SERIOUSLY??? People may quit if forced to work from home, Rishi Sunak warns ?

[R2221]

No Mr Sunak. Working from home saves me 2 FUCKING HOURS of daily commute + rush hour stress + travel costs.

I work from home now. I am more productive, less stressed and happier.

I adore WFH. I've decided I'm going to have to find a way to never have to commute for more than an hour ever again. Quality of life has completely changed without three fekkin hours mindless traveling every day.

@Gwenhwyfar yes. have you conducted a survey? Let's face it, house prices in the south of England are mostly ridiculous and I struggle to imagine the naivety it would take to pass up on one's own home for some workplace banter. That's an extreme scenario to prove a point. The point is - people work mostly to survive and pay for the essentials,not to make friends and have someone to chat over cereal every morning.

@Moomin12345 that's great, and I mean that genuinely and with no snark. But there is inequality in so many relationships and it's still going to be the women who suffer while these gradual changes take place. That doesn't mean we shouldn't fight, it doesn't mean no one should WFH but I think it's something to be aware of.

Unless you're a hermit, to be human is to interact with others and interacting should be real life so you can look people in the eye (impossible on Zoom). I know it sounds dramatic, but I really believe making me work from home is robbing me of my humanity.

"The point is - people work mostly to survive and pay for the essentials,not to make friends and have someone to chat over cereal every morning."

I think you're the naive one actually. Work is mainly about earning a living, but that's only worth doing if you want to actually live. If you hate your life, there's no point earning money is there?
And remember that there are plenty of people who volunteer for no money so they can get out of the house, meet people and have a sense of purpose.
It's not all about the money.

@Gwenhwyfar I respect that. By the same token, being stuck in a loud distracting open plan nightmare was robbing me of humanity and making me hate my job. That's why people should have options.

I love WFH and it saves me nearly 4 hours a day commuting !
But appreciate not everyone feels the same

"it not all about money" - that's what people who haven't experienced real poverty say.

@Moomin12345

"it not all about money" - that's what people who haven't experienced real poverty say.

Yes, but we weren't talking about poverty were we? You were saying people would choose a better paid job and wfh. You didn't mention poverty at all. Of course, if someone is poor, their main focus is getting money to survive. Once you have enough to survive, there are people who always want more and more and people who have different priorities.

Anyone up north whose had the joys of Northern Rail in recent years will know you have to get an earlier train to account for their unreliability, as an example.

Anyone up north (like me) knows public transport is so unreliable it's more reliable to drive. The majority of people drive to work. The mean commuting time is less than an hour which means a minority of people have long train commutes.

Welcome to London, where most of the lucrative jobs are

Will they still be there if everyone can work from home? And why will jobs in London pay premium if not to compensate for the expense of living in London/commuting to London?
Outside of London most people don't have stupid commutes. I live in a large town and work for one of the major employers. A very large proportion of the workforce live within 15 minutes drive of the office. Quite a large proportion live within 15 minutes walk/cycle of the office. Personally I think it's the commute culture that needs addressing. Why did we get to a position where it's considered in any way normal to commute an hour or more each way to work? And normal it is considered - there are even people on the education threads saying that they consider this is perfectly fine for their children to do.

@Megan2018 what, other than ‘the economics’ do you think pays for the country - NHS, education etc etc. The government has pumped a huge amount of money into the economy to keep the country going during an unprecedented pandemic. They can’t continue that indefinitely.

so losing my commute means being much less active and is really bad for me.

That’s an excuse you could still get up and go for a 30 min walk before work if you really wanted to.

and interacting should be real life

Should it? Zoom/ Teams works just fine for me.

In an ideal world, we would all work from 9 to 5, walk a leisurely and breezy 10 minutes to the office, have a luxury office environment with social interaction but privacy and quiet when needed...have time to have fulfilling coffee breaks with friendly colleagues, a chance to pop down the shops and the gym during your lunch break.

I mean, yes, sounds nice.

The reality for most of us is working 10 hours a day or more, no lunch break, wasting time with ridiculous meetings, boring but chatty colleagues, commuting, then catching up with even more work for a couple of hours in the evening and some more at the weekend

so the lack of separation between home and the office.. please. It must be nice to switch off your computer and work phone at 5 pm . It doesn't quite work like that for most of us does it.

WFH gives us a chance to be more efficient, and have more time for genuine interactions with people we have chosen! Basically having a life.

Why did we get to a position where it's considered in any way normal to commute an hour or more each way to work?

It's bad isn't it? And I would be happy with an hour door to door frankly!

Property prices are the main issue. Can't squeeze your family in the 1 bedroom you can afford near work, it's not fair on the children.
So, you commute.

If the pandemic brings an end to this madness, it would have been worth it.

I started a new job 2 weeks ago. Home working only. I have not met a single person in my new job face to face. My interview was on Teams.

Have I formed good working relationships? Do I feel a strong rapport with my new colleagues? Do I feel like part of a team? Hell, yes.

There are many right ways of working. The post COVID future should be shaped to accommodate all of them, not just those that suit the TOry party.

@BluebellCockleshell123

Ha! I love WFH now that I have teen children and a reasonably sized house in the suburbs with my own office, but I would have been devastated at being forced to do it in my 20s when I lived in a house share in the city and loved going to the office and hanging out with my hilarious colleagues.

This is exactly it - lots of people outlining the benefits of WFH for them (which are fair and valid) but to expect that EVERYONE should have to WFH full time just because you have reached a stage of your life where this works for you is v privileged and forgets about younger people who are building their careers, need the networking opportunities that come with face to face interaction and are also much less likely to have appropriate space to WFH.

he needs several screens and a fair amount of equipment so has a huge desk.

What’s he doing - landing planes?

Isolated wfh in normal times makes no sense. Work isn’t your social life it’s a job , pays the bills. If you rely on working outside the home for social interactions than you have bigger issues in your life.
Personally I can’t think of anything worse than being round people other than my husband and my children who I home educated around wfh ( self employed). Once it’s safe to do so I will see my close friends and family again.

@Dazzledrop I’m young and don’t really feel as though this has hindered me in any way (I’ve actually made an advancement in my career since this all started) and all my friends that are my age seem to either want blended working or working from home. As a young person, I’ve actually found it beneficial to not need to commute and the money I’ve been saving on commuting has been going into my house deposit savings. I do however acknowledge that this definitely will not be the case for all young people so the option to do both should be there to suit everyone

Work isn’t your social life it’s a job , pays the bills. If you rely on working outside the home for social interactions than you have bigger issues in your life.

People really lack the ability to imagine others are different. But even worse is the sneering that goes with it.

Some jobs do well with team interaction and it’s not about a social life.

Or being the sole source for one.

It’s the amount of screen time that replaces rl interaction

@MyDcAreMarvel

Isolated wfh in normal times makes no sense. Work isn’t your social life it’s a job , pays the bills. If you rely on working outside the home for social interactions than you have bigger issues in your life. Personally I can’t think of anything worse than being round people other than my husband and my children who I home educated around wfh ( self employed). Once it’s safe to do so I will see my close friends and family again.

So you can't imagine being crammed in a 2 bed flat with 3 children and still being expected to work at full output for 9 hours a day?

You can't imagine having an abusive partner and work being an escape?

You can't imagine living in a bed sit because that's what you can afford on the pay you earn and work being the only interaction you get with other people because you can't afford a social life as well?

@MyDcAreMarvel

Isolated wfh in normal times makes no sense. Work isn’t your social life it’s a job , pays the bills. If you rely on working outside the home for social interactions than you have bigger issues in your life. Personally I can’t think of anything worse than being round people other than my husband and my children who I home educated around wfh ( self employed). Once it’s safe to do so I will see my close friends and family again.

A lot of the issue is people are suddenly WFH for the first time but they aren't normal times. We've been in lockdown for most of the last year. The kids have been out of school for most of that time. Most things have been shut.

I liked commuting... I didn't know it at the time. But it was social. fresh air (party cycling). I am an anti-homebird so I like getting out. I like the spatial separation between home & work mindset.

I have a friend who thinks WFH is great. What I see is that she stopped active travel & she gets unhealthy stuck in her own head.