“Return to the office.”
Uh… There aren’t actually enough facilities here at the office because you downsized after the pandemic.
“Return to the office now.”
Ok, can I get a dedicated seat so I don’t have to adjust my monitor for 10 minutes every time I come in?
“No, there aren’t enough seats for everyone to have one.”
Oh…ok…
Bajoran workers, your attention please. Your attempt to seize control of this facility is going to fail. You are valuable workers, and we wish you no harm. However, if you do not return control of this unit to your Cardassian supervisors, we will be forced to take action. You have eight minutes to make your decision.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon for those curious about the lower part of the image.
I started a new job at this manufacturing plant. New supervisor is threatening everyone at the morning meeting that if you look at your phone for ANY reason he will write you up. See him walk by on his phone smiling not 10 minutes later. 🙄 The little shit walks around like a damn prison guard trying to catch people like they’re in highschool cheating on a test. Then if you’re idle for more than a minute he’ll try to find some bullshit for you to do. He also micromanages things to the point that it hurts production because he has no idea what he’s talking about he just wants people to look like they’re busy.
The engineers that designed the production line are a bunch of dickheads too. They didn’t put enough of a buffer zone between areas and the later part of the line runs slower than the first half. Their solution is to make the workers take widgets off the line by hand and then put them on again if the backend goes down.
I recently switched jobs from a company with a “soft” hybrid work requirement to a fully-remote position with a company that doesn’t enforce any office attendance policy. As a neurodivergent introvert, remote work is a comfortable thing for me, and I’ve got a good setup for it.
I took a trip across the state to be in-office for a couple days of meetings recently, and I was honestly kinda surprised to find that the lack of an office attendance policy had kinda killed the company culture. Even on peak attendance days, the office is maybe 1/4 full, silent as a tomb, and basically without value for collaborative work because the people you need to talk to probably aren’t there. I went home from my trip feeling quite a bit worse about my new job, which was kinda the opposite of what was intended.
I didn’t like being in-office at my old job, exactly, but I did really like my team, and enjoyed the conversations and banter we had. I’m fortunate to be working for a good employer that doesn’t see the need to enforce an in-person work policy, but it’s a little sad to realize that not having that policy means that the office as a place to work together with people is functionally dead.
You are not wrong about the lack of corporate culture. But at the end of the day, is that worth giving up family time, company of your pets, a corner office of your choosing, with access to your own fridge and amenities, being able to receive people at the door at reasonable hours, and not having to commute asinine hours?
Many people will reject that notion.
But here’s the kicker: companies don’t care about your well being. They only care about the bottom line. What incentive do they have to cater to your needs? None, other than the minimum for employee retention.
This idea of “team building” is just smoke and mirrors. An excuse to not have to admit the real reason: adapting away from buts-in-seats as a performance measure is hard.
Don’t get me wrong, either – I’m not at all in favor of mandatory RTO policies, and that team that I loved at my old employer is now scattered to the winds as a result of layoffs and related attrition. The corporate arm of that company had nothing to do with how well my team meshed and worked together (though I will give lots of credit to my immediate boss there – I went to work at that company to work with her specifically, and she was one of the best managers one could ever ask for), and I suspect we’d have all agreed to be in-office together one or two days a week even without the RTO mandate. But it’s been hard to get integrated at this new place of work, and I was looking forward to this trip as a way to start connecting with coworkers, only to find out none of them actually turned up to the office anyway. Without the company making a specific effort to bridge the gap, I think that remote work can become really isolating and reinforce existing cliques and teams to the detriment of those who join up later on.
Yeah but - in fairness, a lot of people who work from home are taking advantage of their situation. I’m not one of them, I’m retired now but I know people who “work from home” by going shopping most of the day and then maybe doing 1 or 2 hours actual work.
Just sayin.’
That’s a potentially failure of management to provide adequate work or oversight. Or the person is being paid based on output and not “ass in seat” time. Either way, the company is clearly ok enough with it not to say anything to the employee, so fuck it and do what you have to for your check and skate the rest of the way.
I think it’s true that some of it is failure of management for work oversight, but the “just skate and get by” mentality is actually unfair to the employer. I mean one person said to me, “Why can’t I go shop and go to my appointments, it’s not my fault those businesses are only open during the day.”
That’s true, but when you commit to work for an employer, you know what your work hours are expected to be. I had to do it too, working the daily grind in an office for decades, and if I needed to go to a doctor’s or dentist’s appoint, I’d let my employer know and ask for the time off.
Yeah it sucks and it’s not total freedom or a license to skate through life, but that’s just the way it is when you have a job.
the “just skate and get by” mentality is actually unfair to the employer
Yeah, and the vast difference between productivity increases and that of wages over the last 40 years is even more fair to the employees. Sorry if I don’t cry about how unfair it is to the employer when an employee does the bare minimum to get paid. And I say that for both RFH and in person positions.
That’s true, but when you commit to work for an employer, you know what your work hours are expected to be
And you’re assuming that they’re not meeting those core requirements. Apparently they’re meeting their employer’s expectations on work output/availability, so why do you care? Some of us that work from home have great flexibility and can just go to appointments and have our managers be ok with that. Hell, I’ve had in person gigs that felt the same. I got my stuff done and ran the errands that needed run.
Ok.
Not all jobs are measured by time spent on the clock, so no it doesn’t have to be that way. Many jobs can and should be measured by simply meeting productivity requirements. A parking attendants job is being present on shift because that is a requirement of that job. But a programmer’s job is to create software that performs a certain way. There is no time requirement of the product there.
Just cause you suffered your way through it doesn’t mean you should encourage others to do the same.
Okey dokey.
I know people who spend their entire day at the office shopping on Amazon, walking around and socializing, playing games on their computer, drinking, or doing a whole long list of non-work related stuff. Hell, I’ve worked places where it seemed like most people spent more time pretending to look busy than actually doing anything productive.
It tends to be worse at places where the only metrics are “butts in seats.” This problem – and it’s only really a problem if expectations aren’t being met – is unrelated to remote work and is a result of poor leadership.
I’ve worked in places where that’s exactly what people did, shopped on Amazon and socialized 99 percent of the time. I agree that it’s also a leadership issue, and that you’re right, employees will slack off as much as possible whenever possible.
Fair point. It happens, but sadly often this in the meme is the company culture we are returning to.
I had one shitty colleague who was taking naps during work hours and then working in the evening when all of us have headed home, so he makes decisions we never agreed on and surprises us in the morning.
I think his problem may have had more to do with him being an asshole rather than the working from home policy. But it sure as hell made it easier for him to get away with this behaviour behind a screen.
Well it’s hard to sympathize when you’ve only ever worked in a company culture. (AND by the way, always 8 to 5…do people really work 9 to 5 and why have I never had such a job??). I never had the option to work from home, and in a way I’m glad because I know it would have been 92 percent playing on the computer and maybe 3 percent work and 5 percent going to the bathroom to pee.
So i see where employers are coming from in wanting to get back to the office environment again. It is almost impossible to track what workers are really doing from home, especially if they are actually taking naps and then doing asshole things in the evening that ruin your work life the next day!
People acting like you can’t fire bad employees just because they work from home.
Ok then.
It’s impossible to track workers at work too though… Everyone is whereever to do whatever. At least in Europe.
True, it’s not easy no matter where you are.
I think the lack of monitoring can be helpful to employees: rather than breathing over their necks (whether physically or digitally), you should enable them to make their own decisions, hold them responsible for them, and give them ownership over their own work. A someone who’s been working non-stop since university, the only places where I truly thrive and want to take most responsibility are the places that don’t police me, the places that are transparent but not intruding.
Maybe working from home is one way to achieve this. Having good online etiquette when using stuff like Slack or Discord can mitigate problems that arise from physical distance. Out to do an urgent shopping task? Fine, just say so on your Discord status! Then you become visible to everyone without having to be in the same room or building.
Well that’s true also. I always preferred a work environment where I was trusted to do what I was hired to do and then left to do it without people “helicoptering” over me monitoring me all the time. Although to be honest, I’ve rarely had that kind of freedom.
I too have thrived more in those environments where I’m trusted and not overly criticized or policed all the time. But, I wasn’t one to slack off if I was left to my own devices, I always took the reigns and did the work that needed doing.
It’s a different world today and with many more employees working from home, the idea of using Discord or something similar to handle situations where you need to away for a time or unreachable for a time seems like a great idea to me!
