To be devastated that DH has to go back into the office

[ruraldream2021]

DH and I had it all planned. We were going to sell our home in the over-crowded, over-priced south east and move to a rural idyll many miles away, improving our quality of life and reducing our mortgage to nearly nothing.

DH works in a job in London and has been WFH throughout the pandemic, a situation we were given every reason to believe would continue.

We’ve had estate agents round to value our house and were literally about to put it on the market when DH gets an email from work saying that WFH is not panning out as hoped for them and he will be required back in the office four days a week, every week.

This has left our dreams in tatters as it means we will now have to remain close to London, because (understandably) DH does not want a very long commute.

DH works really hard at home and if anything he does longer hours, as he doesn’t need to commute.

I feel like our dreams have just gone up in a puff of smoke and am so devastated at the thought of staying put.

AIBU?

Also to add - the salaries weren’t peanuts. They were reasonable in the grand scheme of things but on the lower end for the sector considering the experience and qualifications needed.

Can’t he just find a new job ?

@ivykaty44

Fully remote definitely comes with a lower salary from my observation

but this maybe off set by not having other much larger expenses of having to go to the office

That’s true - but it depends on people’s own risk assessment and the sector. The differences I saw were between 15-20K.

That’s a big difference - but then again that’s just one person (me) and my sector.

Have a look around, apply for some jobs, maybe talk to recruiters. Then you’ll get a better idea of what’s on the ground. If it looks positive your DP could change jobs.

OP your dreams are perfectly reasonable and they're not in tatters either.

What you want, the kind of WFH that enables an enjoyable life as well as hard work, rather than being stuck in commuting rat race hell, is the future. You're quite right to desire it. It's coming, but some firms will be slower to realise this than others. Don't let anyone tell you you're naive or stupid for wanting it.

Here are some things you can do depending on your DH's situation.

He should negotiate with his company. Start with the most sympathetic people (his manager? HR?) and make his case. You say he's been working hard from home - well, they'll have the records to show that. He can also talk about how his quality of life and mental health have improved WFH - a good company will care about these things.

He should also, at the same time, start job-searching. As PP have said there are plenty of full-time WFH roles on offer now. I was headhunted for one this year - I already worked from home and was self-employed and would not have given that up if I hadn't ensured WFH was baked into my contract.

He should also put out feelers among his colleagues as to who else would rather retain WFH and see what the possibility is of collective pushback. (Or if he's in a relevant sector, join a union and push back through them.) Even without a union, group requests can be surprisingly effective: managers don't actually want to piss off their entire team at once.

Those three options can give him three pretty decent cards to play at the right time. Good luck!

Don't count your chickens....

It was always going to happen though

@pinkcircustop

Why would you just assume wfh was permanent?

Yep, I'm kind of surprised by this too.

@pinkcircustop

Why would you just assume wfh was permanent?

Lots of people have. I’ve come across many instances of people relocating under this assumption and then desperately trying to negotiate something workable after the event, once the employer wants them to go back in.

I’ve seen lots of flexible working requests from people asking to work from home permanently because they’ve relocated.

@flowery Yes, they have. But why?

Change plans. Start looking at jobs that are wfh or in another area of the country.

I'm sorry you're disappointed but YABU to make plans to the extent of getting the house valued without getting any written confirmation from work that this would be viable going forward.

Your dream isn't dead, you just need a plan B.

[quote pinkcircustop]@flowery Yes, they have. But why?[/quote]
There was a lot of (ill-judged) sentiment expressed that the world would never be the same again in all sorts of respects.

In a year's time I doubt it will look much different from how it was except we will have the biggest fucking bill to repay in the history of mankind!

Someone has already mentioned young people and how are they going to learn from senior people if everyone works from home.

And I’m fed up of being met with ‘cos Covid’ when trying to get something sorted over the phone.

Whether they would have called him back or not I am baffled as to how people believe they will be able to keep London wages while moving to anywhere. Most people who love WFH (I don’t blame them for loving it, it is great in some aspect) seem to be furious if anyone suggest that it will depress wages. Of course it will. The applicant pool literally is thousands of times bigger and they can hire someone in Derby vs someone in London.

[quote pinkcircustop]@flowery Yes, they have. But why?[/quote]
I think it’s something to do with being in your own little world during lockdown, interacting personally with far fewer people, and detached from reality and outside perspectives to a certain extent. Two people without much outside input can escalate an idea much more quickly.

I’m really surprised you jumped like this without confirming with his company first that working from home was permanent. All it would have taken was an email.

Can’t you just plan to move in future and get new jobs!! Maybe find a job that’s working from home 🤷‍♀️

Wow that is sooo lucky that you hadn’t actually moved though!!

Yanbu to be upset and disappointed but yabu to contemplate putting house on market without a written contract that says wfh is ok.

Perhaps a different job 🤞

Yabu, he can find a job that enables him to work from home, easier said than done, but it’s out there.

Thank goodness you hadn’t actually moved! Loads of people seem to have moved to the far ends of the country from where they work just on the assumption that wfh will carry on. Why? It was never supposed to be forever.

I know you’ve said you were given good reason to think your DH would carry on wfh but loads of people werent and moved anyway, whilst expecting to keep London wages /weighting. It was never a reasonable thing to assume.

You say you had 'every reason to believe it would continue', but did you have it in writing? Unless you had a written guarantee that WFH would continue indefinitely then I would say YABU to make plans at a time of such uncertainty.

@GiveMeAUserName123

Yabu, he can find a job that enables him to work from home, easier said than done, but it’s out there.

Even then, it would be risky to sell up and move out of commuting distance of the city. Jobs come and go, companies go bust, roles are made redundant. If you move out to some village, you'll be dependent on finding work which is exclusively WFH, and it remains very much to be seen how common such jobs will be in the long term.

Making major life decisions like this in current circumstances seems crazy to me.

I think many companies have a cheek, expecting people to work from home when it suited them and now changing their minds when they find employees like it, particularly when those employees have been more productive at home. The same companies will expect employees to revert to home working, should another lockdown occur… They can’t have it both ways!

It was government advice and a question of safety though.

Go for another job imo

What industry is dh in.

Our place is going for a hybrid model, really looking forward to it. They have however had hiring issues due to competition with other companies going to full time flexible wfh arrangements