Companies are on the war path against remote work

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe someone has raised this before but for me, the mental health benefits of not being in person in a toxic workplace and not having to be stuck in a car/metro for 12 hours a week are the main reason I want to continue WFH.

I have been at my company for a long time. It’s top heavy, toxic, and has a lot of senior staff who are paid a lot of money to do very little but rearrange deck chairs while wearing suits and giving the appearance of doing work while really just watching their underlings do everything.

Pre COVID I did all the “things” younger employers think they need to do to get ahead. Worked long hours, was insanely productive, worked through lunch, networked, volunteered for committees, got a work “mentor,” did professional development seminars, had outstanding job performance, etc. It didn’t really serve me the way I thought it would at all. I ended up on a team with real issues (bullying, racism, former employees suing for discrimination) and managed to emerge unscathed with a reputation for doing great work, but what I eventually realized was that no one was going to promote me. The higher ups would obscure my contributions and try to make it seem like they were responsible for the good work I did. I only got raises and promotions by demanding them and writing memos explaining in painstaking detail all my achievements, having very uncomfortable conversations with my boss who clearly didn’t want to stick her neck out but ultimately realizes she had to (or she’d lose her top performer), getting peers to share their salaries with me, etc. and it still took nearly a year each time.

I was able to transition to WFH full time during COVID and I never want to go back. Being home I am able to largely be outside of the toxic crazymaking, bullying, grandstanding, micro aggressions, and shameless self-promotion that the crazies engage in to get to the top (or to try to stay in a leadership position because they actually don’t do anything meaningful for the company so playing office politics is their only way to get job security). The last company I worked with was like this, too, so I have no faith that elsewhere it would be different. I would like to hope it would be, but I am not holding my breath.

For me, you can’t put a price on the mental health benefits of WFH. I sometimes miss the “friendships” I had in the office, but let’s be honest - those are never that real anyway in corporate America.

You sound exhausting. No wonder they want you to not go to office

No, she sounds spot on. Truer words have rarely been written on DCUM.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Dear Lord are there people who actually believe that someone shopping at Target at 2 pm is not capable of being supremely productive for their company? How antiquated.

It’s a SAHM saying that. Their job is not to think

While it is unquestionably true that *some* employees who are shopping at Target at 2 pm are high performers who are supremely productive for their company, my strong suspicion is that *most* of the employees who are shopping at Target at 2 pm on a WFH day are slacking off. IME extremely high performance employees get a lot of slack as a practical matter, whatever the formal policies, but it is simply true that there are a lot of people abusing work from home while claiming to be highly productive—and that category is ruining it for everybody.

And you’re convinced that if these same people were physically in the office at 2 PM, they would be productively working? Because I doubt anything would change besides their location.

I’m convinced that many of them would be doing more. My sense of human nature is that there are many people who can be productive if closely supervised, and will slack off if not. “When the cat’s away, the mice will play” is a proverb for a reason. You may not agree, and you may even be right, but do you really think that’s an *unreasonable* point of view?

DP but I'm in my late 40s. I've been doing this a long time. There have been absolutely been times I've been in the office 5x a week and not productive. Chatting, running errands, or just going online. I always get my work done, am a high performer, and want to deliver good work. But we aren't robots. It is human nature to work to meet deadlines, slack during down times, etc.

Pre pandemic I worked at a global firm that encouraged hoteling and remote work. I WFH most of the time and went into the office usually 2x a week. I was much more productive at home most days.

Now I'm remote full time, going in maybe once every 6 weeks or attending big meetings/company retreats etc. I love it, it's conducive to my kind of work, and I'll never report to an office full time again.

NP. What you are doing, as an employee in your late 40s who is not coming in to the office, is you are not giving any training or mentoring, formal or informal, to the young workers who are just starting out. You were helped throughout your career, especially in beginning, by working with or for more senior people, who would give you advice, show you how to do it, help you. Now you are declining to do the same for the younger workers.

Whether you care about the stores who were supported by you before, whether you should care about them or not, you clearly don't care about your company, the younger workers, or anyone besides yourself.

I mentor plenty. What you don't seem to get is my company is remote. Some of my team live hours away from me, so no, my company isn't paying for daily flights LOL.

My team gets together regularly in person, just not every day or every week. We do retreats 3x a year, and a few of the folks who live nearby commute to our office a few times a year in between retreats to hang out and work together.

We have a great model. It's a successful tech company, our mentoring program gets great satisfaction rates, and our employee retention is sky high. Yes even for younger employers.

I'm sorry you can't fathom this, there are ways to communicate and mentor when you are not in person. It's not 1996 anymore.

NP feds don't have any of this, nor do you want taxpayer dollars spent on retreats. We also have bad tech. For instance, my Teams can't call externally. I have to use my personal cell instead. It is so hard to collaborate.

[Anonymous]

We have to RTO one day a week, but the whole office comes in on the same day. That actually makes sense.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Dear Lord are there people who actually believe that someone shopping at Target at 2 pm is not capable of being supremely productive for their company? How antiquated.

It’s a SAHM saying that. Their job is not to think

While it is unquestionably true that *some* employees who are shopping at Target at 2 pm are high performers who are supremely productive for their company, my strong suspicion is that *most* of the employees who are shopping at Target at 2 pm on a WFH day are slacking off. IME extremely high performance employees get a lot of slack as a practical matter, whatever the formal policies, but it is simply true that there are a lot of people abusing work from home while claiming to be highly productive—and that category is ruining it for everybody.

And you’re convinced that if these same people were physically in the office at 2 PM, they would be productively working? Because I doubt anything would change besides their location.

I’m convinced that many of them would be doing more. My sense of human nature is that there are many people who can be productive if closely supervised, and will slack off if not. “When the cat’s away, the mice will play” is a proverb for a reason. You may not agree, and you may even be right, but do you really think that’s an *unreasonable* point of view?

DP but I'm in my late 40s. I've been doing this a long time. There have been absolutely been times I've been in the office 5x a week and not productive. Chatting, running errands, or just going online. I always get my work done, am a high performer, and want to deliver good work. But we aren't robots. It is human nature to work to meet deadlines, slack during down times, etc.

Pre pandemic I worked at a global firm that encouraged hoteling and remote work. I WFH most of the time and went into the office usually 2x a week. I was much more productive at home most days.

Now I'm remote full time, going in maybe once every 6 weeks or attending big meetings/company retreats etc. I love it, it's conducive to my kind of work, and I'll never report to an office full time again.

NP. What you are doing, as an employee in your late 40s who is not coming in to the office, is you are not giving any training or mentoring, formal or informal, to the young workers who are just starting out. You were helped throughout your career, especially in beginning, by working with or for more senior people, who would give you advice, show you how to do it, help you. Now you are declining to do the same for the younger workers.

Whether you care about the stores who were supported by you before, whether you should care about them or not, you clearly don't care about your company, the younger workers, or anyone besides yourself.

I mentor plenty. What you don't seem to get is my company is remote. Some of my team live hours away from me, so no, my company isn't paying for daily flights LOL.

My team gets together regularly in person, just not every day or every week. We do retreats 3x a year, and a few of the folks who live nearby commute to our office a few times a year in between retreats to hang out and work together.

We have a great model. It's a successful tech company, our mentoring program gets great satisfaction rates, and our employee retention is sky high. Yes even for younger employers.

I'm sorry you can't fathom this, there are ways to communicate and mentor when you are not in person. It's not 1996 anymore.

NP feds don't have any of this, nor do you want taxpayer dollars spent on retreats. We also have bad tech. For instance, my Teams can't call externally. I have to use my personal cell instead. It is so hard to collaborate.

I have never worked for the government so maybe you are right. I've been working from home in some capacity for the last 15 years (fully remote now except for the meetings, team retreats I was talking about) but we definitely have the tools for meaningful in person gatherings plus great tech. My company is a successful tech company though so maybe that is not a surprise. prior to this job, I worked for one of the major consulting firms in a non client facing role and it was also very supportive of remote work.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Dear Lord are there people who actually believe that someone shopping at Target at 2 pm is not capable of being supremely productive for their company? How antiquated.

2pm is still in prime work hours, for all of the US. NO you cannot be supremely productive from Target mid-day.

There I said it.

No I'm not a dinosaur, grandma, or meemaw. I'm still in my 30s.

You don’t know there are 3 different time zones? What if I primarily work with staff in London. Since it’s 8 PM there am I allowed to do my Target run at 2 PM so I can hold 7 AM calls with the London team?

You don’t seem to understand that technology improves efficiencies.

When did London relocate to the US?

The point is that NO 2 PM is NOT prime working hours for everyone in the US. It’s like SAHMs have no understanding of the workplace.

But it is to MOST. I'm working with people who exclusively work with people on the east coast and they are doing all sorts of personal things during the day and emailing me back at 11:00 pm or even 2:00 am. How is that ok? It most certainly isn't productive since I have to wait 24 hours on their answer to get the rest of my job done.

I had insomnia last week and decided to get up and work. I did send an email at 2:30 am. I was trying to schedule it for 8:00 am, but it accidentally went out. Does that mean I'm a crap employee? If people are getting their crap done and are responsive to messages, who cares when they do it. I routinely have to wait days and remind my idiot supervisor to sign simple forms because he's so disorganized. Whether he's in the office or at home, he's probably still be worthless and unreliable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Dear Lord are there people who actually believe that someone shopping at Target at 2 pm is not capable of being supremely productive for their company? How antiquated.

2pm is still in prime work hours, for all of the US. NO you cannot be supremely productive from Target mid-day.

There I said it.

No I'm not a dinosaur, grandma, or meemaw. I'm still in my 30s.

You don’t know there are 3 different time zones? What if I primarily work with staff in London. Since it’s 8 PM there am I allowed to do my Target run at 2 PM so I can hold 7 AM calls with the London team?

You don’t seem to understand that technology improves efficiencies.

I do 7am meetings London, 11-4 NY and towards end of Day San Fran. Sunday nights Asia and India.

My U.K. people usually available to 5pm DC time. My San Fran People till 2 am DC time. We all our online 16 hours a day. I don’t sleep much I am online 18 hours a day 7 days a week.

I only work 8-9 hours a day but I am available. And if I did go to target I have laptop in car so can use hotspot.

That is how real remote works as companies are open 24/7 and staff is all over the globe.

If fed workers did real remote they beg to go back in person with no remote access[i][u]

You know... I can usually just ignore the gratuitous digs at government employees, but it's been a really long two weeks at work. I've been working an enormous amount of time and responding to issues 24/7 - doing things that you as a citizen absolutely want me doing. Because the federal government actually works with people all over the globe (and in space even!) just as much as your precious corporate office does.
So shove it.
- A fed who very much values my telework capability right now and who will be less effective at her job if it changes.

Thank you, pp. I'm also a fed and work like you do -- as do most of my colleagues. I'm so sick and tired of money grubbing private sector types and their superiority complexes. So many of us work harder than anyone in the private sector ever will, for a fraction of the income, because we are motivated by public service, not just wealth.

[Anonymous]

I thought DC was filled with high performers in leadership roles or on their way. You all sound like a bunch of paper company employees in Scranton.

You can call me lazy for going to target at 2pm and tell me I need to be back in the office and that I was an idiot for moving to the sticks during COVID.

But here’s the thing, I am accessible every second I am awake. I live on my device and return priority emails in moments, whether I’m in target or in the office.

I work with people around the globe.

And, I’m far from the only person like this. There are thousands and thousands of us.

Flexible work is here to stay - I trade 2pm on a Tuesday for 8pm on a Sunday. Rigid RTO is driven by loser bosses with no leadership skills or for people with admin jobs or specialized contributors. This doesn’t describe the vast majority of white collar positions in DC.

[Anonymous]

Many Job roles include responding to customer enquiries on the phone. If I call in at 8:30, because my own shift starts at 9, then I expect the “ early shift” person to pick up the phone.

I shouldn’t be left hanging because the person who is being paid to provide me with the service not out on the school run or having a latte at their local coffee shop.

I don’t mind WFH as long as the full service is actually given and many employees take the you know what with it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I thought DC was filled with high performers in leadership roles or on their way. You all sound like a bunch of paper company employees in Scranton.

You can call me lazy for going to target at 2pm and tell me I need to be back in the office and that I was an idiot for moving to the sticks during COVID.

But here’s the thing, I am accessible every second I am awake. I live on my device and return priority emails in moments, whether I’m in target or in the office.

I work with people around the globe.

And, I’m far from the only person like this. There are thousands and thousands of us.

Flexible work is here to stay - I trade 2pm on a Tuesday for 8pm on a Sunday. Rigid RTO is driven by loser bosses with no leadership skills or for people with admin jobs or specialized contributors. This doesn’t describe the vast majority of white collar positions in DC.

This. +1000000

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: Many Job roles include responding to customer enquiries on the phone. If I call in at 8:30, because my own shift starts at 9, then I expect the “ early shift” person to pick up the phone.

I shouldn’t be left hanging because the person who is being paid to provide me with the service not out on the school run or having a latte at their local coffee shop.

I don’t mind WFH as long as the full service is actually given and many employees take the you know what with it.

Customer service lines have hold queues because the people covering the phones have other customers, and yes breaks to go to the bathroom or eat. I have worked customer facing jobs in small offices (before WFH) and we put people on hold or offered to call them back later because we did not have capacity to provide instantaneous service at all times.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: Many Job roles include responding to customer enquiries on the phone. If I call in at 8:30, because my own shift starts at 9, then I expect the “ early shift” person to pick up the phone.

I shouldn’t be left hanging because the person who is being paid to provide me with the service not out on the school run or having a latte at their local coffee shop.

I don’t mind WFH as long as the full service is actually given and many employees take the you know what with it.

We aren’t talking about call center jobs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I thought DC was filled with high performers in leadership roles or on their way. You all sound like a bunch of paper company employees in Scranton.

You can call me lazy for going to target at 2pm and tell me I need to be back in the office and that I was an idiot for moving to the sticks during COVID.

But here’s the thing, I am accessible every second I am awake. I live on my device and return priority emails in moments, whether I’m in target or in the office.

I work with people around the globe.

And, I’m far from the only person like this. There are thousands and thousands of us.

Flexible work is here to stay - I trade 2pm on a Tuesday for 8pm on a Sunday. Rigid RTO is driven by loser bosses with no leadership skills or for people with admin jobs or specialized contributors. This doesn’t describe the vast majority of white collar positions in DC.

You use emails? What type of loser company do you work for?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I thought DC was filled with high performers in leadership roles or on their way. You all sound like a bunch of paper company employees in Scranton.

You can call me lazy for going to target at 2pm and tell me I need to be back in the office and that I was an idiot for moving to the sticks during COVID.

But here’s the thing, I am accessible every second I am awake. I live on my device and return priority emails in moments, whether I’m in target or in the office.

I work with people around the globe.

And, I’m far from the only person like this. There are thousands and thousands of us.

Flexible work is here to stay - I trade 2pm on a Tuesday for 8pm on a Sunday. Rigid RTO is driven by loser bosses with no leadership skills or for people with admin jobs or specialized contributors. This doesn’t describe the vast majority of white collar positions in DC.

You use emails? What type of loser company do you work for?

Blurring the lines between your house and your work isn’t what we all want to do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: Many Job roles include responding to customer enquiries on the phone. If I call in at 8:30, because my own shift starts at 9, then I expect the “ early shift” person to pick up the phone.

I shouldn’t be left hanging because the person who is being paid to provide me with the service not out on the school run or having a latte at their local coffee shop.

I don’t mind WFH as long as the full service is actually given and many employees take the you know what with it.

Customer service lines have hold queues because the people covering the phones have other customers, and yes breaks to go to the bathroom or eat. I have worked customer facing jobs in small offices (before WFH) and we put people on hold or offered to call them back later because we did not have capacity to provide instantaneous service at all times.

I wasn’t talking about waiting on hold for a reasonable amount of time ( under 5min). Where I work (hospital) we stagger lunch’s between about 12-2 to ensure continuous coverage. An issue with WFH is that there isn’t that natural coordination of breaks that happens when the team is in person so multiple people could be off at the same time and coverage isn’t met. Its due to poor management.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Maybe someone has raised this before but for me, the mental health benefits of not being in person in a toxic workplace and not having to be stuck in a car/metro for 12 hours a week are the main reason I want to continue WFH.

I have been at my company for a long time. It’s top heavy, toxic, and has a lot of senior staff who are paid a lot of money to do very little but rearrange deck chairs while wearing suits and giving the appearance of doing work while really just watching their underlings do everything.

Pre COVID I did all the “things” younger employers think they need to do to get ahead. Worked long hours, was insanely productive, worked through lunch, networked, volunteered for committees, got a work “mentor,” did professional development seminars, had outstanding job performance, etc. It didn’t really serve me the way I thought it would at all. I ended up on a team with real issues (bullying, racism, former employees suing for discrimination) and managed to emerge unscathed with a reputation for doing great work, but what I eventually realized was that no one was going to promote me. The higher ups would obscure my contributions and try to make it seem like they were responsible for the good work I did. I only got raises and promotions by demanding them and writing memos explaining in painstaking detail all my achievements, having very uncomfortable conversations with my boss who clearly didn’t want to stick her neck out but ultimately realizes she had to (or she’d lose her top performer), getting peers to share their salaries with me, etc. and it still took nearly a year each time.

I was able to transition to WFH full time during COVID and I never want to go back. Being home I am able to largely be outside of the toxic crazymaking, bullying, grandstanding, micro aggressions, and shameless self-promotion that the crazies engage in to get to the top (or to try to stay in a leadership position because they actually don’t do anything meaningful for the company so playing office politics is their only way to get job security). The last company I worked with was like this, too, so I have no faith that elsewhere it would be different. I would like to hope it would be, but I am not holding my breath.

For me, you can’t put a price on the mental health benefits of WFH. I sometimes miss the “friendships” I had in the office, but let’s be honest - those are never that real anyway in corporate America.

Completely agree with all of this. My workplace wasn't nearly this toxic, but even an average workplace brings politics, competition, inevitable nastiness from a few people who affect everything. I have less real friendships with colleagues now, but better relationships with my family members and the community I live in. My mental health is 10 times better not having to deal with the stress of toxic people, stressful meetings, and a stressful commute. Will never go back.