For those who are anti wfh, curious why you care?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My issue is the constant complaining into the void. If you are not in a position to set the policies of your workplace, then you need to follow the policies that are put in place, even if you don’t agree with them, or find a place to work that has policies you agree with. Your company is not under any obligation to get your buy-in on this. You can stay or you can go, and they will be just fine.

I don't get this either. Why shouldn't people advocate for better working conditions, more money, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My issue is the constant complaining into the void. If you are not in a position to set the policies of your workplace, then you need to follow the policies that are put in place, even if you don’t agree with them, or find a place to work that has policies you agree with. Your company is not under any obligation to get your buy-in on this. You can stay or you can go, and they will be just fine.

I don't get this either. Why shouldn't people advocate for better working conditions, more money, etc.

This is so interesting. The PP you are responding to could have been speaking to either the WFH crowd or the RTO crowd. Applies to both.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I like how everyone writes off the RTO folks as a bunch of old white men who are behind the times.

We know why WFH folks like it better: it’s easier for them. They’ll insist they’re more efficient, more productive, cheaper for the employer, etc - and in some cases they may be right. But that’s not what’s driving them. What’s driving them is that’s it easier. Plain and simple.

You’re gonna have trouble convincing this old white dude that it’s good for business for employees to sit at home on their computers isolated from their colleagues and their employer.

Exactly. You don’t want to work. You want to walk around bugging people. Or stand around a water cooler. Yes, most people just want to do our work on our computers.

You don’t want to work. You want to be left alone. You don’t care at all about the organization. [url] You just want the money. [b]

I mean duh. Who would continue working for their company if they stopped paying them? Barely anyone.

For real people just want to work on their computers. Why does it matter if they are in a cubicle, office, conference room, home office etc?

[Anonymous]

Mentioned this thread to DH who supervises a lot of people (lawyers and support staff), and he shrugged and told me he had an employee who was supposed to be WFH and found out that instead of actually doing any work during working hours, they were driving for Instacart.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Mentioned this thread to DH who supervises a lot of people (lawyers and support staff), and he shrugged and told me he had an employee who was supposed to be WFH and found out that instead of actually doing any work during working hours, they were driving for Instacart.

Another person with no shame about admitting publicly what a terrible manager they are.

RTO is not a fix for bad managers, but clearly a lot of people seem think it is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:How do all of these administrative staff people do their jobs remotely? Seems like BS.

I'm not administrative staff, but that seems like the type of position most conducive to WFH.

+2

An admin is the last person who needs to be on site, unless to prepare for an in person meeting?

My admin works from home 3 days a week and I hate it. When she’s not there I end up doing her job just because it’s faster than trying to get in contact for her so I can tell her what I need her to do. I’m going to either require her to move to at least 4 days/replace her in the near future.

The problem is your management. Why do you let her be out of contact? My admin is always reachable because she knows my expectations

NP. My admin is "reachable" in the sense that I have reached her: in a session with her trainer, "working" from the beach, on the bus on the way to work (1 hour after her start time). She says as long as she has her phone, she is on the clock. Our policy is I have to let her know if I need her in the office (to do things like a copy job) 2 days ahead of time, when I often only know myself I need something 20 minutes in advance. And she acts so put out if you ask her to shift her WFH days. It is easier to do it myself.

I don't necessarily care she is remote, it's more that RTO is highlighting for me how we don't need as much admin support as we did pre pandemic. And it doesn't make sense for our firm to pay admin for 40 hours of work/week when they are delivering much less than they used to. And I agree management is to blame for this issue, too.

I'm pro WFH and this woman should be fired. It doesn't matter if she thinks she is on the clock because she has her phone. It matters what the boss says. I'm a fed and I am required to be working at my duty station which is my home. Working means logged onto my computer which will show me as away after 5 minutes. It can check my logs against my time cards.

This woman probably wasn't working much in office either. Probably your firm was paying her to sit there and be available if people needed copies or things mailed. Those types usually spend the majority of their time gossipping, drinking coffee, celebrating birthdays, and making personal calls. But they are right there in the event you do need them. It's hard to recreate that remotely. And the more you work remotely, the less hard copy paper you use. So she figures she has nothing to do, so why not go to the gym and bring her phone. But then she's not around when you actually need her, so it's all pointless.

In that situation I'd just cut it down to a smaller pool of shared admins who are there in person most of the time. I WFH and really don't need an admin. We have one shared paralegal which is plenty.

I'm the one you're quoting and I agree with you on all points! Except the mailing thing, we have separate staff for that and they actually work pretty hard

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Mentioned this thread to DH who supervises a lot of people (lawyers and support staff), and he shrugged and told me he had an employee who was supposed to be WFH and found out that instead of actually doing any work during working hours, they were driving for Instacart.

Do they not have Skype/Teams on their computer to see that someone's been away for hours? And didn't this person have meetings and deliverables that they failed to attend/produce?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mentioned this thread to DH who supervises a lot of people (lawyers and support staff), and he shrugged and told me he had an employee who was supposed to be WFH and found out that instead of actually doing any work during working hours, they were driving for Instacart.

Another person with no shame about admitting publicly what a terrible manager they are.

RTO is not a fix for bad managers, but clearly a lot of people seem think it is.

Well, he's only been managing that section for several months, and they think the Instacart shenanigans have been going on since the middle of the pandemic and he's the one that figured it out, so I'm not going to blame him. But sure, there's a management issue there. There's also a WFH issue there that RTO would cure -- that particular employee wouldn't be driving for Instacart all day instead of doing their work if they were in the office.

RTO fixes plenty of the productivity issues that wouldn't exist but for WFH.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mentioned this thread to DH who supervises a lot of people (lawyers and support staff), and he shrugged and told me he had an employee who was supposed to be WFH and found out that instead of actually doing any work during working hours, they were driving for Instacart.

Do they not have Skype/Teams on their computer to see that someone's been away for hours? And didn't this person have meetings and deliverables that they failed to attend/produce?

No, they don't do Skype/Teams, and they were support staff that didn't really have many meetings. Apparently they were taking calls from coworkers in their car.

[Anonymous]

OP - an obvious WFH diehard masquerading as someone who just wants to make work better for everyone - is a joke. She (yes, it’s a she) endlessly rolls out the WFH mantras (workers aren’t responsible for funding buildings or downtown; bad WFH folks aren’t an employee problem but a management problem) and isn’t genuinely interested in understanding why RTO is necessary; she just wants to punch a bag and seems to think that doing so will somehow defeat RTO. It won’t. If she was genuine, she’d recognize that there are lots of people who abuse WFH, that in-office work can have benefits, and that companies should pay less for WFH because wages have always reflected the cost of providing services (think COL adjustments), not just the value of the service itself. I can’t imagine OP as a teammate; she’d always have an excuse for every failure and it would always be someone else’s fault. OP just wants to argue, not solve a problem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mentioned this thread to DH who supervises a lot of people (lawyers and support staff), and he shrugged and told me he had an employee who was supposed to be WFH and found out that instead of actually doing any work during working hours, they were driving for Instacart.

Do they not have Skype/Teams on their computer to see that someone's been away for hours? And didn't this person have meetings and deliverables that they failed to attend/produce?

No, they don't do Skype/Teams, and they were support staff that didn't really have many meetings. Apparently they were taking calls from coworkers in their car.

That sucks. Their needs to be some reasonable medium between micromanaging and people who think "having my phone and checking emails once in a while" is WFH.

[Anonymous]

WFH double standards:

+ Set boundaries. Email, don’t call me. Trust me, I’ll get the work done.

+ If your employee is out working Instacart instead of working, that’s a management problem.

This is why WFH nuts are hated. Every problem is a you problem. They’re terrible teammates.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:WFH double standards:

+ Set boundaries. Email, don’t call me. Trust me, I’ll get the work done.

+ If your employee is out working Instacart instead of working, that’s a management problem.

This is why WFH nuts are hated. Every problem is a you problem. They’re terrible teammates.

No matter how much you wish these things to be true, it’s just not the reality we’re in.

So long as we have 3.5% unemployment and employers are struggling to fill jobs, WFH is going to be a thing.

Maybe if Trump is elected and messes up the economy like he did the first time that might change.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:WFH double standards:

+ Set boundaries. Email, don’t call me. Trust me, I’ll get the work done.

+ If your employee is out working Instacart instead of working, that’s a management problem.

This is why WFH nuts are hated. Every problem is a you problem. They’re terrible teammates.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP - an obvious WFH diehard masquerading as someone who just wants to make work better for everyone - is a joke. She (yes, it’s a she) endlessly rolls out the WFH mantras (workers aren’t responsible for funding buildings or downtown; bad WFH folks aren’t an employee problem but a management problem) and isn’t genuinely interested in understanding why RTO is necessary; she just wants to punch a bag and seems to think that doing so will somehow defeat RTO. It won’t. If she was genuine, she’d recognize that there are lots of people who abuse WFH, that in-office work can have benefits, and that companies should pay less for WFH because wages have always reflected the cost of providing services (think COL adjustments), not just the value of the service itself. I can’t imagine OP as a teammate; she’d always have an excuse for every failure and it would always be someone else’s fault. OP just wants to argue, not solve a problem.

But why do you personally care?
Are you earning the same as those who are wfh and required to go in?
Are your team mates letting you down?
What is your dog in the fight? That was the question
I don’t think op is one person - there are a ton of people in America who are not feeling rto