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Almost all remote-work news is negative now but was positive in the beginning of the pandemic. Have you noticed this or am I going crazy?

Earlier in the pandemic many news and magazine organizations would proudly write about how working from home always actually can lead to over working and being too “productive”. I am yet to collect some evidence on it but I think we remember a good amount about this.

Now after a bunch of companies want their remote workers back at the office, every one of those companies are being almost propaganda machines which do not cite sound scientific studies but cite each other and interviews with higher ups in top companies that “remote workers are less productive”. This is further cementing the general public’s opinion on this matter.

And research that shows the opposite is buried deep within any search results.

Have you noticed this? Please share what you have observed. I’m going paranoid about this.

snek ,
@snek@lemmy.world avatar

My manager wanted me to come to the office daily because the laptop I had couldn’t handle the company VPN (which we need to access some systems, the alternative is of course being physically in the office and connecting to the office WIFI).

He gave me some crap about it and reminded me of the ‘office first’ policy at my workplace.

I looked him dead in the face and said, “You can’t force anyone back to the office. You know that it’s not going to fly with the employees. You can try but it won’t work”.

He didn’t look too happy about that, but he knows it’s reality.

Ended up finally getting an new old laptop for the VPN issue, which some other employee left behind, because the budget was “too tight” even though I couldn’t do my work efficiently. And a few days ago I was told I’d be laid off. Also because of the budget.

So hooray!

Shimitar ,

I prefer work from office. Its better for me having kids & dogs and tons of duties at home. Work from home more than once a week is just a waste of time for me which translates to double workload or sorse when at the office.

Said that, i love WFH because i get things (real things, life things, not work things) done properly and timely… But just doping more than 1 day per week is twice as stressful for me than not.

My commute is 35km each way, so not even a short one.

drdabbles ,
@drdabbles@lemmy.world avatar

Landlords trying to charge rent again. All of the real studies happening show employees are happier, more productive, and consider not going through a hellish commute to sit in a building with a bunch of people they don’t know or like to be a benefit. It’s only executives and commercial real estate owners desperate to get people into offices so they can feel useful again.

imekon ,

I changed jobs during the pandemic. I asked if I could work remotely permanently, they said yes. It’s in my contract I work from home, not the office. I’ve been watching the “sea change” as working remotely has been removed from various companies and wondering why? If all the research points to it being better, then - again - why? The speculation about it being related to real estate is depressing!

silvercove ,

Commercial real estate owners strike back.

solstice ,

I work remotely at the moment since March 2020 and I’m over it, can’t stand it anymore. I’m single with no kids and work a LOT. I’ll frequently wake up, work twelve hours, go to bed, never leave the house. I’m looking for jobs in my field so I can at least get out of the house, go to an office and socialize a bit with colleagues and other office tenants, get lunch at outdoor cafes etc.

I also miss learning through osmosis from overhearing colleagues discussing technical concepts I’m unfamiliar with, and teaching others similarly about things I know that they don’t.

My experience working with other people all fully remotely is that it’s very difficult to coordinate as a group, and individually many people are terrible communicators. This is magnified by remote work. (Pet peeve: answer the phone and turn on your fucking camera, I want to know who I’m working 80 hours a week with ffs.)

All that said I totally agree that a lot of work can and should be done at home. A hybrid approach is difficult though unless everyone is at the office and WFH at the same time. Otherwise what’s the point of me being at the office while you are at home and vice versa. It’s very tricky and I’m not sure how to resolve.

assassin_aragorn ,

I don’t know if I’m necessarily more productive in the office, but I do think I prefer that vibe for a workplace. Still, I’m going to go with remote for all the other benefits. I hated commuting.

It’s just different strokes for different folks.

recursivesive ,

Sounds like a YOU problem. Why should we, WFH productive advocates, have to pay for your sins? Get therapy if you need it.

“I need to get back into commuting, which involves time and money, just so Jane Doe doesn’t feel lonely, because they can’t socialise on their own”.

YourBestFriendShane ,

Jeez, who pissed in your Wheaties?

Corq ,

Corporate pushback. C-Levels love to go on nationwide travel tours “visiting our campuses” - never mind how much in real estate ownership/leases costs the company.

My current company is hybrid, as we have a sales team that loves to spin ideas off each other in-person, so I get that. My office was just about to expand to a new floor when covid hit. The sales team got hit with covid pretty bad, as all the customer conferences during that period were in California when covid started really spreading fast. Everyone made out okay, but most of the teams were young with families and this spooked a lot of folks. We’re a startup, so all decisions were handled locally and quickly, and coming to campus was strictly optional. Once the worst was over, folks that liked the office culture are back there, without mandates, either way. We can actually hire remotely now, and not be “siloed” into hiring talent that’s local or has to be paid to re-locate.

My team’s particular role is a perfect fit for remote work, and we’re 24/7 so we can “follow the sun” for our customers, so it works for the various different teams. We meet on a 24-hour “Perma-Zoom”, share screens for training and presentations. In emergencies customer can call into are lines nd we pick it up in zoom and handle the needfuls. Customers that want to see our offices can still do so, we announce the visit, and local remote folks gladly flock in that day because there’s food everywhere for the vsiting diginitaries.

I work three states away from the office and used to visit quarterly, now about twice a year. Other than the crazy amount of snacks in the physical office that we miss, it’s a good fit. I think if many companies looked at the money they save in physical office costs, they’d give up this “butts in seats” mandate metric that they think equals “success.”

Dear C-Levels: Do what works organically for your company culture, but seriously keep an open mind to what works for your staff - happier workers are more productive, have less turnover (and thus less training costs for constantly new employees) more knowledge retention about past mistakes and successes and how not to repeat bad strategies. Happier staffers offer more engagement in the company’s overall success.

PastorHaggis ,
@PastorHaggis@lemmy.world avatar

I’ll be weird and say I absolutely prefer working in-office over from home in most cases. I prefer being able to build relationships with my coworkers, ask quick questions and give quick answers, and just actually being able to talk to people.

However, I don’t think everyone needs to be in the office. My line of work requires it but I think it’s dumb that companies are requiring them to go in when there’s no reason beyond “we rent the space so we have to use it.”

Also you’re correct in how the headlines changed and it’s really dumb, but it’s mostly about the fact that real estate owners are trying to force people to rent their spaces instead of selling them.

macrocephalic ,

I think there’s a balance for most people. I don’t mind being in the office but I hate commuting there. If the office was down the end of my street then I’d go every day. Luckily I mostly work on my own work so I only need to talk to people occasionally.

PastorHaggis ,
@PastorHaggis@lemmy.world avatar

I can agree with the commute. I started working here by getting up at 6:30 and then traffic would put me at work at 7:30 and on some days it was extra bad. I got a dog who liked to wake me up at 5 so I ended up shifting my whole schedule and now I’m up at 5, out the door by 5:30, and then at work by 6 which means I leave at 3. The commute isn’t as bad now but it’s definitely not for everyone.

My new “position” is product owner and team lead so I have to interact with my team all day long. It’s definitely easier to talk to the folks at my location than it is to talk to the ones in different states just because I can turn around and go “Hey , what was that requirement you had a question about?” So much easier.

solstice ,

Completely agree, especially about quick questions and small minutia. It’s the little things that add up. It’s so much easier to walk to someone’s desk or office than chase them down with a text or trying to get them on the phone.

new_acct_who_dis ,

People working from home aren’t consuming much anymore.

Of course there’s commercial property leases and micromanaging bosses, but I think the uptick in this messaging is in response to people spending less money.

Less money on cars, gas, clothes, eating out, fancy coffee, hair/nails, dry cleaning, kid/animal care, gym (?), and probably so much more that I’m not thinking of.

And when we do spend money on those things, they’re lasting longer and we’re getting more discerning. When I do consider spending money on eating out, I’ll def choose going hungry over getting something lower quality.

gameboyhomeboy ,

Hell yeah. I eat out like twice a month now but both are carefully planned experiences at excellent restaurants.

BeautifulMind , (edited )
@BeautifulMind@lemmy.world avatar

Same. I use reclaimed commute time to get groceries and cook now. Wife is thrilled now when I call it ‘my’ kitchen (it was hers by default when my commute + work had me out of the house 12-16 hours a day), and I can whip up a decent meal these days pretty quickly without having to go out

randon31415 ,

Productivity was never the point of work. Increases in productivity thus was never a boon to those in charge.

stackcheese ,

but the ai revolution though

art ,
@art@lemmy.world avatar

In a lot of ways it’s still more marketing than a revolution. AI can’t do my job yet. Not saying it never will but we’re a lot farther away from that than most people think.

MystikIncarnate ,

You’re not crazy.

Fact is, at the beginning, remote work was a requirement for companies to keep operating (aka, printing money for the execs and shareholders), so it was freely discussed as a positive thing.

Now that shareholders and execs can require RTO, the narrative is reversed. If you look at most of the articles surrounding WFH “not working” there’s a very high chance that the motivation for such statements revolves around what management says about WFH, with no actual data to corroborate the message.

If you do your own research, a lot of what was true for WFH at the start of the pandemic is still true. The numbers and studies show that on the whole in the majority of circumstances, WFH increases productivity and makes workers happier overall. There are a few exceptions to this, I’m sure of that, and for each person, WFH or in office should be a personal choice, but it’s not. You should be allowed to work where you feel most productive and happy. As long as it doesn’t negatively impact your output, then it shouldn’t matter, but to execs, it does matter.

IMO, the motivation for forced RTO is twofold: first, control. The company you work for wants to exert control over you, so you have to do something that maybe you’re not a big fan of doing, simply because they say so. Additionally, they have more control over your day to day actions while you’re at the office. When you get to converse with others, monitoring how much time you’re spending away from your desk, the ability to walk up to you and grill you for any reason (or no reason). The second, is justifying office expenses. Either to be able to write it off, or pay their real estate owning buddies so those people can get money that could otherwise go to, IDK, wages (lol, it wouldn’t, but you know), and by having the vast majority of their workforce in house all the time, they can keep that going.

I’m sure there’s more to it, but that’s my impression. Fact is, very few companies are allowing RTO to be just an option. Everything is either part-in-office (aka hybrid), or forced full time RTO. Full remote positions are evaporating.

PutangInaMo ,

Companies exerting control is most of my issue personally. When you realize how much of your life they own and control, you don’t want to give that back. And I never will.

tooting_lemmy ,

I think allot of Banks have a ton of assets tied up in commercial real estate. This is the real reason they are pushing everyone to go back to work. A lot of powerful people will loss money if the commercial real estate market crashes.

NABDad ,

What I don’t understand is, why do companies who don’t make money from real estate give a shit? When everyone at my job who could work from home went home to work, our CEO’s reaction was, “If everyone can work from home, why the hell were we paying all this money for rent?”

To the extent possible, everyone is still working from home, and where the organization couldn’t get out of leases, they’re planning to let them expire. They’re not spending more money to have people work on site just because they have sunk costs in a lease.

Blackmist ,

I don’t care if remote workers are less productive (although I’ve seen no evidence that they are).

You can’t convince me that spending an hour every morning travelling to get to an office, in order to sit in front of the exact two screens I have at home, is a good use of my time, nor is spending an hour getting home again.

That’s about 450 hours a year for me. 18 whole days. Those days are mine now, and you’re not having them back.

kogasa ,
@kogasa@programming.dev avatar

I wish I had the same setup at work as at home. My home dev environment cost 5 times as much.

RagingRobot ,

Yeah when I was originally told I could just work from home forever I invested in a giant monitor and all kinds of tools. Now they changed their mind and want me to go in to an Office with shared desks. No thanks

Gork ,

Ackshually, they’re two distinct sets of two screens. Unless you’re taking your two monitors to work and back home every day.

(sorry for the pedantry I’m ashamed)

Octavio ,

If we wanted to take the pedantry to the next level, we could get into a metaphysical discussion about whether the word “screen” refers to the physical appliance displaying the content or the content itself. When you “share your screen” in a Teams meeting, you don’t box up your monitor and mail it to your coworkers. 🤔

Empricorn ,

I do, am I doing it wrong…?

Empricorn ,

You are technically correct, the best kind of correct.

spuncertv ,

It’s nice to have less traffic for blue collar as well.

Kahlenar ,

Ah if Hartford CT wasnt a traffic hell

boonhet ,

I have at home, is a good use of my time, nor is spending an hour getting home again.

Yeah, but those are YOUR hours and THEY don’t pay for it, so those hours don’t matter. In fact, it’d be better if you don’t get those hours to yourself. Maybe you’ll have more time to apply to other jobs or something.

solstice ,

What about 2-3 days a week and an extra week or two of PTO to compensate? I’m trying to think of ways to incentivize more office work that will appeal to stingy boomer leadership and the younger ‘fuck offices’ crowd.

Ataraxia ,
@Ataraxia@lemmy.world avatar

I’d rather take a pay cut and even benefit reduction to never go into the office again. Going into the office fo so many years almost killed me. Destroyed my health, mental and physical. I am so glad I don’t have to be subjected to coworkers and everything that comes with being in the office.

solstice ,

You only mentioned one real actual specific example, ‘subjected to coworkers.’ Do you really hate people that much? I know there’s a lot of introverted programmer types around here but there’s kind of a lot of humans on this planet, seems inevitable that you’re going to have to work with some of them…

assassin_aragorn ,

I think the only deal I’d take to return to the office every day is a 4 day week. If I have to commute, I also want 4 weeks off.

ClockNimble ,

Working from home is legitimately amazing. My bud oes not need to sit at your desk with your lame chair and keyboard. He has a much faster pc at home with the big clicky-clackies. Ten hour work day? He will bring that shizz down to 6-8 with the same productivity and can play games on the side.

I get that it doesn’t work for everyone, especially those with task management issues, but out of the 40 people I know, 2 do better in an office.

Ninja9p5 ,

I think the companies were lying to us when covid started. They said working from home was awesome and we could still do our jobs well so investors wouldn’t get scared. But now they want us to come back to the office and they say working from home is bad for us. They are just trying to trick us into doing what they want.

whofearsthenight ,

I mean, it’s just capitalism. Beginning of the pandemic: thank god for remote work, don’t worry investors we’re not going out of business. End of pandemic: welp, I have to justify my position and why we’re paying all this real estate get back in the office so I can micro-manage you and create useless meetings no one needs so no one realizes that I don’t really do anything around here.

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