Is it just me thinking wfh is abused?

[Anonymous]

I can do you one better, op-- our secretary has managed to do nearly full-time telework for the past six months. Meanwhile, the staff has to fill in for basic front desk support like answering phones and greeting customers. When she does come in, she is mediocre at best.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t know any parents skipping daycare but know several who gave up afterschool care (and they can definitely afford it). They also take an hour each day (outside of lunch) to pick their kids up at school and walk them home (but still log off at 5-5:30).

It’s frustrating to see as someone with kids who does the right thing, but I don’t work for their employers. If these are your coworkers, complain if it’s impacting you. Otherwise just smile politely when they complain about not getting raises or watch as their career stall.

I am sort of like this, except I start my day at 7 AM, frequently eat at my desk, and only take 20-30 minutes for pickup, so I'm definitely working a minimum of 8 hours a day. My 9 year old just wants to come home and veg on the couch until I'm done work. I don't see how this is abusing WFH. Maybe you don't see your coworkers logging on super early to make up time.

Well with all those caveats it certainly sounds like you are not abusing WFH and should probably be slightly annoyed with those that are, and whose actions could jeopardize your flexibility.

I don't actually know anyone I work with who abuses WFH flexibility, so no, I'm not annoyed with hypotheticals. I can honestly say I have excellent, dedicated colleagues who go above and beyond wherever they are working from. The RTO push jeopardizing my flexibility in my workplace has absolutely NOTHING to do with abuse of WFH.

Sure. Tell yourself that pipe dream. I did WFH on Friday due to snow. I logged on at 9ish in my PJs. Breakfast with family 10ish, shoveled out big driveway 12-2pm, lunch 2-230 back on line 30 minutes, then showered and got dressed, back on line 430 pm to 5:15 pm. Pretty much my schedule when fully remote in 2021 and 2022.

As opposed showered and dressed at my desk 830am to 530 pm every day with a 15 minute lunch in person

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't think this is a widespread practice.

+1

I haven’t experienced since 2020-2021 when everyone was trying to get through the school closures/childcare shortages. I’m in a fully remote job and basically all my WAH coworkers and myself have NO desire to ever go back to trying to balance kids and work at home (aside from an occasional snow day or sick day). Maybe OP’s employer is so low paying that people have no choice but to scrimp on childcare, which sucks for their kids and the workplace.

[Anonymous]

I love WFH bc I can walk my kids to and from school. They go to aftercare. But if I had to commute every morning, I wouldn’t get that time with them.

So for me, not spending 2+ hours commuting is huge in my work/life balance. It’s also easier when they are sick. Mine are big enough (7&9) now that they mostly watch tv while sick. 5 and younger is hard.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I was talking with a younger colleague last week. They're paying over $5000 a month between rent and childcare (we're not in DC) and I couldn't believe it. My kids are all older, but I have no idea how people manage with costs like that. I know how much he makes and his salary alone isn't enough to cover that.

I have zero sympathy. Having children and living in high-cost areas are choices.

The PP said they’re not in DC. 5k/month is like a 2k daycare bill and 3k mortgage, which is actually a really average breakdown. Or could be 2 kids (even a fairly affordable in home daycare would easily be $2,600/month for a couple kids) with about a $2,400 mortgage, which is maybe a townhouse or small home somewhere that isn’t even super HCOL. Also moving to a LCOL area is also going to reduce salary for many sectors, so the overall budget stretch is still the same.

You are either some out of touch old person who hasn’t bought a home or paid for children in recent memory, or you don’t have kids.

I grew up in a suburb of a middling city in the south that this board would hate on and it’s still not relatively cheap compared to the low salaries/skimpy job market down there.

[Anonymous]

The only people I know who are abusing it are people who are eligible to retire but milking the system. Cut them loose.

The parents of young kids are not the problem. They’re busting their asses, stretched thin, and teleport makes it possible for them to work more hours than they would otherwise. It’s also made life more affordable.

The old timers who won’t come in and won’t do any work, and think the rules don’t apply to them, are spoiling things for everyone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t know any parents skipping daycare but know several who gave up afterschool care (and they can definitely afford it). They also take an hour each day (outside of lunch) to pick their kids up at school and walk them home (but still log off at 5-5:30).

It’s frustrating to see as someone with kids who does the right thing, but I don’t work for their employers. If these are your coworkers, complain if it’s impacting you. Otherwise just smile politely when they complain about not getting raises or watch as their career stall.

I am sort of like this, except I start my day at 7 AM, frequently eat at my desk, and only take 20-30 minutes for pickup, so I'm definitely working a minimum of 8 hours a day. My 9 year old just wants to come home and veg on the couch until I'm done work. I don't see how this is abusing WFH. Maybe you don't see your coworkers logging on super early to make up time.

Well with all those caveats it certainly sounds like you are not abusing WFH and should probably be slightly annoyed with those that are, and whose actions could jeopardize your flexibility.

I don't actually know anyone I work with who abuses WFH flexibility, so no, I'm not annoyed with hypotheticals. I can honestly say I have excellent, dedicated colleagues who go above and beyond wherever they are working from. The RTO push jeopardizing my flexibility in my workplace has absolutely NOTHING to do with abuse of WFH.

Sure. Tell yourself that pipe dream. I did WFH on Friday due to snow. I logged on at 9ish in my PJs. Breakfast with family 10ish, shoveled out big driveway 12-2pm, lunch 2-230 back on line 30 minutes, then showered and got dressed, back on line 430 pm to 5:15 pm. Pretty much my schedule when fully remote in 2021 and 2022.

As opposed showered and dressed at my desk 830am to 530 pm every day with a 15 minute lunch in person

You think slacking off on one snow day is proof other people don’t actually do work at home? This is stupid logic … how can one random slow Friday be reflective of a full time remote schedule? Also, I guarantee you have random days in the office where you’re not that productive, I know because I used to work full time in the office and there were definitely Fridays where we weren’t super busy and ended up chatting with coworkers and just catching up on menial admin/inbox clearing tasks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I love WFH bc I can walk my kids to and from school. They go to aftercare. But if I had to commute every morning, I wouldn’t get that time with them.

So for me, not spending 2+ hours commuting is huge in my work/life balance. It’s also easier when they are sick. Mine are big enough (7&9) now that they mostly watch tv while sick. 5 and younger is hard.

Unless you are spending that two hours saved commuting what is the benefit to the company?

[Anonymous]

No, the only person I know abusing WFH is a 75 year old, with a great pension not available even to 50 year old me, who refuses to retire or do any work. Granted, he didn't do any work when he came into the office either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t know any parents skipping daycare but know several who gave up afterschool care (and they can definitely afford it). They also take an hour each day (outside of lunch) to pick their kids up at school and walk them home (but still log off at 5-5:30).

It’s frustrating to see as someone with kids who does the right thing, but I don’t work for their employers. If these are your coworkers, complain if it’s impacting you. Otherwise just smile politely when they complain about not getting raises or watch as their career stall.

I am sort of like this, except I start my day at 7 AM, frequently eat at my desk, and only take 20-30 minutes for pickup, so I'm definitely working a minimum of 8 hours a day. My 9 year old just wants to come home and veg on the couch until I'm done work. I don't see how this is abusing WFH. Maybe you don't see your coworkers logging on super early to make up time.

Well with all those caveats it certainly sounds like you are not abusing WFH and should probably be slightly annoyed with those that are, and whose actions could jeopardize your flexibility.

I don't actually know anyone I work with who abuses WFH flexibility, so no, I'm not annoyed with hypotheticals. I can honestly say I have excellent, dedicated colleagues who go above and beyond wherever they are working from. The RTO push jeopardizing my flexibility in my workplace has absolutely NOTHING to do with abuse of WFH.

Sure. Tell yourself that pipe dream. I did WFH on Friday due to snow. I logged on at 9ish in my PJs. Breakfast with family 10ish, shoveled out big driveway 12-2pm, lunch 2-230 back on line 30 minutes, then showered and got dressed, back on line 430 pm to 5:15 pm. Pretty much my schedule when fully remote in 2021 and 2022.

As opposed showered and dressed at my desk 830am to 530 pm every day with a 15 minute lunch in person

Are you really flexing on your poor WFH discipline?
You know that you are not representative, right? All accusations are a confession. You're just confessing; stop accusing the rest of us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I love WFH bc I can walk my kids to and from school. They go to aftercare. But if I had to commute every morning, I wouldn’t get that time with them.

So for me, not spending 2+ hours commuting is huge in my work/life balance. It’s also easier when they are sick. Mine are big enough (7&9) now that they mostly watch tv while sick. 5 and younger is hard.

Unless you are spending that two hours saved commuting what is the benefit to the company?

The benefits to organizations of offering flexibilities that provide work life balance like the PP describes have been studied, and widely proven. What decade are you gracing our presence from, 1950?

[Anonymous]

But snow day PP at least did some work. Pre WFH, she would have not gone into the office or possibly come in with a delayed start, so still only a couple of hours work. So even with all the wasted time, she did at least roughly half same or more work. If her employer would have closed the office, then they came out ahead because some minimal work got done as opposed to zero. If her employer is the type to make her use PTO then employee came out ahead because she did not waste a PTO days but didn't work a full day. And perhaps in the future we'll find that increased WFH will have employers offering less PTO days as employees don't need to take so many random days off for snow, sick kids, appointments, plumber coming, etc. That seems like a win for both sides.

[Anonymous]

I’m sure there are people who abuse WFH, whether they have kids or not.

I’m also sure that there are people who work from an office and abuse policies by taking long coffee breaks, smoke breaks, lunches, and even at their desk chat with the people in neighboring cubicles, shop online, browse the internet, text friends, etc.

Do we even need to discuss the potential for abusing policies for those who travel as part of their job?

The point is, whatever system you put in place, regardless of physical location, some employees will inevitably take advantage and abuse the system. About the only guaranteed way to make sure no employee is abusing the company’s trust in some way is to fire all the employees. Otherwise, communicate expectations as clearly as possible, judge people on their overall productivity, and don’t get too picky about the details, because even the best employee isn’t a robot and will inevitably waste some company time somewhere.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Mom of two here. I find it ridiculous that people wfh on a regular basis and are clearly taking care of children at the same time. Suddenly they can't afford childcare even though they don't have to pump gas in the car for a daily commute? It's ridiculous. I'm not talking about the one off snow day or sudden emergency but a regular pattern. Amazed employers haven't started creating policies around this or making employee come into work. Classic example of fussing babies and children needing attention during virtual meetings. Employees are taking advantage and double dipping. Ridiculous.

What a weird mindset you have.

You worry about you.

[Anonymous]

It’s not like people are paid fairly. I make up for it by slacking during wfh.