To have completely changed my mind about WFH?

[MauvePinkRose]

I know there is a WFH thread but I mean this more generally than the specific things about it that are driving me to drink!

Pre pandemic, I would have said that WFH was a positive thing that employers should absolutely allow, reducing traffic and therefore pollution, allowing more quality time at home.

Now, I’ve changed my mind.

I think it’s having a negative impact on public transport, which in turn will lead to redundancies and reduced public transport, which is bad news for those who can’t drive. It is also having a knock on effect on things like coffee kiosks and sandwich bars.

Then, I’m not convinced that WFH is as productive as people think. I don’t know what’s going on with DVLA for instance but I am still waiting for a driving license I sent off for three months ago and you can’t get through on the phones.

It’s turned family homes into workplaces and thus impacts everyone. I’ve had some really stressful and unpleasant times because of it.

And I do think it’s not very healthy. Dp rarely leaves the house without me, has gained weight and falls ill all the time as I just feel he isn’t gaining any natural immunity.

I’ll probably be flamed by all the WFHers now

I haven't rtft but I agree. Well, I think that people have got in to a very black/white way of looking at it - either it's the best thing ever and why would anyone want to go to the office, or it's terrible and we should all be back in the office.

I sit somewhere in the middle. I already worked from home 1 days week pre-pandemic and in the office 4 days. This was great for me with a 40 min (at least) commute each way to work and I would have happily WFH a bit more.

Now I am WFH permanently. There keeps being talk of a 'hybrid' way of working but am yet to see it materialise. I don't have the luxury of shutting myself away in the office and keeping work in there as I don't have an office or room for one as I never actively went for a job that was WFH. Instead I have to work at my kitchen table, which when the kids aren't at school is a nightmare and if we want to use the table for its intended purpose I have to clear everything away every evening.

My big boss, when approached about it yesterday said "oh, i didn't know it was a problem", because for him it isn't, he is quite happy wfh in his lovely office, on Zoom meetings all day every day. I'm not as we are all different and have different circumstances!

Oh, and my dp has also been waiting weeks for his driving licence.

The contacting people complaint is weird. Even in the office no one has a physical phone. Calls come in at your computer, same as at home. Post is a bit odd. But then we did shift to 100% overworking overnight with no prior warning. I am in favour but I do think that 100% wfh with no opportunity to ever meet up is not great, but also not necessary aside from a pandemic. Flexible working has loads of benefits and would benefit women in particular imo. Taking pointless journeys to prop up an overcrowded public transport system or support pret is not a good idea imo. The economy/life in general needs to adjust and won't overnight.

Also the COVID/Brexit combination is starting to hit labour supply hard. The acute shortage of labour is shifting the power to the workers. More and more businesses will need to offer workers something to keep them. WFH is a cheap perk to offer.

Actually I agree, it’s bad for the economy in areas where people used to work

But is good for the economy where people now live and work. Our local convenience store is now way busier and provides really good hot and cold food options they didn’t have before and have expanded during the last year. We have a coffee van visits our estate twice a week, it is always really busy. People still want to buy lunch.

@Ori3 it's madness to me that people don't seem to remember it's called a job but actually it's a two way street. The fit has to be on both sides. If I see a excellent candidate for a job I need to fill, you bet I'm going to go help for leather to get that person. Jobs are like relationships, you leave bad ones (if your head screwed on right) it's a exchange not a dictatorship. Both parties have equal standing to say I need x.

If you are confident as a manager you don't need to freak about staff flexing and working remotely.

Also the market has discriminated far to long against women esp mother's, and personally I think it's a bit of protectionism going on, with flex time coming in, more women are entering the market and from a managers perspective every mother I have hired has worked 100x harder for me because I let them be human and in return they are loyal.

Also probably because they are used to doing 100 things before 6am and can do it without breaking a sweat and value being valued . This cannot always be said of other groups.. but this is my own personal experience and I realise gender bias in the workplace is so engrained.

It's coming all out in this thread for sure !

There is always going to be some negatives to massive changes.

However, there are positives as well.

The big coffee chains in the city might not be doing well, but the little coffee shop in my village has had to take on three more members of staff and one of the cafe’s has taken on four staff as they now do lunchtime deliveries.

Also, the local bus service has added on an extra couple of services as people are using the local amenities much more.

The corner shop also has a paperboy again for the first time in several years.

help for leather well that's a new one on me - more autocorrect?

@Beautiful3

I don't buy coffee/food at work. I always bring my own. It's not my job to supplement a large coffee chain. Buses and trains are so expensive. The commute can be long for many people, mine was 1.5 -2 hours depending on traffic, each way. I personally believe wfh is the way forward. Pollution is high epecially where I live, surely less traffic is better?

I do have to agree with this point. I saw a tweet the other day from a man basically complaining about how people were selfish for WFH because his city centre coffee shop was failing. How entitled is that?! Thinking you're owed business because you set up a coffee shop thinking it was a licence to print money and it didn't go your way.

I've always disliked the notion that we're obliged to buy coffee, lunches, etc. I always had coffee and cereal at home before commuting and brought sandwiches and snacks with me, and a refillable water bottle. Getting a coffee, pastry and a takeaway sandwich from Pret can easily be £10 a day in London...absolutely no way I'm spending £200 a month on that, when the same amount of money could get me a weekend trip to Paris on the Eurostar.

@Ori3

Apart from Goldman Sachs that is, who hope that their excessive pay offers to new interns will override quality of life factors in working for them...................

Weren't those the people who said that 4am starts and midnight finish's were the norm or you weren't working hard enough ? Even if that wasn't your contracted hours

Anyone working there, has got to be smart enough to think get few years under belt and jump ship under the name alone. It doesn't inspire loyalty. I'm sure a band of interns did a really revealing presentation that hit the press a while ago on "working conditions".

Poor things. Someone needs to teach them that value of a person isn't just dictated by their job, but a whole spectrum of things.

The owner of Goldman sacs is mad to, losing lots money on rent - companies not resigning leases on his property investments in the city due to WHF must be driving him quite loopy.

@DynamoKev hell for leather 😵‍💫😵‍💫 bloody autocorrect

And I know I'll get flamed for this, but I don't think men should work from home. They need to go back to the workplace now… It's wrong on so many levels for men of working age to be at home all the time… It's not a natural thing for men to knuckle down and do housework and chores“

😳
Blimey

@rookiemere

It's not embracing hamster wheel life *@niceupthedanceagain* to actually want to be in the same physical presence as your co workers.

I feel my life now is much more monotonous than pre covid. I get up , force myself to go for a short walk, and then sit in my spare room for 8.5 hrs.

As I say before this people could very much choose to wfh most of the week, but vast majority of us chose to be in the office.

Very much agree.

DH works for a large bank and offices are rapidly being closed probably for sale so it's been a change of contracts across the board - work from home or redundancy. Clearly it could be worse as he still has a job but as redundancy means still finding another job working from home likely he's had to accept it.

In the same way that previous commutes etc put a strain on some workers mental health I really think WFH when your cooped up in a small spare room and don't really leave the house, is just as detrimental.

I have to work in the office twice a week. It’s not that bad BUT there was a huge crash coming home, I spent 1.5 hours on the road when it should have been 45 mins. I missed my sons bed time because of this and spent the evening stressed to fuck. Every single thing I did in the office that day I could have done from home. WFH is brilliant and long may it continue. Being stuck in traffic with people driving up my arse does nothing for my mental health.

Choice is never a bad thing, even if you don't ever exercise that choice.

///

This is very true

I think a blended approach moving forward (for those in jobs that allow for this) will be a great balance for all of the issues you have addressed, both socially, economically but also environmentally. For me personally, I have worked from home for nigh on 13 years and I love it. Pre covid I did have a day or two on site visits and this is slowly getting back to normal again but I am used to my own company, am super productive at managing work with my own needs at home, plus I get annoyed with office noise anyway so it's not for me! I was used to this way anyway, so I think it does take a bit of getting used to.

@Noshowlomo

I have to work in the office twice a week. It’s not that bad BUT there was a huge crash coming home, I spent 1.5 hours on the road when it should have been 45 mins. I missed my sons bed time because of this and spent the evening stressed to fuck. Every single thing I did in the office that day I could have done from home. WFH is brilliant and long may it continue. Being stuck in traffic with people driving up my arse does nothing for my mental health.

This. I drove to work one day last week, sat in traffic for ages and could literally feel myself getting more and more annoyed as time went in. I got into the office all huffy and stressed as I was running late. I left home at 7.30 and got in at 9.30. Had I been at home I would have logged on at 8 and that’s with getting up later.

I feel sorry for the youngsters , they are not gaining the social skills they need wfh. They need the interaction working with senior colleagues to learn and move forward. My son has been wfh the last 18 months , so misses all the team building, going out to lunch, after work get togethers , he has lost out on so much as the career he has chosen relies on him meeting clients etc, he has passed all his financial exams but failed the last role play exam as he has had no experience of learning this side of the job

It's just natural change, nothing will ever stay the same, pandemic or not.
I personally would love to work from home than in a noisy and stressful environment like a supermarket, but even that is gearing up for huge warehouses where it's all done online. Most shops and offices will become a thing of the past like the tin and coal mines.

As a youngster I am loving wfh! I can’t afford to live near my office so I don’t have to commute 3 hours a day and the money I save on my commute makes a real difference to my budget. My work has never gone for after work drinks anyway although we usually go for lunch about twice a year.

Completely disagree. I love wfh, I’ve lost 3 1/2 stone during the pandemic, saved a load on petrol and my work/life balance is brilliant without the commute and rigid office hours. My work can easily be monitored (and is) and I have to account for every minute but the flexibility in when I work benefits both myself and my employer.

I’m nipping our for lunch to my local independent sandwich shops so supporting my local economy.

My mental health is great, I’m relaxed & happy. I see my kids more and am a lot less tired. Needless to say I am not looking forward to going back into the office even if it’s part office, part wfh.

It’s been a boon for people with disabilities or caring duties though. Including me. Suddenly a lot of work is open to me that wasn’t before.

And those that cannot afford to live in expensive parts of the city, or afford extortionate.

At last something that has evened up a bit of the inequalities divide. I’m all for it! I think that trumps coffee shops any day.

I think it is entirely dependant on the job and the person. Working from home has massively improved my mental health.
I spend less time commuting and more productive time at home.

I see my kids more and have less working mum guilt.

I left a role I loved to swap to work from home for 2 days a week in office 3. I now primarily work from home but go into the office when needed, at the moment twice a week. I think my mental health needed the flexibility of WFH.

@Twins3007 this isn't a wfh issue, so much as a bad company that actually was probably pretty bad as the social element to begin with. A company that's bad at communicating will only get worse wfh.

Young people will adapt and probably over take us oldies because they adapt quicker than us. I have yet to meet a new grad that hasn't struggled in some area of getting the lay of the ground.

Also to any poster that said they feel trapped at home, you know where your front door is, start going out of it. Instead of laminating with rose tinted glasses on about going out your front door, to sit in car alone to walk through another office door to sit on your computer being asked about where's the stapler 5 days a week.

Communication face to face in office is one form of communication, it's just we are so used to it, we don't know how to do anything else. Social meet ups can still happen wfh (even in pubs I hear now), it can it be done mid pandemic/contactlessly via zoom, we all have some version of teams, Skype slack. And all have mobile phones, social media but yet communication and social fun must be done f2f ? Really ? 😵‍💫

I have spoken to my neighbours so much during lockdown I know everyone by name and the community spirit is coming back. It wasn't there before and it's only because people aren't running off to their own hamster cube.

People are getting friendlier because they have to get their social fix elsewhere and that's a good thing.

When people see what a genuine free market looks like for their job, they really won’t like it. Why would anybody ever hire an administrator and pay them to live in the SE if they could outsource to a cheaper company with someone with the same English skills and higher qualifications? Likewise events organisation for anything virtual, or IT, or finance, or HR, or PAs, or even most creative roles, or comms.

I see this argument trotted out a lot as an argument against home working and it's utter tripe. In my industry as well as DH's that could have happened for years and hasn't. Particularly in DH's - they have the option to outsource work to India and pay a quarter of what they pay to British contractors. That option has existed for the last decade. It hasn't been done because they get much better work out of their British workers and they're perfectly willing to pay for it.

Also to any poster that said they feel trapped at home, you know where your front door is, start going out of it

Yes! Who is keeping you "locked up"?! Go outside FFS!!