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?

What do you do if the broadband is crap , its not like you can pay more even if you have the money, you can't just magic the Openreach or Virgin Media fibre up your street, ours is pretty crap and it really struggled when DH was wfh, luckily he's retired now so problem gone. I don't think it would have coped with more than one person wfh. DS also had this problem in his flat and had to go into the office.

I did look into getting better broadband as don't mind paying more as it would also be advantageous for the other things like streaming top quality TV but it doesn't exist up our road.

Agree totally. At first I loved worked from home, but now just over a year on I am done with it. I started my current job in January last year and I have not made any of the friendships I would have done in normal circumstances.
Although I know I am lucky to have a job in this climate it is still rubbish and I am now at the point I have almost zero motivation

I think the important outcome of all of this is that people have choices. People have the choice of an office space, or people have the choice of wfh. I think we should look at what works for people and still delivers results. Rather than a one size fits all approach.

Interesting article in the FT today on burnout at professional services firms. Basically saying that the fast paced work/long hours is no longer balanced by social interaction and face to face team work and they’re expecting significant retention issues off the back of the long period of home working.

It’s almost the exact conversation I’ve had with a number of my team.

@Kimye4eva I looked it up. And I couldn’t agree more. Too many decisions being made by seniors without acknowledgement of impact on juniors

@Kimye4eva

Interesting article in the FT today on burnout at professional services firms. Basically saying that the fast paced work/long hours is no longer balanced by social interaction and face to face team work and they’re expecting significant retention issues off the back of the long period of home working.

It’s almost the exact conversation I’ve had with a number of my team.

I agree. I'm an accountant who has worked at home or solo in our office for a year now. I'm starting to really suffer "burnout" for a number of reasons, but not having face to face contact with clients etc is a real issue as things do take a lot longer and are more stressful when constantly going to and fro by email etc, especially with clients who aren't particularly "tech savvy" - the ones we'd usually see face to face such as OAPs etc.

I think the same applies to Uni students too - my son is in his first year, hasn't seen a single lecturer on campus (all his have been working from home since last March! and havn't set foot on campus). He was doing OK until recently, but all the online lectures/tutorials and all the emails/whatsapp messages are grinding him down. He says some of his lecturers are starting to say the same, saying they're looking forward to getting back on campus!

I agree about university lectures. DD says that the lecturers are firing them out much more quickly than if they were being delivered in a lecture theatre. She says it would be physically impossible to timetable them at that rate. One week she was sent 27 lectures. She takes a lot of notes from lectures so it is far more than 27 hours. Then there are lab reports and fake practicals on top of that, plus any homework.

There are pros and cons to working from home and travelling to and from.

What concerns me more wrt to the thread title are the lack of real employment rights and lack of real pay relative to living costs, which is ensuring an increasing reduction of ability to better yourself and your living standards through work. It's returning us all to an age of heredity and family connections. I'd say that, and related issues such as lack of access to law and employers' increasing ability to do what they want unchecked, is rather more important, personally.

Pre pandemic I worked from home a few days a week, the rest in the office. I think that's the perfect balance. Never being in means that people become detached, silos are forming, management are making decisions in isolation. I'm established in my career, but I cant imagine how hard it must be for new starters, especially those in their early and mid twenties ego are just starting out. Really hard to shadow and absorb from experienced colleagues. There is no down time between meetings, travelling etc, just 7.5 hours every day infront of a laptop. Just wait for all the back and shoulder problems to arise from poor work spaces and sitting all day.