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Then go to your office and sit there parked as an employee spending your life in a cubicle. But don’t expect people who value their life outside to show up.

actusual 5y ago
Sometimes I want to work in an office, therefore I don't value my "life outside" (whatever that means). What an odd conclusion to jump to...
- Apocryphon 5y ago
  For starters, having to commute and stay in the office for the full day cuts into one's WLB.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - Unbeliever69 5y ago
    This is obviously a "to each his own" issue. Work where you perform the best and for the best of the team. For my small startup WFH has been a blessing. Outside of physical face-to-face interaction there have been no downside because we have adjusted our process and technologies accordingly. We also work very comfortable in video chat all day. We occasionally meet and have lunch. I can honestly say I will never go back to working in an office and most of my co-workers feel the same. The few that wouldn't mind working in an office occasionally are those that have distractions at home (family that don't respect boundaries, usually with young children).
  - jayd16 5y ago
    This is probably unpopular but... Commute time is a choice against other expenses. I live 10 minutes from the office because I didn't want to commute. I don't begrudge you for living further but I will say it was a WLB choice the employee made, not the employer.
    - toomuchtodo 5y ago
      I begrudge people who demand their colleagues come into the office which governs their living arrangements if a commute is required. Remote is absolutely possible if your job doesn't require meatspace/atom manipulation as part of your work product, and to say that it isn't possible 3 years into a global pandemic demonstrating sustained levels of productivity while remote across various sectors is simply laziness and stated in bad faith. I understand that we are just randos throwing opinions back and forth, and that the only recourse available in countries where remote work isn't mandated by law as an option is to hope for remote orgs to continue to cannibalize non-remote/less-remote orgs for top talent, until non-remote orgs concede on their physical presence demands.
      - jayd16 5y ago
        Not really weighing in on any of that. I just find it disingenuous to claim its a work life balance thing when the balance was the choice of the employee to begin with. I understand the desire to have a cake and eat it but the job was to show up and put in the time. To go back and argue that showing up is now a WLB violation for previously existing jobs is just not defensible. That said, sure, more jobs should just be WFH. If you want that, find it.
        toomuchtodo 5y ago
        > I understand the desire to have a cake and eat it but the job was to show up and put in the time. To go back and argue that showing up is now a WLB violation for previously existing jobs is just not defensible. Based on your reply, I don't think you truly understand the situation. The work arrangement is always negotiable, and demanding remote when it's proven it can be done at a reasonable productively level is entirely reasonable from an employee perspective. One does not need to put up with unreasonable employer demands in the current job market, and showing up on site five days a week is arguably unreasonable. The job expectations are to deliver results, not warm a chair with colleagues. Of course, if your job performance was based on warming the chair versus delivering, of course, measure that instead of results. If you want to work on site, wonderful, go for it. That does not appear to be the direction the market is going based on available data. https://www.dallasnews.com/business/jobs/2022/02/24/why-remote-jobs-are-changing-work-for-good-if-youre-working-in-the-right-place/ https://www.dallasnews.com/business/jobs/2022/02/24/why-remo... (Why remote jobs are changing work for good — if you’re working in the right place; Over 40% of employees say they would look for a new job if required to go to a worksite five days a week.) https://www.hcamag.com/us/specialization/recruitment/west-coast-tech-firms-increase-hiring-throughout-us/326599 https://www.hcamag.com/us/specialization/recruitment/west-co... (West Coast tech firms increase hiring throughout U.S.) https://www.richmondfed.org/publications/research/economic_brief/2022/eb_22-07 https://www.richmondfed.org/publications/research/economic_b... (Are Firms Using Remote Work to Recruit and Retain Workers?) https://slate.com/human-interest/2021/07/workers-quitting-over-remote-work-going-back-to-office.html https://slate.com/human-interest/2021/07/workers-quitting-ov... (The People Who’d Rather Quit Than Give Up Remote Work) https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2022/02/16/covid-19-pandemic-continues-to-reshape-work-in-america/ https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2022/02/16/covid-1... (excerpts from this link below) > Working from home is a relatively new experience for a majority of workers with jobs that can be done remotely – 57% say they rarely or never worked from home prior to the coronavirus outbreak. For those who have made the switch to telework, their work lives have changed in some significant ways. On the plus side, most (64%) of those who are now working from home at least some of the time but rarely or never did before the pandemic say it’s easier now for them to balance work with their personal life. And many (44%) say working from home has made it easier for them to get their work done and meet deadlines, while very few (10%) say it’s been harder to do this. At the same time, 60% say they feel less connected to their co-workers now. Most (72%) say working from home hasn’t affected their ability to advance in their job. > Looking to the future, 60% of workers with jobs that can be done from home say when the coronavirus outbreak is over, if they have the choice, they’d like to work from home all or most of the time. This is up from 54% who said the same in 2020. Among those who are currently working from home all or most of the time, 78% say they’d like to continue to do so after the pandemic, up from 64% in 2020.
  - closeparen 5y ago
    Having nowhere to be, ever, cuts into one’s sanity. It is all the stress of working combined with the listlessness of retirement. I hate it so much.
mschuetz 5y ago
That is fine, but don't expect us to want to work with people who are not present and can only be contacted via mail/chat/video conferencing. Just as you expect others to respect your wish not to show up, you'll have to respect other peoples wish to work with people who do show up.
- whimsicalism 5y ago
  I am not sure there is a majority who agrees with your views. I want to go in maybe 2 days/week. But I certainly don't want to fire people working fully remote. Firing those people isn't merely "respecting" someone's wishes.
  - mschuetz 5y ago
    I'm fine with people coming in maybe 3 instead of 5 days a week. I'm not fine working together with people who are not here at all. It's wildly inefficient and communication via video conferencing is horrible.
    - jakupovic 5y ago
      Nobody cares about individual preferences as in the end we vote with our feet. So you not wanting to work by yourself should have no bearing on what others in the same group do. Once you start mandating what others should do based on your needs, people will either not listen, leave or you will leave.
      - mschuetz 5y ago
        True, I do vote with my feet. Which is why I won't apply for jobs with remote teams, and which is why I'm sticking with my current job.
- tsunamifury 5y ago
  So wasting 1-2 hours a day being non productive is your bar for a valuable employee. I’d suggest your view comes from a bias towards red queen races being arbitrators of value rather than… you know… productivity. A few years ago the bar was wearing a suit to work every day with sock suspenders. Look up IBMs uniform dress code. Now we all accept that as antiquated, distracting waste.
marcellus23 5y ago
idk about you, but whether I WFH or not, I still have to spend the same amount of time inside, in front of a computer screen.
- taylodl 5y ago
  You need to find a spot where you can work outside. I have an outdoor office along with an indoor office. In nice weather it's great to go outside and work. You don't have to work all day outside, either. Even spending an hour or two outside will really boost your mood. I'd like to know where people are working that they used to work with people in an office. I've been developing software for 35 years - a lot of start ups even - and have always worked with an engineering team that's geographically distributed - either in different countries or in different locales. Yeah, most of us went to an office to work, but we were working with maybe 1 or 2 people in the office. About the only thing I got out of working in an office was soul-destroying gossip. For some reason WFH has cut that crap out by at least 75%.
- bluefirebrand 5y ago
  Less time in a car or on a bus though. That's substantial. For many people it adds up to hours per day.
closeparen 5y ago
Don’t expect people who show up to include you in conversations, and we’re fine. Really. I have no problem with people executing tasks from wherever. But Zoom is vile.
blub 5y ago
Working from the office is the default; you likely have this in your contract (I do) and you did that most of your life. Now if your life in the office was reduced to being parked in a cubicle, then no wonder you hate it, but don't project that on everyone. Who has to show up is decided by the company and to a lesser extent by the market: if your contract says you have to show up, then you get fired if you don't. And frankly this is what I expect to happen to many of those which discovered working from home during the pandemic and now behave like extremists and want to force companies and their colleagues to change for their sake. By all means, argue for hybrid or home office, but don't pretend this is normal and anyone that's against it is some barbarian.

actusual 5y ago

Sometimes I want to work in an office, therefore I don't value my "life outside" (whatever that means). What an odd conclusion to jump to...

Apocryphon 5y ago
For starters, having to commute and stay in the office for the full day cuts into one's WLB.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- Unbeliever69 5y ago
  This is obviously a "to each his own" issue. Work where you perform the best and for the best of the team. For my small startup WFH has been a blessing. Outside of physical face-to-face interaction there have been no downside because we have adjusted our process and technologies accordingly. We also work very comfortable in video chat all day. We occasionally meet and have lunch. I can honestly say I will never go back to working in an office and most of my co-workers feel the same. The few that wouldn't mind working in an office occasionally are those that have distractions at home (family that don't respect boundaries, usually with young children).
- jayd16 5y ago
  This is probably unpopular but... Commute time is a choice against other expenses. I live 10 minutes from the office because I didn't want to commute. I don't begrudge you for living further but I will say it was a WLB choice the employee made, not the employer.
  - toomuchtodo 5y ago
    I begrudge people who demand their colleagues come into the office which governs their living arrangements if a commute is required. Remote is absolutely possible if your job doesn't require meatspace/atom manipulation as part of your work product, and to say that it isn't possible 3 years into a global pandemic demonstrating sustained levels of productivity while remote across various sectors is simply laziness and stated in bad faith. I understand that we are just randos throwing opinions back and forth, and that the only recourse available in countries where remote work isn't mandated by law as an option is to hope for remote orgs to continue to cannibalize non-remote/less-remote orgs for top talent, until non-remote orgs concede on their physical presence demands.
    - jayd16 5y ago
      Not really weighing in on any of that. I just find it disingenuous to claim its a work life balance thing when the balance was the choice of the employee to begin with. I understand the desire to have a cake and eat it but the job was to show up and put in the time. To go back and argue that showing up is now a WLB violation for previously existing jobs is just not defensible. That said, sure, more jobs should just be WFH. If you want that, find it.
      - toomuchtodo 5y ago
        > I understand the desire to have a cake and eat it but the job was to show up and put in the time. To go back and argue that showing up is now a WLB violation for previously existing jobs is just not defensible. Based on your reply, I don't think you truly understand the situation. The work arrangement is always negotiable, and demanding remote when it's proven it can be done at a reasonable productively level is entirely reasonable from an employee perspective. One does not need to put up with unreasonable employer demands in the current job market, and showing up on site five days a week is arguably unreasonable. The job expectations are to deliver results, not warm a chair with colleagues. Of course, if your job performance was based on warming the chair versus delivering, of course, measure that instead of results. If you want to work on site, wonderful, go for it. That does not appear to be the direction the market is going based on available data. https://www.dallasnews.com/business/jobs/2022/02/24/why-remote-jobs-are-changing-work-for-good-if-youre-working-in-the-right-place/ https://www.dallasnews.com/business/jobs/2022/02/24/why-remo... (Why remote jobs are changing work for good — if you’re working in the right place; Over 40% of employees say they would look for a new job if required to go to a worksite five days a week.) https://www.hcamag.com/us/specialization/recruitment/west-coast-tech-firms-increase-hiring-throughout-us/326599 https://www.hcamag.com/us/specialization/recruitment/west-co... (West Coast tech firms increase hiring throughout U.S.) https://www.richmondfed.org/publications/research/economic_brief/2022/eb_22-07 https://www.richmondfed.org/publications/research/economic_b... (Are Firms Using Remote Work to Recruit and Retain Workers?) https://slate.com/human-interest/2021/07/workers-quitting-over-remote-work-going-back-to-office.html https://slate.com/human-interest/2021/07/workers-quitting-ov... (The People Who’d Rather Quit Than Give Up Remote Work) https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2022/02/16/covid-19-pandemic-continues-to-reshape-work-in-america/ https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2022/02/16/covid-1... (excerpts from this link below) > Working from home is a relatively new experience for a majority of workers with jobs that can be done remotely – 57% say they rarely or never worked from home prior to the coronavirus outbreak. For those who have made the switch to telework, their work lives have changed in some significant ways. On the plus side, most (64%) of those who are now working from home at least some of the time but rarely or never did before the pandemic say it’s easier now for them to balance work with their personal life. And many (44%) say working from home has made it easier for them to get their work done and meet deadlines, while very few (10%) say it’s been harder to do this. At the same time, 60% say they feel less connected to their co-workers now. Most (72%) say working from home hasn’t affected their ability to advance in their job. > Looking to the future, 60% of workers with jobs that can be done from home say when the coronavirus outbreak is over, if they have the choice, they’d like to work from home all or most of the time. This is up from 54% who said the same in 2020. Among those who are currently working from home all or most of the time, 78% say they’d like to continue to do so after the pandemic, up from 64% in 2020.
- closeparen 5y ago
  Having nowhere to be, ever, cuts into one’s sanity. It is all the stress of working combined with the listlessness of retirement. I hate it so much.

mschuetz 5y ago

That is fine, but don't expect us to want to work with people who are not present and can only be contacted via mail/chat/video conferencing. Just as you expect others to respect your wish not to show up, you'll have to respect other peoples wish to work with people who do show up.

whimsicalism 5y ago
I am not sure there is a majority who agrees with your views. I want to go in maybe 2 days/week. But I certainly don't want to fire people working fully remote. Firing those people isn't merely "respecting" someone's wishes.
- mschuetz 5y ago
  I'm fine with people coming in maybe 3 instead of 5 days a week. I'm not fine working together with people who are not here at all. It's wildly inefficient and communication via video conferencing is horrible.
  - jakupovic 5y ago
    Nobody cares about individual preferences as in the end we vote with our feet. So you not wanting to work by yourself should have no bearing on what others in the same group do. Once you start mandating what others should do based on your needs, people will either not listen, leave or you will leave.
    - mschuetz 5y ago
      True, I do vote with my feet. Which is why I won't apply for jobs with remote teams, and which is why I'm sticking with my current job.
tsunamifury 5y ago
So wasting 1-2 hours a day being non productive is your bar for a valuable employee. I’d suggest your view comes from a bias towards red queen races being arbitrators of value rather than… you know… productivity. A few years ago the bar was wearing a suit to work every day with sock suspenders. Look up IBMs uniform dress code. Now we all accept that as antiquated, distracting waste.

marcellus23 5y ago

idk about you, but whether I WFH or not, I still have to spend the same amount of time inside, in front of a computer screen.

taylodl 5y ago
You need to find a spot where you can work outside. I have an outdoor office along with an indoor office. In nice weather it's great to go outside and work. You don't have to work all day outside, either. Even spending an hour or two outside will really boost your mood. I'd like to know where people are working that they used to work with people in an office. I've been developing software for 35 years - a lot of start ups even - and have always worked with an engineering team that's geographically distributed - either in different countries or in different locales. Yeah, most of us went to an office to work, but we were working with maybe 1 or 2 people in the office. About the only thing I got out of working in an office was soul-destroying gossip. For some reason WFH has cut that crap out by at least 75%.
bluefirebrand 5y ago
Less time in a car or on a bus though. That's substantial. For many people it adds up to hours per day.

closeparen 5y ago

Don’t expect people who show up to include you in conversations, and we’re fine. Really. I have no problem with people executing tasks from wherever. But Zoom is vile.

blub 5y ago

Working from the office is the default; you likely have this in your contract (I do) and you did that most of your life. Now if your life in the office was reduced to being parked in a cubicle, then no wonder you hate it, but don't project that on everyone. Who has to show up is decided by the company and to a lesser extent by the market: if your contract says you have to show up, then you get fired if you don't. And frankly this is what I expect to happen to many of those which discovered working from home during the pandemic and now behave like extremists and want to force companies and their colleagues to change for their sake. By all means, argue for hybrid or home office, but don't pretend this is normal and anyone that's against it is some barbarian.