Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just don’t get why people care if others want to wfh. Are you jealous bc you want the choice to? Are you lonely at the office? I just…. Who cares what other people want to do? I don’t care if people want to go into an office - cool, let them. If people suck at their job presumably they will get let go so… what’s the problem? Let people do what works for them.

wfh is great for the people doing it. It is a nightmare for co-workers and for the entity itself.

Meh. I work 4 out of 5 days in the office. I love it when there are fewer people in the office because of remote work. It's quiet and I get way more done.

Anonymous wrote:WFH should take a pay cut. If I have to pay gas, for a car, insurance, car maintenance, can't run errand while I "WFH" or take a nap then yes, WFH people should take a pay cut.

By this logic people who live closer to work, should receive less for the same work. Maybe you should keep moving to be walkable to your employer if you have drive and have maintenance.

Let me call a wahmbulance.

I care because no one ever replies to my emails or calls anymore, which makes it difficult to complete work that depends on them. I guess they're all out walking the dog.

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't care at all, but I think one should take a paycut. Generally, I think anyone who has a job that requires one to work in person, should be paid considerably more. From the grocery restocker to yard work people to teachers to construction crew to janitors to nurses.

As a federal government employee who strongly prefers to work from home, I would have no issue with a salary differential based on how many days one is required to be in the office, with more mandatory days in the office resulting in higher pay. That seems equitable and fair to me.

Why? It doesn’t to me. It’s not like the in-office person inherently works more

DP. The in-office person person has to pay for gas, commute, and commit more time. WFH is obviously a greater indulgence, and should clearly not be compensated equally.

Conversely, the WFH employee saves the employer money when it comes to office space an electricity bills. WFH person spends more out of pocket on electricity and office supplies. Seems like a wash to me.

Dumb arguments all around. Your employer pays you to get a job done. Just because someone is in person doesn't mean they are higher value to the company. Why would they pay them more? Your expenses are your problem. Would you expect your company to start paying you more because you moved from Sterling to Arlington?

As a manager I love granting my employees preferences to WFH. I have a few that prefer to come in for some of the office amenities though. Whatever keeps people happy and engaged. And it's not the same for everyone.

I think there is a distinction between working from home where you can still get in for client needs, group meetings etc.. and those who took the wfh to move 5 hours from their jobs. I don't mind if my team works remotely as long as they are available to come in with reasonable notice when needed. Even before the pandemic the busy productive people in the office conducted most of their interaction on the phone (even with people just down the hall) v.s those standing in the hall talking about the Nats for 45 minutes

Even our admins have adjusted well to flexibility to wfh and those who worked hard in the office still work hard, those who never worked do nothing at home.

The biggest complainers in my office are boomer men who say that you are missing all the intangibles from not being around them in the office but in the office they only talk to each other and so I guess the intangibles come from eavesdropping on their convos.

I work from home and did pre-pandemic, so I am certainly not opposed but I have known quite a few people who reeealllly take advantage of working from home and barely work. When my kids were little, I had several people ask me why I had a nanny when I worked from home as if I should just take care of my little kids and work at the same time. You know those people would be a nightmare working form home.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't care at all, but I think one should take a paycut. Generally, I think anyone who has a job that requires one to work in person, should be paid considerably more. From the grocery restocker to yard work people to teachers to construction crew to janitors to nurses.

As a federal government employee who strongly prefers to work from home, I would have no issue with a salary differential based on how many days one is required to be in the office, with more mandatory days in the office resulting in higher pay. That seems equitable and fair to me.

Why? It doesn’t to me. It’s not like the in-office person inherently works more

DP. The in-office person person has to pay for gas, commute, and commit more time. WFH is obviously a greater indulgence, and should clearly not be compensated equally.

Conversely, the WFH employee saves the employer money when it comes to office space an electricity bills. WFH person spends more out of pocket on electricity and office supplies. Seems like a wash to me.

Anonymous wrote:I have a friend who is a university professor and CHOSE to go back in person during the pandemic because she prefers teaching in person (professors at her school could choose to teach online or in person classes at a certain point). She is so angry at everyone who is still working from home. It’s inexplicable to me. It’s not jealousy for her bc she chose in person. It’s some strange kind of superiority thing, like if she’s strong enough to work in person, everyone else needs to buck up and do it too. It’s bizarre.

Maybe it’s because she can do a better job teaching if she does it in person?

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wfh is great if you are older and have a hi one office. If you are younger and just starting your career and live in a small apartment or sucks.

But per the thread title, WHY DO YOU CARE? Younger can go into the office!

Because younger people need mentorship. If their manager never goes in, they won’t learn the job. You can’t really mentor someone you’ve never met in person.

I'd disagree with that. One of two mentors in my first government job lived in another state. Most of the people I worked with lived and worked across three states plus DC. The people in my specific office were all in DC in person, but we all worked with different sub-agencies that were scattered around. I met in person with my counterparts once, maybe twice a year.

This is an interesting anecdote of one person, in general mentorship and relationship building happen more naturally in person. I don’t think young people realize the trade off they are making when they never spend time with their colleagues.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wfh is great if you are older and have a hi one office. If you are younger and just starting your career and live in a small apartment or sucks.

But per the thread title, WHY DO YOU CARE? Younger can go into the office!

Because younger people need mentorship. If their manager never goes in, they won’t learn the job. You can’t really mentor someone you’ve never met in person.

I'd disagree with that. One of two mentors in my first government job lived in another state. Most of the people I worked with lived and worked across three states plus DC. The people in my specific office were all in DC in person, but we all worked with different sub-agencies that were scattered around. I met in person with my counterparts once, maybe twice a year.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wfh is great if you are older and have a hi one office. If you are younger and just starting your career and live in a small apartment or sucks.

But per the thread title, WHY DO YOU CARE? Younger can go into the office!

Because younger people need mentorship. If their manager never goes in, they won’t learn the job. You can’t really mentor someone you’ve never met in person.

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.

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.

But everyone shouldn't have to RTO just because one person took advantage. Just as if you are working in-person and there is some performance issue you don't penalize everyone, you put that person on a PIP or just fire them.

Anonymous wrote:Wfh is great if you are older and have a hi one office. If you are younger and just starting your career and live in a small apartment or sucks.

But per the thread title, WHY DO YOU CARE? Younger can go into the office!

Anonymous wrote:I am hiring for a very flexible hybrid job. 2-3 days a week at home, casual dress, flex hours, meaning at work or at home pretty much start at 6am if you want, at 12 noon if you want. Work 4 hours one day and catch up later.

But do to scammers first 90 days are in office 5 days a week. Just had women drop out today of interview process as she lied and actually lives in North Carolina using Moms DC address.

Remote and WFH attracts scammers

This sounds very reasonable as long as you are very clear about the 90 day requirement. The first part of your post is how I've worked for 20 years and I'm a top performer. I may do the second part for 30 days, or just meet with you to prove I'm local.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:WFH should take a pay cut. If I have to pay gas, for a car, insurance, car maintenance, can't run errand while I "WFH" or take a nap then yes, WFH people should take a pay cut.

You get paid for your value add relative to other available workers, not your poor life choices.

DP. I see this argument all the time. It really isn’t true in an absolute sense unless you are a top expert or there is an extremely low supply of workers with your skill set. Otherwise, companies have always taken into account “costs” necessary for workers to provide their services. If you must live in a HCOL area to provide your services, a company will help defray those costs. Likewise, it makes no sense for a company to pay you HCOL wages after you move to a LCOL area. In fact, the company could argue that you have fewer employment opportunities for your skill set in your new location, so they’ll leverage that against you.

Bingo!