General Politics XII World • Page 415

Believe me plenty of class consciousness goes on in those WFH Google Chats between coworkers.

 

I wouldn’t mind going to the office more if there were people here, whenever I come in there’s like 3-4 people and everyone else is online, what’s the point?

Anyone, someone help me get my office building horror movie made so we can end in-office work altogether. Like what Jaws did for swimming at the beach.

 

"We are returning to the office for team building!":

Oh like those lame culture building meetings we would do over Google Meet where I'd turn my camera off, go on mute, and go in the other room while I waited until I could go back to getting actual work done? Nobody actually likes that except for the middle managers who organize it.

Company culture is cringe. Just leave me alone and let me do my job.

 

They already made it

 

I just want the flexibility aspect because there is some weeks where I think being in the office with my immediate co-workers is needed because trying to work on something together on Teams is not ideal and then there is weeks where I am just working on stuff that does not need that type of in-person collaboration.

It's just that it would make managers to have to actually manage and on top of that I think they are worried about departments that would need to be in more complaining that other departments are not in.

 

It’s really about real estate because they all own these huge mostly empty buildings that are more and more empty

 

I WFH and it can be made lonely sometimes and I've thought about getting a coworking desk but then I remind myself I hate dealing with traffic and quickly get over it.

 

Once I got to experience waking up 15-20 minutes before my shift started I was like

 

10000000% My company stupidly decided they wanted to build out a new office that costed over half a million dollars. Maybe eat less avocado toast or something idk

 

It's funny that even Zuckerberg has started a RTO mandate, it's like bitch didn't you say we would all be doing our office jobs within the Metaverse?

 

The biggest irony was when Zoom tried to force an RTO mandate

 

You should get paid more for WFH since the company is saving on those commercial real estate costs. Let people come into the office if they want, but make them pay for that desk space.

More seriously, I never thought I would like permanent-WFH, but have come to really enjoy it, especially with my kids all being in the same school half a mile away, so I can walk to drop them off and pick them up, pop over there for events and volunteer opportunities, etc. I do find that I'm generally more productive - even being in pointless meetings isn't a full waste of time when WFH because it's much easier to half listen and work on other stuff when you're not all in the same room - and am actually more likely to work on something after hours if I need to catch up because I don't have to spend an hour+ commuting each day.

But my company doesn't even have an office where I live and my team is spread across the country - Raleigh, Pittsburgh, DC, and Norman OK, all reporting to a boss in SF. My boss lives in the city where our headquarters is and she almost never goes to the office.

 

It really just seems like an obvious future that’s better for everyone in these kinds of jobs that we will have to fight tooth and nail for as the system grips on to status quo

 

The main thing I miss about going to the office is having a kick-ass printer that can print some of these massive contracts I have to read in seconds, because it's much easier to read through them and make notes on paper for my first pass.

The other thing I miss is the whiskey and beer tastings we would do near the end of the day, but now I have more time to hang out with my actual friends and neighbors.

 

My company is also just extremely hypocritical. We've always hired remote people all over the country for some roles, yet we also hire people who are local, and those of us who are local are expected to be hybrid, or in some cases, in-person only. So, we're about 50/50 local and remote. Doesn't make any sense. Luckily, I fall into that hybrid category, and I don't actually mind being in the office on some days since my commute is really quick, but we've also got other "local" people who are forced to be in-person 5 days a week and their commutes are over an hour one way

 

Doesn't he have a Hawaiian island to colonize

 

Someone should think of the shitty regional taco chains that are hurting without office workers to buy $13 tacos

 

This wouldn't suck as much if I didn't naively declare at the height of the pandemic "I am never going to have to commute for work again!" and got rid of my car.

 

" why can't my deli in the middle of nowhere that's closed on weekends survive "

 

I do miss afterwork drinks and apps at Applebee's.

 

I'm in a similar boat except without the kids, hah. I never thought I'd be into permanent-WFH but... It's nice being able to use my lunch break to go to my neighborhood gym, run an errand or two, take a nap, etc. Or use time during meetings where I just need to listen to do the dishes or some light cleaming.

And I'm infinitely more productive because of everything you mentioned about meetings. Nevermind the fact that working from home means I can just hop from meeting to meeting without having to switch rooms.

I used to love meeting with people face to face (and I still do) but the reality is I have so many remote co-workers now, and most of my meetings are with clients, so coming into the office to basically sit alone in a meeting room for 50% of the day would just feel so silly!

 

I have worked from home for 4 years at a job in an industry that I would not still be in if I had to go to an office.

It absolutely gets lonely sometimes, but the kind of people I work with are not the kind of people I would want to spend time with anyway.

 

This summer I took the opportunity to work at one of my client's offices 1-2 days a week, just to get out of the house and see other people. After three weeks I stopped going. Everyone was so miserable there and all they did was bitch to me about everyone else in the office. I would rather talk to no one all day than be six different people's work therapist.

 

Agree, it can get lonely sometimes, but I just have music on all day or sometimes I will put on a podcast I really don't care about substantively just to have some voices in the background.

But mostly I just take my dog for an afternoon walk and invariably run into some friends/neighbors and chat for a few minutes to re-charge my social battery.