To think it’s daft to make big life decisions based on WFH without checking it’s permanent?

[GoldenOmber]

My work used to be office-based. We’ve all been WFH since March 2020 because of government rules (not in England).

This week the government lifted that rule, and later that day our employers told us what the plans were to start bringing us back. This is pretty flexible - not starting for a month or two yet, will still allow a lot of WFH for people who want it (like 9 days a fortnight with one in the office). Most people are ok with this. Some people really aren’t.

Now we are having drama over email with a small but vocal group saying how angry/upset they are, because they have made big changes based around getting to WFH and it will now be difficult for them to go back at all. Even 1 day a fortnight starting in April. Changes like moving house far away from office; getting a dog and not wanting to leave the dog alone; selling car and not wanting to get public transport b/c germs (not just covid, all germs).

Work have ALWAYS said WFH was temporary though! I have some sympathy for how long it’s going to take you to commute from your new house in the middle of nowhere, but SURELY you’d factor that in when you bought it?

YABU - no, after 2 years of WFH working fairly well it was reasonable to expect it to continue without checking.

YANBU - yes, they should obviously have checked.

At my work we are going back to the office 2/3 days a week and then the rest of the time at home. However people can come back to the office 5 days if they want.

This was always temporary and I really struggle to understand when people say they can't come back to office working which is essentially "normal life". It makes me think the people saying this are those who are sitting binging on Netflix and playing xbox and would struggle to carry out a full days work supervised in an office environment!

I can’t say I have much sympathy. I live in a beautiful coastal town where house prices have gone up massively in the last couple of years. Several houses on my fairly small road have been bought by families moving from down South. One told me they used the equity in their home to buy without a mortgage. She was bragging how much better off they were as they had no train fares and mortgage but had still kept a wage many times the local average earning. She could also now afford the local public school, whereas down South it wasn’t an option. I wonder how many will even be able to afford to buy back down South if they need to relocate again?

@Blueeyedgirl21

Someone at my partners work is affronted about going back to the office because ‘her kids don’t want to go back to after school club’ so she now wants to be able to finish at 3 to collect them every day. Absolute loon.

This is exactly why women get so shafted at work. Even on a website dedicated to female parents you get called a loon for wanting flexible work arrangements. I get that there might be good reasons why it's not workable in a specific case but being called a loon for even suggesting it's workable is just so depressing. So people are saying they don't want to return to the old ways. They obviously feel secure enough in their position to voice that. They might come a cropper if their employer decides to replace them with someone more flexible but that's their lookout. Who benefits of they don't pipe up? Men, probably. They usually do.

A bit off topic, but my main concern with WFH generally is that employers will soon realise they can employ someone in a different country to do the same work at a fraction of the cost. This could have a major impact on UK employment.

Its complicated, many companies have tried that in the past & it was a mistake. Plus people have been remote working pre covid on high salaries & those jobs are still there. And outsourcing has driven wages up in certain countries plus you are assuming those jobs will be attractive.

I believe WFH is a skivvers charter for some. Look at what has happened to DVLA and Passport Office. Everyone bleats that they are so productive but as a homeworker myself I know a huge number of people use it for their own ends.

Mine is permanent btw!

I live in a beautiful coastal town where house prices have gone up massively in the last couple of years. Several houses on my fairly small road have been bought by families moving from down South.

As a born & raised Londoner who has only ever known ridiculous house prices I sympathise!

What worries me a bit is that I think we've let a lot of infrastructure go and it might not come back, so a lot of people don't actually have the option to just roll things back to 2019. They've massively cut back the train timetable here, which is a nightmare for DH (a teacher so no option to WFH!) - they say it's reduced demand but the timetable is so inconvenient now that people will drive instead so I'm not sure we'll get it back. Loads of people moved here in anticipation of hybrid working because it's a sort of distance that they were willing to commute but not every day (it's about 90 minutes to London) and now they're all finding that the commute is much worse than they'd thought it would be because there are so few trains. I do have sympathy there. Similarly, no people shouldn't have stopped using childcare but they did and loads of providers shut and those places can't just be magicked up overnight.

And MEN being at home all day is awful. If they are working (from home) they are arrogant and shouty and take over the whole house, and their selfish needs trump everyone else's. If they are furloughed they are whiny and clingy and lazy, and get under your feet, chatting shit half the day, and following you around.

I think the problem is the men in your life not remote working!

Who is reasonable/ unreasonable really depends on the labour market. If the company can easily find replacements, then yes these employees are foolish.

In my industry we are facing a major talent shortage. Regardless of official policy, anyone reasonably competent is allowed to work wherever. There have always been exceptions at senior levels, but nowadays even graduate hires are more or less able to dictate terms. Companies that try to take a hard stance are bleeding people - they are the ones being unreasonable because their employees have other options.

We’ve taken advantage of this situation to move from London to Somerset. My husband has a formal wfh contract now (but now when we moved). I am freelance, but have about 3x as much work offered as can take on. I dictate location and hours of availability (around school hours) because I can- I am also seriously considering raising my day rate given demand.

There are some people who will be caught out, but there are also a lot of companies that will have to completely reevaluate expectations for employees.

@longestlurkerever well if it wasn’t allowed to finish at 3 because of not meeting business need before covid, why would it be suddenly ok now ? Loads of people have kids at his work, she’s the only one expecting to be able to do pick up 5 days a week (she already starts at 9am to facilitate drop off) she’s essentially asking to drop 10 hours a week and get paid the same ! It’s not depressing it is total cheeky fuckery!!

can i ask what industry you are in @eca80, I have some friends who tech who are saying similar.

I need after school club if I go to the office because I changed my working hours to finish at 3pm (I work 80%). office to school takes at least one hour. Home to school takes 10 mins so if I go to the office I need after school, wfh I don’t. I’m sure many people have these kinds of issues. From Sep-Dec I was going into office one day a week with me arranging to be available on two days a week and actually attend one of them. Work has publicly stated it’s hybrid now (FTSE100 company).

Going back to the office since the guidance changed hasn’t been mentioned to me personally, probably because they know I’ve been working about 3 hours every working evening in Jan and I would refuse to work those hours and show up in the office! They can have one not both!

@longestlurkerever I just think you either earn a full time wage and do full time hours and reap the benefits of the wage or you accept you don’t want to do child care (don’t want to pay for it and don’t want to accept that you have to put your kids in it) and work reduced hours or your partner does to facilitate it. My mum worked nights when I was a kid, she’d get in drop us off sleep and come pick us up. This was so she could do the school run and be the available parent. A lot of men I know do the morning school run and can WFH and start after it - or they just log on from a phone and get away with the first hour being email/phone only. I am fully supportive of working mums and I think that we do get a raw deal in terms of career progression etc and don’t agree with mum always being the ‘school run parent’ HOWEVER you can’t act like your kids will be scarred for life if you’re not allowed time off to take them and pick them up every day when you actively sought out a FT office job

Apparently pandemics will become more frequent & deadly so increased remote working may be a good thing.

And MEN being at home all day is awful. If they are working (from home) they are arrogant and shouty and take over the whole house, and their selfish needs trump everyone else's. If they are furloughed they are whiny and clingy and lazy, and get under your feet, chatting shit half the day, and following you around.

That is obviously your partner but certainly not mine. You get what you put up with.

@dorkfink

can i ask what industry you are in *@eca80*, I have some friends who tech who are saying similar.

I consult in the pharma / healthcare sector, but I have heard similar from friends in tech as well.

@Theblacksheepandme

And MEN being at home all day is awful. If they are working (from home) they are arrogant and shouty and take over the whole house, and their selfish needs trump everyone else's. If they are furloughed they are whiny and clingy and lazy, and get under your feet, chatting shit half the day, and following you around.

That is obviously your partner but certainly not mine. You get what you put up with.

Me neither, my husband works from home, he’s no different to what he normally is and certainly doesn’t behave in that ludicrous manner. That’s not “ men” that’s just sone twat.

People should not mourn about 1 day a week and similar setups, as it means their employers still value geographical position. Really full WFH in long term point of view can mean moving some of the jobs not only outside of the city, but outside of the country as well.

I've had new joiners in tears in our office because they feel lonely. It's dependent on your role and business how well it can work, but for us, people need to learn from each other a lot and it's just not possible to replicate the environment remotely.

We are back 3 days a week in virtually all cases. Most people are getting on with it, my team have been told regularly that remote working isn't permanent- operationally they are needed onsite.

No business chose to go remote overnight - it has been entirely forced by circumstances!

@eca80 good luck with the move!

I love WFH. I have a disability and the peace and quiet and not starting the day full of anxiety from my commute is wonderful. I’ve been told that my productivity is better than pre-pandemic so I’m happy that both me and my employer are getting something out of it.

My problem is that I work in a team where parents are all working around the school run. I log on at 8am or 8.30am and there’s nobody there so I do the 9am/9.30am meetings. I then tackle anything urgent arising and my colleagues arrive around 9.30 or 10. They then vanish again at 2.45 or so so I’m up for the 2.30/3/3.30 meetings. They turn back up at 3.30 or so and because they’re logging off at 5 there’s no time really to help with anything urgent.

They say that they make their hours up after 7, but I rarely see any evidence that anyone has done anything after I log off (and sometimes I’ve been logged on until then and never seen anyone else), and also it’s not very helpful as urgent stuff is urgent for a reason and tends to happen during the day. I don’t need help at 7pm, I need it during the day.

I did a 8.30-6.45 day today to get everything sorted on something urgent, and that’s not rare.

They’re all justifying it on the basis of feminism and womens rights and it being better for work/life balance and stuff but like… I’m also a woman, with a need for that balance?

I know everyone will say that this is a management issue and I need to just log off but I work in a role where public emergencies happen and people would be affected if I did, which is very hard for me to handle.

I only know one person who moved house but the employer sold the premises and said WFH permanently so a different situation.
Unless the employer said we are going to WFH permanently then people were silly to make life changing decisions. They should have asked their employer what was happening.

Everyone who can and wants to WFH should be allowed to do so.

They should have asked their employer what was happening.

Obviously making decisions without knowing was foolish, but tbf an awful lot of people haven't really got a sensible answer out of their employer about what's happening. I haven't, we're still yet to get any indication at all of when/how much/whether we'll go back. I am desperate to know - ultimately if it's going to be permanent WFH I need either a new job or a new house - but it isn't just a question of asking. It's a long time to leave people in limbo and while I think it was clearly, foreseeably foolish, I do also have some sympathy with people who decided to get on with things in the assumption they knew how it'd turn out rather than wait endlessly to be told the basic facts of their employment going forward.

I agree, OP.

I think a lot of people read too much into the excitable Millenniumism crap that was going around in 2020: "COVID is the doorway to the new future world! A world where you own nothing, live in an eco pod and do everything over zoom... FOREVER!"