There are a lot of news articles about “back to the office”, but they recirculate the same bad ideas. Let’s provide some new ideas for the media to circulate. It may also have the effect of making the office less terrible.
I would like my work computer to do Windows updates lightning quick in the office. It currently takes weeks, in or out of the office. Stopping in for a day makes no difference, so there is no point. Now, if there was a point, I would go in.
What would get you in the office?
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Short answer: Nothing
Long answer: Actually, nothing
Before the pandemic, I was already remote working because all I did was connect my computer to servers in a warehouse 20 kilometers away from the office I had to be at.
Now, every person in my department is literally hundreds of kilometers away from each other, and we MUST go to each office to do the same things we could do staying at home. I lose 3 hours daily (waking up early, preparing meals, going to the office, and returning…) because of this nonsense.
Also, the building I have to go to doesn’t belong to my employer. The contract ends this year and, instead of sending us home again, my employer has rented another building that’s FARTHER than the current one. We’re pretty sure this is just money laundering or the building belongs to a friend.
People are leaving for remote jobs, and our bosses are still wondering why.
Agh, people I’ve talked to seem so reticent to understand that even outside the commute time I’m giving up my time to my employer. I don’t want to wake up at 5 to rush out the door to sit in traffic until 7:30 and do the same on the way home then still have to spend my own “free” time meal prepping and doing house chores that I can hopefully cram in before I have to go to bed and do it all again tomorrow.
All of that is no longer “my” time because I would definitely be spending it differently if it weren’t for the expectations imposed on me by my employer. Try to tell people that and they look at me like I’ve sprouted a third eye
- More money
- A very short commute (like 10-15 minutes walking max)
- A shorter working day, like 6 hours.
A few things that would help:
A 4 day work week with both ends of the day brought in to maybe 10-4 (sorry didnt mean 10-3). Things like going to the bank require me to either run during my lunch break or do it on a day off. 4x10-4 means i have a day and edges of days to do tasks i can’t do on the weekend.
Unlimited PTO. If my tasks are done and I’m paid a salary there is no reason i need to sit around doing nothing. If more work is expected then I’d expect more compensation.
And lastly mandatory cost of living connected to inflation every year. My last job started during the pandemic. In 2 years the effective inflation rate was 15% and yet i was only given 3% over that time while getting good marks on my reviews. That means in that time i was paid a crazy amount less my last day than my first. I dont care about the actual number of dollars I’m paid but I’d like to buy the same number of eggs mext year as this year if I’m expected to do the same amount of work. This shouldn’t be thought of as a bonus, but rather keeping my level of compensation matched woth my level of expectations for my job.
What job do you have that 4x10-3 would be a reasonable option? Coming from someone who works 5x6a-6p (though this week it’s been more like 6a-8p) those hours seem like a fairytale.
For a lot of office jobs, fewer hours in the workplace means less opportunities for useless meetings that could be emails and useless emails that could have not been sent
Given that they also talk about finishing their work with nothing to do, I’m guessing they work one of those jobs that doesn’t actually need so many employees but has to have them or are held back by the lowest performers.
The idea of “completing all my tasks” is a silly one to me, since my product has an endless stream of work where we can’t do all the things we want to do. If I managed to finish all the things I personally planned to do, that would mean nothing as that’s just my personal plan and there’s a virtually endless backlog. This has been the case for every job I’ve had as a software engineer.
Most employers I think pay for time, anyway, not tasks. Even when salaried, it’s a salary intended based on time you’d generally work. And if this wasn’t the case, many people (myself included) would be penalized for delays.
I’m a lead software developer. Finally working a place where we do reasonable schedules with a good amount of padding for problems popping up.
If i wasnt in pointless meetings and focused on actual productive time thats about what most of my team does and we hit all our schedules.
When i worked at Samsung they were doing 4 day weeks and no one was doing 8hr days
That’s more like part-time honestly, doesn’t make any sense. But your hours are intense. I did that 50/60 hours a week years ago, I’ll never do that again. I’m at 35 now and considering asking for a 4 day 32 hours schedule next year. And I WFH full time. I’m done organizing my life around work.
Yeah, part of it is that I’m in a medical field and still in school. Unfortunately my hours are going to get worse with internship/residency before they get better. Even still, 4x10-3 would never (honestly could never) happen in my field.
Oh I see. I’m sorry, you guys in medical really have it fucking hard. Hang in there, and best of luck!
A friend from college does software dev for a place that does 4x10-4 and he said the way the fixed issues was by asking for ROI on everything you do. Need to schedule a meeting? Is it worth the cost of people’s time? If so make sure you get the right people, habe everything planned out before calling it so you get your work done promptly.
At first everyone was like fuck, more crap you have to do. But eventually they figured out that much of their time was wasted on crap no one needed to do. Some people stuck around for an hour or two after work to hang out and others took back their lives. Productivity actually increased because people were not as burned out.
That sounds very satisfying, wow! I swear to god, half the meetings I attend are just soooo unproductive. Talk about this project, where we were, where we are, where we are going. But it always ends up that I have to jog people’s memory, ask why what was supposed to get done didn’t and when it will be. Rinse and repeat. I love that approach, makes people accountable and saves everyone’s time.
As for jogging people’s memories…
So whenever i have to get approval from higher ups that i know they will forget and get annoyed about it i ask that they all stand up and state “i agree / approve to XYZ.” People will laugh and say “really?!?”.
At my last job one of my bosses decided on something that went against what all us in engineering said. So i told him to stand up in front of everyone and say “i acknowledge that this goes against the suggestions by engineering but I would like the team to implement… whatever the feature was.” Two months later he came to a meeting all pissed about how this feature wasn’t working and when he saw me enter the meeting he said “fuck, this is my fault isn’t it?”
That is fucking brilliant!
Ever have someone deny they said it?
Nope not so far. It’s always in a meeting with other people, make it a little awkward and everyone remembers so no one denied it as they know others won’t deny it.
Enough money that I can retire in six months. So idk, like, call it a cool $4M/yr and I’m yours in office for 6 months. Otherwise I guess MAYBE my same salary at somewhere walking distance where I only have to work 3 or 4 days a week at 8 hour days.
My mental health is just so much better working from home. The upside would have to be enough to balance that and realistically nobody is actually going to do that.
Wait you guys are allowed to work remote full time?
Communting and wearing shoes everyday sounds meh.
I want my own desk with the same hardware I have at home. Booking a flex desk in advance, bringing all my stuff except the monitor, setting it up, adjusting the chair and getting a new problem with every new desk is a bad start for the day. Also having the same people around me, helps me to feel “home”. But sinc I’m nonstop in MS Team meetings, there is no way for me.to interact with anyone in the office. So maybe reduce the number of meetings, they are useless anyway.
And I hate the coffee in the office, it gives me headaches.
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Nothing. Been working from home for 4 years and wouldnt go back for nothing.
Okay, maybe if we had 2 pizza fridays a week.
This may be an unpopular opinion, but I work as an IT guy for a small business (6 people total) and I honestly prefer working in the office:
- it’s easier to focus, I’m much more effective than when doing work at home, despite 95% of my work being possible to be done remotely
- I like most of the 5 people I work with
- I prefer separating life and work: I go to the office, do the work, go home and don’t think about it until the next time I’m over there. I wouldn’t like to associate my apartment with the mundane tasks I sometimes have to do for work
Also the commute isn’t bad because I live in a well-connected district in a European capital. It’s a 12 minute door-to-door bus ride for me, I don’t even bother driving.
A job. Please, lol!
i would go to work if
this was the boss
this was the commute
this was the uniform
this was the work
jk i’m service industry i never got to work from homeLiterally nothing. If my remote request is rejected, I’m quitting with nothing else lined up. If I can’t find remote work, I’ll retire.
Paid commute and a separate room.
Ah yeah, I wrote that it should be within 10 minutes of my flat + seperate room but yeah paid commute (frome my home door back to my home door within 8 hours) would also be OK. I could try to work remotelly if I’m on a train or just listen to a podcast.
Nothing. Quality of life of working from home cannot be replicated. Or the office would have to be in my street, which is pretty unrealistic
I used to work in an office which was doen the street once. It still sucked.
It does not solve every other issue that work environment can bring, that’s for sure
Nothing for me also.
The flexibility to do things when you have a few minutes (like breaks) is worth a lot to me, it makes me more productive and less stressed about time management.
Plus I have cats and no other humans here so it’s a quiet, comfortable, loving environment, and no job can provide that for me.
Plus I have cats and no other humans here so it’s a quiet, comfortable, loving environment, and no job can provide that for me.
Looks like someone just needs some more team bonding activities and pizza parties with their team! Nothing builds a loving environment like a strong team!
Team? I believe you mean family
🤮
Sorry I’ve been offline for a bit and came back to this and couldn’t help myself.
Haha thanks friend have a great day!
How about a raise?
I was talking to my wife the other day, my company would have to basically double my salary to get me to go into the office. Work life balance during WFH is actually balanced, I actually like my job and the company I’m at, I like the people I work with, I’m more productive and less distracted at home, I get to spend time with my daughter and take care of her, there’s really no downside to WFH for employees that want to WFH.
Working in the office? In addition to the normal costs (clothes, food, transportation, etc), losing 2-3 hours per day commuting, paying for childcare or having my wife not work, getting a second car or my wife not having a way to get to work or take our daughter to appointments, and plenty of other inconveniences and big changes.
Working in an office is an outdated concept for most office jobs now. 100% of my job can and is done remote, even if I had colleagues in my office, a quick teams call or message is just as easy as pulling them away from their work with a question in person. It would take a very very large raise to get me to go into an office, and I would likely be looking for a remote job asap using that newly inflated salary.
There ya go everyone has a price.
Oh, definitely. Pay me enough to offset the purely monetary costs, plus more for the stress of having to get business dressed every day, drive on my own time to get there and pack, time needed for additional preparations like making lunch, and the need for another car or have my wife stay at home? I would do it in that case, not having to worry about paying for things would make my wife and my lives so much easier even with me driving to the office every day.
The problem is, the amount needed to do that is too high for most employers to want to pay and want to pay the minimum needed in most cases. That worked for a long time since very few companies had full WFH jobs so people didn’t really have a choice, now we do
It would have to be a massive raise. At least double my current salary. Nothing else would have me even consider it.
Agree, people here in their high horse acting like wfm is their standing ground to the company. All big companies have to do is dangle a carrot like up the compensation for the year they want everyone back and amortize the comp for the next few years and boom everyone is back.
Or the office would have to be in my street,
Could become a road sweeper?
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Honestly, a much much higher salary. There are lots of things I’m going to have to deal with if I were to go back to the office; namely heavy traffic, transportation expenses, added stress, clothes (I mean, I’d have to use office-appropriate clothes whereas nowadays I have to be presentable only when I have meetings), food, waking up and preparing earlier than usual (sometimes up to 3 hours earlier!) and getting home late which gives me less free time, etc.
They’re going to have to offer a really lucrative salary for me to even consider returning to the office.
Yep. This is the answer.
And by much higher, I mean on the order of 100% raise as in double my current salary. Even then it’s be a hard decision.
Adding onto this, the ability to choose to not come in and/or come and go as needed. In 5 years I haven’t had my kids in day care and it’s important for me to be able to take them to school and pick them up.
A higher salary would be of help to cover additional expeses related to coming to the office.
However, we also need a nice office to come to that needs to be as comfy as the one home.
You know what? I never even thought about that. I agree 100%. That’s gonna be a tall order for companies, though. I mean, different people probably have different requirements to be comfortable.
That’s why the whole open office and/or cubicle farm office needs to die. Yes, it will take more investment, but go back to everyone actually having their own small office that they can make their own and make comfortable. This isn’t hard.
Not to disagree with your sentiment, but the economics of space and construction costs would be a hard sell here. Plus, many managers don’t think employees deserve comfort and privacy thus the push to return to the office.
Oh, I agree entirely. I didn’t mean to insinuate that what I was suggesting was reasonable and/or something they would choose to invest in. Just sharting out ideas over here. Cheers.
I currently have a pretty nice salary as a senior engineer. I make waaaay more than the average and I work remotely. But even then… I still wonder what it’ll take. Because right now, there are positions that double/triples that AND is remote.
Like a job that’s 200k remote versus 250k in-office? Pretty easy to pick.
Some quick maths suggest that the average citizen in Western countries spends an hour commuting a day. Which is 260 hours a year for a 5 day a week job, or about a month’s worth of 8 hour days.
So, in addition to all that other pointless crap you mentioned, add on enough salary to bring you one month closer to retirement every year.
