I truly do not understand the anti WFH sentiment

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:WFH has nuked productivity at my company, in two specific ways. First, it has multiplied time in meetings by two- or threefold. This means that there is far less time for actual work. We now have many managers who don't do anything other than receive requests are reroute them to others via email, PowerPoint, and Teams. This is literally like the guy in Office Space who takes requirements from customers to engineers because he's a a people person, damnit. Secondly, it has essentially made it impossible to train new people. It turns out that entry level employees need lots of in-person time--instructional and unstructured--to become productive. We've now gotten to the point where the senior leaders who moved away or refuse to come in are on their way out, and we're only hiring new employees locally. WFH, for us, was a failed experiment.

I agree a lot with this response. For instance, right now I need to find out which person does X program. So I'll send out an email, it will bounce around, won't receive a response for a few days (because the amount of emails everyone receives are in the hundreds) and I am delayed. Previously I could just ask around or pop into someone's office briefly. Or previously I likely would have just known who did X project because I spoke to people at lunch or at the coffee station. I'm getting really frustrated every day.

Meetings and emails are just out of control and they haven't given us the collaboration that we used to have.

You could just call the person that you would otherwise have gone to their office?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

OP this is the whole point!!! why not let ppl do what makes them happy? why ruin someone else's life bc you prefer to be in an office? Insane to me to force ppl who do not want to share space with you to do so.

We're tired of you sociopaths rewriting society just because you hate people.

We? Consider moving then. Idaho is beautiful and people are very social out there

Just gross. You people destroyed everything.

Destroyed what exactly? Go in to spend time with people like you? Don’t think so.

Sociopath. You know nothing about me, and yet you hate me. So glad I left DC.

You sound unhinged. Seriously. Stay home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:WFH has nuked productivity at my company, in two specific ways. First, it has multiplied time in meetings by two- or threefold. This means that there is far less time for actual work. We now have many managers who don't do anything other than receive requests are reroute them to others via email, PowerPoint, and Teams. This is literally like the guy in Office Space who takes requirements from customers to engineers because he's a a people person, damnit. Secondly, it has essentially made it impossible to train new people. It turns out that entry level employees need lots of in-person time--instructional and unstructured--to become productive. We've now gotten to the point where the senior leaders who moved away or refuse to come in are on their way out, and we're only hiring new employees locally. WFH, for us, was a failed experiment.

I agree a lot with this response. For instance, right now I need to find out which person does X program. So I'll send out an email, it will bounce around, won't receive a response for a few days (because the amount of emails everyone receives are in the hundreds) and I am delayed. Previously I could just ask around or pop into someone's office briefly. Or previously I likely would have just known who did X project because I spoke to people at lunch or at the coffee station. I'm getting really frustrated every day.

Meetings and emails are just out of control and they haven't given us the collaboration that we used to have.

You could just call the person that you would otherwise have gone to their office?

While that sounds reasonable, no one calls anymore. I could send a chat asking to talk, but most people say they are too busy or they don't even respond to chats. Clearly I'm at a busy office.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:WFH has nuked productivity at my company, in two specific ways. First, it has multiplied time in meetings by two- or threefold. This means that there is far less time for actual work. We now have many managers who don't do anything other than receive requests are reroute them to others via email, PowerPoint, and Teams. This is literally like the guy in Office Space who takes requirements from customers to engineers because he's a a people person, damnit. Secondly, it has essentially made it impossible to train new people. It turns out that entry level employees need lots of in-person time--instructional and unstructured--to become productive. We've now gotten to the point where the senior leaders who moved away or refuse to come in are on their way out, and we're only hiring new employees locally. WFH, for us, was a failed experiment.

I agree a lot with this response. For instance, right now I need to find out which person does X program. So I'll send out an email, it will bounce around, won't receive a response for a few days (because the amount of emails everyone receives are in the hundreds) and I am delayed. Previously I could just ask around or pop into someone's office briefly. Or previously I likely would have just known who did X project because I spoke to people at lunch or at the coffee station. I'm getting really frustrated every day.

Meetings and emails are just out of control and they haven't given us the collaboration that we used to have.

You could just call the person that you would otherwise have gone to their office?

While that sounds reasonable, no one calls anymore. I could send a chat asking to talk, but most people say they are too busy or they don't even respond to chats. Clearly I'm at a busy office.

You don't call either? Pick up the phone and call. It's not hard!

[Anonymous]

It's hard to do nothing and look important when there is no one there to see you. Most of the people in my organization who don't like the hybrid work week don't do very much work but go to the office for face time. We have rigid tracks on productivity and are up in all economic factors by quite a bit. Culture/training are fair points but you don't need 40 hours in the office to achieve them and most of the complainers about WFH never participated in those activities before

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

OP this is the whole point!!! why not let ppl do what makes them happy? why ruin someone else's life bc you prefer to be in an office? Insane to me to force ppl who do not want to share space with you to do so.

We're tired of you sociopaths rewriting society just because you hate people.

We? Consider moving then. Idaho is beautiful and people are very social out there

Just gross. You people destroyed everything.

Destroyed what exactly? Go in to spend time with people like you? Don’t think so.

Sociopath. You know nothing about me, and yet you hate me. So glad I left DC.

You sound unhinged. Seriously. Stay home.

No thanks. Unlike you, I don't hate people. You're the one who can't bothered to leave their house.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Because we are human and need social interaction, facial expressions, and time to communicate outside of discrete work tasks to feel good about ourselves and be productive. People need to see and hear each other to informally learn from each other. We know that being together in person reduces cortisol and stress levels. Being isolated associated with higher levels of disease.

Except that I get all those things from outside of work. I come together with FRIENDS who I get to choose and enjoy way more frequently now that I am not spendingt so much time on a soul sucking commute.

If I could have an easy 10-15 minute commute, and come and go from an office as I pleased, sure. But spending 45 minutes in hellish DC traffic that could flex up to 90 minutes with the slightest of issues (rain, accident) is WAY worse for my health than the work place "isolation". Btw, I live 7 miles from my office.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:WFH has nuked productivity at my company, in two specific ways. First, it has multiplied time in meetings by two- or threefold. This means that there is far less time for actual work. We now have many managers who don't do anything other than receive requests are reroute them to others via email, PowerPoint, and Teams. This is literally like the guy in Office Space who takes requirements from customers to engineers because he's a a people person, damnit. Secondly, it has essentially made it impossible to train new people. It turns out that entry level employees need lots of in-person time--instructional and unstructured--to become productive. We've now gotten to the point where the senior leaders who moved away or refuse to come in are on their way out, and we're only hiring new employees locally. WFH, for us, was a failed experiment.

I agree a lot with this response. For instance, right now I need to find out which person does X program. So I'll send out an email, it will bounce around, won't receive a response for a few days (because the amount of emails everyone receives are in the hundreds) and I am delayed. Previously I could just ask around or pop into someone's office briefly. Or previously I likely would have just known who did X project because I spoke to people at lunch or at the coffee station. I'm getting really frustrated every day.

Meetings and emails are just out of control and they haven't given us the collaboration that we used to have.

You could just call the person that you would otherwise have gone to their office?

While that sounds reasonable, no one calls anymore. I could send a chat asking to talk, but most people say they are too busy or they don't even respond to chats. Clearly I'm at a busy office.

You don't call either? Pick up the phone and call. It's not hard!

I don't answer cold calls unless it's my own manager or someone very high up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Like - why? If someone is in a meeting on zoom or in a meeting in a room, who cares? Let people do what they want
I'd 1000% rather have someone good who lives 50m away and doesn't want to commute but hits it hard for 9h a day than someone who doesn't mind schlepping in to be 'in person' and doesn't add that much value.
Like - why force ppl to be in your presence if they dont want to? Technology makes this unnecessary. So weirdly controlling and small minded to me. sure sometimes ppl get together in person but not needed every day.
we used to use pay phones on the street but now we have cells and we dont need to. same applies here.

It's the "hits it hard for 9 hours a day" part that is bullshit.

+1
My friend brags about how she is able to go for runs and do daily errands while working from home. She is a fed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:WFH has nuked productivity at my company, in two specific ways. First, it has multiplied time in meetings by two- or threefold. This means that there is far less time for actual work. We now have many managers who don't do anything other than receive requests are reroute them to others via email, PowerPoint, and Teams. This is literally like the guy in Office Space who takes requirements from customers to engineers because he's a a people person, damnit. Secondly, it has essentially made it impossible to train new people. It turns out that entry level employees need lots of in-person time--instructional and unstructured--to become productive. We've now gotten to the point where the senior leaders who moved away or refuse to come in are on their way out, and we're only hiring new employees locally. WFH, for us, was a failed experiment.

I agree a lot with this response. For instance, right now I need to find out which person does X program. So I'll send out an email, it will bounce around, won't receive a response for a few days (because the amount of emails everyone receives are in the hundreds) and I am delayed. Previously I could just ask around or pop into someone's office briefly. Or previously I likely would have just known who did X project because I spoke to people at lunch or at the coffee station. I'm getting really frustrated every day.

Meetings and emails are just out of control and they haven't given us the collaboration that we used to have.

You could just call the person that you would otherwise have gone to their office?

While that sounds reasonable, no one calls anymore. I could send a chat asking to talk, but most people say they are too busy or they don't even respond to chats. Clearly I'm at a busy office.

You don't call either? Pick up the phone and call. It's not hard!

I don't answer cold calls unless it's my own manager or someone very high up.

Pretty rude

[Anonymous]

As the VP of operations at a very large company I don’t understand the problem either. Since I’m the decider of all things operations, long before Covid I put in software and metrics that measure productivity, work load and utilization. Since I can actually see productivity, I couldn’t give a single Fu&k where you get your work done. Everyone can also see their own personal metrics and they can absolutely avoid having their manager snooping in their business if they just keep their numbers within the acceptable range. Numbers are averaged over the untie month so it you need to screw around that’s fine, just work harder the next few days or the days leading up to screwing around and your numbers will remain good. They can also earn bonuses by figuring out ways to increase their productivity over the acceptable range.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:WFH has nuked productivity at my company, in two specific ways. First, it has multiplied time in meetings by two- or threefold. This means that there is far less time for actual work. We now have many managers who don't do anything other than receive requests are reroute them to others via email, PowerPoint, and Teams. This is literally like the guy in Office Space who takes requirements from customers to engineers because he's a a people person, damnit. Secondly, it has essentially made it impossible to train new people. It turns out that entry level employees need lots of in-person time--instructional and unstructured--to become productive. We've now gotten to the point where the senior leaders who moved away or refuse to come in are on their way out, and we're only hiring new employees locally. WFH, for us, was a failed experiment.

I agree a lot with this response. For instance, right now I need to find out which person does X program. So I'll send out an email, it will bounce around, won't receive a response for a few days (because the amount of emails everyone receives are in the hundreds) and I am delayed. Previously I could just ask around or pop into someone's office briefly. Or previously I likely would have just known who did X project because I spoke to people at lunch or at the coffee station. I'm getting really frustrated every day.

Meetings and emails are just out of control and they haven't given us the collaboration that we used to have.

You could just call the person that you would otherwise have gone to their office?

While that sounds reasonable, no one calls anymore. I could send a chat asking to talk, but most people say they are too busy or they don't even respond to chats. Clearly I'm at a busy office.

What about being in the office would change this?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As the VP of operations at a very large company I don’t understand the problem either. Since I’m the decider of all things operations, long before Covid I put in software and metrics that measure productivity, work load and utilization. Since I can actually see productivity, I couldn’t give a single Fu&k where you get your work done. Everyone can also see their own personal metrics and they can absolutely avoid having their manager snooping in their business if they just keep their numbers within the acceptable range. Numbers are averaged over the untie month so it you need to screw around that’s fine, just work harder the next few days or the days leading up to screwing around and your numbers will remain good. They can also earn bonuses by figuring out ways to increase their productivity over the acceptable range.

Except you don’t know who is doing work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:WFH has nuked productivity at my company, in two specific ways. First, it has multiplied time in meetings by two- or threefold. This means that there is far less time for actual work. We now have many managers who don't do anything other than receive requests are reroute them to others via email, PowerPoint, and Teams. This is literally like the guy in Office Space who takes requirements from customers to engineers because he's a a people person, damnit. Secondly, it has essentially made it impossible to train new people. It turns out that entry level employees need lots of in-person time--instructional and unstructured--to become productive. We've now gotten to the point where the senior leaders who moved away or refuse to come in are on their way out, and we're only hiring new employees locally. WFH, for us, was a failed experiment.

I agree a lot with this response. For instance, right now I need to find out which person does X program. So I'll send out an email, it will bounce around, won't receive a response for a few days (because the amount of emails everyone receives are in the hundreds) and I am delayed. Previously I could just ask around or pop into someone's office briefly. Or previously I likely would have just known who did X project because I spoke to people at lunch or at the coffee station. I'm getting really frustrated every day.

Meetings and emails are just out of control and they haven't given us the collaboration that we used to have.

i

I’m suprised some of you all don’t have tools like slack or MS teams or webex. Nobody calls or emails unless it needs to be documented. Slack at my company is how you get immediate responses. Plus for our tools you literally cannot hide. You can see who is logged in and who is idle and who is not even logged in. You can see who is in a meeting and who is not. You absolutely can go on a run, but it needs to be blocked off so people can see when you are idle or logged off that you are not available. I literally have logged today my dog walk (30min) and my trip to the garden center (45min). I’m not blocking off lunch today. As long as it’s transparent then nobody questions it. If your manager sees a idle status with no time block and you don’t do it a few times you might end up on a PIP. Your manager can run metrics in idle status vs personal time blocks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As the VP of operations at a very large company I don’t understand the problem either. Since I’m the decider of all things operations, long before Covid I put in software and metrics that measure productivity, work load and utilization. Since I can actually see productivity, I couldn’t give a single Fu&k where you get your work done. Everyone can also see their own personal metrics and they can absolutely avoid having their manager snooping in their business if they just keep their numbers within the acceptable range. Numbers are averaged over the untie month so it you need to screw around that’s fine, just work harder the next few days or the days leading up to screwing around and your numbers will remain good. They can also earn bonuses by figuring out ways to increase their productivity over the acceptable range.

Except you don’t know who is doing work.

Please do explain. Metrics are on individuals that then roll up to company metrics. If I wanted to (which I never do because it’s really intrusive) I could look at anyone current screen and could back trace exactly what they did all day today. I could see their gmail, their Facebook , and every single word typed on DCUM along with their actual work. I can see who is visiting what websites and for how long. However I don’t need to because I can see each individuals productivity.