To feel sad that the world of work as we knew it has gone forever?

[Youngatheart00]

My work confirmed today we are moving to 100% remote working and will only get together a few times a year for team meetings. I find this so sad. I loved my working life - I know realise so much of that was down to the people. Now all I do all day is stare at screens and give myself a migraine.

They are justifying it by saying ‘most people’ want this despite me never seeing any such survey. It’s a blatant cost cutting exercise.

Anyone else fed up and lonely?

I do wonder whether companies that force a change to WFH will have to pay redundancy to employees who don't want to do it long term. When we relocated one of our offices half the staff accepted redundancy because they weren't willing to do a longer commute and it was considered a significant change to contract. I don't see how suddenly expecting people to have enough space in their house to wfh full time isn't an equally significant change.

I think it's an individual thing, so you're not unreasonable.
For me, this year has been the most enjoyable of my working life. I've spent just under a decade getting up early than I'd like to, putting on uncomfortable clothes, that I wouldn't wear if I had the choice so that I can pay money to sit on a tube and state at people's miserable faces first thing in the morning.

Having to be seen to be "busy" even if there's nothing to do, be distracted by inane office chatter, actually engage in that inane chatter myself to be seen as a team player, attend social gatherings that I have no real interest in for the same reasons.

It's actually shocking how big of a difference something as innocuous as working from home has made to my general mood. If I was told to go back to the office full time, I'd probably be looking for roles at your place OP.

@gannett what you wrote is very inspiring and similar to my experience (although I was in my 40s when I started WFH).

But I think, like me, you probably work in a vibrant city with all it offers pretty much on your doorstep?

It's rather different for people living more remotely.

For people working in hospitals, labs, factories, in construction, logistics etc work hasn't changed much at all. Slightly less traffic on the way to and from, maybe.

@AgentJohnson

I can understand your personal disappointment but the hyperbole was really not necessary.

Stop being goady🤦‍♀️

@SnackSizeRaisin

Yanbu. Staying home might be fine for those who are happily partnered up with children, in a nice house and nice place. It's pretty rubbish for single people. I would have hated it. I don't love it now, but it's ok in the short term. But I find myself wanting to ask colleagues opinions, which previously would have been really quick, now it involves e mailing hoping they're not too busy etc

This. For all those smugly saying how much more time they have with friends and family....well what if you didn't have them?

I also feel sorry for young people both in a social sense but also a work one - I benefitted so much from asking questions and learning from the more experienced people sitting around me, but the new starters we had this year have never met anyone in person and are really struggling both with learning the job and the online systems (so hard to pick up remotely!) but also not having that social reassurance that everyone mucks up and gets stressed occasionally, it's fine....I feel I have an obligation to pay it forward almost and come in to work at least one it two days a week rather than sitting at home just doing my own work thinking "I'm alright jack"

Everyone who thinks teams is just as good as real life has clearly not started a new job whilst wfh....its fine having social teams chats with people you already know in real life, not so easy if you've never met them before and possibly never will!

Also agree so much with op and the separating from home/work - I know people whos job involves watching or reading about the most horrific stuff (police detectives, social workers, counsellors etc) who have been doing it from home for over a year. Imagine watching 8 hours of people dying in road traffic accidents or listening to accounts of child abuse and then just closing your laptop in your bedroom and trying to ignore it. Lots of the youngest ones are living in shared accommodation so they literally work and live in one small bedroom. That's no kind of life and will have a huge effect on mental health.

I personally think everyone should be in offices at least 1-2 days a week. Then the people who want to be there will have company and those who prefer wfh will still have 3-4 days of no commute etc and will appreciate it more. We will still have the benefits of reduced traffic etc. Offices can reduce their space if a smaller amount of staff come in at any one time BUT there will still be some people around so we dont lose a huge amount of jobs in coffee, sandwich shops etc. Seems like a good compromise.....

I think that you’ve been a victim of a workplace where most of the senior people will relish not commuting and spending days at home, even if that’s long working hours. My dh for example has now wfh for a year and he has seen more of the kids than he has done in the last 5 years put together. However, I can fully appreciate that not all people are in the same situation. My dB was gutted to have been assigned as 100% permanent wfh. He’s single and lives alone and is now totally isolated. Many, many people feel the same way as you and him and I do think also that people in graduate positions will suffer. They won’t be seeing the senior people around them working day to day, it will be more difficult for them to learn. They will miss the office as they are not 50+ with wife, kids, pets, etc etc.

I don’t really know what the answer is. If your company lose a lot of younger/child free staff they may rethink the issue. There may be other companies whose selling point is the fact they have a physical office.

@CarriesFlower82

I feel for you but I LOVE working from home. I'm late 30s with small children and it's saved me costs on travel, extra hours at nursery and my cleaner (as I now do my cleaning before work and during my lunch break!) I feel organised and calm without any commute. I don't miss it one bit and I'm glad we are not going back!

That said, I also feel for younger people or people like you who want that social interaction. I love being alone at home (as I normally have small people climbing all over me!) but I imagine it can get lonely.

No criticising you at all, but this post really sums up the ripple effect to me - your nursery is losing money, the train companies are losing money and your cleaner is now out of a job with you - but you like many others (including me) have saved money for these reasons. The effects of a shift to a majority of wfh will be devastating to the economy and people in poorly paid jobs like nursery workers and cleaners - and even in better paid jobs like railway workers i.e. train drivers will likely join the unemployed very soon. This is what Rishi and chums should be focussing on, not artificially propping up the property market.

Re concentrating on this it was a priority last September but then it went to pot.

Everyone who thinks teams is just as good as real life has clearly not started a new job whilst wfh....its fine having social teams chats with people you already know in real life, not so easy if you've never met them before and possibly never will!

I've started several roles and contracts, short and long term, while WFH, in teams of people I'd never met, often in different countries. I've done this for over a decade. Social chats were fine. Video calls were fine. Never had an issue bonding with people or forming long-term contacts.

Has no one used Slack, Skype or any of the multitude of pre-Zoom workplace messaging tools? I've done office work where it'd be more common to ask a question over Slack than to actually ask out loud!

And don't fret about young people. They are USED to socialising and communicating digitally.

My dB was gutted to have been assigned as 100% permanent wfh. He’s single and lives alone and is now totally isolated.

I'm assuming this is more because of Covid restrictions? In non-Covid times what is preventing him socialising with all the friends he chooses when he's not working?

my work is also changing, we are relocating, it is sad that the work life i knew before will not be the same

@Hoppinggreen I love my job but it’s just what I do to earn money, it’s not who I am

For some people though it is, eg if they've invested heavily in training or if they work in a profession / role where there is a strong emphasis on values, membership, community knowledge-sharing, or long hours so it becomes part of your life and the way you think and act. Eg people I know who are researchers, scientists, teachers, performing arts.

Not all of them can work from home but they've experienced huge changes in their work which affect their sense of professional competence which can be closely tied up with identity.

I agree a mix is best for the majority of people - allows those who love interaction to get it, plus all the benefits of brainstorming, apprenticeship of new hires or newly promoted individuals, and informal interactions; while still supporting those who want to wfh 1-3 days a week to get the benefits of that too.

My company has no clarity at all about what will be expected as we’re consultants so it will vary client to client, which sucks from a planning and childcare management perspective.

@JeanClaudeVanDammit

WFH is not bad for work or even most workers. It's bad for a select group of workers, and they seem unable to comprehend how bad office life was for others.

If those who don’t want to work full time from home forever have to suck it up and get another job (which obviously they do but it seems reasonable to be a bit upset about a change beyond all recognition from what they’d actually chosen) then why didn’t those who find office work unbearable suck it up and get another job?

I think this is a good point. If you chose to apply for an office based job it seems a bit rich to be crowing about how a shift to WFH is fairer for all those for whom office based work is detrimental to their mental health and that those who don't like it can find another job.

It is fascinating to watch businesses off loading their costs on to their employees so successfully, and in most cases not even doing any assessment of the employees' working environments.

I wouldn't want to WFH and can't anyway in my role, so it's academic for me. OH already WFH permanently so it's not as if I don't see both sides of it.

The sadder thing is that this will have knock-on effects for other businesses who rely on offices to have work. My dad is one of them and after more than 30 years doing a job which relies heavily on working offices he is not sure if he will be able to continue earning doing this job anymore...

I agree with the poster who says that there is also a bit of an obligation to pay it forward and not just be “I’m alright jack” at home - you benefitted from years or decades of in person contact and apprenticeship and learning, it’s important that young people and new hires also get that and they can only do that if other experienced people actually show up a few days a week.

We’re on a rotation for WFH and work from office, 2 weeks in and 2 weeks at home.

This is perfect to me. A good balance, the office is more relaxed as there aren’t as many people and as much noise, you get your time to bounce ideas around and keep up with what’s going on.

Whilst we’re all on separate projects which are technically independent, When we were 100% from home you don’t know what’s going on with other projects. You absorb info from overhearing conversations even if you don’t listen. So this rotation is great.

I hated WFH without any end in sight. Absolutely hated it. Stupidly the thing I missed most at first was my 10am coffee and croissant with a colleague - it was routine more than anything else.

How are new starts going to be inducted, trained and then become experienced? Sitting in their bedroom? To me this is dystopian. Of course middle aged people with kids, dogs and a garden may well prefer to avoid a commute. Great. But for so many reasons, that doesn't apply to everyone. I have to make difficult, sensitive phone calls in my job. I've never got used to making them from my sofa and have saved them for my office days. I wonder if others would like to receive a potentially traumatic call from somebody on a mobile phone who might need to answer her kids or her doorbell mid call. It just doesn't work.

I literally started exercising regularly when I started WFH because I no longer had to either get up at stupid o'clock before work to fit it in, or to do it after 8 hours in an office when I was knackered to. WFH is immeasurably better for the health of every single person I know who's done it!

My activity levels have gone right down because I used to walk/cycle to work, climb up 5 flights of stairs multiple times a day to and from my office, go to meetings on other sites on foot/public transport, and then the reverse on the way home. A normal day was about 15,000 steps, now even forcing myself out for a half hour walk at lunchtime gets me about 5,000.

I still have the same number of hours in the day, still have to do the same amount of work, childcare and housework so I haven’t magicked up a spare hour a day to accommodate artificial activity. I’m saving 3 minutes doing eyeliner, maybe I should get into HIIT? The lockdown weight gain thing seems to suggest mass WFH hasn’t actually been that good for the nation’s health.

@JeanClaudeVanDammit

WFH is not bad for work or even most workers. It's bad for a select group of workers, and they seem unable to comprehend how bad office life was for others.

If those who don’t want to work full time from home forever have to suck it up and get another job (which obviously they do but it seems reasonable to be a bit upset about a change beyond all recognition from what they’d actually chosen) then why didn’t those who find office work unbearable suck it up and get another job?

I literally did.

It involved a big pay cut as well as making my peace with the fact that it would lead to a less financially solvent/reliable life. For me, I was happy to make that decision and it's absolutely been worth it. Not everyone could or would have.

WFH has only been fully normalised in the past year and even now there are people lobbying against it. Most people who found office life unbearable didn't have the option of finding another job.

I have autism. Commuting an hour or more each way used to give me anxiety and nausea, and often migraines too. Sitting in the office made me feel overwhelmed and anxious. I declined job opportunities because I couldn’t cope with the commute or the work environment. This shift to wfh is life changing for me and many others. Parents can work flexibly and take a quick break to collect kids from school, whereas previously they’d be locked out of the workforce. Or they can just be in the house when teens get home and avoid the need for wrap around care. People who don’t like commuting can minimise it. People with disabilities that make it difficult for them to cope in an office have an alternative. People can take jobs requiring late shifts eg call centre without having to take the safety risk of using public transport in the dark. There are still some workplaces which will be fully on site and these will probably end up being staffed by people who want to be in the office, so you do have a choice.

I’ve been working from home since I started this job, nearly 6 years ago. But I knew that i would be working from home and wouldn’t have taken the job if that hadn’t worked for me.

If I were forced to work in an office I wouldn’t be happy so why should someone forced to work at home be happy?

I have a different issue in that DH will now be working from home all the time, having worked in an office about 30 minutes drive away before. He also trains people some of the time which means I have to use headphones when he does so that I can concentrate. We are lucky to have a converted double garage in the garden which does comfortably fit us both but I still sometimes feel a bit squashed (mentally rather than physically).

I think it was good for us to work in different places and then be able to talk about later on. Now we are both in the same space all the time it has had an effect on our relationship.

I think there are no easy solutions to the whole debate.

The lockdown weight gain thing seems to suggest mass WFH hasn’t actually been that good for the nation’s health.

I think that has more to do with with gyms. Most office workers I know (myself included) commute in via chain and sit at a desk all day.
I used to spend 2-3 days a week visiting the gym and another 2-3 days engaged in a physical hobby both of which I haven't been able for the best part of a year.
If I didn't reduce my food intake to offset it a bit, I'd probably have ballooned too.

I agree OP. I know someone who fought tooth and nail to work from home before lockdown. They got their wish and within 2 weeks they were messaging me asking if they can come over a few times a week because they were getting really down being on their own all day. They also said that because there were at home they had meetings back to back all day, every day, and didn't even have time to take a wee.

WFH you don't get the commute but you also don't get the personal interaction, the nipping to get a drink or wander to the loo and take a break, etc. It's not as great as people think.