to think some people would be weirdly excited if WFH came to an end?

There is a subset of pensioners who I think secretly want to send us down the mines 😂 but they can’t do that so being in the office will do for now.

Whereas everyone know builders sit about drinking endless cups of tea and not doing anything (I joke).

But yup! It's "no-one appreciates me and everyone except me is taking the piss". The thing is, if everyone was a builder he wouldn't have anyone to do building work for and would be unemployed. Plus, he would have no electricity, no food in the shops, no one to teach his children, no one to do planning applications etc etc it's bizarre because in any society that's advanced past subsistence you need different specialisations.

Couldn't agree more, OP! There's almost a glee at the prospect of people being forced back into the office. And, as you say, it's not always convenient or even possible for businesses themselves.

Are these pensioners some of which never worked a day in their lives? Being SAHM/W?

Well the anti-WFH thing isn’t really pulling up the ladder - as they didn’t get to do it!

Or alternatively, many of them didn't need the option to wfh as they could afford a mortgage and a nice lifestyle on a sole income. Working from the office 5 days a week is easy peasy if your OH is doing all the school runs etc! So in that sense it could be seen as pulling the ladder up

Lots of older people think if you don’t go into the office then you’re lazy. My nana (who owned her own business) would actually probably have allowed it if it worked and provided people didn’t take the piss. That’s what irritates me, slackers who wfh and then skive.

I don't understand how the same people who don't want WFH to continue are also usually supporters of AI. AI makes their jobs easier, fine, but it also means many jobs are now obsolete. Eventually the idea of AI is surely to make it possible for us not to work, or work less? IMO it is business owners (see Farage's funders) who want cheap or free labour for their personal profit and again, mostly men who gain more from being out of the house.

I think a disproportionate amount of the mouth-frothing about wfh also comes from pensioners 🙄

I have issues about the replacing of some of those services with automated telephone systems/AI chatbot things. But thats more to do with companies wanting to employee less real people because it's cheaper than WFH.

I don't want to turn this into an old people bashing threads. I think it pervades many strands of society. But I agree a lot of it comes from papers like the Telegraph.

Here’s a question. Suppose you took a job that was office based but they turned it into wfh and sold off the office space. Would your only option be to find another job?

When I had to wfh due to covid we had lots of online fun things to do including escape rooms. Maybe not a perfect solution but helped us bond a lot.

It’s weird. Some people are just ideologically opposed to wfh and hate flexible working full stop.

My dad has weird beef with people who work from home because he’s a builder and he thinks he invented hard graft. Before WFH he felt like that about people who worked in offices 😭. I really thought he was just an isolated case but the more I speak to people the more I realise this is actually a common opinion.

In fact- I would say, if in some bizarre reality PM Farage bans working from home, I’ll be the first to also petition for French style labour laws.

I’ll go back to the office- but I’m not having email on my phone, and I’m not working a minute outside my 40 hours anymore. Those 60-70 hour weeks on the regular would just not happen.

Also a lot of the “everyone back to the office” culture is due to lazy/bad management.

My DD had to leave her job when they cancelled all wfh. Despite her manager and their manager agreeing she could as it worked really well for her they were overruled. Full wfh meant she increased from part time to full time. The office had moved from a 4 minute walk away into the nearest city centre over an hour away so she was never going to manage to go there even part time, let alone full time. Even health based flexi working arrangements were scrapped.

she now has a job for a company where WFH is done on an individual basis. She’s alllwed ft WFH, some people do part time WFH, a couple of people choose full time office and there are two people who aren’t allowed to wfh because they took the piss with it. Too many companies manage their workforce as a whole rather than managing problematic individuals as such.

Of course NF and his backers and most of the government have invested in office spaces. There needs to be a discussion on what to do with these empty spaces if more people wfh/hybrid.

Having said that I was on a bus going past City Thameslink and through Farringdon this week and noticed lots of offices including Linked In’s so obviously a few people still prefer to work in the office.

Exactly this - 'empathy deficit or willful ignorance'.

I've not met one person who WFH and advocates for it, that thinks everybody should be forced to do it. Because we understand it doesn't work for some people.

Whereas the 'we all need to be back in the office' cheerleaders do want it to be forced on everyone, regardless of how badly it may effect others.

They could control it, tax breaks for companies with no wfh. A wfh tax on companies that allow it. Etc

They shouldn't, but they could.

It doesn’t have to be an exact mapping of circumstances, for the spirit of pulling up the ladder to be there

Exactly! I thought that was the actual meaning of the phrase.

@MidnightPatrol

I see pulling up the ladder as more about selfishness, limiting opportunities for those behind you etc as opposed to having had to have done the exact same thing.

It is though. No they didn’t get to WFH- but they had better work/life balance, because they didn’t have emails on phones etc- which is what people who WFH talk about.

It doesn’t have to be an exact mapping of circumstances, for the spirit of pulling up the ladder to be there.

There's also a certain "that'll learn em" attitude. The idea that large segments of society are either taking advantage or taking you for granted and need punishing. These can include at different times-

• WFH employees- lazy, entitled, over privileged and overpaid compared to people in poorly paid "real jobs" who can't WFH
• people working and claiming benefits** (often in poorly paid "real jobs"
• parents claiming child benefits who should have worked out how to support their own kids or kept their legs together
• single people who are to selfish to breed
• carers
• disabled people
• council workers (bin men, cleaners, office staff)
• white color workers
• anyone in the creative industries

The great thing about it is, not matter who you are you can find someone in that group you feel a bit resentful of. You just have to avoid reading the bits which say bad things about you.

*It's not just an argument about the cost of benefits etc. otherwise tax evasion would be a bigger.issue to. It's more an insinuation that "people" are Taking The Piss deliberately and must be punished.

Which is weird because having more people commuting will make their unbearable commute even worse.

I don’t like it at all. It’s really baked in socially- from businesses right down to individual families. You see it loads on here “I didn’t get help looking after my children so I’m not helping you look after yours” from grandparents. I see it a lot in my industry too- senior figures not supporting mid level talent.

I’m not sure where it comes from- but it’s mean spirited, race to the bottom, socially destructive bollocks.

It will be the Public sector that are paid through the taxpayer, HMRC, DWP, DVLC, councils, NHS, etc, etc. If you work for a private company I wouldn't worry about it

Well the anti-WFH thing isn’t really pulling up the ladder - as they didn’t get to do it!

Fear of change, jealousy, assumption everyone is feckless apart from them etc