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?
You must log in or register to comment.
My current position is 100% remote work-from-home and I took this job in 2018. It was impeccable timing and when the pandemic hit, my life/work routine barely changed at all.
Prior to that, I had an office job with a 1h 15m commute each way…not because I lived super far away, but because my office was in downwtown Seattle and commuting is a nightmare in this region.
Having an extra 2.5 hours of me-time each day is almost priceless. Not having to deal with the stresses of commuting and not having to deal with the daily scum of public transportation is priceless.
To get me to return to the office (that miserable routine)…it would take a 4-day work week, plus a significant pay increase, plus a monthly transportation stipend.
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
A job. Please, lol!
It would cost me at least 15 hours of free time a week in commute and at least $800 extra a month. Then there’s the physiological strain of being trapped in a car and that’s not good for my back and hips. Let’s not forget “Jane,” my obnoxious “I don’t like Trump but” conservative coworker who has loud and vocal political opinions that I can help but overhear because she sits in the undersized fluorescent lit cubicle next to mine in my dark, dusty, windowless office. No thanks. I’m much happier at home.
I cherish my job a lot more (when before I was happy to switch every year). If companies want to retain good employees they’re going to have to adapt to the changes in the market.
Edit: guess I didn’t really answer, I agree with teleporter guy and private office guy. It’s ridiculous to ask people to return to a shared office.
deleted by creator
62% more pay
And if you were in one of those companies pushing hard to get people back in the office, what pay cut would you be willing to take to make your job fully remote? (I swear I’m not in HR! )
I’ve taken 3 pay cuts so far. Had 3 pay increases since covid forced wfh and each time it’s been less than inflation. I haven’t pushed for more because I’ve been left alone and am one of the last employees here still 100% wfh.
I’m on salary, I already had somewhat flexible hours when I was in the office, had to start at a specific time but could leave when the bulk of my work was done and then would log on from from at the end of the day and tidy up anything that came in after I left. It wasn’t uncommon for me to only be in the office for 3-4 hours on a typical day and my commute was 45mins to an hour, so time wise I now I spend ~50% less time at work.
1 million dollars every time I have to be on the highway so 2 miles per day hahaha
Oddly specific
A healthy office culture and team members to collaborate with. I go to the office because interacting with my coworkers in person is enjoyable and I learn new things faster through those interactions. It helps that we also have free coffee and snacks and the commute is less than 10 minutes but I primarily go in because of the people I work with.
As a minimum? Pay me for the commute. I’m only doing it because of management so they should compensate me.
I’d settle for a 4 day week of 8 hour days
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
Or the office would have to be in my street,
Could become a road sweeper?
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!
🤮
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!
Team? I believe you mean family
How about a raise?
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.
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
Include my commute time in my 7 hours of work a day. I’m not driving out of my own love of it, I’m driving because you’re requiring me to be in the office so it should count as time on your clock, not mine.
Also pay for my parking at work, and my petrol to get there and back.
A couple more kids. Or a smaller house. Or my mother in law coming to live with us.
Free or affordable, clean, safe public transit that takes me no more than 20 minutes from the time I set foot out my front door to setting foot in the office, and a team/company that doesn’t care if I decide to work the day remotely for any reason whatsoever. I also like the other guy’s comment about the workplace being a nice, inviting place to be since my cube is barren and probably 20+ years old.
Also the rest of y’all need to stay home when you get sick instead of bringing that shit into the office.
Nothing pisses me off more than hearing some dude hacking up his lungs just across the hallway.
I’ll call in sick a few days later just because, and say there must be something going around. At least it will get me a few days away from the Sickies so I can potentially avoid getting it.
Some cubicle farms are just sad. Coffee stains from 20 years ago, along with old fart smells.
I love staying at home when I am “too sick for the commute, but not so sick to answer a couple emails.”
Careful what you wish for regarding cubicles. I would kill for a cubicle in our office. When companies implement these modern collaboration space ideas, it’s all about hotel desks, movable workstations, short or no dividers and open air spaces.
Having a cubicle to myself was fucking awesome. Now there is no privacy, no space to call my own, no place to simply have a phone conversation without everyone within 50 feet of me hearing every word.
I can’t believe it’s been so many years and there still aren’t any laws regarding working in the office while sick. For office jobs it just makes zero sense, in this age they can all easily work from home more or less as seen during covid, isn’t worth it not to have a plague of common colds every damn winter?
For real, I have not gotten sick since I started working from home. I did get COVID once going to a company sponsored event with 1000 people, but I call that “going into the office”. Other than that, it’s been pretty nice being healthy every day
Triple my salary would be my minimum requirement to offset the additional freedom and lack of commute that I’d have to give up. I’d be spending less time with my family and I won’t give that up for anything less than triple my current pay.
Employers generally pay employees to do things that they can’t or don’t want to do. We work (doing things we don’t necessarily want to do) simply because it makes us money.
So yeah, want people to return to the office? That better come with a big offer attached or no dice.
Compensation for the time and cost of commuting back and forth, paid meal, free coffee and snacks, and additional sick days from using public transport and ultimately catching more sicknesses.
And even then, it doesn’t give me back the extra time I can spend with my kids.
How about 4 day work week? Would you be ok to go back to the office then?
As in WFH 1 day per week, or same salary but only 4 days of working? In either case, no. The main people pushing for mandatory in-office is landlords who are freaking out because their office space is no longer in demand, and shitty managers with the mentality of “if I can’t see you working, then you’re not working.” There are also those awful people who want to go back into the office because they miss the drama and messing with people and distracting people while they work
Work 4 days a week reduced work hours same wage. But in the office.
That would help, but just that single incentive would be a no for me.
