To think people are over looking the benefits of going to work

[Poptart4]

I keep hearing about how great working from home is. No commute, saving money, more family time etc.

But I think people are over looking the benefit's of actually going to work.

• Getting out of the house, personally I dont think its healthy to spend all (most) of your time within the same 4 walls.
• The social aspect of working. Alot of people make friends or at least acquaintances through work.
• I know alot of people who met their partner through work. And alot who just had fun casual hook ups with co-workers. Either way there will be less chances at romance because you will have less social interaction.
• As a mother I find going out to work gives me a life outside of being mammy. It gives me a little independence for myself. If I was working from home all of the time I would never be away from the children. Never get a break.
• No after work drinks, office xmas parties etc.
• I've also read some threads on here about couples fighting because one or both of them is working from home and there getting on each others nerves. Couples need time apart.

I really think once the novelty of working from home wears off alot of people are going to miss the hustle and bustle of office life. And alot of people are going to end up depressed. Especially for people who live alone. The lack of social interaction will impact them the most.

Dh wants to go back at least part time. A lot of his colleagues feel the same.

When WFH I find it really difficult to stop working. It is so much more liberating to leave it all at a separate building.

No after work drinks, office xmas parties etc.

You say that like it's a bad thing

Nothing you have mentioned appeals to me at all, I have friends and family to socialise with.

I agree ! However I think a balance of both is the best option. Homeworking is great for a couple of days a week - you can concentrate on actually working with no distractions, you don't waste hours commuting and can spend more time on exercising and on hobbies. However , I think that nothing can replace face-to-face interaction - in terms of bouncing ideas off other people, and creating a real team atmosphere and I agree that there will be lots of mental health issues if many people work at home permanently. Balance is the key.

I like seeing my children for dinner every night. When I'm commuting that doesn't happen. I don't go to work drinks, they're always on my day off. Commuting costs me £30 a day for parking and train.

I can see your upsides would have applied to me 20 years ago though so you do have a point. It depends on what stage of your career/life you're at I guess.

I've worked from home for years so not a novelty. The biggest pull for me is that quite simply I am a nicer person when I work from home. If someone angers me I just need to wait until the end of the call then rant to my partner or take a 5 min break then get on with my life. When I was office based i was awful at ranting to colleagues and i came across quite horrible and bitchy. I'm calmer at home as I'm not separated from any drama so stuff that used to drive me mad I can detach from.

I was also so self conscious in the office- worried i had a bogey or looked fat or embarrassed by a rumbling tummy. Always felt I had to look perfect. Now I'm much more relaxed and can focus more on my work and what I'm saying than getting tied up in my own head.

Also a lot easier to do big presentations when talking to a computer screen than a room full of people.

It's definitely different but there isn't anything I really miss about being office based. As for drinks out- it's refreshing working somewhere where my colleagues haven't seen me shitfaced. I prefer any workplace on or offsite where there isn't the expectation of having to do social stuff with them.

Those things are all social and the sort of thing that has to be replaced in other ways. For instance we used to have a Christmas party for my friend who was a self employed hairdresser. I think however that there is a lot of 'soft' learning that goes on in the office when we listen and learn from each other or have informal work chats and I think that will be hard to replace.

I would happily WFH full time for the rest of my career. In reality what I'd like to do is to try and arrange all my meetings for one or two days a week and be really efficient getting through them all, and having my WFH days to focus on the work that needs concentrated periods of effort

I have a way more practical reason why WFH is not necessarily a great idea.
What is stopping companies from outsourcing their jobs to English speakers in developing countries if everything is configured so that people can work from home?

What is the point of a higher salary in London if the London companies could just higher people up north and pay them less.

I wonder if 20 years down the line the move to WFH after CV will be marked as the demise of the majority of services work in developed countries.

Maybe for some people, but it's useless generalising. The only one of your points that applies to me is the first one, and it doesn't nearly outweigh the benefits that I personally feel from WFH.

It's my first day back in the office on Monday and I'd much rather stay at home, not least because we're still on part-time hours so the spending time getting myself presentable and driving there and back doesn't seem worth it for 5 hours a day. Not to mention the fuel / bus fares we will now be paying for on our vastly reduced wages

@AldiAisleofCrap

Nothing you have mentioned appeals to me at all, I have friends and family to socialise with.

Sadly not everyone has friends or family. For some people work is their social outlet.

Agree 100%. DH and I have both been working from home since March. I know that is incredibly lucky in many respects but it starts to drive you mad. I miss routine. I miss my team - seeing their faces, having impromptu case conferences, popping out for lunch or a quick drink after work. I hate the fact that I am never completely switched off from work - it’s always there at the end of the dining room table (we have a study but because we need two work stations we’ve had to co-opt the dining room as well).

There are so many benefits to WFH and I really hope that in the future there is more of a balance to allow people to take advantage of that. But balance is the operative word here. At the moment, there is none.

@cinammonbuns

I have a way more practical reason why WFH is not necessarily a great idea. What is stopping companies from outsourcing their jobs to English speakers in developing countries if everything is configured so that people can work from home?

What is the point of a higher salary in London if the London companies could just higher people up north and pay them less.

I wonder if 20 years down the line the move to WFH after CV will be marked as the demise of the majority of services work in developed countries.

What was stopping them before? Huge swathes of customer service, development activity, admin/payroll processes etc had already been offshored in the past. Many of those were then onshored again due to issues with timezones, language barriers, etc. Not to mention tax implications, possible cultural barriers etc

@AldiAisleofCrap

Nothing you have mentioned appeals to me at all, I have friends and family to socialise with.

Same here. I've never been a big one for work socialising or dating.

Plus I love not having to travel. I can also start and finish earlier, so have more of the day left for shopping, cooking, excercising, etc. I can listen to music, podcasts or audio books while I work (well I could at work, but only through one earbud, which isn't great). And I don't have to share a kitchen or toilet with 100s of other people.

It suits some people and not others. Nothing wrong with that.

I agree, i don’t miss commuting (although I did read a lot on the train) but I miss the face to face contact with my colleagues, getting my lunch near work & being in a different space. I do agree with PP though that having a mix of office & home working is probably the best of both worlds.

The thing that troubles me is staff development. Yes, if you've been doing the same job forever you can probably work well at home but how are you going to share skills, inspire others, be inspired by others, train your successor etc etc?

It works "now" in many cases, with an already established staff but I don't think it works as a permanent model. Imagine being the new guy on an already established team and trying to build relationships and learn the culture/industry from people you never meet because they're all happily avoiding the commute.

Long term that has to be bad for business, even if people can kid themselves they're more efficient at home, they're efficiently doing what they always do, there's no incidental interactions for sharing ideas or inspiration, no progress.

Interesting to see other points of view. My DP and I worked from home before COVID and find it works for us personally. We usually do an office visit about once a month and do attend summer and Christmas parties. We also have dedicated office space and that is much better than say, a temporary set up working off the dining table. No children yet so that’s also not an issue at the moment.

I personally love it and really appreciate the time saved on commuting, before we started WFH I was spending about 10-12 hours a week travelling 4 miles to and from work every day. That’s a massive chunk of time to get back every month!

I have wfh for years. It is a huge relief. All the “pluses” you list of being in an office are actually huge drawbacks for me. Being in an office all day was nothing but stress for me. I’m much happier and more effective at my job getting to wfh.

Couldn't agree more, get me back to the office.

I don't have a desk of anything so i've spent months working from the sofa and my husband is working in our bedroom on a dinning room chair (we had to borrow from my mum as we don't have a dining table) and his laptop on a set of drawers. Sick of our tiny house that I used to love and me and husband living in each others pockets is causing rows.

I’m sure that plenty of people really appreciate / miss the things you have listed. And those people are probably all keen to get back to the office. However plenty of other people have zero interest in workplace socialising (or romance) and find being around other people all the time stressful, tiring and/or boring. For those people working at home is ideal. (And there’s nothing stopping you popping out to Starbucks, going to the gym or for a walk in your lunch hour etc. to vary your surroundings).

Still WFH here...otherwise known as living at work. Hate it.
Working from kitchen table with endless distractions, or sitting on bed with laptop on my knee. Not seeing colleagues, not meeting other people, endless bloody zoom meetings, no social interaction. It's a soulless and lonely way to work.

I’m missing learning from working alongside / with colleagues with more knowledge and experience. Being able to discuss work issues in person. Everything seems to be taking longer, and problems seem harder and take longer to resolve.

Yes and I’m worried about my eldest ds for all the reasons you have given. He’s 30 and single, owns his own flat and has been wfh since March. His employer have insinuated his job may become permanently home based. He does have friends but the social side of work is really important to him. I hate him sitting in that flat (nice as it is) all week. And it’s having negative physical effects too, he used to cycle to work and back, now he’s not exercising and he’s putting on weight.