5 days in the office - rant!!!

But it's an avoidable part of life if you can spend some of your week WFH. I don't live that far from my office either, but (at peak times) it can be one hour in each direction, which is in insane for a 10 mile journey.

Yep I’ve WFH 2 days a week since 2009 as did many of our company. Im lucky that it’s on my contract so I can’t be forced into 5 days but it’s worked for our team for 16 years so why a takeover means we have to give up the flexibility I have no idea

Yes, well a lot of people struggle with traffic, it’s called life 😂

Yep - we were slow off the mark getting our hybrid policy sorted out, post-COVID. And until that happened, our job adverts didn't mention hybrid, and if anyone asked, we had to say it was under consideration. So we couldn't recruit. Now we state clearly A MINIMUM OF 2 DAYS IN THE OFFICE and people want to apply again. More people ask about 'days in the office' than salary these days

Of course they will, because those jobs aren’t suitable for wfh, so it’s moot point in this context.

But where jobs can be done remotely, it’s very beneficial all round. I’m not going to take a retrograde step and endure a commute and constant office interruptions just to make someone who’s chosen a job that can’t be done remotely, feel better. That’s not entitlement, it’s common sense.

@BriefEncountersOfTheThirdKind

Hours saved on commute are hours that homeworkers put towards other things like housework - I am baffled that so many people are completely unable to grasp this concept it is very simple.

What difference does it make to the company if a person does housework between 8am and 9am, and between 5pm and 6pm instead of sitting on a motorway?

Your comment makes no sense. OP already said she has an hour+ commute each way. Assuming she also has an hour lunch break, that's an additional 3 hours a day to do housework outside of business hours

Yes I agree. Too many people doing housework / school drop off etc during working hours. Spoils it for the rest of us

Why take a job so far from where you live then? Just the other day my inlaws were bragging about being able to work at home, stay in their pyjamas and not even get out of bed. So lazy and discusting 🤢

The OP hasn't said, but I imagine her role isn't any of those....

I am convinced people who whinge about homeworkers are just jealous.

Back in my day we didn't have home working and we used to commute 5 hours walking barefoot on broken glass to go down the mine for £4.50 a day.

Ok great Janet we also didn't used to have cars, or supermarkets or the internet. Things change, move with them or rot.

And yes I appreciate some roles can't be done remotely - but some can and that's just life. All jobs have pros and cons, perks and drawbacks.

Yes, modernise. But sadly until they develop a star trek transporter city workers, hospital doctors and nurses, teachers etc will need to get into cars and trains and suck up the commute.

Urgh, i had to go into the office yesterday.

I live 8km from the office - it took me 1.45 hours door to door.

Thats 2 hours lost work. Then I had a find a desk, spend an hour on to IT to get permissions and set up correct even though i just plugged my home laptop into the office docking station.

Stayed for 1 hour meeting and went straight home. What an absolute waste of a day

So? We're not pre-covid now.

And for centuries people washed laundry by hand, swept floors with a brush, had to take a ship to travel abroad, lit candles for light. We must modernise.

I was in the office yesterday. I timed the downtime (lunch with a college visiting from another office - obligation more than pleasure), people coming up to me desk or in the kitchen area to chit chat or complain the air con is too cold, not their too hot etc etc, 40 minute commute either way (outside of my working hours of course). I’m at home today and started working at the same time I started my commute yesterday. My employers are getting hours more out of me when I’m at home. I just made a cup of tea and whilst I waited for it to brew, I hung out 8 pieces of laundry, that I’d loaded up and ran at 6am today. Wfh where a role is suited to it is smarter for everyone.

I'm in a job now that requires me in the office 3 days - that's my limit I think. Although a commute time of 1 hour each way might be standard, wfh has shown me what a waste of time that is. My commute isn't that long (around 40 minutes each way) but when I'm wfh I sit down at my laptop at the same time I would normally set off for work - so I can get more done. I also find sitting at a desk for 4 hour stretches (I don't have many meetings) is just too unproductive even with toilet or water breaks.

Quite, we never went back to full time in-office after the 2012 Olympics in London.

Remember when they asked people to not travel if they didn't need to and companies did a tiny little spurt of wfh for the duration of the games? We never went back full time after that.

@IneedtheeohIneedtheeeveryhourIneedthee

Plenty of people WFH pre-covid - covid didn't invent home working, I've WFH full time since early 2018 - and I work for a big organisation that has always had plenty of homeworkers and flexi workers.

Sorry, but an hour commute has been standard for decades. My DH has been doing it since he was 23, so over 30 years, and I did it for 12 years until starting a family, all my local friends do it. For centuries people travelled equally far for labouring jobs in the next town and county - even my kitchen installers, landscape gardeners, builders, have over the years travelled as far. People have been ‘going where the work is’ since medieval times.

The entitlement of modern employees who have been lucky enough to benefit from WFH/Hybrid since covid and technology advances is really off the scale.

I don't know anyone who has a "office" job who does more than one or two days in the office - and this probably is a shock to some people but you are allowed breaks when you WFH and you can get household things done in those breaks.

Plus zero commute = more hours to do whatever you want/need to not more hours to work.

For work that doesn't require facing customers or being on site, I believe one to three days in the office is ideal.

And if you work for a global company in a global role then you're :

on/checking in/responding: 6-7.30ish for APAC

at desk: 9-12
[second dog walk 12-1.30pm]
at desk: 1.30pm (8.30am for east coast) until about 6pm

on/checking-in/responding: 8pm (3pm east coast) - bed time

My office days I am "on" 9-5 then on trains with crappy signal. and busy when i get in doing all the tiny little things i couldn't do during the day.