-managers.
Guess what…FUCK BOSSES.
Tell me you’re an incompetent manager without telling me you’re an incompetent manager.
