I don’t want to go back to the office

[Dontmakemegoback2office]

Certainly not most days. I’m enjoying the improved work/ life balance and I can do my job perfectly well at home. Meetings, research, reports, emails. The lot.

I’m angry at the thought of being forced back on to that horrible commute for no reason other than cannon fodder for the city centre economy. Just no.

AIBU?

StaffAssociationRepresentative in my experience London Weighting has never been more than a small contibution towards the cost of working in London. If companies decide to make home the main base for staff then London Weighting could be dropped and employees claim travel expenses for travelling into main office.

My employer is wanting staff to go back into the office for no real tangible reason. The reasons given have been to do with wanting to 'get back to normal'. We have all demonstrated that WFH works but some senior managers dont believe that people work properly if they havent got said senior managers hanging over them.

Says more about the senior managers than the managed I think.

Some senior managers spend a lot of their day in meetings. Very little comes out of these meetings. Doing these meetings on Zoom/Teams has perhaps highlighted to senior managers that they dont actually do a lot most of the time.

Senior managers need to get us minions back into the office so that they look busy!

@GnomeDePlume, that's my experience with my employer too.

I am happy to work from home, just as long as we speak to each other on the phone/zoom etc when needed. Technology is better now, saves a journey.

If others want to be in an office, for whatever reason, fair enough, but I hope my wishes can be respected.

I also think it can contribute to ending migration to London for work and the housing impacts this brings.

Absolutely. I’m very grateful to the keyworkers who’ve worked outside their homes for the last four months, but this isn’t about us pampered office workers being wusses.

And is it right for key workers to make rush hour trains packed out again, by forcing people back into offices to do the exact same job they can do just as productively at home?

NHS staff etc use trains and buses.

I also think it can contribute to ending migration to London for work and the housing impacts this brings.

The get back to work message is also rooted in house prices. A lot of these Tories and their donors are property speculators and they all have houses and property portfolios in London.

@makingmammaries

YANBU. Never heard anything as stupid as sending people back to the office because the sandwich shops are complaining.

And in fact I think more people are being careful with their money now, so may have not bought from there anyway!

@annabel85 thank you for reminding us of an even better reason.

It could also change recruitment approach with some firms maybe testing the water globally or at least more countrywide. Why have an expensive city based employee when you could another cheaper employee elsewhere?

It is not just London landlords who are suffering. However a couple of staff members have just secured a significant discount on their south London rental for the next year so they are happy.

There is a potential oversupply of rental in university towns especially those who rely upon overseas students.

If more can wfh will that not lead to an increase in house prices elsewhere

@StaffAssociationRepresentative

It could also change recruitment approach with some firms maybe testing the water globally or at least more countrywide. Why have an expensive city based employee when you could another cheaper employee elsewhere?

I've just got a new job working from home for a firm about 180 miles away. The company has worked out during the pandemic that a) people can effectively WFH and b) they can recruit exactly who they need with the required experience elsewhere, and these people can WFH.

I'm torn on this. I'm an MoD civil servant and I'm back a day a week. I could have a lot more time in many ways by WFH, but I don't want to jeopardise my London weighting. WFH full time would also mean lots of work hardware cluttering up my spare room (I want a spare room, not an office) and for me, home is my sanctuary and I like the "space" from work. Closing the spare room door just doesn't cut it. If they could sort me out a MoD laptop, I'd be open to part time in the office- I'd probably use the local library or a similar space to "wfh" and save things that require particular systems etc for office days.

DP similarly likes the sanctuary but he's shy and a troubled sleeper- so WFH part time if we/he had the dedicated space for it would be fantastic for him- huge WFH set up so proper space needed to do it full time. Sadly, there have been a couple of piss takers at his work. The company seemed v keen to do more WFH but I'm not sure they'll be at all as keen now the staff have shown they need to be supervised.

I suspect that most pp's that are enjoying wfh are women of a certain age, with children, not surprising, this is MN!

However, for younger, single people starting out in the workplace, wfh is a disaster. DD has been isolated from her flatmates, all still at parental homes, her workmates, either at parental homes, or in flats, and her wider social circle. Her cohort, recently out of uni, and moving out into the wide world of independence, has been cut short. They are starting to meet up in central locations, but only at the weekends, and of course they are missing all the social events they attended every night after leaving the office. As for meeting life partners....... completely non-existent. It's sad for them.

@Baaaahhhhh - there have been a number of news articles on that. I agree the young singles definitely want that social interaction and who are at the start of their careers.

Maybe it could be that people have a combination of office KIT days per month or do 2/3 days in office per week.

There could be all sorts of changes/solutions.

@MrsToothyBitch - guess it will be different for some organisations. Depending upon the security level of the work there maybe some things that can not really be done wfh.

Prior to Covid, we were never allowed to wfh. I work for a large family run business and they never allowed it nor flexible working. Definitely a lack of trust on their part.

Covid has proved to them that wfh can work, so they are now looking at ways to offer more flexibility to staff. The latest talk is that we won’t be back in the office until January.

I have enjoyed working from home and have saved so much money. However, I do miss my colleagues and I miss getting in my car and driving to our different sites. I have already started discussions with my manager about a mix of wfh and being back in the office. I am very lucky that I have my own office, with a window (ventilation) so could go in now if I wanted to.

I never buy lunch from local shop, as always take my own and our office isn’t in a city centre either. I never go shopping during work hours but will pop to my local shop on the way home.

I am due back beginning of September, though with recent changes we can negotiate to go back earlier if we wish. I need to be back in the office, I cannot do my role properly from home (mainly distance) and there has been many a balls up due to not being on the ground (nothing major, just annoying) and I need to be somewhere other than home.

I haven't of course missed the commute, the earlier starts and the couple of annoying colleagues.

I hope they will consider some kind of homeworking though, even on an ad hoc basis.

@StaffAssociationRepresentative - this is my problem with flexi- needing the MoD laptop and having to be organised about what I do & when/where I do it. The massive upside for me would be that our stationery & printer etc demands would be non existent if everyone WFH. It's the worst part of my job!

Another one enjoying WFH. I commute 90 minutes each way to London which I don’t miss.

I’m saving £450 a month on combined train and station parking, and I’m not spending up to £10 a day buying breakfast and lunch in the City. No wonder Boris wants us back to work!

People are saving more now if they can and even if spending is down when consumer confidence comes back savings won’t go in the train etc as they did but more likely on homes / holidays etc.

We’re mostly quite cautious atm but it’ll come back.

Any keyworker would be a knob calling themselves cannon fodder even at the height of the CV crisis. Unless they don't know what it actually refers to

Given that it refers to the idea of ordinary people being put at risk and considered expendable in order to service the needs and wants of the elite (lions led by donkeys, anyone?) I don't think it's an inappropriate turn of phrase.

Sorry OP I won’t be sticking with you. These last 4 months WFH have been the most demotivating of my career. I just couldn’t imagine doing this long term it feels so claustrophobic.

I cannot wait to get back to the office and have my home back as my home and not a makeshift workspace.

I feel the same way. I really value the separation of work and home, and I miss seeing people. Also, I only have a 20 minute commute so I'm not saving much there.

I don't think it's actually about enjoying WFH so much as enjoying having a shag for the OP. Slightly different angle from her perspective.

I miss seeing people

This is the tricky bit. I am happy not seeing people but I have to go back into the office because other people do want to see people.

@GnomeDePlume

I miss seeing people

This is the tricky bit. I am happy not seeing people but I have to go back into the office because other people do want to see people.

Yep!

(Though at least I'm not back in until September by virtue of having young children - others went back on 6 July - and then I leave in early October anyway.)

@GnomeDePlume

I miss seeing people

This is the tricky bit. I am happy not seeing people but I have to go back into the office because other people do want to see people.

I agree that the difficulty is balancing everyone's needs. We talked about it in a team meeting and I'm the only one of my team who doesn't prefer working from home (perhaps surprisingly given the general trends people have talked about because I'm the only one with a young child - but then, given I was working with him at home until a couple of weeks ago I didn't recognise their descriptions of 'home being so peaceful and unstressful compared to the office!'). Obviously, I have to accept that when they're looking at long term solutions they'll probably go with the majority, even though I personally feel differently. It does make me feel quite sad, though - I worked predominantly from home for years and very flexibly - all my colleagues think that's the dream but I found that 'flexibly' became 'endlessly, and no weekends or evenings' for me and everyone else. The irony is that I changed careers a year ago and when I was drawing up my list of what I wanted 'working in an office with relatively set hours' wasn't top of my list, but it was on it!